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Ep. 130 Shakespeare: How An Uneducated Nobody Penned the Greatest Collection of Literary Works Ever Written... or Did He?

• Shea LaFountaine • Episode 130

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William Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. Author of over 30 plays and over 150 poems, he masterfully knit together over 20,000 English words, all out inventing some 1,700 of them, to beautifully capture full ranges of complex emotions and subtle nuances of human nature that still capture audiences over 400 years later. Pretty impressive for a 16th century man from a modest family with only a grammar school education, illiterate parents, illiterate children, who never left the country, didn’t seem to own any books, and has no surviving handwritten letters or documents of any kind today. So impressive, in fact, it actually raises some pretty big questions. How exactly did a man like William Shakespeare write such an impressive collection of literary masterpieces? Or didn’t he? Let’s fix that. 

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When thinking of literary greats, several come to mind but all of them, all of them pale in comparison to one name. This man, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time, a playwright, a poet, you all know him - William Shakespeare. Encyclopedia Britannica even sets aside its impartiality writing quote “It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power,” end quote. And yeah, he’s pretty unrivaled when it comes to intellectual rapidity and whatnot. I mean, the man reportedly invented over 1,700 new English words, words we still use today, words like birthplace, fanged, zany, eyeball, radiance, pageantry, misquote, schoolboy, downstairs, dewdrop. Within his over 30 plays and over 150 poems he used more than 20,000 English words, knitted together just so to beautifully capture full ranges of complex emotions and subtle nuances of human nature. Pretty impressive for a 16th century man from a modest family with only a grammar school education, illiterate parents, illiterate children, who never left the country, didn’t seem to own any books, and has no surviving handwritten letters or documents of any kind today. So impressive, in fact, it actually raises some pretty big questions. How exactly did a man like William Shakespeare write such an impressive collection of literary masterpieces? Or didn’t he? Let’s fix that. 


Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. William Shakespeare came up in last week’s episode about Richard III. Shakespeare is credited with writing a play called Richard III, a tragedy about Richard’s rise to power and short reign. Remember, if you listened to that episode, Richard III is the antagonist, he is the villain in that play. He’s this murderous, ruthless tyrant who takes out anyone who stands between him and the crown, even members of his own family and he was portrayed very unfavorably as this sort of hunchbacked, Shakespeare made up the word hunchback by the way, this sort of hunchbaked creature with a limp and a withered hand, what Shakespeare called “a poisonous bunch backed toad.” And this is a fictional play of course but it did affect the reputation of the real life Richard III, it definitely helped form our modern views of him and who he was. So anyway, after Shakespeare popping into last week’s episode, I couldn’t get him out of my head. And of course he’s been on my list of topics for a while so I decided to dust him off and bring him out of storage this week. 


When it comes to William Shakespeare there are two very different schools of thought, two different camps. There are the Stratfordians and the anti-Stratfordians. Okay, the Stratfordians believe what is the widely accepted belief that William Shakespeare wrote all of his plays and poems, cut and dry, case closed. The anti-Stratfordians, this other group, which formed, actually shortly after Shakespeare’s death and has since included other literary greats, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Sigmund Freud, this group does not believe that William Shakespeare was responsible for writing all of possibly any of the works attributed to him. Now, let me be clear, all the groups, everyone believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was a real person. There’s no question of that. The question lies in what he did or did not do. Is he responsible for this incredible body of work or not? 


So let’s start with the man himself because, like I said, everyone is in agreement that he existed. Then we’ll move into evidence and some alternate theories. So here's what we know. A man named William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1565 in Stratford-Upon-Avon which is in England, just a little south of Birmingham, and about 100 miles northwest of London. Stratford-Upon-Avon was not a big city or anything like that, it was a small, humble market town. Shakespeare’s parents names were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. John Shakespeare worked as a glovemaker initially, and also an ale-taster at one point, that was a thing, and then later got involved somewhat in local politics. He started as a burgess, later an alderman, and then a bailiff, which, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, was essentially like the mayor at the time. So you look at that and you think, wow simple glovemaker, ale-taster worked his way up to mayor, he must have been a well educated man, certainly the mayor had to be well educated. Well no, it doesn’t seem so. In fact, there’s no writing left behind by John Shakespeare and, from what we do have, he seems to have signed his name with a mark on the paper. The man couldn’t even write his own name. Which is pretty solid evidence that he was in fact illiterate. Now that’s not too crazy. A man of his station at the time, late 1500s, was not expected to be able to read and write. Literacy rates in 16th century England sat at only about 20% for men. Only 20% of English men could read and write in the 1500s. 


