answersLogoWhite

0

Well, he did write at least part of all of the ones we attribute to him. If we thought he had nothing to do with them we wouldn't call them "his plays". Over the years people have suggested that all kinds of anonymous plays which we have from the era were really written by Shakespeare, but eventually these plays get weeded out of collections of Shakespeare's plays in which overenthusiastic editors have included them. I am thinking of plays like Arden of Faversham, The Second Maiden's Tragedy, or Edward III.

It is a fact of the way Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights worked that collaborations were common, and plays often were credited to more than one playwright. Shakespeare was involved in fewer collaborations than many of his contemporaries, but he was involved in some. The Two Noble Kinsmen is specifically said to be co-written with John Fletcher. Fletcher may also have been Shakespeare's collaborator on Pericles and Henry VIII. Some people think that Thomas Middleton contributed to Macbeth and Timon of Athens. Some also think that George Peele wrote some of Titus Andronicus. It would be silly to exclude these collaborations from an examination of Shakespeare's work, all the more so when, as is usually the case, no credit was given to his collaborator.

The truth is that of the 38 plays we attribute to Shakespeare, 37 were published with his name listed as the sole author either in his lifetime or within a few years of his death. That gives pretty strong grounds (against which no coherent argument has ever been made) that he wrote them.

User Avatar

Wiki User

11y ago

What else can I help you with?

Related Questions

When is the next Shakespeare play and what is it called?

William Shakespeare died in 1616. It is extremely unlikely that he will write any more plays.


What encouraged Shakespeare to write stories?

Shakespeare didn't write stories. He wrote plays. Plays are very different from stories. Imagine if you took your favourite story and left out everything except the things that the characters say. That's what a play is like. Shakespeare was encourage to write plays because it was his job. The more plays and the better plays he wrote, the more money he made.


Did Shakespeare actually write the plays that everyone thinks he did?

All of the evidence we have goes to say that he did. That is to say, all of the plays were published either without an author's name or with Shakespeare's name on them, and never with anyone else's name. They were exclusively performed by theatrical companies of which the actor William Shakespeare was a member, and were published by members of that company. Records of the same plays being played at court and elsewhere credit William Shakespeare with having written them. And never anyone else. On the other hand there is no evidence that anyone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford, the actor with the King's Men, wrote those plays. Nobody ever credits them to anyone else. There was nobody else by the name of William Shakespeare that we know of and nobody else called Shakespeare who was a writer. People did not write plays under a pseudonym in those days, and nobody at that time ever suggested that "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym. You may say that is not absolute proof. Perhaps not, but absolute proof is not required for anything which we regularly accept as true. The proof that Shakespeare did indeed write what he is credited with is more than sufficient for us to accept it as fact.


What was the purpose that William Shakespeare wrote his plays?

Shakespeare wrote his plays to make money. He was part owner of a theatre company and they made more money if they had new plays and good plays to put on. Shakespeare was able to provide the company with both.


Who was the poet who wrote more than 30 plays?

William Shakespeare is the poet who wrote more than 30 plays, including famous works such as "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Macbeth." His plays are known for their literary excellence and continue to be performed and studied worldwide.


What is the title of the work Shakespeare obtained information from to write most of his plays?

More of Shakespeare's plays are based on Holinshed's Chronicles than any other work.


Who is more famous William Shakespeare or Usain Bolt?

Usain who? If he wrote plays I never knew about it.


What country did shakespeare write most of his plays in?

Shakespeare wrote all of his plays in England, since he lived his entire life there. He also set more of his plays in England than anywhere else.


Who is more famous Elvis Presley or William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare


Who is more famous Lady Gaga or William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare.


Did William Shakespeare present his poems and plays in the globe so that more people would hear about it?

there is not really a answer to that question only Shakespeare himself could answer that for you.


What other stories did William Shakespeare write apart from Romeo and Juliet?

Shakespeare wrote at least thirty-eight plays and two narrative poems which all tell stories. In fact, the plays often tell two or more stories at the same time. You can find summaries of the stories in an encyclopedia or a book about Shakespeare or in a book like Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare which tells them in a form designed for Victorian children.