Choose your provider to watch Live TV & Full Episodes. So why do so some people suggest that William Shakespeare is either not the sole author or, more controversially, not the author of the plays all? However, as the Henry VI plays were written in 1591 (before Marlowe’s death) this claim doesn’t advance the Marlovian theory. Sturrock invites readers to tabulate their own responses and beliefs into charts in the book. In fact, the one single uniting thread of all of Shakespeare Doubters has been class war– Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, is the leading alternative candidate, Sturrock said, so his characters choose between Shakespeare, Oxford and a possible third, unknown author, dubbed "Ignotus. [23] A typical example occurs in Macbeth as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder Duncan: [A bell rings. Services, Shakespeare's Sonnets: Reading and Interpreting the Major Poems, Working Scholars® Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. Plays written under de Vere’s name did exist, but the quality of his work was accepted as significantly below Shakespeare’s level of writing. Although Sturrock wants readers to arrive at their own conclusions, he does have an opinion. Shakespeare is a wonder, a playwright and poet who created works of immense beauty. But it’s especially interesting to note that for a span of more than two centuries after his death, no one even suggested that the Shakespeare of Stratford was not the author of his own plays. Some of his most famous works are "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In any case, because the values and beliefs of the Protestant and Catholic religions were not extremely different, it would have been easy for Shakespeare to cater to both without showing any specific preference towards one or the other. Shakespeare is best known for plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and many others; however, he wrote more than just plays. They are over 400 years old, and there’s certainly enough evidence to suggest that he didn’t write every single word in them. Did Shakespeare Really Write His Plays? However, the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt does not necessarily mean to say that Shakespeare didn’t write ANY of the plays ascribed to him. If you do, you’re not alone. There are almost no surviving records verifying Shakespeare’s existence. At the same time, Richard's vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays. What cements a writer’s legacy more than when a segment of … He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. in America are taught, in ways both subtle and not, that Shakespeare is not their inheritance–it belongs to the wealthy, the educated, and, naturally, the white. The theory suggests that Marlowe, who may have been a spy for the English secret service, faked his death in 1593 to avoid punishment for his political/religious opinions. Supposedly, Marlowe continued to write plays under the name “William Shakespeare.”. Copyright © 2010-2020 New Video Channel America, LLC. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony. The real issue is that too many kids (and adults!) Even Malcolm X became “intrigued over the Shakespearean dilemma,” as he referred to it in his Autobiography. [27] Humour is a key element in all of Shakespeare's plays. All rights reserved. Despite Anonymous being a box office failure and absolutely historically inaccurate, Roland Emmerich is still somehow allowed to make films. What did William Shakespeare write besides plays? In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Shakespeare authorship theories have maintained an upward trajectory in popular discourse, even if they’ve never gained even a foothold among establishment Shakespeareans. William Shakespeare definitely wrote 37 plays, though it is possible he wrote two or three more. His works have many similarities to the writing of Christopher Marlowe, and seem to reveal strong influences from the Queen's Men's performances, especially in his history plays. The Marlovian theory gained some notoriety in 2016, when Oxford University Press announced they would be crediting Christopher Marlowe as a co-writer on Shakespeare’s plays Henry VI, Parts One, Two and Three. Rashly— [Exit. His best guess was that they were the work of … "From the plays, from the sonnets, from editorial comments in the First Folio [1623 collection of the plays], from the dedication of the sonnets, and so on.". "But once you start asking what the sonnets are all about, you are automatically led to the question: Who was the author anyway?". Oh, also de Vere died in 1604. Roland Emmerich, filmmaker, Shakespeare hater and penis sculpture enthusiast (not joking)(image credit: Reiner Bajo). [1] The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. [6] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. Other than the plays themselves, we have precious little documentary evidence about Shakespeare. The Shakespeare community breathed a collective gasp earlier this week, when Dennis McCarthy, “a self-taught Shakespeare scholar,” announced the publication of his book which argues that Shakespeare used another author’s writings to influence his own. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself. Years before, while studying pulsars, Sturrock devised a new method to process information using statistics. The Role of Women in Shakespeare's Tragedies In Shakespeare’s tragedies and his plays in general, we can come across several types of female characters. Nonetheless, this didn’t stop Roland Emmerich, director of thought-provoking films like the 1998 version of Godzilla and Independence Day: Resurgence, from making a film proposing that de Vere was the actual author of Shakespeare’s canon. