The Shakespeare conspiracy theory, which began almost two centuries ago and was recently inflamed by the production of Anonymous, has been a controversial topic. It suggests that an unknown writer sent scripts to Shakespeare’s company and used the actor from his company. However, all available scholarship shows that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, the glover’s son, wrote the works attributed to him.
Despite Winkler’s assertion, there is strong, unrefuted evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works attributed to him. There is speculation that William Shakespeare is a pseudonym or a cover for de Vere, but there is no documentary evidence from anyone in the period.
The Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship contends that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. Another popular theory is that the better-educated playwright Christopher Marlowe was the true author, but Marlowe died in 1593, long before Shakespeare’s death. Wilder conspiracy theories posit that the playwright never truly existed or was only an actor and not a playwright, but the consensus debate remains.
In conclusion, the Shakespeare conspiracy theory is a complex and intriguing mystery that has been debated for centuries. While there is strong evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon wrote the works attributed to him, there are also other theories and theories that could challenge the consensus on the true authorship of Shakespeare’s works.
📹 The Conspiracy Theory that Shakespeare Didn’t Write Shakespeare
Video written by Tristan Purdy Check out my other channel: http://youtube.com/wendoverproductions.
What did Sigmund Freud say about Shakespeare?
Sigmund Freud, a renowned psychoanalyst, had a significant influence on his work through Shakespeare’s plays. He began reading Shakespeare at the age of eight and used his interpretations to understand life’s challenges, such as failure and death. Shakespeare’s plays were also the basis for psychoanalysis, with themes, images, plots, and lines from the plays being woven into the foundational texts. Freud’s intertextual relationship with Shakespeare took various forms, including quotation, allusion, and literary interpretation.
Some of these allusions are deeply embedded in Freud’s texts, a fact that even Freud may not have been aware of. This talk will explore the influence of Shakespeare on Freud and the development of psychoanalysis, with Christian Smith, who completed his doctoral studies at the University of Warwick, focusing on the formative influence of Shakespeare on Marxism, psychoanalysis, and Frankfurt School Critical Theory.
What was the curse of the play Shakespeare?
Macbeth, a play in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is surrounded by superstition and fear of the “curse”, which is a term derived from the 16th-century Scottish witch-hunts. King James VI of Scotland was obsessed with witchcraft, inspired by the execution of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1589, James blamed the evil spells of witches for a storm that nearly drowned his wife and his ship. He ordered a witch-hunt in North Berwick and later wrote Daemonologie, a treatise on witchcraft.
James became King James I of England in 1603, and his subjects were keen to appease him and his views on the demonic. Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, published in 1604, further intensified England’s fear of sorcery.
Why is Macbeth a paradox?
Macbeth’s inner conflict is evident in his decision to kill the king, which is a paradoxical act given his subsequent assertion to his wife that the murder would be “well” for Macbeth but not “well” for King Duncan if it were done quickly.
What is the Shakespeare paradox?
The “Slave Shakespeare Paradox” refers to the paradox of teaching Shakespeare’s works with the intention of making them understandable while also hoping that no one understands them. This paradox arises when it comes to justifying the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books list from 2000-2009, which includes classics like Shakespeare’s plays. This paradox highlights the need for a balance between understanding and promoting understanding in teaching Shakespeare’s works.
Is The Romeo and Juliet effect Real?
In 1972, Richard Driscoll and Keith Davis conducted a longitudinal study on relationships, revealing that parental interference in a loving relationship may intensify romantic love between couples for a brief period. The study interviewed 140 couples, both married and unmarried, and measured feelings about the spouse, perceived love, trustworthiness, neediness, and parental interference. The results showed an increase in love ratings for one’s partner and parental interference, but also decreased trust, increased criticalness, and increased frequency of negative behaviors.
While Driscoll’s study has not been replicated, other researchers have continued to discuss parental influence on relationship stability. In 1983, Malcolm Parks’ study found little to no support for Driscoll’s previous research, and opposition from the partner’s family was not associated with greater emotional attachment. These findings set the path for many other studies on romantic involvement and support systems involvement and approval.
