Shakespeare authorship question: Difference between revisions

The Shakespearean authorship question is the debate, dating back to the 18th century, over whether the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually written by another writer or group of writers.^[3]

Admirers of Shakespeare's works are often disappointed by the lack of available information about the author, particulary Shakespeare's private life during the period known as his "lost years".^[4] In Who Wrote Shakespeare (1996), John Michell notes, "The known facts about Shakespeare's life ... can be written down on one side of a sheet of notepaper." He cites Mark Twain's satirical expression of the same point in the section "Facts" in Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909). For example, there are large gaps in the historical record of his life; there are no surviving letters written by him; his detailed will mentions no books, plays, poems or writings of any kind; he expressed no direct opinions about his art; and almost nothing is known about his personality. Much can be inferred about him from his writings, but the lack of concrete information leaves him an enigmatic figure.

Mainstream scholars agree that the lack of information about Shakespeare is disappointing, but find it unsurprising given the passage of time, and given that the lives of middle-class people were not recorded as fully as those of politicians and the aristocracy. They also note that information about Elizabethan theatre practitioners is fragmentary, and that a similar scarcity of information is the case with other period playwrights.

Anti-Stratfordians (defined below) assert that the available information about Shakespeare's life offers no proof that he was able to write the works attributed to him. They further suggest that other, better-recorded figures of the period are more likely candidates for the authorship, and claim that Shakespeare was simply a frontman for the true author who wished to remain anonymous. For nearly 200 years, Francis Bacon was the leading alternate authorship candidate.^[5] Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley (6th Earl of Derby), and numerous other candidates have been proposed but failed to attract large followings.^[6] The most popular theory of the 20th century is that Shakespeare's works were written by Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford).^[7] Although all alternative candidates are rejected in most academic circles,^[8] popular interest in the subject has continued into the 21st century.

The mainstream view is that Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. He then moved to London and became a poet, a playwright, an actor, and "sharer" (part-owner) of the favoured acting company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), which owned the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre in London. He divided his time between London and Stratford, and retired there around 1613 before his death in 1616. Shakespeare's name appears on the title pages of fourteen of the fifteen works published during his lifetime. In 1623, after the death of most of the proposed candidates, his plays were collected for publication in the First Folio edition.

This actor is further identified by the following evidence: Shakespeare of Stratford left gifts to actors from the London company in his will, the man from Stratford and the author of the works share a common name; and commendatory poems in the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare's works refer to the "Swan of Avon" and his "Stratford monument".^[9] Mainstream scholars assume that the latter phrase refers to the funerary monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, which refers to Shakespeare as a writer (comparing him to Virgil and calling his writing a "living art"), and was described as such by visitors to Stratford as far back as the 1630s.^{[citation needed]} From the above evidence, the mainstream view is that Shakespeare's plays were written by William Shakespeare of Stratford, who left his home town and became an actor and playwright in London.

For authorship doubters, evidence that Shakespeare of Stratford was merely a front man for another undisclosed playwright arises from several circumstantial sources: perceived ambiguities and missing information in the historical evidence supporting Shakespeare's authorship; the assertion that the plays require a level of education (including knowledge of foreign languages) greater than that which Shakespeare is known to have possessed; circumstantial evidence suggesting the author was deceased while Shakespeare of Stratford was still living; doubts of his authorship expressed by his contemporaries; plays that he appeared to be unavailable or unable to write; coded messages asserted to be hidden in the works that identify another author; and perceived parallels between the characters in Shakespeare's works and the life of the favoured candidate.

Those who question whether William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the author of Shakespeare's plays call themselves anti-Stratfordians. Those who have no such doubts are referred to as Stratfordians. "Stratfordians" themselves view the question of authorship as settled, and thus do not use a name for themselves. Those anti-Stratfordians who identify Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, or Christopher Marlowe as the author of Shakespeare's plays are commonly referred to as Baconians, Oxfordians, and Marlovians, respectively.

There was no standardised spelling in Elizabethan England, and throughout his lifetime Shakespeare of Stratford's name was spelled in many different ways, including "Shakespeare". Anti-Stratfordians conventionally refer to the man from Stratford as "Shakspere" (the name recorded at his baptism) or "Shaksper" to distinguish him from the author "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare" (the spellings that appear on the publications), who they claim has a different identity. They point out that most references to the man from Stratford in legal documents usually spell the first syllable of his name with only four letters, Shak- or sometimes Shag- or Shax-, whereas the dramatist's name is consistently rendered with a long "a" as in "Shake".^[10]Stratfordians are hostile to this convention, because it implies that the Stratford man spelled his name differently from the name appearing on the publications.^{[citation needed]} Because the "Shakspere" convention is controversial, this article uses the name "Shakespeare" throughout.

