| My Stand on the Authorship Question |
| I am personally a staunch Stratfordian. I believe that the man who is credited with writing Shakespeare, William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon, wrote the famous plays. I favor this viewpoint for two main reasons: 1. Whatever they say to the contrary, none of the other theories of authorship have any proof to hold them up. While it is true that we know very little about William Shakespeare's life, and what we do know is fairly prosaic, William Shakespeare's name appears on the First Folio as the author. That is proof. The other groups have plenty of circumstantial evidence supporting their candidates, but none of it is actually proof. Their reasoning is all based on assumption and guesses. The only person who was credited with writing the plays is William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon. 2. I am very opposed to the idea that the famous plays could only have been written by an aristocrat. One of the pillars of Oxfordian "proof" is that a common glover's son from a village in Warwickshire, without, as far as we know, a college education, could not possibly have written many works of genius. I find it absolutely ridiculous to claim that genius can only be produced by wealthy and priviledged people. This belief is prejudiced and disgusting. Brilliance is not something that comes along with a title; a swineherd has as much claim on it as a queen. Although my beliefs are Stratfordian, I nonetheless find the other authorship ideas fascinating. It is intriguing to imagine that Queen Elizabeth I, a countess, a group of playwrights, or even Edward deVere's daughter might have written the Shakespearean plays. However, each of these theories is equally possible. Unless other evidence is found, none of them can be proved. |
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