I've never understood the passion for finding out who Shakespere "really was". I don't think that we can find the answer. And I don't understand why people can't accept the historical figure as the "real" author. Genuis doesn't always follow the rules. In fact rarely does.

Chris.

I'm reading you.

Don't want your post to go unnoticed - sorry, I'm up to my ears in work. But as to Shakespeare.... 'Did' all this many years ago at university in UK. People used to steal play-texts in 16th century, as you know. Because they couldn't get them/buy them, they'd go to a play-performance and try to take it all down in some kind of shorthand - Shakespeare was a real pull for audiences, he was so popular, and there were no copywright laws in those days so you looked after your own!

So there they'd sit,the word-thieves, at the back (or wherever), and, using the shorthandists, they'd take down what they heard - or even what they thought they heard. And then we, centuries later, come across their 'text', which would be a 'corrupt' text, and so there are several or more (!) versions of the play extant because they all got mixed up.

So far as earlier versions of plays are concerned, there is postulated, for instance, an 'Ur' Hamlet from which Shakespeare built to the play we know now. So I suppose there are other 'Ur' plays. Don't know. It's fascinating.

'Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt'

or

'Oh that this too, too sullied flesh would melt'

Hear it? Hear how someone sitting at the back might have got it?

All for now,.

Dido

So far as whether He wrote the plays or not, I'm so fed up with this question, I could swear violently!

Who cares, actually, who wrote a work? (I speak as a writer.) It's the work(s) that matter. Remember:

'Homer didn't write the Iliad and the Odyssey- it was another blind poet with the same name.'

and:

'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair
Nothing beside remains. But all around,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

I'd be glad if a few of my considered words remained. Never mind my name.

Keats's grave, in Italy, sports the following:

'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.'

He was, perhaps, a bit OTT. But one day it might be so.

Dido

I enjoy knowing about the writer, his times, travels, influences and politics. In that vein, I want to know "who" Shakespeare was.

I must weigh in on the side of those who are fascinated by this controversey. I care about who Shakespeare was because I'm so interested in the history of the British Isles at that time. I also have an interest in some of the contenders, e.g. Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Southhampton, and possibly a "group" of writers. It's a period in history when so much had to be hidden, had to be kept underground, as it were, with the Catholic/Protestant issues, not to mention the political intrigues surrounding the first Queen Elizabeth.It's all so interconnected and much was made of symbols with hidden meanings and conundrums.

I've been reading books about this for years and will continue to do so. I love mysteries and puzzles, especially historical ones. Thanks for posting this. I will look for it!

Having grown up in the hometown of Wm Shakespeare I choose to think of him as a local boy who got himself to London where he done good . . . and before cece sends me to stand in the corner it is a phrase borrowed a from one of our UK football managers. I do wonder at the many books that are produced which, on the thinnest evidence, claim he was a secret Catholic in the North of England or involved with plots at Court, or even doubting that a country boy was capable of writing those sonnets and plays.
But then I would say that!
I feel the same exasperation at the 'historians' who claim that Elizabeth I should not be known as the 'Virgin Queen'.

Well of course it's "done good"-what else? That is an iconic phrase for self-improvement! ;-) It is even better when said directly to the person in question:
"Honey, ya done good!"

Cece,

We actually know quite a bit about Shakespeare, from legal records and theatre records.

As far as whether he wrote the plays or not, Why shouldn't he? He was well educated. Not university, like Marlowe, but Marlowe's plays don't sort of branch out like Shakespeare's do. He (SH.) knew just about every thing about every body. He was the greatest humanist of them all. And he put it all into sublime poetry, too. Marlowe can't touch him; neither can Bacon - the two most usually put forward.

When I was but a young thing, I found it quite engaging to while away an hour or two debating this question of Who Was Shakespeare, in a desultory sort of a way. Many years later with a great deal of reading and watching of the plays behind me, I am satisfied - just for my own purposes. I also find it very moving to think that a person, quite humbly born, can rise to such great heights all by his own hard efforts to make the most of his initial talent. I know writers like that who are alive today.

Dido

I don't doubt the "Stratford Shakespeare"...my statement was a general thing-I read many bios of authors to see why they wrote the way they did.

I've always found the debate entertaining, even if I don't believe any of the alternative theories.

Ever read Killer Dolphin and Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh? Both mysteries are "Shakespeare theater" based-the first actually addressing this issue in a way.
hmm...now that I have remembered them, I need to go reread them. Sorry, TBR pile.