Some anti-Stratfordians remark on the fact that Shakespeare's father and his wife seem to have been illiterate, since they made marks on official documents instead of signing their names.^[12] His daughter Judith did the same, suggesting that Shakespeare may not have taught her to write (as was normal for middle-class women in the 17th century).^[13] However, his other daughter, Susannah, was able to sign her name.^[14]

Stratfordians assert that Shakespeare himself was clearly literate, since several signatures survive and it was necessary for actors to be able to read.^{[citation needed]} Anti-Stratfordians point out that there are no surviving letters from Shakespeare. They maintain it would only be logical for a man of Shakespeare's writing ability to compose numerous letters, and given the man's supposed fame they find it remarkable that not one letter, or record of a letter, exists.^[15]

Anti-Stratfordians often note that there is no evidence that Shakespeare possessed the education required to have written the plays. The Stratfordian position is that Shakespeare was entitled to attend the The King's School in Stratford until the age of fourteen, where he would have studied the Latin poets and playwrights such as Plautus and Ovid.^[16] The records of pupils at the school have not survived, so it cannot be proven whether Shakespeare attended or not.^[17]

There is no evidence that Shakespeare attended a university, although this was not unusual among Renaissance dramatists.^{[citation needed]} Traditionally, scholars assume that Shakespeare was partly self-educated.^{[citation needed]} A commonly cited parallel is his fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, a man whose origins were humbler than Shakespeare's, who rose to become court poet. Like Shakespeare, Jonson never completed and perhaps never attended university, and yet he became a man of great learning (later being granted an honorary degree from both Oxford and Cambridge).

The parallel with Jonson has been questioned,^{[citation needed]} since there is clearer evidence for Jonson's self-education than for Shakespeare's. Several books owned by Ben Jonson have been found signed and annotated by him^[18] but no book has ever been proved to have been owned or borrowed by Shakespeare. In addition, Jonson had access to a substantial library with which to supplement his education.^[19] One possible source for Shakespeare's self-education has been suggested: A. L. Rowse has pointed out that some of the sources for his plays have been sold at the shop of the printer Richard Field, a fellow Stratfordian of Shakespeare's age.^[20]

Stratfordians note that Shakespeare's works have not always been considered to require an unusual amount of education: Ben Jonson's tribute to Shakespeare in the 1623 First Folio states that his plays were great even though he had "small Latin and less Greek". And it has been argued that a great deal of the classical learning he displays is derived from one text, Ovid's Metamorphoses, which was a set text in many schools at the time.^[21] However, this explanation does not counter the argument that the author also required a knowledge of foreign languages, modern science and the law.^[22]

William Shakespeare's will is long and explicit, listing the possessions of a successful bourgeois in detail. Anti-Stratfordians find it notable that the will makes no mention at all of personal papers, letters, or books (books were rare and expensive items at the time) of any kind. In addition, no early poems or manuscripts, plays or unfinished works are listed, nor is there any reference to the shares in the Globe Theatre that the Stratford man supposedly owned, shares that would have been exceedingly valuable.^[23]

In particular, anti-Stratfordians note at the time of Shakespeare's death, 18 plays remained unpublished, and yet none of them are mentioned in his will (this contrasts with Sir Francis Bacon, both of whose wills refer to work that he wished to be published posthumously).^[24] Anti-Stratfordians find it unusual that Shakespeare did not wish his family to profit from his unpublished work or was unconcerned about leaving them to posterity. They find it improbable Shakespeare would have submitted all the manuscripts to the King's Men, the playing company of which he was a shareholder. As was the normal practice at the time, Shakespeare's submitted plays were owned jointly by the members of the King's Men.^[25] It was two of his fellow shareholders – John Heminge and Henry Condell – whose names were attached to a dedicatory epistle to the 1623 First Folio who published his works. ^{[citation needed]}

Anti-Stratfordians believe that a provincial glovemaker's son who resided in Stratford until early adulthood would be unlikely to have written plays that deal so personally with the activities, travel and lives of the nobility. The view is summarized by Charles Chaplin: "In the work of greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare. Whoever wrote [Shakespeare] had an aristocratic attitude."^[26] Orthodox scholars respond that the glamorous world of the aristocracy was a popular setting for plays in this period. They add that numerous English Renaissance playwrights, including Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and others wrote about the nobility despite their own humble origins. ^{[citation needed]}

Anti-Stratfordians further suggest that the plays show a detailed understanding of politics, the law and foreign languages that would have been impossible to attain without an aristocratic or university upbringing. Orthodox scholars respond that Shakespeare was an upwardly mobile man: his company regularly performed at court and he thus had ample opportunity to observe courtly life^{[citation needed]}. In addition, his theatrical career made him wealthy ^{[citation needed]} and he eventually acquired a coat of arms for his family and the title of gentleman, like many other wealthy middle class men in this period.