But, because John Shakespeare had sort of climbed the ladder up to bailiff, mayor, in his lifetime, it is likely that he would have sent his son, William, to the local grammar school. Do we know that for sure, no. There are no records to suggest that William Shakespeare had any schooling at all but it’s assumed based on circumstantial evidence that he did. And, as an adolescent, he would have lived with his family at their house on Henley Street which is still there amazingly enough and now restored as a museum. If you’re watching the video verson on YouTube or Patreon then you’re seeing the house now including a depiction of the bedroom where Shakespeare was thought to be born. Very cool. We know he didn’t go to college, he didn’t go to any kind of university, higher education, because when he was 18 he accidentally knocked up his girlfriend. Yeah. When Shakespeare was 18 years old he married a 26 year old woman named Anne Hathaway. And then, all according to official records, 6 months after their marriage, Anne gave birth to a baby girl they named Susanna. So, do the math, Anne was already 3 months pregnant when she married Shakespeare. This was very much a marriage of necessity and a rushed one at that, what we would call today a shotgun wedding. We know that Shakespeare and his wife Anne had three children together, Susanna, and then a few years later twins, a boy and a girl, named Hamnet and Judith. We know because of church records that the boy, Hamnet, died when he was only 11, but we don’t know how. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d bet on bubonic plague, but who knows, the church didn’t record the cause of death. 


So Shakespeare goes to grammar school, maybe, he turns 18, he gets married, he has a few kids and then he completely disappears from the record between 1585 and 1592. No one has any idea where he was or what he was doing. These are often referred to as the “lost years.” They are bookended by, okay in 1585 the twins were baptised in Stratford-Upon-Avon, there’s a record of that. And then nothing at all for 7 years. And then fast forward to 1592 and somehow Shakespeare is established as a playwright and actor in London. How he got from one place to the other is a big unknown. I mean, not like physically, but like, how did he go from father of 3 in Stratford-Upon-Avon to big theatre guy in London. We don’t know. When his narrative picks back up in 1592, we learn that his first printed works were published during his time in London, two long poems, “Venus and Adonis” in 1593 and “The Rape of Lucrece” (Lu-crease) in 1594. Both poems are dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southhampton so it’s believed that this guy may have been a sort of patron for Shakespeare. By the way I love that his cat is pictured in this portrait of him, if you’re watching the video version. I feel like I like this guy. So he was probably Shakespeare’s patron. This was quite common during the early modern and renaissance periods for artists. You couldn’t really just like go be an artist and sell your art and make a living that way, not really. You needed a patron, a wealthy guy who funded you. So he paid for your life and you made art for him that he wanted in order to leave behind a legacy of sorts. So patrons of the art commissioned portraits, paintings, architecture, right like buildings and monuments, as well as literature. 


Between 1592 and 1594, when these poems were published, we know that the theatres in London were often closed because of outbreaks of bubonic plague during those years. So Shakespeare may have been out of work, writing poems for this wealthy patron. In 1594, plague chills out, theatres open back up, Shakespeare joins a group called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, this company of actors in London. These guys were the most popular group of actors at Court. Okay so 1594, Queen Elizabeth I is the ruling monarch. Shakespeare, as part of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, would have performed in front of her on multiple occasions. He also operated as the main dramatist for the group. A dramatist is a person who writes plays, like a playwright, right. Supposedly, Shakespeare wrote an average of 2 plays per year for the group. What’s remarkable is that a lot of the plays he wrote and then performed, for the queen, were actually kind of making fun of the monarchy and the whole institution. The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship writes quote “At a time when other authors… were called before the Star Chamber, imprisoned, tortured, or even executed for writings deemed offensive, how did the commoner Shakspere prosper with no penalty? The queen’s top minister, Sir William Cecil… perhaps the most powerful man in England, is parodied in Hamlet as Polonius.... When Cecil died in 1598, his son Sir Robert inherited his power. Sir Christopher Hatton is mercilessly satirized as Malvolio in Twelfth Night (Olivia seems to represent the queen). The farcical romance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, between Titania and donkey-headed Bottom, seems to mock the queen’s courtship by the French duc d’Alençon (duke da-lon-son),” end quote. It is rather curious that this random guy with no ties to nobility, no connections within the inner circle, was able to get away with poking fun at the monarchy in those days. A bit of a plot hole there.  