How is Romeo and Juliet a paradox?
The Capulets’ portrayal of Juliet’s death as an “advancement” is a paradox, as it implies that her life has been tragically cut short, halting her progress. Friar Laurence understands the Capulets’ genuine grief, but uses the paradox to criticize their treatment of Juliet, which he views as oppressive and self-centered, highlighting the limitations of their understanding of her death.
What did Shakespeare do that was illegal?
In 1598, Shakespeare was prosecuted for holding 80 bushels of malt or corn during a shortage. He pursued those who couldn’t pay him in full and used the profits to fund his money-lending activities. By combining illegal and legal activities, he retired as the largest property owner in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1613, with a working life of just 24 years. Shakespeare’s political tragedy, “Coriolanus”, includes an early 1600s version of an Occupy protest against the 1:.
Why is twelfth night banned?
Twelfth Night, a book by William Shakespeare, was banned in Merrimack, New Hampshire for encouraging homosexuality. This list celebrates books that have been banned worldwide due to religious dogma, political and social repression. Authors throughout history have struggled to tell their stories amidst religious dogma and repression. The Prince, a book that offers advice on preserving power, conducting warfare, and maintaining reputation, has been banned at least twice.
First, by the Pope in 1559 for being anti-Catholic and dangerous, and then by Protestants who believed it played a role in a 1572 massacre of French Huguenots. The list highlights the challenges faced by authors in telling their stories amidst religious dogma and political repression.
What did Marx say about Shakespeare?
In 1865, Karl Marx named Shakespeare one of his three favorite writers and passed on his love to his daughters. Eleanor Marx, a close friend of Marx, admired Shakespeare’s genius and understood that his genius could be fully understood in the context of the economic and political turbulence of the Tudor and Stuart eras. Marx used Shakespeare to illustrate points that resonated as powerfully today as they did in the nineteenth century.
He first encountered Shakespeare as a young man when he was courting his future wife, Jenny Von Westphalen, in the Rhineland in the 1830s. Jenny’s father was a member of the progressive minority of the German aristocracy, radicalized by the ideas of the French Revolution.
What was Shakespeare punishment?
In Shakespeare’s era, treason was punished with capital punishment and dismemberment, while less serious crimes were often met with severe penalties, such as the amputation of a finger for pickpocketing and lengthy incarceration for minor theft.
What did Nietzsche say about Shakespeare?
Shakespeare’s play “Read Shakespeare” has a lasting impact on Nietzsche’s writings, as he describes it as a collection of strong, powerful, and rough men. Access to content on Oxford Academic is typically provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. Members of an institution can access content through IP-based access, which is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically and cannot be accessed from an IP-authenticated account.
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📹 Was Shakespeare A Real Person?
Matt investigates: Was Shakespeare a real person or the creation of nobleman for creative outlet? Credits: …
I feel this conspiracy theory is just rooted in snobbery. They did have grammar schools in those days, which provided an intensive education in the classics, and Shakespeare probably went to one. Also, dude could read, so is it that implausible that he might have read up on the history around which plays if his were based? Isaac Newton also had humble origins: does that mean Newtonian Mechanics and Calculus were not his inventions?
I think another point to note is that a lot of Shakespearean plays have egregious errors which note a distinct lack of education and worldly travel. His Vienna in Measure for Measure is much more like London. So is his Venice in Othello (perhaps we see a pattern)! The bard from Stratford makes basic mistakes, and he improves with time. That, I think, is the best theory that Shakespeare too was mortal, if gifted with a particular eye towards writing particularly sensitive and realistic portraits of human nature.