In The Genius of Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate points out that the class argument is reversible: the plays contain details of lower-class life in which aristocrats might have little knowledge. Many of Shakespeare's most vivid characters are lower class or associate with this milieu, such as Falstaff, Nick Bottom, Autolycus, Sir Toby Belch, etc.^[27] Anti-Stratfordians assert that while the author's depiction of nobility was highly personal and multi-faceted, his treatment of the peasant class was quite different, including comedic and insulting names (Bullcalfe, Elbow, Bottom, Belch), often portrayed as the butt of jokes or as an angry mob.^[28]

It has also been noted^{[citation needed]} that in the 17th century, Shakespeare was not thought of as an expert on the court, but as a "child of nature" who "Warble[d] his native wood-notes wild" as John Milton put it in his poem L'Allegro. Indeed, John Dryden wrote in 1668 that the playwrights Beaumont and Fletcher "understood and imitated the conversation of Gentlemen much better" than Shakespeare, and in 1673 wrote of Elizabethan playwrights in general that "I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Jonson."

Against this argument is the fact that it took Ben Jonson (who had a similar low class to Shakespeare) 12 years from his first play to obtain noble patronage from Prince Henry for his commentary The Masque of Queens (1609). Anti-Stratfordians thus express doubt that Shakespeare could have obtained the Earl of Southampton's patronage for one of his first published works, the long poem Venus and Adonis (1593).

Anti-Stratfordians also question the hyphen that often appeared in the name “Shake-speare”, which they believe indicates the use of a pseudonym.^[30] Stratfordians answer that the hyphened version was not consistent and that the hyphen was merely misplaced, so the issue should be discounted. Further, a limited survey of 16th- and 17th-century texts shows that proper names that are compounds of common words, like "Newcastle" or "Oldcastle," are spelled either with or without hyphens, randomly. The same text, the same author, can employ both, with no discernible pattern. The early texts of the play Sir John Oldcastle also demonstrate this.^{[citation needed]} Oxfordian Charlton Ogburn responds by pointing out that of the “32 editions of Shakespeare’s plays published before the First Folio of 1623 in which the author was named at all, the name was hyphenated in fifteen – almost half.” It was also hyphenated in A Lovers Complaint, on the title page of the Sonnets, and in two of the four dedicatory poems in the First Folio. Further, it was hyphenated by John Davies in the famous poem references the poet as “Our English Terence”, by fellow playwright John Webster, and by the epigrammatist of 1639 who wrote, “Shake-speare, we must be silent in they praise…”. Ogburn added that the hyphen was only used by other writers or publishers and not the poet himself (he did not use it in his personal dedications of his two long narrative poems). Ogburn concluded that the hyphenation was not inconsistent or misplaced, and did follow a noticeable pattern. ^[31]

Comments on Shakespeare by Elizabethan literary figures can be read as expressions of doubt about his authorship.

Ben Jonson had a contradictory relationship with Shakespeare. He regarded him as a friend – saying "I loved the man"^[32] – and wrote tributes to him in the First Folio. However, Jonson also wrote that Shakespeare was too wordy: commenting on the Players' commendation of Shakespeare for never blotting out a line, Jonson wrote "would he had blotted a thousand" and that "he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped."^[33] In the same work, he scoffs at a line Shakespeare said "in the person of Caesar" (presumably on stage): "Caesar never did wrong but with just cause", which Jonson calls "ridiculous",^[34] and indeed the text as preserved in the First Folio carries a different line: "Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause / Will he be satisfied" (3.1). Jonson ridiculed the line again in his play The Staple of News, without directly referring to Shakespeare. Some anti-Stratfordians interpret these comments as expressions of doubt about Shakespeare's ability to have written the plays.^[35]

In Robert Greene's posthumous publication Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592; published, and possibly written, by fellow dramatist Henry Chettle) a dramatist labelled "Shake-scene" is vilified as "an upstart Crowe beautified with our feathers", along with a quotation from Henry VI, Part 3. The orthodox view is that Greene is criticizing the relatively unsophisticated Shakespeare for invading the domain of the university-educated playwright Greene.^{[citation needed]} Some anti-Stratfordians claim that Greene is in fact doubting Shakespeare's authorship.^[36] In Greene's earlier work Mirror of Modesty (1584), the dedication mentions "Ezops Crowe, which deckt hir selfe with others feathers" referring to Aesop's fable (the Crow, the Eagle, and the Feathers) against people who boast they have something they do not.

In John Marston's satirical poem The Scourge of Villainy (1598), Marston rails against the upper classes being "polluted" by sexual interactions with the lower classes. Seasoning his piece with sexual metaphors, he then asks:

Shall broking pandars sucke Nobilitie?

