Did Shakespeare really write his masterpieces?

[ProfWag]

Okay, you got me. It's true that I'm trying to find something else to talk about than the innocent slaughter of millions of people. So, here's one. Does anyone have any information on the possibility that William Shakespeare didn't actually write his masterpieces? There appears to be some very credible evidence, or lack thereof, that it was someone else. I'll post some stuff, but wondering if anyone here might already have some knowledge as a starting point?

[Misha]

[ProfWag]

[Misha]

[SydneyPSIder]

[Misha]

[SydneyPSIder]

It turns out Robin Williams had worked it out by 1.10.1991:

[Scepcop]

This is one conspiracy theory that doesn't make sense.

It would be a writer's worst nightmare to have his/her masterpiece works attributed to someone else. If you were the author of the Shakespeare works, would you want someone to take credit for your work? Think about it. It's too implausible.

I don't understand why some conspiracy theory figures believe in every conspiracy, even when it doesn't make sense or doesn't have evidence behind it. For example, Michael Tsarion believes that Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to them. He just takes the conspiratorial side of every little thing, even when there's no evidence for it. That's taking it too far.

It's one thing to believe in a conspiracy when the evidence and probability support it (like in the JFK Assassination), but it's another to believe every conspiracy theory out there without evidence, simply because it appeals to you. That's odd.

One has to take the middle ground. Truth is somewhere in the middle, not on either extreme. The Michael Shermer types who deny all conspiracy theories are wrong too.

The mafia used to be a conspiracy theory too. J Edgar Hoover denied it for years. Skeptics at the time would have taken his side, because it's fashionable to them to deny all conspiracy theories.

[SydneyPSIder]

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Main article: Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604)

Since the early 1920s, the leading alternative authorship candidate has been Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and Lord Great Chamberlain of England. Oxford followed his grandfather and father in sponsoring companies of actors, and he also patronised a company of musicians and one of tumblers at one time.[228] Oxford was an important courtier poet,[229] praised as such and as a playwright by George Puttenham and Francis Meres, who included him in a list of the "best for comedy amongst us". Examples of his poetry but none of his theatrical works survive.[230] Oxford was noted for his literary and theatrical patronage. Between 1564 and 1599 some 33 works were dedicated to him, including works by Arthur Golding, John Lyly, Robert Greene and Anthony Munday.[231] In 1583 he bought the sublease of the first Blackfriars Theatre and gave it to the poet-playwright Lyly, who operated it for a season under Oxford's patronage.[232]

Another motivation given is the politically explosive "Prince Tudor theory" that the youthful Oxford was Queen Elizabeth's lover; according to this theory, Oxford dedicated Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and the Sonnets to their son, England's rightful Tudor Prince, Henry Wriothesley, who was brought up as the 3rd Earl of Southampton.[180]

Oxfordians say that the dedication to the sonnets published in 1609 implies that the author was dead prior to their publication and that 1604 (the year of Oxford's death) was the year regular publication of "newly corrected" and "augmented" Shakespeare plays stopped.[239] Consequently, they date most of the plays earlier than the standard chronology and say that the plays which show evidence of revision and collaboration were left unfinished by Oxford and completed by other playwrights after his death.[240]

[ProfWag]