Shakespeare Authorship Controversy

Of all the playwrights, that have existed in the world, the most notorious was known as William Shakespeare. Or was he? This is the question, that is pondered upon, by many people that are in search of truth. The controversy that revolves around this author is immense, and the debate of authorship for the plays that are ascribed to William Shakespeare could practically last forever. But, why is there so much debate revolving this author? Isn’t there, sufficient evidence, to persuade the masses of Shakespearian readers of his existence? Where is the myriad of documents that can prove his existence? Seriously, [glaring around the room] are there any living descendants that can attest to the existence of their grandpappy?! To put simply no. All

We must acknowledge the arguments that is typically used against this playwright. The First comes in the form of burden of proof. According to William Causey, “the Oxfordian’s should have the burden of producing the evidence and the burden of persuading the audience in the authorship debate of the strength of the evidence”. He expands on the idea of persuading the audience with authorship by stating that a “standard of beyond a reasonable doubt should be used in resolving the Shakespeare authorship debate” (Causey, 102). After the establishment of proof has been made. Another way they, non-Shakespearians, try to discredit William Shakespeare as the author of plays that are ascribed to him, is with the “lack of evidence regarding (1) Shakespeare’s basic education… and (3) his whereabouts between the years 1585 and 1593” (Gibson, 309). These are reasonable concerns, and the evidence needed to satify the souls in search of an answer will not be

We also learned that he attended school until the age of 14 and was removed due to family financial issues. But where exactly are the records that can attest to this fact. Shakespearians like to prescribe this assumption that he would’ve went to school at the King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon. They also will praise Shakespeare for learning Latin at a young age. But this is only their assumption. There is no definitive proof that Shakespeare even attend any kind of school. This is a problem that the Shakespearians refuse to acknowledge. As evidenced in Christian’s presentation on the words/ language attributed to Shakespeare, over 3,000 words are accredited to this man. This is absurd due to the likelihood that he did not have any formal education, due to the non-existence of evidence that could be obtained by the believers of Shakespeare. Now that this is out of the way we can move onto his whereabouts from 1585 to