At least with the people who’ve ranted stuff like this at me personally (after they’ve hit a certain point and turned mad toxic), I’ve learned not to simply argue with people about their pet conspiracy theories. Instead just feel sorry for them and avoid contact. You can be their enabler or their punching bag, or you can just get away from them. But you probably can’t help them at this point, so at least don’t let them walk all over you. They’ll either get better on their own after reaching a breaking point, or they’ll drink the punch and never come back, but either way trying to talk to them just feeds their paranoia and hostility. They want to argue, and they want to see difference of opinion as inferiority or hostility. They feel personally attacked if you show insufficient enthusiasm for their beliefs, let alone argue, because those beliefs have become part of their core identity and dismissing those belief feels like attacking them. Unless you’re a psychiatrist, you’re probably not able to address that. It hurts to walk away, but it’s not your responsibility to be condescendingly talked down to, or even yelled at, all the time at for not agreeing. They’re not after the truth and they’re not open to evidence; ignoring solid evidence was part of the buy-in, and they’re already fully invested. Instead they want constant affirmation in everything they say no matter what, and giving them that affirmation just digs them deeper; it just enables the behavior. And it’s not right to have someone dictate unreasonable terms to you and dominate every conversation like that.
Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare, brought to you by the same people who think those native people couldn’t have built those ruins, so maybe it was aliens! Also, in Shakespeare’s time he was basically a good television script writer. It wasn’t until he became SHAKESPEARE, GREATEST BARD OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (some hundred years or so after his death) that people decided he was too common to have written all that stuff. In his own time, none of his friends had such doubts.
There is a science thing called stylomitry (or something like that). What it does is, it looks at things like word count, words used, sentence structure etc to create a writing profile for a person. This profile is very unique and can’t even be imitated by people who know the profile. Writing is far to subconscious of a process for that. People.have done that for Shakespeare. What we know from that is: all the plays were written by the same person.most probably male. And it doesn’t match the profile of any other known person from that time. So, for all what’s worth, Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Or at least one guy did. Who isn’t famous for anything else.
The fact is, Shakespeare’s mother was from an affluent, landowning family. While his parents may not have read, he was of the social class where it was expected for boys to learn to read and write. The poorest of the poor rarely learned how to read, but the better-off poor sometimes learned to read but not write. The middle class, where his parents seemingly resided, was again dependent. Based on what we know, his father, John Shakespeare, may have been in the lower or middle part of the middle class. However, I suspect he was actually upper middle class, at least by the time of his marriage, as he was an alderman, meaning was on the town council. He later became the mayor of Stratford before falling on hard times. He also was a glover, and while that could be a poorer tradesman profession, it could have also been a respectable merchant profession if he made luxury gloves. John Shakespeare may have been born on the lower end of middle class then moved up within his social class and was, therefore, never afforded proper schooling. We can assume that John’s father (William’s grandfather) was a farmer as he was the tenant on the property Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, would inherit. Town records also indicate that even a year before marriage, John Shakespeare, had an income that was greatly higher than the expected income of a mere tradesman, meaning he was likely a merchant who made his own goods. He also owned some property and had a good chunk of money to pay various legal expenses.
I don’t really care about this theory, I heard about it a while ago, but I remember it being way more convincing than this article makes it out to be. It’s honestly concerning how badly you twisted everything. Not even a minute is devoted to the actual theory, only 2 points are “addressed”, you left out all the evidence except for those two minor supporting details. You spend 3 times as long just calling the theory dumb. Never in a million years would I expect myself to need to defend this.
There are so many of these types of theories when it comes to old writers. Part of it I think comes down to: people don’t realize how hard it is for written word to survive centuries. If we have an original work from 1000 years ago, you best believe it was always actively preserved or there were A LOT of copies at the time. If a country is conquered/experiences destructive war then the first one is really unlikely. Healthy skepticism is fine, but often it falls on lack of understanding of time
Shakespeare’s father wasn’t just a glove maker and likely could read (but maybe not write). He held a number of important positions in the government of Stratford including “High Bailiff” which was the equivalent of mayor. Furthermore, his mother was actually from the local gentry. These weren’t lords and ladies but they had some means and they definitely could have had their sons educated.