Soyling fayre stems with foule impuritie?

Nay, shall a trencher slaue extenuate,

Some Lucrece rape?". And straight magnificate

Lewd Jovian Lust? Whilst my satyrick vaine

Shall muzzled be, not daring out to straine

His tearing paw? No gloomy Juvenall,

Though to thy fortunes I disastrous fall.

There is a tradition that the satirist Juvenal became "gloomy" after being exiled by Domitian having lampooned an actor that the emperor was in love with.^[37] So Marston's piece could be taken as being directed at an actor, and as questioning whether such a lower class "trencher slave" is extenuating (making light of) "some Lucrece rape". One interpretation is that it refers to The Rape of Lucrece, with Shakespeare depicted as a "broking pandar" (procurer), implicitly questioning his credentials to "sucke Nobilitie", that is, attract the Earl of Southampton's patronage of him.

In support of the possibility of Shakespeare as "frontman", anti-Stratfordians point to contemporary examples of Elizabethans discussing anonymous or pseudonymous publication by persons of high social status. Roger Ascham in his book The Schoolmaster refers to his belief that two plays attributed to the Roman dramatist Terence were secretly written by "worthy Scipio, and wise Lælius", because the language is too elevated to have been written by "a seruile stranger" such as Terence.^[38] Describing contemporary writers, the dramatist and pamphleteer Robert Greene wrote that "others ... which for their calling and gravity being loth to have any profane pamphlets pass under their hands, get some other Batillus to set his name to their verses."^[39] (Batillus was a minor poet in the reign of Augustus Caesar).

Both orthodox scholars and anti-Stratfordians have used Shakespeare's sonnets as evidence for their positions.

Mainstream scholars assert that the opening lines of Sonnet 135 are strong evidence against any alternative author, or at least any not named William:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,

And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;

More than enough am I that vex thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus. (the italics and capitalisation are those of the original text)

The italicised puns on Shakespeare's name continue in Sonnet 136 which concludes "And then thou lovest me, for my name is Will".

In any case, imaginative works can be playful and imaginative, so the use of the name "Will" proves that the writer either:

a) was named William and wanted to create a poetic conceit based on Will/will; or

b) was not named William and wanted to create a poetic conceit based on the pretense that he was.

While Oxfordians contend that a nobleman would not have wanted to be known as a playwright, mainstream scholars point out that this argument does not apply to poetry, which was a skill expected of an Elizabethan courtier. Poems such as Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece or Venus and Adonis, long narrative works on classical subjects, were a prestigious and respectable form of composition, unlike "merely popular" plays. Oxfordians respond that the contents of the Sonnets, as well as the narrative poems, touched on matters of personal and political scandal which positively required the adoption of a nom de plume by the author. They cite Sonnet 76 as clear evidence of the author's confession of the need for such a ruse:

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

Mainstream scholars find it significant that both of Shakespeare's major poetic works, the narrative poems and the sonnets, were published immediately after periods in which the theatres had been closed by an outbreak of plague. This pattern, it is suggested, is consistent with composition by a professional dramatist looking for an alternative source of income during a theatre closing.

The first direct statements of doubt about Shakespeare's authorship were made in the 18th century, when unorthodox views of Shakespeare were expressed in two allegorical stories. In The Life and Adventures of Common Sense (1769) by Herbert Lawrence, Shakespeare is portrayed as a "shifty theatrical character ... and incorrigible thief".^[40] In The Story of the Learned Pig (1786) by an anonymous author described as "an officer of the Royal Navy," Shakespeare is merely a front for the real author, a chap called "Pimping Billy."

Around this time, James Wilmot, a Warwickshire clergyman and scholar, was researching a biography on Shakespeare. He travelled extensively around Stratford, visiting the libraries of country houses within a radius of fifty miles looking for records or correspondence connected with Shakespeare or books that had been owned by him. By 1781, Wilmot had become so appalled at the lack of evidence for Shakespeare that he concluded he could not be the author of the works. Wilmot was familiar with the writings of Francis Bacon and formed the opinion that he was more likely the real author of the Shakespearean canon. He confided this to one James Cowell. Cowell disclosed it in a paper read to the Ipswich Philosophical Society in 1805 (Cowell's paper was only rediscovered in 1932).

