Ten Reasons Why William Shakespeare is a Fraud by Roland Emmerich 

He did Will. He put some of his own money into this movie and it tanked big time at the box office. The Oxfordian movement was supposed to have a watershed moment with it, is now on life support.

DAMN

And the feather throwing.

or better just the animation, without the rest!?

Nonsense. I suppose you Agatha Christie went around solving crimes? Or that George RR Martin comes from an alternate universe?

Dude if you are stupid keep it for yourself

And he gets all the Italian details wrong!

Hhahaha Why do You think h need to visit Italy for writing about It We know Shakespeare actually Had valuable redources in fact many of his writing was Identical or similar to Previous Contemporaries or even mistakes are also similar and why he get Details of Italy wrong?According to Your logic mario pujo author of the GOD father was a m*fia don?? And 2nd Point is Clueless pointless

Then why didn't he know that Padua was part of Venice? He placed it in Lombardy.

@@JeffhowardmeadeIn my opinion: first: he was an english man, not really an italian. Second: plays, that we have, I mean the text of them, can have been written by the theater company. For that reason there are in them many mistakes... But I think, the main clues are two: John Florio's writing style is the same of Shakespeare's writing style. Second who really think that the Shakespeare's testament can be a testament written by one like him. Do you really think that? Really? At the end ... We will never know the true, because it is impossible to create an argument founded on real facts and real documents...

I also want to say that John Florio was not an Italian. He was born in England, son of an English mother, he lived the most part of his life in England, so why call him Italian?

@@mattiamechtatel Shakespeare's last will and testament was written by his lawyer. It was copied out of a book of legal forms. Wills were and are not meant to be works of poetry. They must include specific language to be understood and to be considered legal. You won't find a single poet's will from that era (or any era) that is pleasing to the ear. And John (then known as Giovanni) left England as an infant and was raised in Germany and in Chiavenna in Lombardy. He returned to England as an adult, knowing no English. How does someone raised in Lombardy not know where Padua is? Shakespeare copied it from Abraham Ortellius's 1593 atlas, which makes the same mistake. That's why. Shakespeare makes a number of other mistakes about Italy that nobody raised there would make. Like having a duke in Venice, or one in Vienna (where Florio lived for part of his childhood and where Measure for Measure is nominally set). Or having someone trying to get from one landlocked city to another rush to catch the tide. And their styles are nothing at all alike. They have similar vocabularies because Florio wrote dictionaries, which by nature include as many words as possible. Shakespeare borrowed a couple of phrases to describe Italy from one of Florio's books. That's it.

Attractive idea. Shame it's bollocks. The plays contain references to extremely unusual names of Stratford people. They mention obscure villages close to Stratford and even the NAME of a family living in the village. A cousin of the man from Stratford dedicated a book to him, mentioning the fact that he was a writer. And his lower class characters speak in the authentic idiom of the time. Ben Jonson addresses him as 'Sweet swan of Avon' and in the same poem mentions that he had 'small Latin and less Greek'. And whoever wrote the plays actually mentions the NAMES of the actors and musicians in the scripts. They are written by a man of the theatre. Apart from all this, it's been proved fairly conclusively that some of the plays are collaborations with other writers of the time. So the idea that Florio takes time off to pop down to the Globe for regular script meetings is .... off the charts in improbability. Shakespeare (and Jonson, and Alleyn and others) were actor/writers. Acting was obviously a good way into professional writing. You learned the stagecraft, and you were in the right place and knew the right people. There is absolutely zero reason to suppose that the man whose name is on the books is not the author of the plays and poems. An artisan background and grammar school education were the norm for playwrights of the time. If there is an outlier it is Francis Beaumont, who was the son of a baronet - the ONLY writer for the public stage who was even vaguely aristocratic.

Two plays, both King's Men plays, were published as being by Shakespeare during his lifetime which probably were not. He was the dramatist for The King's Men, and so may have had some part in them, or it may have merely been confusion on the part of the printers. All the rest -- initials, obvious frauds, misattributions decades after he died -- are not pertinent to the discussion.

If I had written those Sonnets, I don't think I'd want my kids reading them. "Daddy, what's a 'Dark Lady'?"

Or "Daddy, why do you why are you in love with the fair youth?"

PointingMonkey, The sonnets were private, written for a particular individual. But the plays were for public consumption. His two girls could not SEE the plays, unless they made the long journey to London, where the theatres were located. However, a father who was writing about young women, such as Portia, or a teenage girl, such as Juliet, might hand the script to his daughter and say "Read this to me!". I can imagine any two teenage girls being just as entranced with the love story of Romeo and Juliet, and just as sorry for poor Ophelia as any modern teenager might get tied up in the romantic life of Mary, Edith and Sibyl in Downton Abbey, or Lizzie in Pride and Prejudice.

The thing I don't get is why he _wouldn't_ want them to read, period. What's up with that? Someone who wrote better than anyone in the history of the English language, before or since, wasn't bothered that his children couldn't read? Yeah, OK.

His daughter Susanna was not actually illiterate. Her signature has survived, and she had a reputation for wittiness.

So sorry but this is BALLS! If you go to shakespeareauthorship.com/name3.html you will find page after page after PAGE of contemporary references to Shakespeare. People have been lying to you. Perhaps you should check things out for yourself.

@@MrMartibobs References to “Shakespeare” are usually references to the author of the play, which is as likely a nom de plume as not. How many people refer to Mark Twain as Samuel Clemens? Or George Eliot as Mary Ann Evans? Or George Orwell as Eric Blair? How many references from the 16th and 17th century were definitely to the man from Stratford?

@@xofpi yes. People use a nom de plume. But it's very VERY unusual to use a nom de PERSON. There was a living, breathing human being, christened and buried as William Shakspere who became an actor in a company that made it to the top, and performed for the monarchs of their era. Here is star contemporary witness Ben Jonson talking about his friend rival and colleague: "I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” 2 as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; 3 and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. " Observe this not unqualified praise. He also takes the piss. He criticises the writer's lack of ability with classical material. In short, this is not a piece of writing about Lord Snot of Snottington. It is clearly and unambiguously about that talented man from Stratford. This makes Shakespeare's authorship far better attested than, say, Webster or Kyd or many other contemporary writers. I'm afraid your get out of jail free card won't work with this one.

@@MrMartibobs What in that elegy refers beyond doubt to Will Shaksper of Stratford? (Who wasn't the only William Shaksper or Shaggsper or Shaxper in England in those years, as you probably know.) What in it specifically rules out Oxford or Bacon or Marlowe or any other person who has been posited as a possible author of Shakespeare's works?

