Shakespeare's Authorship

The question of Shakespeare’s authorship is the idea that the identity of Shakespeare could potentially represent the author or authors, and is not the author himself. The works of Shakespeare are considered to be one of the great literary works in history. All the works of Shakespeare were written between about 1590 and 1613. While we know the date most of his works were written the true author of all his work is still up for debate. Poor recording of Shakespeare’s life and the exact authorship of his plays in general is what leads to the question of the authorship. There are a few potential writers of the works including Shakespeare himself of course.

The plays of Shakespeare have a history of being poorly recorded. The first of the plays

It was once thought that Marlowe was Shakespeare, and that Shakespeare was just an alias. Overtime more information was discovered about Marlowe and Shakespeare. As more and more information came about the notion that Shakespeare was an alias for Marlowe was dismissed. Scholars now believe that Marlowe had assisted Shakespeare in the writing of some of his works. This included Henry VI which Marlowe has now officially been credited for being a writer on. With this notion that Shakespeare and Marlowe simply worked with each other the idea what Shakespeare was an alias for Marlowe has been nearly completely disproven. (theguardian.com) Still with Marlowe being credited as a co-writer for Henry VI it shows that Shakespeare did not work alone. With Marlowe shown to not be Shakespeare there is still the potential that another person or persons had used Shakespeare as an

She was the first person to name an alternative for the writer to Shakespeare’s works. She believed that Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays in collaboration with a few other leading minds of the time, Such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser. (bbcamerica.com) According to Delia, The reason that Francis Bacon and his collaborators used Shakespeare as an alias is because they wanted to conceal their identities. The so called ‘stigma of print’ was the reason for their want to conceal themselves. This stigma is the notion that being a playwright would be a career ender for these aristocratic