Comparing Shakespeare Shakedown And Top 10 Reasons

Are you a Shakespeare enthusiast or are you skeptical about whether he is the true author of his work? Kier Cutler and Simon Schama go neck to neck to determine the truth. Simon Schama's “Shakespeare Shakedown” and Keir Cutler’s “Top 10 Reasons Shakespeare Did Not Write Shakespeare” are the texts we will be looking at today. This century-long argument is going head to head with one thinking Shakespeare wrote his works, and the other not even believing that he existed! Let's get right into it. Between these two texts, Cutler has the more convincing argument that Shakespeare is not the author of his work. Cutler debunks all of the reasons that Schama gives and he also makes some excellent points of his own.

Cutler's argument is stronger because

In the first paragraph of the sixth section, Cutler says, “William Shaxper’s will is four pages long and handwritten by an attorney. In these four pages, there is no indication that he was a writer. The will mentions not a single book, play, poem, or unfinished literary work, or scrap of manuscript of any kind.” This quote shows that Shakespeare was most likely not literate, and it also touched on the fact that he didn’t mention any of his works in his will. In the second paragraph of the sixth section, Cutler states, “The absence of books in the will is telling, since to write his works the mythical William Shakespeare would have had to have access to hundreds of books. The plays are full of expertise on a wide variety of subjects including contemporary and classical literature, multiple foreign languages, and a detailed knowledge of Italy. Italian language and culture, the law, medicine, military matters, sea navigation, painting, mathematics, astrology, horticulture, music, and a variety of aristocratic sports like bowls and falconry.”. Cutler points out that Shakespeare wouldn’t have had such a wide field of knowledge of different cultures if he had never traveled that far. He also points out that his plays are full of different cultures that he wouldn’t have had any information about it. Cutler's points in this section really shatter the idea of

My third reason is that Shakespeare could not have been a “genius”, he would have had to have had more education. In the second paragraph in the eighth section, Cutler expresses, “About one-third of Shakespeare’s plays are either set in Italy or make specific references to events and locations there. Genius may explain the literary skills in Shakespeare’s works, but it does not supply knowledge of places never visited or languages never learned.”. This debunks the argument that he could have been a genius, since being a genius does not carry over to the knowledge of events or locations. While this claim is easily believable, it is not very realistic. Geniuses can only have knowledge of what resources they have. We touched on Shakespeare’s illiteracy earlier on, which would make it pretty hard for him to be a genius if he didn't know how to read or write. Geniuses can not just know events that they would have had no knowledge of otherwise unless they traveled or were very rich or of a higher power. Knowledge does not come to an individual without resources. These are the reasons why this claim can not be