@@xofpi I don't know which elegy you were talking about, but ... I can't imagine an elegy that goes "William Shakespeare, you know, that bloke from Stratford, yes that one the one that was an actor, the bloke who married Anne Hathaway''. It would be hell to make it scan. Which means that with the special Oxfordian ruby slippers, you can make anything anyone says mean what you want it to mean EXCEPT for a piece of prose in which Ben Jonson speaks frankly and affectionately about his friend, William Shakespeare. This is NOT an elegy. It's just a straightforward recollection. so you can't use your crap about Hampton Court being called Avon and your nonsense anagrams and 'codes' and numbers. And read it backwards, turn it upside down, and take away the number you first thought of. And it goes like this: " I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; 3 and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned."

He was a public figure. He sought social status, noble patronage and royal preferment. Whether or not he sought it, he received public acclaim and the respect of his peers. When they lauded him, they identified him by name, rank, and home town. He wasn't trying to hide his identity, and if he were, he failed miserably. There is no secret. Only fantasies in the fevered minds of a few.

@@Jeffhowardmeade The only thing we know for sure is the fact that Stratford turned him into a home town industry based on absolutely nothing, so they are to be congratulated for their foresight and economic success. They created a literary Disneyland way before Uncle Walt.

@@stephenjablonsky1941 Nice try. Do you know who else profited off of Shakespeare's writing? Shakespeare, that's who. Until cinema replaced it as the dominant form of entertainment, theater was always about making a living. In any event, the evidence is still all there no matter how big of a tourist trap Stratford is. You can't make it go away just by claiming it doesn't exist.

@@Jeffhowardmeade Your enthusiasm and loyalty is so great that I half expect you to insist that Shakespeare came into this world by immaculate conception.

@@stephenjablonsky1941 I would only do that if there were evidence for it, the way there is a pile of evidence that Shakespeare was a poet. You're the one preaching a dogma for which there's no evidence and requires faith to believe.

Both frauds....swimming in a sea of delusions...tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies, tell me lies, baby tell me lies

Michael Udeze Many of the studies, biographies and critical analyses contain surmise, this is true. Discussion of works performed more than four hundred years ago could hardly be otherwise. The evidence of contemporaries, the folio and the words in the folio are, however, facts. There is no evidence - absolutely none - to support the view that de Vere wrote the works ascribed by tradition and his colleagues and other contemporaries to Shakespeare. If you wish to use 'mere conjecture' you could choose anyone - but there could be no such thing as a 'sure candidate'.

You needn't have kittens about the original monument. Shakespeare's theatrical activities largely took place in London. In Warwickshire, Shakespeare would have been known as a trader who followed in his father's footsteps as a trader in wool. So the drawing of Shakespeare bearing a sack of wool will be correct. Later, when the monument was restored, Shakespeare had become remembered as a dramatist rather than a wool trader, so his new monument shows him with a pen. Thanks for giving us the title "Antiquities of Warwickshire" by William Dugdale.

Perhaps their motive is seething jealousy.

exactly. There is no space, the earth is flat

impossibleperiod

Go to shakespearedocumented.org and see the actual evidence in high resolution scans and you will probably change your mind.

@@Jeffhowardmeade I don't really see how seeing old manuscripts really proves who the author is. It only suggests they were written around a certain period. I don't see how it conclusively proves who wrote the works. I'm not claiming he didn't write them, but there are questions that remain unanswered

@@finitudeimperial8930 When those old documents say "Shakespeare the actor and gentleman from Stratford was the author", then either the people who wrote them were wrong, lying, or they are conclusive evidence. Considering that these were people in a position to know, Anti-Stratfordians generally claim they were lying in order to hide some great secret. A few claim they were dupes. None have any evidence to back their claims.

As in "will", human "will"".

@@dirremoire Nope. That entire sonnet is chock-full of puns on the name Will. The final line "My name is Will" is the final punchline spelling out the joke.

EXACTLY!!!!!!This man is an ignorant JERK!

Why the quotation marks around “Will?”

@@xofpi If you look at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_136 there is a facsimile reprint of the sonnet as it originally appeared. The word 'Will' is shown in ITALICS. Thus there is no hint of a pseudonym. Italics are merely for emphasis. Quotation marks can sometimes indicate something more. In this case (and the numerous other punning references to the name in two of the sonnets) It simply refers to the name of the poet. Whoever wrote the sonnets was called will. That really is all there is to it.

Don’t trust the Trust. They stand to lose billions if received opinion is successfully challenged. They already peddle phony history based on conjecture and wishful thinking as “fact.”

Good luck with the D. When will you defend it?

On your point number 2; the school kept good records of the pupils who attended, and the name "William Shakespeare" doesn't appear on the list of pupils. That is not proof he never attended, but one would think that such a brilliant mind would have been noticed by someone at the school, but it appears not only did no one notice him, they never bothered to list his name like they did with the other students. Rather odd to say the least.

The Shakespeare we know never existed

Delusional another cognitive dissonance disorder exhibtionist

#11 - It matters who really wrote those works. It wasn't Shakspere of Stratford -- that much is clear. #2 - You are asserting as fact things that are conjecture. There is no record of Shakspere attending that school or any other. To assert that he "left school at 14" is pure fantasy and only one example of the many times details are made up and passed off as fact. #1 - We have original manuscripts from Robert Juet. He was the mate on Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage. On Hudson's final voyage we have four writer / sailors with names that few would recognize. The Sonnets are well loved and reprinted during Shakspere's lifetime. The idea that random sailors' letters survive but not a single sentence from the greatest poet writer of his age defies reason. There is no reason for letters, diaries, notes or manuscripts NOT to survive unless "Shakespeare" is a pen name #12 "Will Shake-Speare" is a pen name. How much more obvious could it be? Verb and noun. It's word play. Since Shakespeare is a pen name it makes exactly zero sense for the writer to be named "Shakspere." I can say with absolute certainty that Shania Twain is not related to Mark Twain because Mark Twain is a PEN NAME! It matters who really wrote those works because Stratfordians damage them by trying to tie them to a petty, illiterate glove dealer. Working backward from the unjustified conclusion that "Stratford wrote Shake-speare" is not science and not good logic. It is taboo within English departments to question Stratford but highly educated people from adjacent disciplines easily dismantle the Stratford narrative. Surrendering the Stratford theory would greatly improve the general understanding of the works and their relevance.

