Are you aware of the Shakespeare authorship debate?

Question

Are you aware of the Shakespeare authorship debate, and if so, who do you think wrote The Complete Works of Shakespeare? clue: there are a handful of main contenders currently being discussed, and the authorship debate has been going for over three centuries.

Answer 1

The Strafordians vs. the Antistratfordians.

Stratfordians claim that William Shakespeare wrote his works.

Antistratfordians, among which was Mark Twain, contend that he couldn't have because we know nothing about him. They think a great thinker like Francis Bacon wrote them.

Answer 2

I'm aware of it. A friend of mine, when I was arguing it proposed a book titled "The Murder of The Man Who Was Shakespear."

Various accounts from different books indicate that the writings were actually penned by Marlowe, who had feigned death to avoid gambling debts.

To go back to a long before college course, one of the arguments for Shakespear not being the author of his works was the fact that he spelled his name differently, not once, but thrice, in his will. Debunking arguments are that at the time, there wasn't a standardized spelling of about anything and the written word was a reflection of the sounds in the alphabet.

I've misspelled my own name when massively distracted; you'd be amazed at what you overlook when your nephews, whom you're supposed to be watching as you write a paper, are chasing your dog around with the barbecue lighter and your neice is building a ladder out of barstools to get to the leftover halloween candy.

Arguing the other side, actors who had worked with him included a portrait drawn of him in the collective volume of his plays, calling it a "decent and fair" representation of his appearance.

Let the debate rage. Maybe he was a wonderful director and actor, or brilliant director as well. It's rather like the debate about the assassination of Jonh F. Kennedy; Nobody has evidence that can't be debunked to prove any of the many questions one way or the other.

That said, I'm popping one of my favorite DVD's, (a B western,) that's a translation of Taming of The Shrew. You've gotta love McClintock, it might actually overmatch the Zepherelli version of Taming for action.

Marlowe and Shakespear were both great writers, but they can rest in peace, for all I care, undisturbed by the debates of a literary world they would absolutely never have understood. Would you really want to explain Little Shop of Horrors to them?

Answer 3

I adhere to the principle of Occam's Razor - the simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one. In this case, the simplest explanation is that William Shakespeare (who did exist - we have his birth and death records, marriage announcement, we know about the birth and lives of his children, bank records, etc) was a prolific writer who was fortunate enough to live in a time when art and literature were valued and preserved, whereas personal/biographical information generally was not.

As of yet, I've seen no truly compelling evidence to suggest that he was not the author of the works that bear his name. I'm not saying it isn't possible, just that it isn't likely. But it does make for a lively debate.