There are plenty if issues that make us dought that Shakespeare actually wrote any of the plays. One is that there is no trace of any of the drafts of any of the plays, like there are of other contemporary plays from other playwrights. The fact that he did not one a library at that time, and no records of him visiting any public or private library puts a shadow of dought about his apparent good knowledge of history. And like that several more issues.
“But if we demanded no more than that from a theory, science would be impossible, for a lively inventive faculty could devise a good many different supposals which would equally save the phenomena. We have therefore had to supplement the canon of saving the phenomena by another canon—first, perhaps, formulated with full clarity by Occam. According to this second canon we must accept (provisionally) not any theory which saves the phenomena but that theory which does so with the fewest possible assumptions. Thus the two theories (a) that the bad bits in Shakespeare were all put in by adapters, and (b) that Shakespeare wrote them when he was not at his best, will equally ‘save’ the appearances. But we already know that there was such a person as Shakespeare and that writers are not always at their best. If scholarship hopes ever to achieve the steady progress of the sciences, we must therefore (provisionally) accept the second theory. If we can explain the bad bits without the assumption of an adapter, we must.” -C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 13.
Shakespeare didn’t write it alone, nor in one draft. They’d put on the first draft and tweak it, audience testing twice a day. His actors were probably aspiring playwrights as well, but since the plays of a troop would be their own, what was eventually published was the version on hand long after Shakedown was dead.
Any one who call people with differing opinions “deniers” are immediately not credible, and this was very weak. I have no dog in the fight and it really doesn’t matter who wrote the works, the works themselves are what is great and that doesn’t change. Having said that, if you had no idea wrote the work and had to make a case for Shakespeare or Bacon, it would be a very easy call.
Shakespere’s father was rich enough to own his own property and send his son to grammar school, to learn the required classical history … but his wasn’t a lord so … But he had a poor classical education so he didn’t apparently know that Bohemia doesn’t have a coastline… which any wealthy son of a lord would know…
I agree with the Anti-Stratfordian thesis. I have for a while. And I think saying “there’s no alternate author” is downright malicious ignorance considering Marlowe (allegedly) died 13 days before Shakespeare’s first work went on sale. Why would Marlowe fake his death? To avoid trial and almost certain execution for subversive atheism. There’s also the fact that Shakespeare’s statue was built with a sack as his epitaph, the common way to revere a businessman instead of a pen, which is what authors used.
The primary theory I’ve heard when it comes to an alternate writer is that Shakespeare did actually write some of his plays, but Marlowe also wrote some of them, hence some of them being written once Marlowe was already dead. I don’t personally believe it, but I think the theory is definitely interesting.
Reading through the comments, I missed references to an article I read in 2016 published in the Daily Mail on the Saturday before April 4 that year, about a book by John Hudson ” Shakespeare’s Dark Lady”, who claims that Amelia Bassano, a Marano lady, born in 1569 to a family of Venetian Jews, who were court musicians to Queen Elisabeth I, wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare. She wrote already a book in 1611(Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum), she was the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, a man in charge of the English Theatre, and patron of the company that staged the famous plays. She had knowledge of Italy, and left clues of her identity, there is a Bassano in The Merchant of Venice, and an Emilia in Othello. In Elizabethan London women could not write original literature, let alone plays., so she needed to publish under a man’s name. To me it seems this could indeed be a serious candidate for an alternative author.
You missed the biggest argument most people make. Shakespeare also ran a large theater company. He would have been very busy all day working. He was then a prolific writer throughout his life. He produced TONS of plays and didn’t live to be very old. They don’t have lights at this time, so he would have needed to write all this by candle light at night when he wasn’t working. Given the enormous task, it is likely that he had help from a cohort of people within his theater company. The best argument is that he put his name on the plays, but many people helped him or outright wrote them for him to put his name on.
I question the illiteracy of his parents. One of the standards of measuring literacy used in the middle ages and Renaissance periods was whether a person was literate in Latin rather than their first language. Being illiterate in your own language was considerably less common than some statistics would suggest.