+David Smithson It's not about class... It's about education! Ben Jonson and Marlowe were not aristocrats but they went to university and learned their art. Shakespeare never went to university, yet he had a knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Court life, foreign countries, law, medicine... etc. And left behind no records of how he gained this knowledge.

+Evidence123 Anti-Stratfordians inevitably (1) Exaggerate how much the author of the plays can be said to have postively known and (2) Underestimate how much someone smart can get from books.

+Truth82 Do you have any evidence that Ben Jonson went to university?

Another factless, hysterical, ill-tempered (plagiarised) ad hominem that proves exactly nothing.

Delete Orson Welles, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill, John Gielgud, and Jeremy Irons from your list. There's no evidence that any of them were Anti-Strats.

Caius Martius Coriolanus, That’s completely incorrect! (Obviously you’re not as well read or as familiar with these people as you think) LOL.

@@GEORGEGEORGEIII Feel free to provide evidence, besides just some list you are cutting and pasting from. The only one of those who is even close is Emerson, who said he couldn't reconcile the genius writer with the actor, and helped Delia Bacon get to England to not find any of the evidence she sought. He publicly stated that he believed Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

Caius Martius Coriolanus , Orson Welles: “I believe Oxford wrote Shakespeare , if you don’t agree, there are some awfully funny coincidence to explain away...” Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism, personifying in unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthlessness and and gigantic caste, it’s own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) one of the wolffish earls so plentiful in the plays themselves, or some borne descendant or knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works. I’m firm against Shaksper. I mean the Avon man, the actor.” Like I said, you’re a typical Strapfordian; not nearly as well read as you think you are. BTW, let’s add the late great Robin Williams to the list: “You think about William Shakespeare, you think a man basically with a second grade education, and illiterate children wrote some of the greatest poetry of all times? I think maybe not.”

@@GEORGEGEORGEIII In an interview with Henry Jaglom in the 80s, Welles said he believed Shakespeare was the author. "He was a country boy, the son of a butcher, who'd made it into court. He spent years getting himself a coat of arms. He wrote mostly about kings." -Wells and Bogdonavich, 212. Your quote, on the other hand, comes from a gossip rag from 1954, which doesn't provide a source. And your "wolfish earl" quote is by Walt Whitman, not Emerson. See what happens when you just cut and paste, without doing your own research? Oh, and "the great Robin Williams" was an idiot. An Elizabethan grammar school education was far more than "second grade", and it was in Latin. His son died at age 11, and at least one of his daughters was literate.

Why? he is not making watch this video or any of his movies, you chose to, yet here you are follow him and talking shit. Now that's sad!

@Kill The Batman no he isn´t :)

​@@razaoculta1 This whole video is him talking sh*t about Shakespeare he is asking for people to talk sh*t about him

Yeah, but were are talking about one of the most celebrated (in his time) and prolific playwrights in history. And the point that we have zero correspondence is damning. It makes zero sense that Shakespeare wrote these plays.

@@dirremoire You don't realize how lucky we are to have as much as we do. Much of London was burned in the great fire of 1666. Who knows how many documents we've lost? Christopher Marlowe has no correspondence today either. It's not that they never wrote letters, it's just that in 400 years a lot has been lost. And if you look at the plays, it is clear they could only have been written by an intimate of the Lord Chamberlain's/ King's Men. The playwright already knew which actors would play which roles and wrote the roles to play to the strengths of those actors. For example: 1. In Henry IV Part I Lady Mortimer only speaks Welsh (the author clearly could not write Welsh, because the lines are not included, only the translation). This meant the playwright knew the company had a boy actor who could speak Welsh and could play the role. 2. In As You Like it, the lead of the show is Rosalind, who would have been played by a boy actor. The author would have to have known that this boy actor was capable of playing this role, which has over 600 lines and who carries the entire show. 3. Early printings of the plays sometimes has a typo where the actor's name appears instead of the character's name. This happened because such early printings were copied from the original manuscript, and sometimes the author slipped up and wrote the actor's name by mistake. From these mistakes we know that the roles of Dogberry and Verges were written for Will Kempe and Richard Cowley, and John Sinklo played minor roles in Taming of the Shrew and the Henry VI plays. Furthermore, Shakespeare's will left money to Richard Burbage, John Heminges and Henry Condell, all of whom were members of the Lord Chamberlain's/King's Men. Heminges and Condell compiled the First Folio. The First Folio made it clear that these plays were by William Shakespeare. Ben Jonson even wrote a dedication to Shakespeare in the book. You have to look at Shakespeare in his proper context. Theatre is a collaborative effort, and Shakespeare wrote his plays to best suit the company.

@@dirremoire Shakespeare was not one of the most celebrated anything in his own time. He was a popular playwright for many years but was mostly celebrated by the literati for two long poems published in the early 1590s. His family line died out, snd his houses and theaters had all been destroyed before he became the "Immortal Bard" more than a century after his death. Who would have kept his letters?

@@Jeffhowardmeade Obviously someone thought enough of "Shakspeare" to preserve tens of thousands of lines of his plays, which were published 6 years after his death. I'm certain the same admirers who financed the first folio would have gladly snapped up any letters they could find. Doesn't that seem very odd to you?

@@dirremoire Well, it would if then were now, but it isn't now. The only people who cared about old letters back then were government officials. Of the 36 plays in the First Folio, only a few were printed from existing quartos. The rest were taken from handwritten manuscripts. Where are all of those manuscripts now? Assuming Hemmings and Condell were centuries ahead of their time and preserved letters as keepsakes, they would also be gone by now. We know that Shakespeare was a fellow actor with H & C for two decades, and certainly he sent letters to them, if only to say "Sorry, I got tied up in Stratford burying my son. I'll be back in a couple of weeks." Where are those letters? But lest we decide that there's something nefarious about this suspicious disappearance of letters, (Who? Us? Never!) Consider the case of Ben Jonson. He outlived Shakespeare by 20 years, and did nearly all of it in London. He was known to have had poetry groupies (known as "Sons of Ben") and close interactions with fellow poets and with noble patrons. How many letters do we have from Jonson, preserved by these fans? None. The only two surviving letters in Ben Jonson's hand are to government officials begging to be let out of prison. How many play manuscripts do we have in Ben's hand? Again, none. We have only one masque (The Masque of Queens). Anti-Stratfordians are always wondering aloud why we don't have this or that, or why Shakespeare or whoever didn't do something or other. If you're going to do that, don't you think you should first determine whether that expectation is reasonable?