These reports were soon forgotten ^{[citation needed]}. However, Bacon would emerge again in the 19th century as the most popular alternative candidate when, at the height of bardolatry, the "authorship question" was popularised. Many 19th century doubters, however, declared themselves agnostics and refused to endorse an alternative. The American populist poet Walt Whitman gave voice to this skepticism when he told Horace Traubel, "I go with you fellows when you say no to Shaksper: that's about as far as I have got. As to Bacon, well, we'll see, we'll see."^[41] Starting in 1908, Sir George Greenwood engaged in a series of well-publicized debates with Shakespearean biographer Sir Sidney Lee and author J.M. Robertson. Throughout his numerous books on the authorship question, Greenwood contented himself to argue against the traditional attribution of the works and never supported the case for a particular alternative candidate. In 1922, he joined John Thomas Looney, the first to argue for the authorship of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, in founding The Shakespeare Fellowship, an international organization dedicated to promoting discussion and debate on the authorship question. By 1975 the Encyclopedia Britannica declared that Oxford was the most probable alternative author. Since the 1980s, largely due originally to Charlton Ogburn, support for Oxford's authorship among independent intellectuals and some academicians has increased markedly.

The most popular latter-day candidate is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. This theory was first proposed by J. Thomas Looney in 1920, whose work persuaded Sigmund Freud, Orson Welles, Marjorie Bowen, and many other early 20th-century intellectuals [1]. The theory was brought to greater prominence by Charlton Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare (1984), after which Oxford rapidly became the favored alternative to the orthodox view of authorship. Advocates of Oxford are usually referred to as Oxfordians.

Oxfordians base their theory on what they consider to be multiple and striking similarities between Oxford's biography and numerous events in Shakespeare's plays. Oxfordians also point to the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries regarding his talent as a poet and a playwright; his closeness to Queen Elizabeth I and Court life; underlined passages in his Bible that they assert correspond to quotations in Shakespeare's plays;^[42] parallel phraseology and similarity of thought between Shakespeare's work and Oxford's remaining letters and poetry (Fowler 1986); his extensive education and intelligence, and his record of travel throughout Italy, including the sites of many of the plays themselves.^[43]

Supporters of the orthodox view would dispute most if not all of these contentions. For them, the most compelling evidence against Oxford is that he died in 1604, whereas they contend that a number of plays by Shakespeare may have been written after that date. Oxfordians, and some conventional scholars, respond that orthodox scholars have long dated the plays to suit their own candidate, and assert that there is no conclusive evidence that the plays or poems were written past Oxford's death in 1604. For a dating of Shakespeare's plays according to the Oxfordian theory, see Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays - Oxfordian.

Some mainstream scholars also consider Oxford's published poems to bear no stylistic resemblance to the works of Shakespeare^{[citation needed]}. Oxfordians counter that argument by pointing out that the published Oxford poems are those of a very young man, and as such are juvenilia. They support this argument by citing parallels between Oxford's poetry and Shakespeare's early play, Romeo and Juliet.^[44]

In 1856, William Henry Smith put forth the claim that the author of Shakespeare's plays was Sir Francis Bacon, a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618).

Smith was supported by Delia Bacon in her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded(1857), in which she maintains that Shakespeare was in fact a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of inculcating a philosophic system, for which they felt that they themselves could not afford to assume the responsibility. She professed to discover this system beneath the superficial text of the plays. Constance Mary Fearon Pott (1833–1915) adopted a modified form of this view, founding the Francis Bacon Society in 1885, and publishing her Bacon-centred theory in Francis Bacon and his secret society (1891).^[45]

Since Bacon commented that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue,"^[46] another view is that Bacon acted alone and left his moral philosophy to posterity in the Shakespeare plays (e.g. the nature of good government exemplified by Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part 2). Having outlined both a scientific and moral philosophy in his Advancement of Learning (1605) only Bacon's scientific philosophy was known to have been published during his lifetime (Novum Organum 1620). Francis Carr has suggested that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays and Don Quixote.^[47]

Supporters of Bacon draw attention to similarities between specific phrases from the plays and those written down by Bacon in his wastebook, the Promus,^[48] which was unknown to the public for a period of more than 200 years after it was written. A great number of these entries are reproduced in the Shakespeare plays often preceding publication and the performance dates of those plays. Bacon confesses in a letter to being a "concealed poet"^[49] and was on the governing council of the Virginia Company when William Strachey's letter from the Virginia colony arrived in England which, according to many scholars, was used to write The Tempest (see below).

Mainstream scholars are unconvinced by the Bacon theory. They feel that the claim that Bacon authored Shakespeare’s poetry suffers from the fact that Bacon’s poetry is abrupt and stilted unlike Shakespeare's, and note that Shakespeare discusses legal concepts and terms far more abstractly than Bacon.^{[citation needed]}

The gifted playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe has been a popular candidate even though he was already declared dead when most of the plays were written. A case for Marlowe was made as early as 1895, but the creator of the most detailed theory of Marlowe's authorship was Calvin Hoffman, an American journalist whose book on the subject, The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare, was published in 1955.