There were no claims that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays until 200 years after his death. He was known for his plays in his lifetime. The basis for antiStratfordians is snobbery on the basis that he can’t have written about royalty for example without being from the nobility. And yet he writes about things more down to earth that no noble would know.
Well, no, he didn’t write Shakespeare. He wrote Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and so forth. Shakespeare was written by Michael Wood.
There must have been a generational point in every local timeline when nearly everyone’s parents were illiterate. Glove makers didn’t need to read books. I am personally both the first and last generation in my family to know what a tracking adjustment wheel on a VHS machine was for. My niece and nephews started out in the BluRay era and don’t use those any more. I’m told that many schools no longer teach writing in cursive or even (gasp) spelling. Being born to illiterate parents is not a condemnation of limited intellect at all.
John Heminges, Henry Condell, and Richard Burbage, three actors of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a famous acting company that included William Shakespeare, were given money by William Shakespeare of Stratford in his Last Will and Testament in 1616. Two of these actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, were responsible for having 36 of Shakespeare’s plays published in the First Folio in 1623. Ben Jonson’s eulogy in the First Folio clearly praises Shakespeare as a great writer. He states that “thy writings to be such, /As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.” Heminges and Condell also praise Shakespeare as a writer, stating that “he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him.” These are “his works” and “his papers” that they are publishing. He is clearly presented as the writer of these works in the First Folio. The Last Will and Testament of William Shakespeare of Stratford clearly connects him with the 1623 First Folio through Heminges and Condell and it is clear that Shakespeare is presented as the author of the plays.
Christopher Marlowe wrote most of the work attributed to Shakespeare. It is fairly obvious when one considers all the links between the two authors works. Christopher Marlowe was the son of a glove maker, so no more rich than Shakespeare’s family. The inquest into Marlowe’s death was illegal and carried out improperly. Shakespeare’s name did not appear as an author until just weeks after Marlowe’s death, although they were the same age. The poem in which Shakespeare was first given credit as author, Venus and Adonis, was clearly based on an Ovid work which Marlowe had translated in college and contained a part of Marlowe’s translation in the title card. It is also identical in style. One could go on and on and on. Finally, conservative Shakespeare scholars at Oxford college, have recently given partial authorship credit of early Shakespeare plays to Marlowe. Sorry. I don’t mean to imply the writers at Curiosity Stream are intellectually incurious hacks but the glove seems to fit.
….. I don’t think they are saying Shakespeare didn’t write the plays…. The stories the plays he wrote are based on other more famous works…. He wrote the plays, but not the plot: Othello- “a moorish captain” written in 1565 Romeo and Juliet- “the tragic history of Romeus and Juliet” written in 1562 Hamlet- “history of the Danes books 3 and 4” written in 1200 Macbeth- real events (loosely)- 11th century These are short stories and he added depth and language, but every time I’ve heard anyone talk about Shakespeare not writing the plays they are talking about the plot not being original to him.
Whilst I’ve never been convinced by the Anti-Stratfordians I don’t think the comparison to Q holds up at all. I also don’t think the depth and quality of their scholarship deserves being called dumb. PBS did a whole documentary about the Marlow theory that is well worth a watch. Personally i think the best argument in favour of Shakespeare as the the main or sole author is just to think about the people you could have met in a London pub in his time. Ships from London travelled the world bringing back not only goods but people and their stories which cancels out all the arguments about what someone from his class could and could not have known about
I hated reading shakespeares stuff only because of how its written and its nothing we can relate to because it relates to people of that time and not ours. I always cared about learning about history but history tends to be taught in propaganda form when you are young until you study it yourself by actually digging up data yourself.
I just heard of this conspiracy and I went looking for more information. But the main part that I heard and you missed was that he couldn’t have been an expert in all the different areas of life that were covered in his writings. It’s not like they had the internet. You had to actually travel to these places to know as much as he supposedly did about them. So they think that Shakespeare was a collection of people or that Shakespeare signed his name to other peoples works to let them stay anonymous. I’m not saying I believe the conspiracy theory but that makes it a little more believable with those ideas than what you said.