In 1599, this group, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built the Globe theatre in London which became the most famous theatre of its time. Soon after this, Shakespeare purchased a nice house, the biggest house actually, back in Stratford-Upon-Avon called “New Place,” not the most creative name for a rather creative man, but whatever. “Yeah, it’s ah… the new place. Not the old one. We’ll just call it New Place.” This house is, unfortunately, not still there. It was demolished in the 1750s. Now there’s like a commemorative garden there or something like that. According to the Shakespeare birthplace trust quote “Recent archaeological evidence discovered on the site of Shakespeare’s New Place shows that Shakespeare was only ever an intermittent lodger in London. This suggests he divided his time between Stratford and London (a two or three-day commute). In his later years, he may have spent more time in Stratford-upon-Avon than scholars previously thought,” end quote. 


In 1603, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men changed their name to the King’s Men because Queen Elizabeth had died and been replaced by King James I. James was the first Stewart monarch that would last until the Hanovers take over with George I in 1714, episode 96. So it went Plantagenet, Tudor, Stewart, Hanover, Windsor right. The Windsors are the current dynasty in charge. James I was related to Elizabeth through her father’s sister Margaret. So, they just like, yeah, they didn’t have any other options. James takes over, they become the Kings Men but it’s the same group.


In 1613, tragedy struck the beloved Globe theatre during a performance of the play All Is True, a thriller about the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which like, I would go see that for sure. The theatre was packed, full house, it was the 3rd or 4th showing of the play, it was expected to go smoothly. But then, near the end of act one, cannons were fired. It was all part of the show. They were supposed to mark the entrance of Henry VIII’s character. But flaming shrapnel from one of the cannons landed on the thatched roof which quickly went up in flames. After that, the entire Globe theatre which was made of wood and straw, completely burned to the ground. Amazingly, no one was killed. Everyone was able to evacuate but it was a major tragedy for the King’s Men.  


Shakespeare was involved in this acting group, this theatre troupe, writing plays and poems and even acting on stage for around 20 years before dying at the age of 52 in Stratford-Upon-Avon where he is buried in the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity church, maybe? I mean, we’re pretty sure it’s his grave anyway. His name isn’t actually on the gravestone. According to Shakespeare Birthplace Trust the grave was quote “believed to be Shakespeare's from at least 1656, and is the first in a row which commemorates other members of his family,” end quote. Eh… is that enough? There is a stone statue of Shakespeare though, the guy we will later recognize as Shakespeare, this carved monument of his bust above the grave. So that’s something. The gravestone doesn’t have a name but it does have this interesting little rhyme engraved on it though. It says quote “Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, To digg the dust encloased heare, Blest by the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones,” end quote. A curse. So, no exhuming that guy I guess. We’ll just assume it’s him. 






While Shakespeare is perhaps best known for his plays, the poems he wrote, the sonnets, over 150 of them may have actually been his pride and joy. These were believed to have been written between 1593 and 1601 but they weren’t published until 1609. And when they were published, this is rather curious, the dedication referred to the author as quote “our ever living poet.” Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship says quote “Standard sources like the Oxford English Dictionary confirm that “ever-living” was used to indicate a deceased person, immortal in a religious or figurative sense. Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 1 refers to the deceased King Henry V as “that ever-living man of memory.”” end quote. But, the problem here is, that William Shakespeare did not die until 1616, seven years after this book of sonnets was published. So why was the poet referred to as “ever living?” a term that actually meant dead? We’ll circle back around to this. 


How did we come by the 30 some plays? No original manuscripts, no plays in Shakespeare’s handwriting are known to exist today. Instead, around half of his plays were gathered up by some of the men in his acting group after he died. These guys had them published in 1623 as a collection of plays called First Folio. The cover identified the writing as quote “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies” and the title page included the classic image of Shakespeare that we have come to know, the balding man with the mustache and the soul patch, I guess you call that, that weird little bit of facial hair under the bottom lip, and the starched collar and all that. That’s where that image came from, the first folio, and the statue above his grave, because these two likenesses match. Actually, it’s likely they got his likeness from the statue which predates the book. The book’s forward was written by fellow contemporary playwright Ben Jonson who identifies Shakespeare as the author and calls him the quote “Sweet Swan of Avon.” Remember Shakespeare was from Stratford-Upon-Avon, so this is one of only a few things that links that William Shakespeare, the Stratford-Upon-Avon Shakespeare to the author of the plays in First Folio, the likeness from the grave statue and being called the sweet swan of Avon in the book’s forward. 


