William Shakespeare Authorship

William Shakespeare Author or Not? - An Analysis of the Authorship Question

Did William Shakespeare actually write Shakespeare? Although throughout history, William Shakespeare has been known as one of the greatest and most prolific authors of all time, many prominent people now question whether Shakespeare was in fact the true and only author of Shakespearean writing. This question has come to light due to numerous historians delving into Shakespeare’s background and family life and noting that Shakespeare’s writings have little in common with his background and personal experiences. Shakespeare had minimal education and never traveled outside of England, yet his writings mirror those of a highly educated aristocrat and a world traveler.

A major inconsistency with Shakespeare’s authorship is that all records show that Shakespeare was neither a worldly nor a well-travelled man. In fact, “There is no record that he traveled at all during his formative years, or that he ever left England.” (DoubtAboutWill.org.) Therefore, the logical question is whether someone who has never left his country would have the ability to vividly and in such great detail depict places he had never seen. In addition to being confined to England for his entire life and purportedly writing about other countries, Shakespearean novels also speak with unbelievable familiarity regarding issues of aristocracy and nobility neither of which Shakespeare had experienced in his life. (DoubtAboutWill.org.) “How could an untraveled, poorly-schooled commoner have written so widely on topics about which he would have had no first-hand knowledge – court intrigue, the legal process, life in other countries, even stories and information that had never been translated into English?” (bbcamerica.com) Scholars who support the theory that Shakespeare did in fact author his own plays make the claim that Shakespeare was a genius and well-read man and as such, quite capable to fabricate descriptions of foreign sovereignties. (news.psu.edu) However, even with the acceptance that Shakespeare was a genius, the inside information and level of detail is

When researchers searched Shakespeare’s writings, they found almost nothing in his own handwriting. In fact, the few times when evidence was found bearing Shakespeare’s handwriting, it seemed to be written in a shaky manner that simulated the writing of a person who had hardly written or was barely literate. “Yet the only writings said to be in his own hand are six shaky, inconsistent signatures on legal documents, including three found on his will. If, in fact, these signatures are his, they reveal that Mr. Shakspere experienced difficulty signing his name.” (DoubtAboutWill.org.) This casts great doubt to the theory that Shakespeare wrote all or any of the work credited to him and gives rise to alternate theories of authorship. In addition to Shakespeare’s shaky and almost illegible handwriting, the spelling of Shakespeare’s name is inconsistent. The legal documents attributed to the man we assume was William Shakespeare mostly bear the last name Shakspere without the first “e” or the second “a.” (DoubtAboutWill.org.) However, none of his literary work ever used this spelling of his name. In addition to this controversy, many of Shakespeare’s witting’s, hyphenate his name as Shake-speare. (DoubtAboutWill.org.) This hyphening of a name was an uncommon practice for authors when signing their own legitimate name to their work. (DoubtAboutWill.org.)