I was reading about sonnets on wikipedia (because I could) and I saw an article on the Shakespearean Authorship Contreversy. I wanted to know what the WH posters, who are often knowledgeable people not very susceptible to conspiracy theories, think about this. Thank you.

I was reading about sonnets on wikipedia (because I could) and I saw an article on the Shakespearean Authorship Contreversy. I wanted to know what the WH posters, who are often knowledgeable people not very susceptible to conspiracy theories, think about this. Thank you.

Lots of intellectually respectable people follow the Oxfordian theory, so it isn't some insane fringe opinion.

Thinking it's Christopher Marlowe is just nutty, unless you believe he faked his death and hid in a cellar for twenty years.

i dont know, but i liked that shakespeare in love movie.

i dont know, but i liked that shakespeare in love movie.
Actually, I did too.

Shakespeare is one of the best documented figures of the 16th Century. People just like being contrary.

Zheng He is the real writer.

Infraction for spam/troll/threadjacking. - KD

Yeah, Zheng He's the man. Him and his homies wrote Chaucher too

Same as above. - KD

Although it is an extremely poor reason, I would say that William Shakespeare was William Shakespeare due sheerly to the fact that I have never ever even heard speculation otherwise, before now. As I say, poor reasoning. But I would expect that I would have at least heard something about it if there was a very serious question over the authorship.

Thinking it's Christopher Marlowe is just nutty, unless you believe he faked his death and hid in a cellar for twenty years.
His death is similar to that story of Hiram Abiff of Freemasonry fame.

W. Shakespeare was barely able to write his own name. To think that he posessed knowledge about history, geography or philosophy is absurd. I bet my money on Francis Bacon and his followers.

W. Shakespeare was barely able to write his own name. To think that he posessed knowledge about history, geography or philosophy is absurd.
Surely an exaggerated slander of a man that the contemporary Davies called 'our English Terence'!

Christopher Marlowe. However, as Woody Allen said "If Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s works, who wrote Marlowe’s?" Others think it was either Alexander Pope or Pope Alexander. I suspect Elizabeth I myself.

Bill Bryson's assessment is good enough for me.

The Shakespeare authorship controversy is nutty.

W. Shakespeare was barely able to write his own name. To think that he posessed knowledge about history, geography or philosophy is absurd. I bet my money on Francis Bacon and his followers.

The reason why the Oxfordian theory is the most popular is because there are so many parallels between Oxford's personal life, and notes he's written, with Shakespearian plays. And the fact that the year he died was when Shakespeare's plays started being published very irregularly.

Probably the best overall "debunking" of the Oxfordian theory can be found here (http://shakespeareauthorship.com/).

Although it is an extremely poor reason, I would say that William Shakespeare was William Shakespeare due sheerly to the fact that I have never ever even heard speculation otherwise, before now. As I say, poor reasoning. But I would expect that I would have at least heard something about it if there was a very serious question over the authorship.

Come on, surely everyone has heard it said that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare.

I think it was Patrick Moore who said that it's perfectly clear that Shakespeare's plays were written not by William Shakespeare but by someone else of the same name, which pretty much sums it up in my opinion. Shakespeare has had such a mystique about him since the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries that this sort of thing is inevitable, but while it's not quite in conspiracy theory territory, it's a decidedly minority view.

I think it was Patrick Moore who said that it's perfectly clear that Shakespeare's plays were written not by William Shakespeare but by someone else of the same name...

Doesn't that mean that they were written by William Shakespeare, but we just have some (most?) details of his biography wrong?




Apparently, there are several years in which no one can find any documentation of William Shakespeare, but there is documentation of a Bill Shakestaff where Shakespeare was supposed to be whom many believe to be the same man.

Come on, surely everyone has heard it said that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare.

Well, I'm no Shakespeare scholar. And it has never been mentioned in school. Although now that I've thought about it for a day, I do vaguely remember someone mentioning something to me about Francis Bacon. But someone mentioning something to me isn't a very reliable source.

Well I least I had heard of the controversy, and not just on Wikipedia. I say Shakespeare was a time traveler. There's a line in Hamlet that refers to Donkey Kong.



Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.



This is one of those conspiracy theories that I'm ever so slightly iffy on. Still say it's Shakespeare but I wouldn't be blown out of the water if some real evidence came up otherwise. Bacon/Oxford may have decent cases, I certainly wouldn't think any others, but I'm really no expert.

Christopher Marlowe. However, as Woody Allen said "If Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s works, who wrote Marlowe’s?" Others think it was either Alexander Pope or Pope Alexander. I suspect Elizabeth I myself.

Marlowe wouldn't be caught dead writing Romeo & Juliet.

Come on, surely everyone has heard it said that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare.


It's certainly not something they teach in high school...I didn't learn of it until college and probably only then because I was an English major.

I don't recall controversy being allowed in any HS classroom, actually...

Christopher Marlowe. However, as Woody Allen said "If Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s works, who wrote Marlowe’s?" Others think it was either Alexander Pope or Pope Alexander. I suspect Elizabeth I myself.

The Pope or Elizabeth I? You have to be kidding.

I might be a gullible, but I think Shakespeare was the legitimate author. Unless Marlowe stashed a bunch of work to be published posthumously (there were Shakespearean plays produced after 1600, right?).

