Did William Shakespeare exist, did he write all those poems and Plays?

Question

Warning: If you don't know, you just don't know. If you know, you will be able to chat a little about it.

How does this question relate to a common question asked on this chat group?

Answer 1

I love this little story:

"During a discussion of William Shakespeare, a student asked the old professor about the en vogue theory that Shakespeare did not write the plays ascribed to him.
The professor growled, "Young man, if Shakespeare did not write those plays,then they were written by someone who lived at the same time and had the same name!"

teddy:That actually isn't true.THe so called 'virgin birth' of Attis:
Zeus was running around looking for ways to get his jollies and saw Mt. Agdus, which looked liked the goddess Rhea. In the ensuing fracas, Zeus drops some of his seed on the mountain, and from this arises a wild and androgynous creature named Agdistis. The gods don't like Agdistis, so Dionysus sneaks up and puts wine in Agdistis water to put him to sleep. While Agdistis is asleep, Dionysus ties a rope around Agdistis, ties the other end of the rope to a treeand frightens him From the resulting blood, a pomegranate (or almond) tree springs up, and much later,a woman happens by, picks some of the fruit, and puts it in her lap, and then it disappears -- upon which, she finds herself pregnant with Attis.
Death and resurrection:
Story one:Attis is getting married, when Agdistis shows up at the wedding. Agdistis shows up ticked off and takes a page from Dionysus' book, driving everyone nuts. The bride dies; Attis then gets upset, falls under a pine (or fir) tree, and dies. Agdistis, seeing this, goes on a guilt trip and asks Zeus to resuscitate Attis. Zeus, in a playful mood, consents minimally: Attis' body remains uncorrupted, his hair continues to grow, and his little finger moves continuously.

Story two:: Cybele falls in love with Attis, who prefers a nymph. Cybele kills the nymph; Attis goes nuts and emasculates himself; from his blood, flowers grow out of the ground, and he turns into a pine tree.

Story three: Cybele, who unknown to herself is the daughter of a king, marries Attis; when the king finds out about this, he kills Attis and makes sure the body is never found.

It actually amuses me that gullible people so easily fall for the copycat theories,without reading into it at all.
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/copycathub.html

Answer 2

As there's no footage (that technology didn't exist) of Shakespeare actually sitting down and writing the words, the most accurate evidence is the fact he did sign the scripts and he was mentioned in contemporary documents. The Bacon theory (as well as others such as having Ben Jonson or Marlowe), OTOH, is completely unsubstantiated and speculative. Education's not only going to school, and Will could've easily been partly autodidact in several aspects of his style. By the way, are there any 'hard facts' proving Saturn's less dense than the earth? Has anybody grabbed it with giant gloves and made it float on water? Has anybody measured the Everest with a set square, climbing it while marking evey 4-inch spot? Not everything that can't be proven via 'hard facts' is necessarily false. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Answer 3

He existed, and he also wrote all those poems and plays. He just got the ideas for his works from other legends and stories that already existed. Kind of like the bible.

Ex: In a Greek Myth, a man named Attis was born to a virgin mother, died, and was ressurrected 3 days later. Sound familiar?

Answer 4

Well, 99% percent of historians agree that Shakespeare EXISTED but whether or not the plays under his name were actually his is the question. It has been argued that some earl of something or other actually wrote most of them or all of them. He just had W.S. put his name on them because being an actor/playwright was "dishonorable."

G.B.

Answer 5

Spoken like a true Christian know-it-all. The fact is no one knows for sure who Shakespeare was.

Answer 6

No, no he is just a British myth. Shakespeare never existed. There is no empirical laboratory test that can verify his existence. You have to just believe-

Answer 7

Since history books were written by men (like the Bible), history books could be full of "lies", too. There's just no way of knowing if Shakespeare existed. You have to have FAITH that he existed.

Answer 8

Yes, he did.
No, I did not realize this was a chat group.

Answer 9

Actually we don't have his original writings. Somebody made it all up and then made up his name too.
(is this the kind of answer you were looking for? ROFL)

Answer 10

he was invented to satisfy the need for quality theatre in post renaissance europe