According to history, Marlowe was killed in 1593 by a group of men including Ingram Frizer, a servant of Thomas Walsingham, Marlowe's patron. A theory has developed that Marlowe, who may have been facing an impending death penalty for heresy, was saved by the faking of his death (with the aid of Walsingham and Marlowe's possible employer, Lord Burghley) and that he subsequently wrote the works of Shakespeare.^[50]

Supporters of Marlovian theory also point to stylometric tests and studies of parallel phraseology, which seem to prove how "both" authors used similar vocabulary and a similar style.^[51].^[52]

Mainstream scholars find the argument for Marlowe's faked death unconvincing. They also find Marlowe's and Shakespeare's writing very different, and attribute any similarities to the popularity and influence of Marlowe's work on subsequent dramatists such as Shakespeare.

The most recent candidate is Sir Henry Neville, a contemporary Elizabethan English diplomat who was a distant relative of Shakespeare. In The Truth Will Out, published in 2005, authors Brenda James, a part-time lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, and Professor William Rubinstein, professor of history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, argue that Neville's career placed him in the locations of many of the plays about the time they were written and that his life contains parallels with the events in the plays. Other candidates proposed include Mary Sidney; William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby; Sir Edward Dyer; or Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland (sometimes with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney, and her aunt Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, as co-authors). At least fifty others have also been proposed, including the Irish rebel, William Nugent, Catholic martyr St Edmund Campion ^[53]; and Queen Elizabeth (based on a supposed resemblance between a portrait of the Queen and the engraving of Shakespeare that appears in the First Folio). Malcolm X argued that Shakespeare was actually King James I.^{[citation needed]}

Carlos Fuentes raised an intriguing possibility in his book Myself With Others: Selected Essays (1988) noting that, "Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written and it is said that he dies on the same date, though not on the same day, as William Shakespeare. It is further stated that perhaps both were the same man." Francis Carr proposed that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare and the author of Don Quixote. A 2007 film called Miguel and William, written and directed by Inés París, explores the parallels and alleged collaboration between Cervantes and Shakespeare.^[54] This romantic comedy shows Shakespeare spending the years 1586 to 1592 in Madrid where he enjoys a great friendship with Cervantes.

Delia Bacon's view that the plays were the work of a secret society rather than one individual has also been revived. Dion Fortune (penname of Violet Mary Firth) and other students of the occult have argued that Shakespeare and many of his contemporaries were in a secret society interested in hermeticism, Rosicrucianism and alchemy.

Following suggestions by Arab writers that the plays, especially Othello, demonstrated knowledge of Arabic and Islamic culture, the nineteenth century Arab scholar Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1804–87) suggested that Shakespeare or his family were originally Arabic, and that the name is a corruption of the Arabic Shaykh Zubair.^[55] The theory was referred to in a speech by Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Some sources suggest that the reference was a joke, others that it was serious.^[56]

Some issues cause debate not only between mainstream scholars and anti-Stratfordians, but also between the different factions of anti-Stratfordian opinion.

Oxfordian scholars have cited examples they say imply that the writer of the plays and poems was dead before 1609, when Shake-Speare’s Sonnets first appeared with the words “our ever-living Poet” on the title page. They note that the words “ever-living” rarely, if ever, refer to someone who is actually alive^[57]; they're commonly used in a figurative way to refer to someone who has died, yet become immortal^[58], indicates that the real author of the sonnets was dead by 1609.^[59]Shakespeare himself used the phrase in this way in Henry VI, part 1 (IV, iii, 51-2) describing the dead Henry V as “[t]hat ever-living man of memory”. Further, some scholars cite 1604 as the year that Shakespeare “mysteriously” stopped writing.^[60] If either proposition proved true, it would be extremely awkward for orthodox Stratfordian scholars, as Shakespeare of Stratford lived until 1616 and there would have been no reason from him to give up a lucrative career at the height of his (alleged) fame. Researchers also cite at least one contemporary document that strongly implies that Shakespeare, the shareholder in the Globe Theatre, was dead prior 1616, when the Stratford man died.[2]

Regarding dates of publication, Mark Anderson, in “Shakespeare by Another Name” stresses the following: from 1593–1603 “the publication of Shake-speare’s plays appeared at the rate of 2 per year. Then, in 1604, Shake-speare "fell silent” and stopped publication for almost 5 years. Anderson also states “the early history of reprints …also point to 1604 as a watershed year,” and noting that during the years of 1593–1604, when an inferior or pirated text was published, it was typically followed by a genuine text that was “newly augmented” or “corrected”. Anderson summarizes, “After 1604, the “newly correct(ing) and augment(ing) stops. Once again, the Shake-speare enterprise appears to have shut down”. Anderson also notes that while Shakespeare made reference to the latest scientific discoveries and events right through the end of the 16th century, “yet Shakespeare is mute about science after De Vere’s (Oxford’s) death in 1604”. Anderson cites, among other examples, that neither a spectacular supernova that appeared in October of 1604, nor Kepler’s revolutionary 1609 study of planetary orbits, cause even a mention in all of Shakespeare’s works.^[61]

