What do literary scholars elsewhere in the world worry about? Curiously enough, they worry about something they have been worried about since the 17th century. They wonder who really wrote the works that we attribute to William Shakespeare.
On one side of the debate are the Stratfordians. The website Shakespeareauthor ship.com summarizes the conventional view: “Antistratfordians try to seduce their readers into believing that there is some sort of ‘mystery’ about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works. They often assert that nothing (or at most very little) connects William Shakespeare of Stratford to the works of William Shakespeare the author, or that the evidence which exists is ‘circumstantial’ and subject to some doubt. These are astounding misrepresentations that bear little resemblance to reality. Indeed, abundant evidence testifies to the fact that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works published under his name, and this evidence is as extensive and direct as the evidence for virtually any of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.”
On the other side of the debate are numerous scholars and personalities less inclined to believe tradition. There is now, in fact, an active international movement to make Shakespeare’s authorship a major academic issue. The movement is called “The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition.” Its website doubtaboutwill.org contains the declaration that I, with almost 2,000 other intellectuals around the world, have signed. Here are excerpts:
“To Shakespeare lovers everywhere, as well as to those who are encountering him for the first time: know that a great mystery lies before you. How could William ‘Shakspere’ of Stratford have been the author, William Shakespeare, and leave no definitive evidence of it that dates from his lifetime? And why is there an enormous gulf between the alleged author’s life and the contents of his works?
“In the annals of world literature, William Shakespeare is an icon of towering greatness. But who was he? The following are among the many outstanding writers, thinkers, actors, directors and statesmen of the past who have expressed doubt that Mr. ‘Shakspere’ wrote the works of William Shakespeare: Mark Twain, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Orson Welles, Leslie Howard, Tyrone Guthrie, Charlie Chaplin, Sir John Gielgud, William James, Sigmund Freud, Clifton Fadiman, John Galsworthy, Mortimer J. Adler, Paul H. Nitze, Lord Palmerston, William Y. Elliott, Harry A. Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell Jr.
“Present-day doubters include many more prominent individuals, numerous leading Shakespearean actors, and growing numbers of English professors. Yet orthodox scholars claim that there is no room for doubt that Mr. Shakspere wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to him. Some say that it is not even an important question.
“We, the undersigned, hereby declare our view that there is room for reasonable doubt about the identity of William Shakespeare, and that it is an important question for anyone seeking to understand the works, the formative literary culture in which they were produced, or the nature of literary creativity and genius.
“Many people think that Mr. Shakspere (a frequent spelling of his name, used here to distinguish him from the author) claimed to have written the works. No such record exists. The case for him as the author rests largely on testimony in the First Folio collection of the plays, published in 1623, seven years after he died. However, nothing in the contemporaneous documentary evidence of his life confirms the Folio testimony. If Mr. Shakspere was the author, there should be definitive evidence of it from his lifetime.”
The declaration then lists several facts that tend to cast doubt on the ability of Shakspere of Stratford to have written Shakespeare’s masterpieces.
For example, “Neither Ben Jonson, nor Leonard Digges, ever wrote a personal reference to Mr. Shakspere while he lived. Not until the year Shakspere died did Jonson refer to ‘Shakespeare,’ and then only to list him as an actor.”
“The Stratford monument (erected in the early 1600s) shows a man with a drooping moustache holding a wool or grain sack, but no pen, no paper. The monument’s strange inscription never states that Mr. Shakspere was the author William Shakespeare. Epitaphs of other writers of the time identify them clearly as writers, so why not Mr. Shakspere’s epitaph?
“Not one play, not one poem, not one letter in Mr. Shakspere’s own hand has ever been found.”
Shakspere’s signatures in legal documents suggest that he was illiterate. “Mr. Shakspere grew up in an illiterate household in the remote agricultural town of Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no record that he traveled at all during his formative years, or that he ever left England. Both of his parents witnessed documents with a mark; but most surprisingly, neither of his daughters could write.”
“We make no claim, in signing this declaration, to know exactly what happened, who wrote the works, nor even that Mr. Shakspere definitely did not. Individual signatories will have their personal views about the author, but all we claim here is that there is ‘room for doubt.’
“Therefore, in adding our names to those of the distinguished individuals named above, we hereby declare that the identity of William Shakespeare should, henceforth, be regarded in academia as a legitimate issue for research and publication, and an appropriate topic for instruction and discussion in classrooms.”
William Shakespeare, whoever he was, was the greatest writer who ever lived.