Do I dare?...

[shaxper]

I guess it seems only fitting that the issue of whether Shakespeare was Shakespeare come up in this forum sooner or later.  Personally, I've always viewed this debate as mere evidance of upper class snobbery.  Higher class, well educated people are simply unwilling to accept the idea that a schooled, lower class man from a rural area could be the greatest dramatist in history, and could have known the things he'd known.  I think it's possible that some of the things he "knew" in his plays may have been added by later editors (perhaps the creators of the First Folio, or even a collegue he consulted while writing his plays), but I see no reason to assume Shaky wasn't Shaky.  

Of all the arguments I've heard for who he might be: Deveere, Bacon, Marlowe, etc., Marlowe is the only one that makes any sense to me.  Marlowe was in a heap of trouble with the government when he conveniently died, and many of his themes and ideas are echoed strongly in Shaky's plays, but Shakespeare's writing seems entirely more careful and complex to me.  His writing also comes across as both more polite and more baudy, depending upon which section of a play you're refering to.  Marlowe was an idea man to me.  He wrote some amazing lines, but the true strength in his plays (or the three I've read  ) seem to be in their subtle messages and the way they toy with the audience and break convention.  I can't see him turning around and writing King Lear somehow.

What are your thoughts?

[Ganymede]

I'm always of the opinion that Shakespeare the man matters much less than Shakespeare the poet and playwright.  While it is interesting to think about who Shakespeare really was, I feel that I know Shakespeare through his plays, and that whoever he was is revealed there.  Of course, we aren't going to find his true name hidden in the plays, but we will find the more important things: his thoughts, knowledge, intelligence, skill, etc.  To me, if you could boil him down, that's what he'd really be all about.  

[Bardolph]

The evidence in favor of WS of Stratford on Avon as the writer of the plays under his name is overwhelming.  Challenges by literary usurpers cannot withstand an examination of the writing of Samuel Shoenbaum, Irvin Leigh Matus or the web words of David Joseph Kathman.

I agree that there are groupist possibilities.  WS's known associations with Herbert, Wriothesly, Buc, etc all provide him with access to the necessary material.  It's hard to imagine that players whose attributes show up in the plays, Burbage, Armin, Kemp, didn't contribute lines to his pages.  

Examples of E/J censorship are known to have taken place.  The replacement of Oldcastle with Falstaff is an example.  The possible role that WS played in Sir Thomas Moore is another.  The note left in ca 1609 by George Buc indicates a familiar association with WS.  

[Harry]

The reason why I don' t think this question can be ignored is because authorship ultimately influences how we interpret the works. As an example, Oxfordians believe that Hamlet is a Roman a clef. To me, this diminishes the work.

The evidence that William Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare is overwhelming, as Bardolph notes. I agree with Shaxper that much of the opposition is snobbishness.

[Lord3]

I'm with Ganymede. We can only imagine a man sitting down to put pen to paper with no idea what his face was like or the shape his fingers took when he gripped the pen. But we do know the man through his words, his thoughts, his understanding of our condition.
Incidently, if you've read the play, Edward, that has been recently attributed to Shakespeare it is very evident which parts were penned by him and which were not, so strong is his voice.
There is a play called The Bard of Avon that is making the rounds at some theatres. I haven't seen it but I've had occassion to read it and it's propositions about who and how Shakespeare came to write the plays is very entertaining and provocative.

[Lord3]

Sorry, the play is The Beard of Avon, not The Bard of Avon.

[Ganymede]

As a side note to this topic, I have a question. Why is the actual identity of any author so important? What makes people so obsessed with authorship? I agree that knowing about the authors is often interesting and occasionally enlightening, but couldn't the works stand on their own? And anyway, how much about the author can facts tell us that isn't already given in the author's own voice?

These are genuine questions. I'm not trying to be facetious or anything. It's fascinating the different versions of Shakespeare that exist out there. How a person imagines Shakespeare often reveals more about that person than about Shakespeare himself.

[shaxper]

Two possible answers to your question, Ganymede:

1. There's no real point in the same sense that there's no real point to studying Shakespeare. We do it for enjoyment. Perhaps it serves a higher existential function to read such brilliant works, but the main purpose is usually entertainment. Entertainment is also the reason that directs us towards exploring the life of the artist who brought us such entertainment. There's no real reason to learn anything about the life of John Lennon, but a true Beatles fan is nevertheless curious. It may not help to know the story of how "Paperback Writer" was written, but it does provide a source of amusement.

