Did Shakespeare have awful writing and bad spelling?

Answer 1

Nobody in those days could spell in the sense we understand it, not even printers and publishers or even nobles. And the style of handwriting they used is difficult to read at the best of times. It is true that the only sample of Shakespeare's handwriting we have is a number of signatures, in which his name is spelled differently and the handwriting difficult to read. But this is not surprising, really.

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We have only six examples of Shakespeare's handwriting, and all of them are signatures. Unlike people nowadays, people back then did not sign their name so often that they had a standard signature. All of the signatures are spelled differently and the handwriting is not so great. But they show that the person who wrote them could write and had been trained to do it. In particular, the form of the capital "S" and the small "h" are typical of the handwriting style called "secretary hand" which could only have been learned in school.

Answer 2

We only have copies of his signature, and although signatures are usually awful, Shakespeare's are really awful. If they are any indication his writing was pretty awful but in fact there are many people whose writing is even worse. Sometimes it looks worse than it was because the handwriting style he used (secretary hand) isn't used any more.

Answer 3

No and no. There is a lot of variant spellings in Shakespeare's published works, but different typesetters chose to spell things different ways. We cannot attribute the typesetters' spelling to Shakespeare and more than we can attribute their punctuation to him. It's true that his name is spelled in a wild variety of ways, not only by him but by everyone else in his time. This is also true of his contemporaries. Generally, nobody cared back then how you spelled your name.

The only samples of Shakespeare's handwriting we have are signatures. How many people would like their handwriting to be judged on their signatures? Shakespeare used a kind of handwriting called secretary hand which looks really messy to anyone not familiar with it, which doesn't help.

Answer 4

Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the English language. In his day, the spelling of English words was not codified or standardized, and people could spell words however they heard them.

Answer 5

of course Shakespear could spell and write. but he was fairly challenged at school at the age of 7. after actually studying, he was smart.

Answer 6

no he did not

Answer 7

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Answer 8

no