Were the plays named as Shakespeare's actually written by him?

Answer 1

Actually, it's virtually certain that they were. The plays were all published, sometimes many times, with his name on the cover, and never with anyone else's name on them. There is no evidence of anyone ever publishing plays at that time under a pseudonym, and nobody in the history of literature has published plays where a well-known real person is identified as the author when that person was not the author. Shakespeare was a well-known actor in the London of the day; the plays were performed exclusively by the company he was known to have belonged to, and not by any other company. The facts as we know them are completely consistent with Shakespeare being the author of his plays.