Who really wrote Shakespeares plays?

Answer 1

Most scholars would say: the two most likely authors of Shakespeare's plays are William Shakespeare and William Shakespeare. However some people claim in the face of all the evidence that the plays were written by someone other than Shakespeare, and the most popular candidate for this is Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. (Christopher Marlowe and Sir Francis Bacon have also been mentioned)

Answer 2

All of the evidence as to who wrote the plays points to a certain William Shakespeare, gent. of Stratford-upon-Avon.

If you are not interested in evidence, the following possibilities have been floated:

1. Francis Bacon, who is known as a scientist, philosopher and jurist. He is not known to have ever evinced an interest in drama or poetry, and his writings show no sign of talent in that direction.

2. Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, a man known for his love of the theatre and his bad poetry, and who had the misfortune to die in 1604 before a number of Shakespeare's plays were written. That means that according to the theory he wrote them after his own death, no mean feat.

3. Elizabeth I, Queen of England. Although a redoubtable scholar, she never showed a lot of interest in drama, although she (like de Vere) did sponsor her own theatre company which was in competition with The Lord Chamberlain's Men. She, like de Vere, must have written the plays from the grave if she was Shakespeare: she died in 1603.

4. Christopher Marlowe, well-known playwright who died in 1593 before almost all of Shakespeare's plays were written. A coroner's court was held and everyone in the London theatre scene expressed regret over his untimely death. All the evidence says he was dead, which again makes it hard to write plays.

The fact of the matter is that some people are unsatisfied with the fact that William Shakespeare was a bourgeois, grammar-school-educated man who lived a quiet and uneventful life, and so wish that someone more educated (like Bacon or Marlowe) or upper crust (like de Vere or the Queen) or female (like Elizabeth) or exciting (like Marlowe) was the real author of the plays. The fact that there is not one scintilla of evidence which suggests that any of them did write Shakespeare's plays, and mountains of incontrovertable evidence that they did not matters not one whit.

Answer 3

All of the evidence we have proves that William Shakespeare, who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, and became an actor and shareholder in The Lord Chamberlain's Men, is the only person who could have been the main contributor to the plays attributed to him. He may well have collaborated with other playwrights on some of them. The so-called "authorship question" is not a question--there is no doubt that Shakespeare was the author.