Why do some people believe that William Shakespeare was the writer's pen-name?

Question

And who do they believe to be the 'real' Shakespeare?

Oh, and I accidentally stared my own question (which I didn't know you could do), so in case anyone's thinking I'm being very self-important or arrogant or whatever (can't quite think of the word), I didn't mean to. It was an accident.

Answer 1

It all boils down to the fact that Shakespeare was supposedly poorly educated (although his father was a local dignitary when Shakespeare was young) and he allegedly would not have known about some of the subjects of which he writes in his plays.

Personally, I find this to be controversy for controversy's sake. His education was not that poor as his was a middle-class family and why was it not possible for him to research some of the specialities of which he writes, in the same way that modern writers do.

As usual, there is not one shred of real evidence that anyone else other than Shakespeare wrote his works, but the principal contenders for alternative authors are as follows,

Christopher Marlowe : a published playwright and probably spy
Mary Sidney Herbert : Countess of Pembroke
Edward de Vere : 17th Earl of Oxford
William Stanley : 6th Earl of Derby
Sir Francis Bacon
Roger Manners : 5th Earl of Rutland

It is a fascinating topic nevertheless and you can follow it further on the attached link

Answer 2

Sometimes an author will write a certain type of book, say a romance novel or a science fiction book. Then say, years later, they write a very serious literary masterpiece. They would choose a pen name for the new book because they don't want it to be linked to their other work. Maybe because they feel they are a better writer now, so they don't want to be judged on previous books, and want to start fresh in the industry.

Answer 3

This started because some Victorians couldn't accept that such writing could be done by someone from a provincial town whose father was a glove-maker. No-one at the time questioned that Shakespeare wrote the plays, including other actors and playwrights - so it is all a load or nonsense.

The case for Bacon as the writed was started by a Mr Loony from the States!

Answer 4

Theres been speculation that someone from a small town in England was not able to write such works and that he may have just been a name while someone else really wrote those masterpieces. The Earl of Pembroke is one example of the people who could have been a writer.

I think it was Mark Twain who pointed out that Shakespeare uses very serious Military language and terms for example, and yet he never served in the military at all. So thats just one reason to wonder how a man with what would seem a basic education was able to do what he did.

Answer 5

There is enough evidence from the time that should convince us that Shakespeare wrote most of the plays that appear under his name. If it were Bacon, or Marlowe, or DeVere it would require a huge group of people who were in on the hoax.

The questions as to why such a hoax would be carried out are somewhat suspect too. Play writing, while written mostly by the non-nobility, enjoyed great popularity with the nobility. In fact some of the nobility owned or sponsored acting companies.

As to Shakespeare 1. not being university educated, 2. and not being able to construct foreign royal courts, 3. or understand English law:
1. Shakespeare's education in Stratford would probably be equivalent to a modern-day liberal arts degree
2. Shakespeare could read of foreign courts to his heart's content in some of his source material
3. Elizabethan England, like modern day America, was a very litigious society and it was not difficult to get a flavour of the English law courts. In fact Shakespeare was involved in at least one law suit in which he was questioned.

While none of this proves that Shakespeare did write the plays it does prove that he could have had access to some of the background for them. The non-Stratfordians however, have to bend dates, resort to complex codes, and generally impune the names of several other educated playwrights in order to prove that Shakespeare either didn't write the plays, or was a front for nobility.

I gave a lecture on the Shakespeare claimants and was able to prove, using some of the methods used by non-Stratfordian authorities, that I was the author of Shakespeare. It's easy to do, maybe you wrote Shakespeare.

I imagine I'll be waiting for a long time for my royalty checks before anyone will believe that it was me.

Answer 6

A vexed and interesting question! What is boils down to is the presented facts of "Shakespeare's" life (almost no education, provincial limited horizons) seem to be incompatible with the extraordinary learning, classical scholarship, knowledge of courtly culture and the vast human range of experience and feeling that the author of the plays and poems presents. There is a huge literature on this subject with fierce partisanship for the various contenders. To me the most likely is probably Edward DeVere 17th Earl of Oxford.

Answer 7

Well now, he's dead so you will never know and who cares