The "Bacon Ciphers" are also just mind-numbing. If I arbitrarily assign some cipher to all the essays I wrote in school, I'm certain you could find "bacon", "bacan", "bacen", "byecen", or "biykin", or any other of the number of permutations he allowed on Bacon's name. That doesn't mean Francis Bacon wrote my school papers.

If you want to talk about conspiracy theories, citing that as proof is about as conspiratory as you can get.

I don't recall controversy being allowed in any HS classroom, actually...

I think that is a real problem, especially for how they gloss over the 20th century. You'd think everybody was asleep and just woke up to fight Germany and stand in breadlines.

I actually had a fairly hefty report on this in 8th grade, and it is more extensive than just some nut theory, or creating a theory for the sake of creating a theory. As far as proposing a controversial idea goes, this (Oxfordian) seemed legitimate and plausable. But I'll still side with William.

I think that is a real problem, especially for how they gloss over the 20th century. You'd think everybody was asleep and just woke up to fight Germany and stand in breadlines.

better than learning that everybody was asleep after world war one until suddenly germany took over and then taking so long for world war 2 that there's no time left for the time after the war. :p

better than learning that everybody was asleep after world war one until suddenly germany took over and then taking so long for world war 2 that there's no time left for the time after the war.

The talk about the war in Austria? :p

At the risk of going off-topic here, it does sadden me when people say things like "Of course I don't know about X, I didn't study X in school." Rather like the hoohah some years ago about an undergraduate at Cambridge who couldn't identify Africa on a map of the world, and defended herself by saying she wasn't studying geography. That's a more extreme example, but the mere fact that you haven't formally been taught something is not a sufficient explanation for your not knowing it - or at least it shouldn't be.

The sheer amount of things I learned outside of school - everything from the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, to how to read - makes that silly.

At the risk of going off-topic here, it does sadden me when people say things like "Of course I don't know about X, I didn't study X in school." Rather like the hoohah some years ago about an undergraduate at Cambridge who couldn't identify Africa on a map of the world, and defended herself by saying she wasn't studying geography. That's a more extreme example, but the mere fact that you haven't formally been taught something is not a sufficient explanation for your not knowing it - or at least it shouldn't be.

I ended up taking a history minor and have kept up reading just to brush up my relatively poor American skills at the subject. Now I feel like I've had a real education...but I've had to deliver it myself. Unfortunately, the ability to make free choices includes the choice of ignorance.

Now, I'm not going to say to an American: "Quick, I expect you to know the names of every Chinese emperor of the Han dynasty! List them now, ignorance is no excuse!" You don't have to be a walking encyclopedia. But there is no excuse for general knowledge or at least some knowledge of your country's history (for example, I don't it is unrealistic to ask any US citizen to list 5 US presidents and something they did. Hell, it's only about a ninth of the list--I could break half without a sweat).

At the risk of going off-topic here, it does sadden me when people say things like "Of course I don't know about X, I didn't study X in school." Rather like the hoohah some years ago about an undergraduate at Cambridge who couldn't identify Africa on a map of the world, and defended herself by saying she wasn't studying geography. That's a more extreme example, but the mere fact that you haven't formally been taught something is not a sufficient explanation for your not knowing it - or at least it shouldn't be.

There are obviously shades of grey in that analysis. Our Cambridge UG is as you said, a very extreme example but Cambridge is a dump anyway :p (2 BananaLee points for getting the reference)

I do believe though that not being formally taught or rather, not doing critical research into a topic means one only has a superficial knowledge of something and would either: -
a) give mainstream opinions which may or may not be their own
b) give bad opinions (such as Han China being teh roxors compared to Rome)
c) be clever enough to say "I don't know enough about the topic to give a well-rounded opinion"

While your statement "the mere fact that you haven't formally been taught something [shouldn't be] a sufficient explanation for your not knowing it" is true, I would argue that the intended implication behind that is "I haven't learnt enough - or I couldn't be bothered learning about it" and not the strict, literal interpretation of that statement.

And I do believe "CBFed" is a sufficient reason to not know about something. After all, I don't give two flying <insert a plural word that can be used as a noun, verb, adjective here adverb here> about geology, political theory, Hindu theology or American football. And if people ask me about it, I'll say "I don't give a <word for excrement>"

At the risk of going off-topic here, it does sadden me when people say things like "Of course I don't know about X, I didn't study X in school." Rather like the hoohah some years ago about an undergraduate at Cambridge who couldn't identify Africa on a map of the world, and defended herself by saying she wasn't studying geography. That's a more extreme example, but the mere fact that you haven't formally been taught something is not a sufficient explanation for your not knowing it - or at least it shouldn't be.

I wouldn't consider knowing such conspiracy theories as presented in this thread are really necessary, are they?

So, I would say, in this case, not learning it in school would be sufficient. In other cases, such as basic geography, probably not.

Yeah. I would say that if you are interested in Shakespeare, you are probably at least aware of the "Bacon" theory. Depending on the depth of your interest, you may be more or less knowledgeable on the whole set of "conspiracy theories". OTOH, if you are not interested in Shakespeare (sadly, a majority of people) you will neither know, nor care about such theories.

OTOH, if you are not interested in Shakespeare (sadly, a majority of people) you will neither know, nor care about such theories.

Your wrong,sir! ;) I don't really care much for Shakespeare at all but I cared enough to read the thread. Some people just like learning things...have hope!

I am not a huge fan of Shakespeare but I did know about the controversy and at least that there were theories. I didn't learn them in school though (which is where I actually read Shakespeare).