Controversy Over Shakespeare Turns No Holds Bard

Fortean Times:

The new film "Anonymous" tackles an old controversy over whether William Shakespeare actually authored the works credited to him.

Most historians recognize Shakespeare as the author of "McBeth," "Hamlet" and "Romeo And Juliet," but a few people are convinced that Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe really wrote them.

Read the whole story: Fortean Times

Comments

[spilkus]

11:40 PM on 10/26/2011

The 'debate' as far as I have delved into it is mostly the result of theater people: actors and such, who have had their feathers ruffled by academics.
They hate the idea that these professors are professing to know so much about one of their own thespians.
They have a compulsion to take him back and dramatize his life as a secret noble. Every actor believes he is a secret aristocrat and they can't stand a mundane explanation. Actors hate that Shakespeare worked and toiled daily in the theater and then retired back in his home town.
Even a great actor like Derek Jacobi can't imagine a mere thespian could produce what Shakespeare did, after all, what has Jacobi written? Must be nobility.

[mabinog]

09:52 PM on 10/26/2011

William Shakespeare, the Beard?

[AnnoyedCanuck]

04:39 PM on 10/26/2011

The "controversy" about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays is nonsense. The idea that the real author had to hide his (or her) identity and attribute work to a theatre owner from Stratford is founded on the flimsiest evidence.

There was no doubt at all about Shakespeare as a writer for more than 200 years after his death. There is no logic or justification to the story that an aristocratic writer would have had to hide his identity as a playwright in the Elizabethan age. Shakespeare's plays and poems were popular and celebrated. Ben Jonson, one of Shakespeares' friends and colleagues (and rivals!), gave him the highest praise, as did other writers of the time.

If four boys from Liverpool without the ability to read or write music could create dozens of the most sophisticated, melodic, beautiful and complex songs in history, then Shakespeare could certainly have created his brilliant poetry and characters. Genius is a mystery. Ever thus.

The pedants, careerists and confabulators who waste their time inventing alternative authors of Shakespeare's works would be a lot better off simply reading the plays and revelling in their brilliance.

[branchisole]

04:51 PM on 10/26/2011

Agreed.

[snoopjohnny]

08:22 PM on 10/28/2011

Well said. I'm no scholar, but have been a professional artist and musician for many years. The idea that somehow someone other than Shakespeare authored the astounding monument to western literature that we know and love never sat well with me despite some very smart-sounding people making the claim. The brilliant voice that shines through so unmistakably in the work is, from a fundamental standpoint, the prolific output of a driven artist. We know from history that one may not need extravagant education or even substantial patronage to do have done this work. But it's definitely the result of a life spent focussed on craft, day in, day out. We can scarcely have a conversation without using language influenced, if not handed to us outright, by this incredible minstrel of humanity. The vocabulary alone dwarfs that of the Bible.....In my experience, this doesn't happen after you put the kids to bed, in between meetings at court, or on the sly by candle light over a few inspired summers.