Pen names are glass doors. While the truth seems visible it can not be truly seen without first getting passed the door. Shakespeare’s work has been admired for centuries and it has gained much respect, however, some say the work of Shakespeare may in fact not be his. There are many questions surrounding the topic of Shakespeare’s authorship and whether or not he could have really been the author of so many thought provoking and diverse plays. There is great argument over his lack of proper schooling and travel, as well as there are many candidates that may be the true Shakespeare. William Shakespeare did not have the resources necessary to become such a great playwright and publish such a vast amount of sonnets and plays. William Shakespeare’s
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The first claim that Shakespeare may not have written the plays and sonnets came in 1785. These claims came forth by an Oxford scholar by the name of James Wilmot. Wilmot, who lived near Stratford-upon-Avon, began to search for local records that would’ve proved Shakespeare’s authorship, but came up empty handed. There were not many documents on Shakespeare back then since Shakespeare had lived in an age in which biographies were not common and other sources of information about him were few, “those who knew him were no longer alive, the only credible sources of information were letters, literary manuscripts, or official documents, and these were either lost or remained undiscovered” (Shapiro 18). This brought him to the conclusion that someone else must have been the author, most likely Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Francis Bacon was the main candidate due to the great similarity between his philosophical views and those found in the works of Shakespeare. Bacon had studied at Cambridge and at the Inns of Court, and traveled throughout Europe. Along with these main traits that connected him to the plays Bacon also had a wide literary range which included philosophical works, parliamentary speeches, and political reports. Furthermore, Delia Bacon, a Shakespearean scholar in the 1800s, while searching for an answer as to why the fourth part of Francis Bacon’s magnum opus, Instauratio Magna, was incomplete and presumed lost found the answer in the works of Shakespeare. The missing work had in fact been there the whole time under a different name, William Shakespeare. She found the idea of one incredible mind as the origin of all this amazing work to be a better explanation than believing that two of the greatest literary minds had not only lived in the same time and place, but had also shared such great similarities in their
The first claim that Shakespeare may not have written the plays and sonnets came in 1785. These claims came forth by an Oxford scholar by the name of James Wilmot. Wilmot, who lived near Stratford-upon-Avon, began to search for local records that would’ve proved Shakespeare’s authorship, but came up empty handed. There were not many documents on Shakespeare back then since Shakespeare had lived in an age in which biographies were not common and other sources of information about him were few, “those who knew him were no longer alive, the only credible sources of information were letters, literary manuscripts, or official documents, and these were either lost or remained undiscovered” (Shapiro 18). This brought him to the conclusion that someone else must have been the author, most likely Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Francis Bacon was the main candidate due to the great similarity between his philosophical views and those found in the works of Shakespeare. Bacon had studied at Cambridge and at the Inns of Court, and traveled throughout Europe. Along with these main traits that connected him to the plays Bacon also had a wide literary range which included philosophical works, parliamentary speeches, and political reports. Furthermore, Delia Bacon, a Shakespearean scholar in the 1800s, while searching for an answer as to why the fourth part of Francis Bacon’s magnum opus, Instauratio Magna, was incomplete and presumed lost found the answer in the works of Shakespeare. The missing work had in fact been there the whole time under a different name, William Shakespeare. She found the idea of one incredible mind as the origin of all this amazing work to be a better explanation than believing that two of the greatest literary minds had not only lived in the same time and place, but had also shared such great similarities in their