Regarding dates of composition, Oxfordians note the following: In 1756, in “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ben Jonson”, W.R.Chetwood concludes that on the basis of performance records “at the end of the year of [1603], or the beginning of the next, tis’ supposed that [Shakespeare] took his farewell of the stage, both as author and actor.” In 1874, German literary historian Karl Elze dated both The Tempest and Henry VIII – traditionally labeled as Shakespeare’s last plays – to the years 1603–04.^[62] In addition, on dating of Henry VIII, the majority of 18th and 19th century scholars, including notables such as Samuel Johnson, Lewis Theobald, George Steevens, Edmund Malone, and John Halliwell-Phillipps, all placed the composition of Henry VIII to before 1604.^[63] And in the 1969 and 1977 Pelican/Viking editions of Shakespeare’s plays, Alfred Harbage argues that MacBeth, Timon of Athens, Pericles, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, all traditionally regarded as “late plays,” were composed no later than 1604.^[64] For a dating of Shakespeare's plays according to the Oxfordian theory, see Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays - Oxfordian.

James Spedding, the Victorian editor of Bacon's works, suggested that lines in Macbeth appear to refer to Sir Walter Raleigh's execution, which occurred two years after Shakespeare of Stratford's death and 14 years after the Earl of Oxford's.^[65] The lines in question are spoken by Malcolme about the execution of the "disloyall traytor / The Thane of Cawdor" (1.2.53):

King. Is execution done on Cawdor?

Or not those in Commission yet return’d?

Malcolme. My Liege, they are not yet come back,

But I have spoke with one that saw him die :

Who did report, that very frankly hee

Confess’d his Treasons, implor’d your Highnesse Pardon

And set forth a deepe Repentance:

Nothing in his Life became him,

Like the leaving it. He dy’de,

As one that had been studied in his death,

To throw away the dearest thing he ow’d,

As ‘twere a carelesse Trifle.(1.4.1)

Several sources had remarked on Raleigh’s frivolity in the face of his impending execution^[66][67] and the assertion that ‘[the Commission who tried him] are not yet come back’ could refer to the fact that his execution was swift (it took place the day after his trial for treason).^[68] Holinshed, the main source for Macbeth, mentions 'the thane of Cawder being condemned at Fores of treason against the king'^[69] without further details about his execution, so whoever wrote the lines in the play has gone beyond the original source. A reference to Raleigh's execution in Shakespeare would be particularly advantageous to the Baconian theory because Sir Francis Bacon was one of the six Commissioners from the Privy Council appointed to examine Raleigh's case.^[70]

However, more than one Elizabethan traitor put on a brave show for their execution. In 1793, George Steevens suggested that the speech was an allusion to the death of the Earl of Essex in 1601 (a date that does not conflict with Shakespeare's or Oxford's authorship): "The behaviour of the thane of Cawdor corresponds in almost every circumstance with that of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, as related by Stow, p. 793. His asking the Queen's forgiveness, his confession, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the scaffold are minutely described."^[71] As Steevens notes, Essex was a close friend of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton. Essex also employed Bacon as an adviser in the latter's early career in Parliament, until Essex fell out of favor, and was prosecuted with Bacon's help.

Most editors of Macbeth simply assume the speech to be fictional and not a deliberate allusion to a specific event.

Most anti-Stratfordians believe that the plays were written by a well-travelled man, as many of them are set in European countries and show great attention to local details. Orthodox scholars respond that numerous plays of this period by other playwrights are set in foreign locations and Shakespeare is thus entirely conventional in this regard. In addition, in many cases Shakespeare did not invent the setting, but borrowed it from the source he was using for the plot.

Even outside of the authorship question, there has been debate about the extent of geographical knowledge displayed by Shakespeare. Some scholars argue that there is very little topographical information in the texts (nowhere in Othello or the Merchant of Venice are Venetian canals mentioned). Indeed, there are apparent mistakes: for example, Shakespeare refers to Bohemia as having a coastline in The Winter's Tale (the country is landlocked) and in All's Well That Ends Well he suggests that a journey from Paris to Northern Spain would pass through Italy.

Answers to these objections have been made by other scholars (both orthodox and anti-Stratfordian). It has been noted that The Merchant of Venice demonstrates detailed knowledge of the city, using the local word, traghetto, for the Venetian mode of transport (printed as 'traject' in the published texts^[72]). One explanation given for Bohemia having a coastline is the author's awareness that the kingdom of Bohemia at one time stretched to the Adriatic.^[73] Oxfordians find it significant that the Earl of Oxford was travelling in the Adriatic region during the brief span of time in which Bohemia did in fact have a coastline. Anti-Stratfordians suggest that the above information would most likely be obtained from first-hand experience of the regions under discussion; they thus conclude that the author of the plays could have been a diplomat, aristocrat or politician. In all these cases, however, a very important fact is being overlooked: the same geographical mistake was already present in Shakespeare's source, Robert Greene's Pandosto, and the play merely reproduced it.