GameStation3 Or spoke to historians of the times and people in the local pubs who gave him the ideas for the plays?

+GameStation3 There weren't public libraries back then like there are now. Also Shakespeare used many untranslated sources, so he must have had a knowledge of French, Italian, Latin, Greek and Spanish. But the grammar schools only taught Latin!

Look at Thomas Cromwell, he was a blacksmith's son but he taught himself to speak and do businesses in Italian, Spanish, etc... And he became one the most powerful men in Henry VIII's court (Till he lost his head)

That is a good comparison. However, I would still like to see some evidence that Shakspere did the same. Cromwell taught himself these languages by travelling abroad, there is no record that Shakspere travelled at all. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm saying that it is very unlikely for someone to achieve this without leaving behind any record of it. Especially as he is supposed to be a great writer. Why no letters? Why did no-one ever talk about his amazing feat, or mention meeting him? There is a lot of evidence about Cromwell's life, but there is no evidence about Shakspere's life that supports his profession as a writer. His will includes no books/manuscripts, his daughters were illiterate (at least one of them definitely). It is quite odd that of all the references to the Stratford man and all the references to 'Shakespeare' the author, not one reference connects the two during his lifetime. When the two men are finally connected in the first folio, 7 years after Shakspere's death, it is not done literally or obviously, but cryptically. Shakspere's dates are not given, his family crest is not given, his home town is not specified. We are told to ignore the odd picture of him and to focus solely on his works. We are warned of 'seeliest ignorance.' The only things that connect the two men in the first folio are: 'sweet swan of Avon' (which could refer to any river or as Waugh points out to Hampton Court) and 'thy Stratford Moniment,' which points to Shakespeare's highly cryptic monument, which again includes no date of birth/death and is a clear riddle! ('read if thou canst'). Not to mention the amount of work it has had done to it (the addition of a pen etc). The dedication from Hemminge and Condell (both actors) is also a possible connection, but many experts doubt they really wrote this, and ascribe the passage to Ben Jonson. And again, they don't specify how they knew Shakespeare, where he came from, his dates or anything else. Even in the first folio there is no clear acknowledgement that the man from Stratford wrote the works, only hints. Why would this be? Why would Ben Jonson bother hinting that Shakspere wrote the works when he obviously did because his name is on them!?He uses hints about the author's identity as opposed to facts and statements because the real identity was a secret. (As Shakespeare says in his sonnets: 'my name be buried where my body is' 'every word doth almost tell my name'). It seems like the first folio was designed to let people think it was Shakspere of Stratford, without ever stating it. That way people would be less inclined to search for the real author. The first folio and the monument are the entire basis of the Stratford argument. They have no other evidence. But they don't look properly at their own evidence to see the puns and tricks and hints which they are missing. Sorry for such a long post. But I really do find this whole thing fascinating, and am disappointed when people dismiss the question without properly examining the evidence.

+GameStation3 Well, bookstores, but the same basic idea. Plus folks did lend books to friends, just as they do today.

Prove him wrong

The voice of the establishment...speak up

Anthony Coyle It's so simple because he didn't even bother to complicate it with the truth or evidence.

@DeathToMason's Provide proof.

This is by design.

@@ericwilliams626 Don't take it too seriously. This man made an abomination of a film, riddled with historical blunders. And he has nothing to say about Shakesepeare that can't be swatted aside like a troublesome fly. He's a moron.

@DeathToMason's Already have. But the big one is that Shakespeare had exactly the same background as many other playwrights of the time, including Ben Jonson - who had no formal education beyond school, yet became one of the greatest scholars of the age and in many ways a more erudite playwright than Shakespeare. So if you are going to question Shakespeare'a credentials, you should also question the credentials of numerous other playwrights of the age. "Jonson was a friend, rival and colleague of William Shakespeare - they acted in each other's plays (this is not in dispute). And he left an unambiguous testimony that his friend, the man from Stratford was the writer of the plays. Here it is: "DE SHAKESPEARE NOSTRAT[I].-I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand;” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,” as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so too. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." Is he writing about the Earl of Oxford? Is he bollocks. He openly criticises his lack of classical learning. He takes the piss. He says he was a lazy bastard who should have revised his work more. The idea that he would say this about an Earl is a joke. He says Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. And he was in a position to know it. He probably LITERALLY watched him doing it. Case closed.

@DeathToMason's And ... I have to ask ... death to mason's ... what? Who is Mason, and why do you want him to die?

@DeathToMason's I wrote this months ago. To date, nobody has rebutted it: 1 My dad died 20 years ago. I don’t have a SINGLE letter in his handwriting. He was away for six years during the war, but I have maybe two documents with his writing on. This is a common experience in many families. Besides which, there were huge fires in Stratford that may have destroyed documents, and a little barbecue party in London in 1666 that would have destroyed any documents there. All surviving manuscripts were gathered together by Hemmings and Condell after his death when they produced the First Folio. After that, they may have been destroyed. Why keep then when you had an unblotted print version? Manuscripts had no auction value then!!!! 2 Many females never learned to write at the time. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW SHAKESPEARE’S KIDS couldn’t READ??????? How could anyone know? 3 Why did Shakespeare mention kings and nobles? BECAUSE HE WAS WRITING HISTORY PLAYS, shit-head!!!!! His dad was Lord Mayor of Stratford and owned two houses and a farm. Does that sound like a member of the oppressed poor? 4 A traitor to his own class because he satirised working people NO . Because he was middle class. His father was a prosperous alderman who owned lots of property in Stratford!!!! That makes him MIDDLE class. Have you ever read a book on the subject? 5 Many of the signatures come from the last few years of his life - Think about it! Is it possible he was ill … during the last four years of his life? Anyway, there is a page of manuscript - from a play about Thomas More. If you are going to produce a film, you need to find out about the subject. As for poor penmanship. You want to sack all doctors? 7 So nothing from the heart??? The plays were almost ALL based on other peoples’ stories. Because that’s what you did then, to sell tickets. All except THE TEMPEST - a late play about an old man and his daughter ….. not at all autobiographical from a man with two daughters and no son! And …. Have you READ the sonnets???? Obviously not. Poems about adulterous affairs. Two sonnets actually play with the name Wiliam??????? And one of them ends with the line: 'for my name is Will'. And you reckon he didn't write one about the death of a son? SONNET 37!!!!!!!!!!!! Read it. Please. 8 You're right there are no records of Shakespeare going to school in Stratford. There are no records of ANYONE going to school (except in Winchester) Because ... why would they? You expect to find his prom photos? His exam certificates?Here's another thing. Did Shakespeare ever have a shit? I’m guessing he did. But there is no evidence to prove it. There isn't a SINGLE certified turd from the backside of the bard. So we have to guess that he excreted in the normal way. And I’m guessing that the son of a prosperous alderman went to the school 100 yards from his door. He couldn’t have learned about falconry? A country boy? Think about it. Please. How do you know that Shakespeare wrote nothing in retirement? He might have done. It just doesn’t survive. Or maybe he was blind. If you believe the evidence of the sonnets, he may have contracted a form of VD, which often leads to blindness. Or maybe he’d had enough of scribbling to tight deadlines and wanted to take it easy. Maybe he had palsy and couldn't hold a pen properly. 9 How would he know about Italy? H’mmm? toughie. Maybe he was at the epicentre of a print explosion analogous to the invention of the internet. Maybe he lived in a cosmopolitan city full of foreigners - including Italians. Maybe he had an Italian mistress (Emilia Lanier) Maybe his patron had an Italian tutor (Florio) Do you know ANYTHING about this subject? 10 Yes, there were renovations done to the monument, which originally depicted a merchant. So fucking what? In Stratford, they might well have seen him as a businessman and merchant. He was those things as well as a writer. So what? In short, every so-called point you make is piffle. Balls. Nonsense. A bit like that film you made - now (justifiably) forgotten. Incidentally, the Tempest is based on a real incident it draws on current accounts of the incident in a very obvious way. And it was written years AFTER the death of the Earl of Oxford! How on earth do you explain that? If you would like to see the evidence linking the man from Stratford with the plays, you only have to ask. Death to Mason's .... what? His pet dog? His hamster? His dick?

