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Shakespeare Papers
Essays about shakespeares authorship
Essays about shakespeares authorship
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It was found in a survey by Education Life, that the overwhelming majority of Shakespearean professors believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon wrote the works attributed to him, and do not believe there is a strong argument disproving his authorship (Niederkorn 1). This conclusion comes from numerous sources and pieces of evidence, one of the most important being the First Folio, the complete collection of Shakespeare’s works published in 1623. The First Folio gives essential information about the identity of the author, a name, face, date of death, and hometown, and informs the public that that he was an actor whom at least two earls knew of. It also provides identification from the author's peers, establishing that Shakespeare did in fact write the plays (McCrea 6). William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon is accredited to the works because that is the name that appears on print versions of his works, and no proof exists currently to indicate that anyone else in the age was called "William Shakespeare." A multitude of others in the time period give Shakespeare credit for his works, and no one ever attributed them to anyone else, at least at that time, the same type of evidence used to credit playwrights and poets from the same time period. Also consistent with the time period is the subject of Shakespeare’s works. Though, Anti-Stratfordians point to the lack of similarities between Shakespeare’s life and works, but his audience was London, not Stratford, so he centered his works on things that would be familiar to his audience and interest them. Laws against works concerning current issues made it dangerous to write about current events, and as his peers were constantly arrested, and he nearly was, too, placing h...
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Massie, Allan. "Shakespeare Authorship Fantasists Don't Understand How Plays Are Written." The Telegraph [London] 25 Oct. 2011, Culture: n. pag. The Telegraph. Web. 14 Feb. 2014. .
McCrea, Scott. The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Questions. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Print.
Niederkorn, William S. "Shakespeare Reaffirmed." The New York Times [New York] 22 Apr. 2007, Education Life: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. .
Shapiro, James. "Hollywod Dishonors the Bard." The New York Times [New York] 16 Oct. 2011: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Vickers, Brian. 1993. Appropriating Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Quarrels. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
In 1564, a man was born by the name of William Shakespeare. He was born to a poor family, was given little education, and had no interaction with sophisticated society. Thirty-eight plays and over 150 sonnets are not attributed to this ignorant man. Those who believe that Shakespeare was the author have no definitive proof but instead point to Hamlet’s declaration: "The play’s the thing(Satchell 71)." The true author, however, lies hidden behind he name of Shakespeare. Edward de Vere the premier Earl of Oxford is not only considered a great poet in history, but he may also be the great playwright who concocted the sonnets and plays which are now attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford, England.
Shakespeare, William. "Shakespeare Study Guides - Spark Notes - Spark Notes: Today's ...." spark notes. John Heminges, Henry Condell, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. . .
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Clark, W. G. and Wright, W. Aldis , ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York: Nelson-Doubleday
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
William Shakespeare is widely regarded as on the of the best playwrights and poets to have ever existed. “It is a widely speculated topic that William Shakespeare did not write the poems and that up to about 50 other poets could have writen them.”("Shakespeare facts: Read," 2011) “William Shakespeare is the second most quoted writer in the english language.” ("Shakespeare facts: Read," 2011) It is widely speculated that the true Shakespeare is actually Edward De Vere. I firmlybelieve Shakespeare was not the true playwright because of his lack of education, lack of upper class etiquette, and the different penmanship over time.
Although William Shakespeare is considered to be one of the most revered and well-renowned authors of all time, controversy surrounds the belief that he actually produced his own literary works. Some rumors even go so far as to question the reality of such a one, William Shakespeare, brought on by paralleling the quality of his pieces with his personal background and education. With such farfetched allegations, it persuaded others to peek into the person we all are taught to learn as “Shakespeare”, but who is actually the person behind these genius works of literary promise and enlightenment? To some, Shakespeare is as much accredited to his works as frequently as you see his name placed. To others, Shakespeare is a complex enigma into which we the people are supposed to unravel; the true author behind a falsely-given pseudonym. The debate pertaining to the true authorship of William Shakespeare’s works are still questioned in today’s society.
Cohen, Walter, J.E. Howard, K. Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare. Vol. 2 Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. New York, London. 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-92991-1
MrCrea, Scott. The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Question. Westport: Praegar, 2005. Print.
The impeccable style and craft of Shakespeare’s writing has always been looked upon with great respect, and it continues to serve as an inspiration to writers and thinkers today even as it did when it was being first performed in London. Shakespeare’s modern audience, however, is far less diverse than the one for which he originally wrote. Due to the antiquity of his language, Shakespeare’s modern readership consists mostly of students and intellectuals, whereas in Shakespeare’s own time, his plays were performed in playhouses packed with everyone from royalty to peasants. Because of this, Shakespeare was forced to write on many different levels, the most sophisticated of which appealed to his more elite audience members, while the more straightforward and often more crude of which appealed to his less educated viewers, and the most universal of which still appeals to us.
Wilkie, Brian and James Hurt. “Shakespeare.” Literature of the Western World. Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992.
James, D.G. (Excerpt from a series of lectures delivered in 1965 at University College, London.) The Shakespeare Criticism Volume 8. Gale Research Inc., Detroit. 1989: 429-434.
Shakespeare Studies 11 (1978): 53-76. MLA International Bibliography. Web. The Web. The Web.
Shakespeare got much recognition in his own time, but in the 17th century, poets and authors began to consider him as the supreme dramatist and poet of all times of the English language. In fact, even today, no one can match his works or perform as well as he did. No other plays have been performed as many times as Shakespeare’s. Several critics of theatre try to focus on the language of Shakespeare and to take out excerpts from the literary text and make it their own resulting in various persons, poets, authors, psychoanalysts, psychologists and philosophers.