Mainstream scholars assert that Shakespeare's plays contain several colloquial names for flora and fauna that are unique to Warwickshire, where Stratford-upon-Avon is located, for example 'love in idleness' in A Midsummer Night's Dream.^[74] These names seem to suggest that the plays might have been written by a Warwickshire native. Oxfordians point out that the Earl of Oxford owned a manor house in Bilton, Warwickshire, although records show that he leased it out in 1574 and sold it in 1581.^[75]

• Bertram Fields, Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare (2005)
• H. N. Gibson, The Shakespeare Claimants (London, 1962). (An overview written from an orthodox perspective).
• Greenwood, George The Shakespeare Problem Restated. (London: John Lane, 1908).
• Shakespeare's Law and Latin. (London: Watts & Co., 1916).
• Is There a Shakespeare Problem? (London: John Lane, 1916).
• Shakespeare's Law. (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920).
• E.A. Honigman: The Lost Years, 1985.
• John Michell, Who Wrote Shakespeare? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999). ISBN 0-500-28113-0. (An overview from a neutral perspective).
• Irvin Leigh Matus, Shakspeare, in Fact (London: Continuum, 1999). ISBN 0-8264-0928-8. (Orthodox response to the Oxford theory).
• Ian Wilson: Shakespeare - The Evidence, 1993.
• Scott McCrea: "The Case for Shakespeare", (Westport CT: Praeger, 2005). ISBN 0-275-98527-X.
• Bob Grumman: "Shakespeare & the Rigidniks", (Port Charlotte FL: The Runaway Spoon Press, 2006). ISBN 1-57141-072-4.

• Mark Anderson, "Shakespeare" By Another Name (2005).
• Al Austin and Judy Woodruff, The Shakespeare Mystery, 1989 Frontline documentary. [3]. (Documentary film about the Oxford case.)
• Fowler, William Plumer Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters. (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: 1986).
• Hope, Warren and Kim Holston The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Claimants to Authorship, and their Champions and Detractors. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 1992).
• J. Thomas Looney, Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920). [4]. (The first book to promote the Oxford theory.)
• Malim, Richard (Ed.) Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-16-4. (London: Parapress, 2004).
• Charlton Ogburn Jr., The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Mask. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984). (Influential book that criticises orthodox scholarship and promotes the Oxford theory).
• Diana Price, Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of An Authorship Problem (Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 2001). [5]. (Introduction to the evidentiary problems of the orthodox tradition).
• Sobran, Joseph, Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
• Stritmatter, Roger The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and Historical Consequence. 2001 University of Massachusetts PhD dissertation. [6]
• Ward, B.M. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) From Contemporary Documents (London: John Murray, 1928).
• Whalen, Richard Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. (Westport, Ct.: Praeger, 1994).

• N. Cockburn, The Bacon–Shakespeare Question, private publication 1998 (Contents) A barrister's presentation of the evidence.
• Peter Dawkins: The Shakespeare Enigma, Polair Publ., London 2004, ISBN 0-9545389-4-3 (engl.)
• Amelie Deventer von Kunow, Francis Bacon: Last of the Tudors, trans. Willard Parker (1924)
• Penn Leary, Bacon Is Shakespeare, Cryptographic Shakespeare (n.d.)
• Fellows, Virginia M., The Shakespeare Code (2006) ISBN-13: 978-1-932890-02-5.
• [Baconian Evidence For Shakespeare Evidence http://www.sirbacon.org/links/evidence.htm]

• Karl Bleibtreu: Der Wahre Shakespeare, Munich 1907, G. Mueller
• Lewis Frederick Bostelmann: Rutland, New York 1911, Rutland publishing company
• Celestin Demblon: Lord Rutland est Shakespeare, Paris 1912, Charles Carrington
• Pierre S. Porohovshikov (Porokhovshchikov): Shakespeare Unmasked, New York 1940, Savoy book publishers
• Ilya Gililov: The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix, New York : Algora Pub., c2003., ISBN 0-87586-182-2 , 0875861814 (pbk.)
• Brian Dutton: Let Shakspere Die: Long Live the Merry Madcap Lord Roger Manner, 5th Earl of Rutland the Real "Shakespeare", c.2007, RoseDog Books - most recent study of the Rutland theory.

• Jonathan Hope, The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays: A Socio-Linguistic Study (Cambridge University Press, 1994). (Concerned with the 'academic authorship debate' surrounding Shakespeare's collaborations and apocrypha, not with the false identity theories).