+Colin Swain Therein lies the problem how did it all work? How did the plays get say De Vere's pen to the Chamberlain's Men stage? As you state, the Stratford dude would have to be deeply involved. So what did he do? How did he do it? Who did he apparently know? There's never any detail on that part of it. Also, there's no evidence that De Vere and the Stratford guy even knew each other. Another fly in the Oxford ointment. This guy had two playwrights in his employ, Anthony Munday and John Lyly. If he was truly writing in secret, why not just have one of these guys be the front. Each of them released plays that had nothing to do with their duties for De Vere so who have cared if an established playwright wrote other plays? No, let's get the illiterate moron and pretend he's the writer, yeah, that makes total sense.

Steve Bari I would never conjecture as to How the thing was worked, but worked it was. If De Vere Didn't want to be associated with the Plays, why would he use playwrights associated with Himself as fronts? I don't understand why stratfordians are So sure about the Authorship question. Their faith in the Stratford man is based on nothing more than, Bits and pieces and Scraps of evidence. It seems to me that the reason there's no evidence that De Vere and Stratford man knew each other, is mainly because shakespeare barely acknowledged that he was Ever in London. And to me, that's the Most curious part of the business.

Why would you never think about how its all would be feasible? You have a hypothesis that states De Vere wrote works. ok fine. but that then has to then be matched to the established environment in which those plays appeared and what company produced them. Unless you can establish a plausible and verifiable connection between the two that is a major blow against him being the author. Its a necessary requirement to establish how it was done, not something that can be waived off by choice Why would De Vere use playwrights who are associated with him? Because they're established playwrights who wrote scores of plays that had nothing to do with him personally. So who would care if established playwrights cranked out more plays? Anthony Munday would be the most obvious choice because he was the author who worked most often with other writers and in the day to day London theater world. The plays that Munday wrote weren't all connected to Oxford, most weren't. So why would a De Vere play be treated or received any differently than any of Munday's other works, especially when he worked with so many other writers? Its the perfect cover, Munday is a walking committee of writers as opposed to a half illiterate moron from a rival theater company. Its the easiest and most plausible course of action. The less people you have trying to keep something secret the less chance of it getting out. There's no need to make some elaborate web of connections between two men who didn't know each other. However, the historical record has the Stratford's man name on it. A connection between the two HAS TO BE established, again there is no choice in the matter. This gets even trickier when you consider that De Vere had no connection to the Lord Chamberlain's or King's Men and he had his own group of players. What not have Lyly "write a play" and give it to this group of players? Why give a commercial gain to a group of men De Vere has no connection with. If you have a money making tool why would you give it to a rival business? Both Henry Carey and King James, the patrons of Shakespeare's company, were both authors and men of letters. No ever thought that they secretly gave plays to their playing company so why would anyone suspect that De Vere did the same? As to your claim of Shakespeare barley being acknowledged he was ever in London exactly what are you basing this on? His name shows up in numerous theater payments, royal proclamations and deeds that span a period from 1594-1613. His name is still associated with the theaters he co-owned after he died. He's on record for evading taxes in several wards, renting, buying a property, and testifying in court. His presence in London is expansive so where are getting that he was rarely if ever in London?

Steve Bari I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear when I said he barely acknowledges his London days. I was referring to the fact that the man who retired to Stratford-upon-Avon makes almost no mention of his times in the Theater, during his years of retirement. Why is this? I really don't believe that a man of De Vere's breeding, and upbringing, would care much about commercial concerns. I don't think he gave two figs, who performed his plays, or about any financial gain. Contrary to what you seem to believe, I'm not totally sold Oxford either. But I do think, he's a better candidate than Stratford man. How is it possible that a man who left No books was the Greatest writer of the age ?

