“I am firm against Shakespeare — I mean the Avon man, the actor.” (Whitman) The true author of the works attributed to Shakespeare have been in question since the late eighteenth century and really garnered attention until the early twentieth century, when famous authors such as George Bernard Shaw, Walt Whitman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson declared their opinions on the question. The most popular candidates for authentic authorship, besides William Shakespeare himself, are Edward DeVere, Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth I, and Christopher Marlowe. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, writing was not considered a noble profession; therefore, authors would use either an alias or hire someone to allow them to take their name, which in this case it was Christopher Marlowe who took up Shakespeare’s name. Marlowe is the most credible of the contenders to be the true author because of his style of writing, and his education compared to that which is known of William Shakespeare.
First, the writing styles of Shakespeare and Marlowe are eerily similar. Most notable is the author Calvin Hoffman, who wrote The Man Who Was Shakespeare. In his book he compares passages of Marlowe and Shakespeare’s writings. Most notable is a passage from Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor and Marlowe’s Passionate Shepherd to His Love
“To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals:
There will we make our beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies.” (Merry Wives of Windsor. Act 3. Scene 1.)
“By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a Thousand fragrant posies.” (Passionate Shepherd to His Love. Act 5. Scene 1.)
There are obvious similarities between these ...
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Shakespeare, William, and George Van Santvoord. "Act 3. Scene 1." The Merry Wives of Windsor. New Haven: Yale UP;, 1922. N. pag. Print.
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Act 1 scene 3 and Act 3 scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
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Clark, W.G., and W. Aldis Wirhgt, eds. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol 2. USA: Nd. 2 vols.
With the question being examined by so many literary scholars, information has come to light which points to people other than William Shakespeare as being the author. One of these people offered up as the supposedly true author of Shakespeare is a man by the name of Christopher Marlowe. However, Marlowe was claimed to have died before many of Shakespeare's works were written, so the question becomes, how could he have written Shakespeare? One claim is that Marlowe faked his death, which is theoretically possible. There are aspects of Marlowe's life that seem to indicate that he most definitely had the ability to fake his own death. First of all, the 3 witnesses to his death were all professional liars. According to The Shakespearean Authorship Trust, two of the witnesses were con men and two worked as spies like Marlowe (one being both a spy and a conman). This indicates that he could easily have faked his own death and had his so called witnesses claim he was dead. Suspicion is also
Greenhill, Wendy, and Wignall, Paul. Shakespeare: A Life. Chicago IL: Reed Educational & Professional Publishing, 2000. Print.
Perhaps the reason that Shakespeare’s works have not been attributed to any other man would attest to the fact that scholars are not willing to accept the implications that the man celebrated to be the world’s most ingenious literary figure is not, in fact, who he was thought to be. However, the search for evidence leading to the true author will continue out of the ethical implications that credit must be given to the true author of the world’s greatest literature.
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.
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