Shakespeare Essay, Research Paper

“Shakespeare: Fact Or Fiction?” Was the man we know as Shakespeare really

the author of

the “Shakespearean Works”? We know little about the man called

Shakespeare, Did he really write

the plays, or is he just a man that got confused within history?

(Sobran 44) There is not even a

correct spelling of this mans name, Some of the spellings include

Shakspere, Shakespeare, And

Shaxpere. Shakespeare, Is it the man, Or is it another? (Hayes 1D)

Shakespeare is both fact and fiction, he was no concern until

nearly two hundred years

after he perished, and there is still no definite or probably will there

ever be a conclusion to this

mystery. (Sobran 44) There is another man that can be attributed with the

works of

“Shakespeare”, His name is Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

(Bethell 47)

The man known as Shakespeare does not fit perfectly into the

necessary criteria to

determine the author of these works. Thomas Looney invented a series of

criteria that had to be

filled, in order to be a possible candidate for the authorship of the

Shakespearean works. To have

all the knowledge that is portrayed in the works, the author must have

accomplished many things.

These including a superior education, from what we know of “Shakespeare”,

this was not a

possibility.(Bethell 46) We do not even know if Shakespeare has ever

written anything in his life,

Nor do we know that he was paid for writing these works. The man

Shakespeare does not even

make a claim that he is the author.(Bethell 50)

He may not have been able to write the simplest thing of all, His own

name.(Hayes 1D)

Last Name 2

Its not how little we know about Shakespeare that causes confusion

and difficulty, Its the

things that we do know about this man that cause the confusion and

difficulty. We know

Shakespears father, a glover, could not write. When he signed documents,

he simply made an “X”

, This is why it is beleived that Shakespeare could not write also,

Because he probably did not

attend school therefore his education was passed down from his father.

(Bethell 48)

We do know much more about the man Edward DeVere. We know that

because deVere

was a nobleman, he could not have his name written upon his writings

because he would be

considered of a lower class. The plays contain a sense of hate towards

some of the noblemen of

that time period, which also point the authorship towards DeVere. (Hayes

1D) When DeVere was

a young man, he spent a lot of time in Italy and Europe, This could

explain the great detail used in

the Shakespearean plays of Venice, and other European locations.(Sobran

45) The sonnets have

never been able to fit into Shakespears life, On the other hand they fit

into DeVere’s life well.

(Sobran 45)

There are facts that lean both ways in this age old mystery of

authorship, Though the

Strafordian man does not fit into the story very well, He may have some

advantages that the

Oxfordian man may not. DeVere on the other hand, has mostly every fact

pointing towards him as

the valid author for the “Shakespearean” works, From his education, to his

experiences, to his

travel. The Oxfordian seems to come out on top. Shakespeare: Stratforidan,

or DeVere?