De Vere left some 70 letters, about 30 of them concern getting a monopoly to mine tin, which he never got. The guy burned through his entire family fortune to where he had to be put on an annual "pension" paid by the court so he wouldn't be destitute. Money and commercial concerns were quite on his mind. Men of De Vere's breeding, i.e. other earls would put rock stars to shame with their excesses. King James alone nearly bankrupted England in his first 3 years on the throne to which he later acknowledged was like "perpetual Christmas". So men of De Vere's breeding most certainly cared for commercial concerns and lived high on the hog. Just because you think he didn't give two figs doesn't make it so. You have to show he was that uncaring about it. There are two mentions that Shakespeare either made or showed for his theaterical connections in his retirement. Shakespeare's official years of retirement were from 1613 to 1616, meaning the time when there was no involvement with acting or the writing of plays. His will leaves money for the three original surviving members of his company to buy memorial rings. That's a mention in his retirement period made to people in the London Theater. If you go back one year before this, Shakespeare buys a house next to the Blackfriars theater. John Robinson, the man who rented out that house, is one of the witnesses to his will. So another theater connection in his very short retirement period. These are on top of all the references I alluded to about his theatrical activities (royal patronage, theater deeds, payment records.) As for books you don't know what Shakespeare left or didn't as the surviving will is incomplete. When it was proved (recorded in London's probate office) in June 1616, the record notes that there was an accompanying inventory. This inventory is now lost. An inventory is made when the amount of possessions in a person's estate is extensive that it cannot all be included in the main body of the will. Think of it as an addendum. The main will notes, goods, chattels and other household stuffs that his daughter Susanna inherited. The items would have been itemized in this inventory. Unless that inventory is recovered you cannot say with any certainty that he owned no books. All you can say in what survives of his will no books are specifically mentioned. Also, its not obligatory to mention books in one's will. Some did, others didn't there's no rule that says great minds need to mention specific possessions.

+blackmetalmagick1 Exactly how was he a nobody but Christopher Marlowe wasn't? They were both from the same socio-economic class and same type of country town. They were even born in the same year. How is one a nobody and the other not?

+Steve Bari It's the fact that Christopher Marlowe was university educated and Shakespeare wasn't. But look at the modern era. A lot of people who have gone from nothing to the top of the field. Charlie Chaplin a man who was in a work house at the age of fourteen. Yet the feathers in his cap are outstanding for such humble beginnings: Screenwriter, Director, Producer, Actor, Musical Composer, Editor, Financer, Head of a Studio. Those are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head, there may be more. Quentin Tarantino, Walt Disney, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Branson, George Burns, Charles Dickens. Just to name a few, all dropped out during or before high school.

So its the university education in their eyes that separates a nobody from a somebody? Wow, that would also disqualify the majority of the era's playwrights. As you point out the lack of education certainly didn't stop these people and neither did it stop a majority of the era's writers.

GuttersOvAscension Edward de Vere died 1604.Christopher Marlowe died 1593.1605 saw King Lear.1606/7Antony and Cleopatra.The last play was written and performed in1612.Pretty good for corpses if we follow your thinking.

+PointingMonkey Well done. Charles Chaplin is an excellent example. There are plenty of examples in the plays that Shakespeare was a Warwickshireman, and the names of places in Warwickshire are there for all to see. A lot of the Anti-Stratfordians are Yanks. And have you noticed that a lot of them also believe that Paul McCartney died c. 1966?

***** Uh I was talking about Roland Emmerich. But I find the notions you advance to be equally untenable.

then who else built them because it certainly wasn't know human

or just a theory we could have had advanced humans back then but maybe a natural disaster wiped them out and we had too start all over again a lot of history has been hidden and changed you really never know.

Or maybe they're just piles of fucking rocks. That makes the most sense. Piles of fucking rocks. Not that big a deal.

guess you have never seen the pyramids then because there not rocks also there positioned into mathematical angles they line up with other ancient structures around the world also some stars.They were carved into huge square boulders how could humans thousands of years ago with limited equipment carry huge boulders 3000 ft high I will tell you its because it was not humans who built them.

1. John Florio added more than one thousand new words to the English language, the same contribution attributed to William Shakespeare. Furthermore, Florio compiled the first Italian/English dictionary. The 1611 edition contained 74,000 Italian words and 150,000 English words. Frances Yates, author of Florio’s biography (1934) defines Florio’s dictionary as the epitome of the era’s culture. 2. John Florio and his father Michel Angelo, a former Franciscan monk who converted to Protestantism (and the son of converted Jews), are two erudite Italian scholars like few at that time in England. They possessed a vast knowledge of the arts, science, literature, theology, botany, medicine, falconry, law and seamanship - an encyclopedic knowledge which Shakespeare clearly commanded. Few knew European literature like John Florio who, having read the material in the original languages (Italian, French and Spanish), also taught it. 3. Immersed between the Jewish traditions of his ancestors and the Catholic and Protestantism religions of his father Michel Angelo is John Florio, whose vast knowledge sacred scriptures coincides with Shakespeare’s. 4. William Shakespeare and John Florio display the same bombastic style: the same exaggerated use of metaphor, rhetoric, wit (quips and puns), poetic sense and extensive use of proverbs. They even coin words in the same fashion. This is easily verified in the introductory texts of Florio’s scholarly works: Il Dizionario, A Worlde of Wordes (1598), First Fruits (1578) and Second Fruits (1591), two brilliant Italian/English teaching booklets. Thousands of words and phrases written by Florio appear later in Shakespeare’s works. Two of Florio’s phrases become titles of William Shakespeare’s comedies. Florio is a juggler of words and a polyglot: he speaks four modern languages, as well as Latin, Greek and probably Hebrew - the same languages known by Shakespeare, according to scholars. 5. John Florio translated Montaigne’s Essays and Boccaccio’s Decameron, two exceptional works. The “idea” of translating these fundamental texts during such a crucial time for the development of English culture is in itself an extraordinary feat. Florio’s translations prove that he is a great writer, a poet close in spirit and style to Shakespeare. If we keep in mind that Florio was writing “in prose” and not in “verse” like Shakespeare, this closeness is undeniable. 6. The impressive knowledge of the Bible and liturgies, both Catholic and Protestant, which Shakespeare supposedly possesses matches perfectly with John Florio’s biography. The two Florios, father and son, are regarded by critics as minor characters within the small Protestant and heretic Italian diaspora. In reality, they were the first major promoters of Italian culture abroad. The younger Florio studied at the German University of Tübingen with Pier Paolo Vergerio, an ex-Catholic bishop of Capodistria, converted to Protestantism. In England, he befriended the circle of reformed scientists and scholars which included Teodoro Diodati, the brother of Giovanni, a Calvinist and the first Italian translator of the Bible. 7. John Florio owned 340 books in Italian, French and Spanish and an unknown number in English. He read 252 books in preparation for his dictionary New World of Words. These are the same books which Shakespeare had to have read in the original language as inspirations for his plays. Florio’s will bequeaths his library of Italian, French and Spanish books to his friend and protector William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. 8. The works of Shakespeare demonstrate “a culture of exile,” a theme very familiar to Florio. 9. The great influence of Montaigne’s thought and vocabulary upon William Shakespeare, reluctantly recognized by Shakespearean scholars, was demonstrated by George Coffin Taylor’s Shakespeare’s Debt to Montaigne (1925). 10. The vast knowledge of Italian writers, some of whom had not yet been translated into English, could not have been known by the “man from Stratford.” One clear example is Giordano Bruno, a Neapolitan heretic philosopher burned at the stake by the Roman Inquisition in 1600. The presence of Bruno’s thought and vocabulary in Shakespeare’s works is evident - it is a “physical” presence, which is refuted or ignored by Shakespearean scholars. This closeness is unexplainable if one considers the “man from Stratford,” but natural and normal if one remembers that John Florio and Giordano Bruno were house guests of the French ambassador in London for more than two years (from 1583 to 1585). Many of their works cross-reference each other. 11. William Shakespeare’s impressive musical knowledge is surprising, and very difficult to explain. John Florio, on the other hand, was a musician and was responsible for inviting musicians to perform at the royal court. 12. William Shakespeare is shown to possess a strong aristocratic persona. Yet the man normally credited with writing the plays is the son of illiterate parents, and father of two illiterate daughters. John Florio, on the other hand, was a teacher and friend of powerful aristocrats and the Groom of the Privy Chamber to James I and Queen Anne for 16 years. 13. All the “friends” of Shakespeare who appear in the colourless biography of the man from Stratford are John Florio’s historically documented friends - from Lord Southampton to William Pembroke. William Shakespeare’s presumed godfathers were John Florio’s well-known students and protectors. Ben Jonson considers Florio as a father and master of his muses, a tribute shared by the Earl of Oxford and other nobles. 14. William Shakespeare demonstrates an undeniable Italian sensibility. Examples abound, as 16 plays boast Italian plots. The man from Stratford shows an excellent knowledge of Italian, as if he read the arduous Giordano Bruno, Ariosto, Aretino (another one of the Bard’s major inspirations) in the original. Naseeb Shaheen states in his Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays (1999) that, when an English translation is available, Shakespeare’s words resemble the original Italian. 15. Finally, there is an ontological and sociological proof all in one. If two such characters - Shakespeare and John Florio - had lived in London at the same time, if they had shared patrons, friends, interests, passions and abilities, then why have they never met nor is there any mention of them meeting? Perhaps they would even have clashed, leaving behind visible traces. Instead, there is a total void. They could not have met, of course, since they are one and the same!