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet's mind:[8], Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting Rylance won a Tony in 2014 for playing Olivia in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and is regarded as one of the finest actors in the world. Not good enough. In his late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.[20][21]. 16th and 17th century England was an atmosphere of theatrical one-upmanship. And among those who believe that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays, de Vere can be said to be the leading contender to unseat the Bard, but he’s far from the only one – there have been dozens of candidates proposed and thousands of books and articles written on the so-called Shakespeare authorship question. The film, Anonymous, not only suggests that de Vere was the real “Shakespeare,” but that the actual William Shakespeare was a jealous actor who blackmails de Vere into writing plays under Shakespeare’s name. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet. [36] His characters were human beings[37] who commanded the sympathy of audiences when many other playwrights' characters were flat or archetypes. And among those who believe that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays, de Vere can be said to be the leading contender to unseat the Bard, but he’s far from the only one – there have been dozens of candidates proposed and thousands of books and articles written on the so-called Shakespeare authorship question. Although scholars desperately searched for documentation to flesh out Shakespeare’s biography in the decades after his death, they found very little, and, to make matters more confusing, much of what they found was fraudulent. The author of this essay, hoping to say a little something about liberation and literature, has actually piled on the people that need liberating. Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well…. Did Shakespeare Actually Write His Plays? In recent years, some education reformers have railed against William Shakespeare, whose work is a staple of primary and secondary education. [43], All references to Hamlet, unless otherwise specified, are taken from the Arden Shakespeare Q2. [26] Shakespeare's writing features extensive wordplay of double entendres and clever rhetorical flourishes. "As I thumb through the 25 charts [of characters' evolving degrees of belief], I see Shakespeare going down and down and Oxford going up and up," he said. An online tool, "Prospero," connected to the book's website, allows readers to calculate their final degrees of belief. For example, comic scenes dominate over historical material in Henry IV, Part 1. There is even a Shakespearean Authorship Trust, which you can donate money to in order to help fund research related to discovering the true author(s) of Shakespeare’s plays. Mark Rylance as Olivia in Twelfth Night(image credit: Sara Krulwich / New York Times). Hoffman hoped that the truth would finally be uncovered after his death. [30] Comedy is not confined to Shakespeare's comedies, and is a core element of many of the tragedy and history plays. They voice their opinions on 25 pieces of evidence, but Sturrock invites readers to weigh in as well and arrive at their own conclusion. Amongst the many theories forwarded, a few arguments have emerged. All rights reserved. By making the protagonist's character development central to the plot, Shakespeare changed what could be accomplished with drama. “If he existed, why didn’t King James use him?”. He lived from 1564 to 1616. It’s also worth noting that the Henry VI plays are considered some of Shakespeare’s worst. Shakespeare is also known for his use of clever wordplay, especially in his comedies. There are a few letters and bills addressed to him, but only a handful of signatures written in Shakespeare’s hand. “Ay, if myself were to be ‘wrecked’ as such”. While writing his 2009 memoir, A Tale of Two Sciences, he revisited his early pastime of writing poetry. That would not let me sleep. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. He is credited with inventing or popularizing many common words and phrases used today, such as "fashionable," "in a pickle," "lackluster" and "wild goose chase. One of Sturrock's characters asks if it really matters who. Now, of course, authorship theories are going viral, with a host of websites dedicated to exploring the question. 1. It’s believed that teaching Shakespeare at too early an age can scare children away from studying English, thinking that it is “too hard.” Clearly, there are a number of reasons to unseat Shakespeare, who, despite some unpopularity, is still the most-produced playwright in the country. And maybe if the name “Shakespeare” wasn’t thrown around as much, it would be easier to judge each of these plays on their own merits. QC Voices is an evolving experiment that started with a handful of Queens College students writing about their interests and experiences. At what it did so freely? If Shakespeare was a QC student, he’d be looking for a new college right now. There is not one single shred of evidence that anyone other than William Shakespeare was the primary author of the plays attributed to him. In attempting to prove the opposite, the author of this article has actually aligned himself with, at best, the snobs, at worst, those who terrorize the underclass. answer! Was William Shakespeare part of the Romantic... How was William Shakespeare influenced by the... How many phrases did William Shakespeare... How many plays did William Shakespeare write after... How many plays had William Shakespeare written by... How many romance plays did William Shakespeare... How many sonnets did William Shakespeare... How many sons did William Shakespeare have? How old was William Shakespeare when he wrote... How old was William Shakespeare when his parents... How successful was William Shakespeare during his... How many awards did William Shakespeare... 