The notion of a Shakespeare authorship controversy is relatively new, arising in the middle of the 19th century more than 200 years after Shakespeare’s death, the same time he was being apotheosized as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s best dramatist. With the birth of bardolotry, the term coined by George Bernard Shaw for Shakespeare worship, that doubts arose.
Stratford Man Uneducated
The doubters’ arguments all spring from assumptions: that since the "Stratford man" hadn’t been to a university he was illiterate; that the works attributed to him show such knowledge about the corridors of power that they must have been written by someone in court and that the true Shakespeare laced his work with clues to his (or her?) identity that a correct reading reveals.
Some of the proposed candidates for the true bard are Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere (the Earl of Oxford) and even Queen Elizabeth. Other nominees have included the Earls of Derby and Rutland, and even Miguel Cervantes.
The evidence the doubters present for alternative authorship is often based on personality profiling: the Stratford man was litigious, bringing numerous suits against his Stratford neighbors. That is not something, it is argued, the compassionate author of Hamlet would do. Will’s last will and testament makes no mention of a personal library or even one book, the doubters point out, and the man who wrote Othello must have been well-read.
The doubters point to the legend of Shakespeare as a deer poacher as evidence of his bad character. Conversely, they assert that a nobleman such as the Earl of Oxford would need to write under a pseudonym, since it would be unseemly for a noble to sully his good name by appearing in print.
What’s in a Name?
The multiple spellings of Shakespeare’s name in contemporary documents is cited as proof that the author of the plays was someone else. But in Elizabethan England the spelling of the names of all but noblemen was considered moot and spelling in general was unruly. Even a court favorite (for awhile) like Sir Walter Raleigh had multiple spellings of his name, as did commoner playwright and Shakespeare candidate, Christopher Marlowe.
Francis Bacon was one of the first rivals put forth for the laurels of the bard. In a book published in 1857, an American woman, Delia Bacon (no relation), put forth the proposition that the true Bard was Francis Bacon and was the first of several to suggest the plays are riddled with cryptography that reveals his authorship. Unencrypted, proponents claim, the plays and poems are filled with Bacon’s name.
Marlowe the Spy
One of the most intriguing alternative author theories is the case for Christopher Marlowe. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe was a commoner, but he had been to the university. He was also a wildly popular playwright and, at the same time, a spy for England. His death at the young age of 29 was a great loss for literature.
Not so fast, say Marlowe proponents. Marlowe-the-spy’s death in a tavern brawl was faked and he was given a new identity in what could only be described as the Elizabethan equivalent of the witness protection program. But there is nothing from Shakespeare’s time that even hints that these two very popular playwrights, both the same age, were the same man.
There is no suggestion in the record left by his contemporaries that William Shakespeare of Stratford was not an actor, author and partner in the Globe Theater. No one at the time suggested that his works showed unusual knowledge of court. And while his work was highly regarded, it was criticized for ignoring the Classical Unities, for vulgarity and for diluting tragedy with the inclusion of lowbrow characters and humor.
In short, it is not Shakespeare who has changed, it is his audience. The alternate author theories are all highly speculative. Unless and until some real evidence to the contrary is found, it must be concluded that the actor, dramatist and poet from Stratford is the creator of the works that bear his name.
Sources:
- Shakespeare’s Lives, S. Schoenbaum
- Shakespeareauthorship.com.
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