"William Shakespeare" was probably just a pen name used by multiple writers.

randomuser1105 Several people who all managed to write with such a consistent vocabulary and grammar that the works of Shakespeare can discretely be identified by computer-aided stylometry from any other writer. Were what you claimed true, the scatter plot points for Shakespeare's vocabulary and grammar would overlap the whole graph for early modern drama.

MrTack67 Neat theory. Got any evidence to back that up? Maybe, say, some comparison between the works of Shakespeare and Bassanio's works published under her own name?

Well i believe you know about the subject more than me, but the problem is there is too much work he wrote, he never mentions anything personal, compare with Ovid or Cervantes, about Ovid we know everything, he mentions his granddaughter for instance, he changes stile once he is expelled from the court, he even starts to write much less good once he is far from Rome and all the libraries, Cervantes in the second part of Don Quixote writes much more personal and in tone different work than the first incredibly successful part, and with only one book makes history, Ovid also in fact made history with only one incredible book Metamorphoses. Shakespeares again, a lot of work and nothing personal, especially nothing personal in the works, from there rise a lot of assumptions. Ovid mentions his early life, why he became a poet, Bocaccio also why he didn't like having regular life but started writing... Cervantes is there a bit more in secret but we know he was in jail, in the army... The only amazing thing to me about Shakespeare is the vocabulary, it always have that non-standard feeling, feeling of improvisation, rhyme and cetera... But Ovid was also a poet...

@@jhutfre4855 Ovid was a poet. Shakespeare's plays were not very personal but his poems were personal. Plays were to entertain audiences in London, but he did use his local Arden Forest as a setting for some as well as references to the flowers and plants in the area and some names of local people.

A well-reasoned, fact-packed rebuttal. Not.

Leif Grahamsson Since when is presenting heaps and piles of evidence "blatant lying"?

Caius Martius Coriolanus will you please stop following me around social media? Lmao, Jesus! As to a lie, there is a blatamt claim amongst the qoutes below this video that no other Elizabethan writer left any paper trail either.

Leif Grahamsson Do you suppose the jockey out front turns to the jockey behind him and yells "why are you following me? If you're going to troll the SAQ vids, we're gonna keep running into each other. And the other commenter IS mistaken. There are several Early Modern English poets with excellent paper trails. Shakespeare is one of them.

Could you please elaborate more on that? Some people in Spain say he's Spaniard, that his real last name is Sanchez Perez...

@@DS92_ never heard this before Spaniard? So, how come that most of his plays are set in italy ? With specific details and names that only a Local could be able to describe? He was originally from Messina (Sicily) and studied in Padova (next to Venice). His name was Michelagnolo Florio Scrollalanza

The woman in question, Emilia Lanier, was herself the first published woman poet, so there was no reason not to publish Shakespeare's works under her own name, we're she the author. Her published poetry is nothing at all like Shakespeare's work.

@@Jeffhowardmeade All the world is indeed a stage...We are in the age of the lifting of the veil after all... 👁👁👁

@@stargatekeeper3303 Giving yourself a thumbs up is gauche.

In Shakespeare's day it was a couple of farm houses, and there were no swans. These days it's been taken over by London, and still no swans. Fun fact: Shakespeare was a member of The Lord Chamberlain's Men. He wore Baron Hunsdon's livery. What was Hunsdon's emblem? A swan.

The engraving might not be accurate, but why did the "artist" bother drawing a sack of what looks like grain? OK, so he was not Leonardo de Vinci, but if he could draw a sack of grain, why was he incapable of drawing a quill pin? It would be easier to draw the bald guy with his arms folded, but he drew a sack of grain, why?

@@oldgysgt The quill is an actual plucked-from-a-goose's-ass quill. It can be removed, and likely was missing when Dugdale made his sketch. The "sack" is a pillow, which was a common detail of monuments of the period.

​@@Jeffhowardmeade, If the "sack" is a pillow, then why isn't it there now. And if the quill pin had simply fallen from the monument, how was the bald man holding it? In his teeth? The drawing at 6:11 doesn't show his fingers in a position to be holding anything, much a Goose quill pin. One can only blame so much on a bad artist. The fact is, I have no idea who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare, but as one person put it, "If writing plays was a crime, there is not enough evidence to convict the man from Stafford." By the way, what do you think of Front Line's video, "The Shakespeare Mystery"? It's available on RU-vid, and I assume you've seen it. Oh, and to make a Goose Quill Pin, you use a flight feather, not a tail feather.