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Another characteristic of Shakespeare's work is meditative soliloquies from the main characters. Shakespeare is best known for plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and many others; however, he wrote more than just plays. [45], The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shakespeare%27s_writing_style&oldid=943833230, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 4 March 2020, at 04:13. One thought on “ Did Shakespeare Actually Write His Plays? "[29] Indeed, in the nineteenth century, popular censored versions of the plays were produced as The Family Shakspeare [sic] by Henrietta Bowdler (writing anonymously) and later by her brother Thomas Bowdler. Sturrock, 88, is a professor emeritus of applied physics and an eminent astrophysicist. [31], Besides following the popular forms of his day, Shakespeare's general style is comparable to several of his contemporaries. He is also famous for his sonnets. It simply suggests that there is room for doubt as to whether he wrote all of it, or, if, as McCarthy’s findings suggest, he was influenced by or collaborating with other writers of the time in order to write his own work. [11] In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another in one of Lady Macbeth's well-known speeches: Was the hope drunk, [17] Like all playwrights of the time, Shakespeare dramatised stories from sources such as Petrarch and Holinshed. Writers in the Elizabethan period collaborated frequently, usually to meet deadlines for completing their plays, and it’s reasonable that Shakespeare, a relatively green writer, would collaborate with Marlowe, who was the more experienced one. [33] Romeo and Juliet is thought to be based on Arthur Brooke's narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. And Pity, like a naked new-born babe, Our writers are as varied as the people of Queens. BBC America as part of your cable package. Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" speech is a notable example. ", "The evidence comes in many forms," Sturrock said. © copyright 2003-2020 Study.com. In fact, the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt is one of the least ludicrous ideas about Shakespearean authorship there is: The Marlovian theory of Shakespeare authorship proposes that Christopher Marlowe, one of the most well-respected playwrights of Shakespeare’s time and a rival of his, actually wrote all of Shakespeare’s work. Festival of Sacrifice: The Past and Present of the Islamic Holiday of Eid al-Adha. That’s because of the release of the new movie Anonymous (in theaters October 28), a period historical thriller, directed by Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day) and based on the theory that someone else wrote the plays normally attributed to Shakespeare. In the case of the new movie, that someone is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (played by Rhys Ifans), a cultured aristocrat in the court of Queen Elizabeth I (played variously by Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave). It also famously left his. All of Shakespeare's sonnets were written with just a … Mark Twain, one of the most famous doubters, author of the essay “Is Shakespeare Dead?” wrote: “So far as anybody actually knows and can prove, Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.”, “I am ‘sort of’ haunted by the conviction,” wrote novelist Henry James, “that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world.”, Sigmund Freud, whose own work is often equated with Shakespeare’s in its cultural impact and who drew heavily on Hamlet for some of his own theories, also believed that someone other than the actor from Stratford wrote the plays. Peter Sturrock, Applied Physics: (650) 723-1438, [email protected], Dan Stober, Stanford News Service: (650) 721-6965, [email protected], A publication of Stanford's Office of University Communications, © Stanford University. [41] Hamlet knows that he must avenge the death of his father, but he is too indecisive, too self-doubting, to carry this out until he has no choice. After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. Most people are content to accept that an Englishman with that name was born in 1564, died in 1616 and wrote plays… History abhors a vacuum, especially when it’s in the form of a lack of written evidence about one of the world’s greatest writers. In 1848, a young Lutheran scholar from Pennsylvania named Samuel Mosheim Schmucker, dismayed about the academic trend of using historical and biographical evidence to doubt the existence of Christ, argued that the same approaches could be used to argue that Shakespeare never existed. [4][5] No single play marks a change from the traditional to the freer style. Take, for example, the Shakespearean Authorship Trust, a society that’s been around since 1922, whose current chairman, actor Mark Rylance, along with fellow doubter Derek Jacobi, appears in Anonymous. Fluency in French. Paul Gabrielsen is an intern at Stanford News Service. If the Kennedy assassination doesn’t interest you, and you’ve got a few extra years on your hands, you might want to look into the debate over who wrote William Shakespeare’s plays. But, if anything, the joke was on Schmucker. [38][39] Macbeth, for example, commits six murders by the end of the fourth act, and is responsible for many deaths offstage, yet still commands an audience's sympathy until the very end[40] because he is seen as a flawed human being, not a monster. “Schmucker has a great time of it,” writes Shapiro, “mostly because it never entered his head that his readers could seriously imagine that Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare.”. His book for over $ 100… a key element in all of Shakespeare first. 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