2. For people who believe in authorial intention; the idea that the author had a clear and singular purpose for creating a work, learning about his life and times might help to discover what his singular purpose may have been. Some critics, for example, site the fact that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet shortly after the death of his son Hamnet as more than a coincidence. Perhaps then Shakespeare had more sympathy for the tragic character than we would have otherwise suspected. Perhaps Shakespeare saw himself as the absent and replaced father, and that might help us to read the play "better". But again, it all comes down to entertainment value. Such people have determined that it is more entertaining to attempt to discover the "right" way to interpret Shakespeare's works, when they have been enjoyed the "wrong" way for four centuries now.

Personally, it's a combination of 1 and 2 for me. I'm not too obsessed with looking into Shaky's past but, when I do so, it's both because I'm curious about my favorite author of all time and because I hope to draw new ways of looking at his plays from such explorations. I love finding different perspectives from which to approach his characters and situations because they are highly complex and multi-faceted, and looking into the story of the man who created such works might help add to those already numerous perspectives.

Another good way to find new ways of approaching Shakespeare's characters and situations is to start a discussion board

[Lord3]

I don't know if you all are aware of the Sander's Portrait of Shakespeare. There is a great debate going on about whether this could be a new portrait of Shakespeare. It has been proven to have been painted around the year it is dated: 1603. I like to think it may be because of the intelligent and ironical look on his face. Check out web.uvic.ca/Shakespeare/Annex/Articles/sanders.html
There are links to the portrait and articles.

[Harry]

I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression that the Sanders portrait is more than a little suspect. It would be nice if it were genuine, but I'll let the experts thrash it out.

Dear Ganymede,

Of course, you're right. Not one word of Shakespeare's works will change if it turns out that he was a nobleman, or Jewish, or Irish, or gay, or whatever. The works remain, and the works justify themselves. The reasons why I care about the identity of the author, though, are:

1. It is important to give credit where credit is due. If DeVere wrote the works of Shakespeare, then he should get the credit. However, if he didn't, then it is unjust to take the credit from the true author.

2. How we interpret the works changes when the author changes. Hamlet, for example, is interpreted by Oxfordians as a roman a clef with Polonius representing Oxford's guardian and the various other characters representing other people Oxford liked or didn't like. Hamlet himself is Oxford to a much greater degree than those of us who think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare think Hamlet is Shakespeare. Try thinking about how differently we might look at the Merchant of Venice if we thought that Shakespeare was a secret Jew (this has been seriously proposed--but almost universally rejected). Our knowledge of who Shakespeare was informs our understanding of Shakespeare's works constantly. We often don't recognize just how much.

[MelanieS]

Well, I frequently look in on the newsgroup HLAS
(humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare) where they do practically nothing but talk about the "authorship" issue until my head spins.

I'm a vehement Stratfordian, and I think this conspiracy theory is rather nasty. On the one hand one has the "noble" snobs, and on the other hand the "educational" snobs. The one can't believe that someone from middle or lower class could have any talent at all, and the others can't believe in autodidacts, in spite of everything history shows us.

Shakespeare mostly took plots of existing stories or plays and re-worked them into his own. In London he had chances of meeting with nobles and with people from almost all over the world, London was the center of culture and parliament, and, being a bright, ambitious fellow, he looked and he learned. I'd understand reason for doubt if he'd have stayed in some backwater town all his life, but he didn't.

MelanieS

[Ellinore]

I've decided that I am going to personally accept the Sanders portrait, whether it is apocryphal or not, because I like the fact that he has red hair and looks like he's up to something.

In my humble opinion... I really don't care whether Moses was really Hebrew or just an Egyptian who converted and got a nifty myth thunk up about him. I don't care whether Homer was really Homer or was actually another man by that name. But where meta-stories told about the author contribute to my understanding of the works, I embrace the meta-stories, with the understanding that they may be apocryphal.

Ex. grat., Shakespeare in Love. Don't shoot me... I loved it, because so much of it was Stoppard paying homage to one of his literary mentors, or more likely coming up with weird games involving one of his literary mentors, a la the philosophy of Lyotard. I do not really think that Viola was a woman Will knew (biblically and otherwise) who dressed up as Thomas Kent to join the players, same as I don't think that I can continue to walk on the air past a cliff if I don't look down. It's just an archeme I personally embrace. The Viola thing. Not the cliff thing.

So, just as I enjoyed the romp through Stoppard's retelling of a Mythified Life of Will, I love the Sanders portrait. Because it makes me feel better about the fact that I often see snarkiness and playfulness where other readers see only solemn pentameter, as the more accepted images of Shakespeare would suggest. Well, no, wait, let me be utterly honest. I love it because I am a selfish and self-centered reader who wants to take the parts of Will that I like and make them after my own image.