@@oldgysgt It's still there. Look at the photos. In the sketch it has tassels at the corners just like it does today, and just like other monuments of the era have. I'm not an expert in sculpture, but I suspect that if you took a sculpture of a cupped hand, you could drill a hole in it and jam a quill into it. Then if someone who was a Shakespeare fan came along and thought "I want a souvenir", they might nick it. These days, the quill is replaced annually in a ceremony. I'm not sure what they do with the old ones, but if they give them away, I want one.

@@Jeffhowardmeade; apparently you don't know the monument was totally redone in 1748. The monument you see today is not the monument that was a subject of the drawing we are talking about, so referring to what you can see on the present day monument is a total waste of time.

+David MacDowell Blue Nicely put.

+David MacDowell Blue What are you talking about???? Of course there are Elizabethan manuscripts that have been found! Belonging to Jonson, Nashe, Massinger, Harvey, Daniel, Peele, Drummond, Mundy, Middleton and Heywood.... for example!! Please see Diana Price's excellent table of literary paper trails, which show that Shakespeare is absolutely the only distinguished author of that period with no indication whatsoever that he wrote the plays ascribed to him! Also Shakespeare was highly accurate about Italy! Stratfordians love to pretend certain waterways didn't exist etc. but they have been proved wrong every time. See Roe or Waugh for this. Your argument for point 6 is laughable circular reasoning... 'Of course Shakespeare went to the grammar school, because he wrote the plays, so he must have learned to write' or as you say 'where did he learn if his parents couldn't read?' .. but you are starting on the assumption that he wrote the plays! And there is no evidence of his schooling. There are many sources in Shakespeare's plays which required knowledge of Italian, French and Greek, to name a few subjects which were not studied at most grammar schools at the time. And there is no indication that the Stratford grammar school was any better than average. Dugdale, Rowe, Grignion and Hollar all draw the Monument without a pen... Please research this properly before spouting nonsense.

+Evidence123 Well, kudos on the cherry picking. For example YES there are indeed Elizabethan Era manuscripts--but none of plays in the original hand by a given playwright (okay one page by Marlowe survives--hardly a "manuscript" by any means). As for Italy, I myself am weary of how Anti-Stratfordians bend details to fit their presumptions--not least by presuming that the only way anyone could know any details about Italy is to go there. Yet lots of folks (far more than is generally presumed) visited Italy from England and often wrote as well as talked about it. Yet consistently Shakespeare remains vague about most Italian details--while for London and some English locales he offers lots of details spot on. You've gotten a pretty basic premise wrong on Shakespeare's literacy, as well--quite apart from the plays, we know Shakespeare was literate because of his signatures (note his parents never seem to have signed their names). Keep in mind, there is a mountain of evidence that DOES say he's the author, so believing him literate is hardly a stretch! Not least the fact that every single published version of the plays carries his name! And he is referred to in contemporary accounts as a playwright! Nor is there any hint anywhere at the time anyone else is the playwright, even during an official investigation of a performance of RICHARD II as part of the Earl of Essex plot against the Queen. The notion that certain areas of knowledge remained utterly beyond anyone who isn't noble/a university student is utterly false. Books had become much cheaper in Shakespeare's time, and covered a wide range of subjects. Interestingly, we now know that every single source of Shakespeare's plays (i.e. their stories) were available at the time in one specific London bookshop owned by a man from Stratford-Upon-Avon, roughly Shakespeare's age (this is evidence, not proof in itself--but there is, as I've said, a mountain of such). Yet he did get things wrong, not least a misunderstanding of what scholars genuinely thought to be the nature of the sky. You've also badly misinterpreted my words about the monument. I referred to one specific (and demonstrably poor) drawing. Most historians accept that the vast majority of drawings that show Shakespere's monument with a "pillow" (as it is described) are copied from a drawing by Sir William Dugdale. I loathe how people use different standards of evidence for evidence that Shakespeare wrote the plays as opposed to the "evidence" (note the quotation marks--which is a value judgment yes) he did not.

David MacDowell Blue So you admit that your initial assertion that 'there are no manuscripts or letters by any Elizabethan playwright that have been found' was completely false? Good, that's all I needed for that point. I have seen Shakspere's 6 shaky signatures. They do not even appear to be in the same hand! They don't exactly prove literacy because 1/ They could be written by a scribe. 2/ He could have been functionally illiterate, i.e he learned how to draw his signature (badly at that), but nothing else. Also, even if he was literate, this is hardly proof that he wrote the greatest works of the English language. Again there is NO evidence that says he was an author until the first folio, which only hints at it 7 years after his death, without actually stating that the Stratford man wrote it, or giving any dates, coat of arms, etc. His name was Shakspere. The author's was Shake-speare (broadly speaking, but the consistency in these two different spellings is remarkable). So why did no-one arrest Shakspere when they investigated Richard II then? If it was so obvious that he was the author? Maybe because no-one thought he wrote it. Maybe books were cheaper ... so how come there is no proof that Shakspere owned any books if this bookshop was his great source of knowledge? Thank you though for being one of the only Stratfordians to actually try to come up with some reasoned arguments rather than dismissing people who can see the lack of evidence as 'crackpots.' No thank you for inventing things (i.e no manuscripts or letters by any other Elizabethan playwrights) because that's just cheating.

+Evidence123 Again with the cherry picking! And then the total misrepresentation of what I actually wrote! Right, I know now better than to debate you. The first bit could be put off as a simple error. But this is a pattern. Plus getting still more facts wrong (Shakespeare and other members of the company were detained and questioned--then eventually released. They faced death as traitors, which mean being hanged then drawn and quartered--the fate Shakespeare's mother's family endured--yet no revelation came to light about who "really" wrote that play. )

What does this have to do with Trump? He doesn't believe in any conspiracies. You may not agree with what he believes, but what he's saying is true, not conspiracy. The media censors any factual information and is filled with lies.

The most famous writer in history and his children were illiterate, hmmm?, only three of his signatures survive, in the most awful handwriting?, come on, wake the fuck up.

Critical thinking is almost completely unknown in our delusional time.

He was writing about historical and fictional figures, so putting himself in the works would be silly. Even so, he did include details only someone from Stratford would have known.