It’s funny debating about something from a few hundred years ago while we can’t even agree on things that are happening this very moment. Anyway, regardless who wrote the plays, I find the Baconian angle quite interesting, he was a wise man. If anyone is interested, Peter Dawkins has a 4 part lecture about it on YouTube.
This is a very oversimplified explanation of the idea that Shakespeare didn’t write any or all of the plays attributed to him, perhaps to the point of negligence but understandable given it’s a 6 minute article that only devoted a third of it to the explaining. And while the issue of Shakespeare was only used as a launching pad to the discussion about conspiracy theories at large, it really ignores the biggest problem about the entire theory: That we cannot prove or disprove it. We simply don’t have enough information, records, or accounts to paint a clear enough picture to settle the question. And while the arguments against a single author named William Shakespeare range from credible to incredibly bonkers, the argument for is simply taking everything about the plays at face value in lack of or ignorance of the discussion. The lesson that could have been on display here is that it is absolutely important to question things, and it is also important to know when those questions have been answered or are completely silly and move on, and just as equally important as both of those to accept when you will never find the answers one way or the other.
What made me sure Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare? The doubters have a scale to determine which person is the true writer of the plays. They assign points to the background and knowledge needed to be the author. Things like knowledge of classic literature, knowledge of how the noble families interact, knowledge of Italy and cities like Venice, legal theory and thinking. All the many bits of knowledge and color in the plays. When you point that scale at Shakespeare guess what score he gets? Nothing, Nada. He knows nothing.
I just hate that Shakespeare is credited with inventing 1700 English words. It’s not true, it’s survivor bias. He used a lot of word in his play and due to popularity or other reasons his plays have endured time. So when Oxford English Dictionary is looking for the first know English text to contain a word it’s often a Shakespearean play. A lot of these words were common in his day and probably written down before him, but those text did not survive over time.
I mean, there is ABSOLUTELY credible evidence not all the plays by written by Shakespeare. It’s crazy to claim he NEVER wrote any of the plays… but modern evidence implies that there were multiple authors for certain plays. Different parts of different plays, or sometimes even different acts in the same play, are written in a different style. It’s completely verifiable from literary analysis, and even mathematical models on word and grammar choice. Comparing to the differences in how other playwrights write, it seems more than likely that all the works of Shakespeare cannot be attributed to Shakespeare alone. He certainly existed, he certainly wrote plays, but a number of them seem to have been mostly written by someone else, going completely uncredited in modern times.
Content creators like this is the reason why the real authors didn’t want credit for the work. The reason why I say content creator’s are the reason to blame is because that’s how authoritarian individuals and organizations act. How dare you question the established knowledge The real creators of the plays are the members of the Rosie cross, sir francis bacon and John D. (Look up who John D could have been) Some of you may ask why would they not want credit for such great works of art? Look at what the plays say and when they where created. The era of kings. The plays openly criticize kings, royal families and the church. Back then if you did that you would be killed for blasphemy against the king and the church.
You are missing the whole theory though. It’s that they were all plays produced in and by the “Shakespeare theatre group” that eventually got changed and or blended into just “Shakespeare’s plays”. Or was a group of writers working together to produce plays in said theatre group. Really not that “farfetched” to think plays, stories, or movies could have been co-written.
0:52 Shakspere never said he was a writer. His coat of arms application says “player”. No one is calling him “a stone cold liar” because he never said he was the author. They smear Freud, Whitman, Rylance and other smart and serious people as “dumb” without any discussion of why they believed the posthumous attributions to the Stratford man was a cover up. They said they would present “the other side of the argument” but they wimped out. Disingenuous.
I usually hate conspiracies, but this is one of the only ones I think is kind of fun… I get that it’s still disrespectful to Shakespeare’s legacy, but in the grand scheme of things it’s still kind of fun… And this article barely scratched the surface on some of the theories. Oh well, They’re all pretty dubious anyway