Sunday, July 11, 2010

Shakespeare, I doubt you!


The authorship of many famous plays of romance, comedy and tragedy have been doubted as the works of the great writer, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is said to be the writer of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 long narrative poems and many other poems, however, the actual authorship of these great works have been debated over the years. Many people claim that all of these works could not have probably been penned down by this man over here. Many reasons are available to let us believe that Shakespeare could not have possibly been the author of these works of genius.

Firstly, let us examine Shakespeare's background. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire England. Throughout his years, Shakespeare had only attended a few years of grammar school and had not went on to study in any universities or traveled abroad to study. With such little command of the English language, how could Shakespeare have probably constructed and written some of the most profound usages of the English Language in the poems that were credited to him? Therefore, it is quite impossible that the greatest writer in the history of England never went to school and still had the ability to write such great plays of sophistication.

Also, Shakespeare never traveled abroad. So, without traveling or going to school, how did Shakespeare suddenly gain the education to write great plays of such varied subject matter? How was Shakespeare able to find out so many accurate details of what life was like in the royal court when he was just a poor "writer" during that time?

Furthermore, Shakespeare's exact date of birth is unknown, few documents or verifiable sources of Shakespeare's life exists, much fewer than what would be expected of such a prominent figure and none of his original manuscripts have survived. No documents are available to provide as evidence that anyone has even met him, where not even his own family referred to him as a famous playwright. When Shakespeare died, he did not leave any letters or diaries that referred to his writing career at all.

Many theories exist as to who actually wrote Shakespeare's works and many suitable "candidates" have been selected as who would be the author of those works. William Shakespeare might also be a fictitious person where it was just a cover-up of the author's actual names as many of Shakespeare's plays were highly political and the author would likely have his head resting on his feet if the original writer were to be found out. However though, we can still continue to believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and let us just enjoy what great works he or someone else wrote.

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