So that’s the story, right, this guy from Stratford-Upon-Avon, goes to London. He joins a theatre troupe. He starts writing plays and poems. His buddies publish the plays and poems after his death. He becomes this sensational literary genius remembered for all of time. Great. But there are a lot of question marks in this story, a lot of plot holes, and there have always been. Now, the widely held belief within the historical and literary community is that William Shakespeare from Stratford-Upon-Avon, born in 1565 and died in 1616 did in fact write the entire body of work, plays and poems, credited to him. That is the consensus overall, okay keep that in mind. Don’t go around telling people that History Fix taught you Shakespeare was a sham. I’m not saying that. But now I do want to consider alternative theories, the anti-Stratfordian views, because they are rather interesting and somewhat compelling. 


These theories arose, actually before Shakespeare even died, mostly because of that book of sonnets that was published in 1609 where the author is referred to as a dead man. People were like “hmm, if Shakespeare is the author, he’s still alive, why does it say he’s dead?” That inconsistency caused some initial head scratching and then this idea sort of bloomed that, hey it’s actually very unlikely that this man wrote all of this stuff. We don’t even know if this guy could read and write. We have nothing that he actually wrote with his own hand. Not one single letter that the man ever wrote has surfaced. We have his signature, 6 times. We have 6 very different versions of a William Shakespeare signature. Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship says quote “The only accepted specimens of Shakspere’s handwriting are six tortured, almost illegible signatures. An expert with no stake in the authorship dispute has declared they were written by different people. Some may have been signed on his behalf,” end quote. Looking at them, they are very shaky like they were drawn by someone who didn’t know how to write. Remember, we saw this with Joan of Arc’s signature too. When someone who is illiterate signs their name, they aren’t really writing, they are just trying to draw the shapes of the letters. You can tell. It’s different. We also know that his father was illiterate because he signed his name with a symbol. And we know that his two daughters were illiterate. So people question, if Shakespeare was this literary genius, why didn’t he at least ensure that his daughters were taught to read? And then you might say, oh well gender norms in the 16th century. They were girls, maybe he didn’t see the need to educate them because of sexist views at the time. But that doesn’t jive with the way he clearly viewed females in his plays who were often highly educated. Portia in the Merchant of Venice, Miranda in the Tempest, Helena in All’s Well that Ends Well, these were all highly educated female characters. Why wouldn’t he teach his own daughters to read and write?


So, this guy was questionably literate. But also, he didn’t appear to be very well educated overall. So people look at that and they say “no way. There is no way he could have written about the things that he wrote about without a greater knowledge of the world.” Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship says quote “The author Shakespeare was deeply familiar with law — making accurate use of arcane legal terms and resorting to legal metaphors as if by natural habit — and with many other fields of knowledge including music, foreign languages, medicine, military and nautical affairs, and aristocratic sports like falconry. The works rely on myriad classical and Renaissance sources in French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Greek, some not yet translated into English at the time. The plays and poems reveal extensive foreign travel, including intimate familiarity with the art, culture, and geography of Italy. It’s difficult to imagine how Shakspere of Stratford could have gained such experience or knowledge or access to the rare and expensive books required. There’s no evidence he ever traveled outside England (extremely expensive and politically risky at the time), or had any chance to obtain higher education. Rudimentary Latin was taught at the Stratford Grammar School (attendance records are lost), but not any other foreign languages,” end quote. Walt Whitman recognized this incongruence in his 1888 book November Boughs, writing quote “only one of the ‘wolfish earls’ so plenteous in the plays themselves [would] seem to be the true author,” end quote. Meaning the middle class, uneducated Stratford Shakespeare could not have written with the knowledge and perspective that he had. Whitman is implying that it had to have been someone of nobility, a “wolfish earl,” well educated, who would have known and understood these things about politics, law, geography, philosophy, in order to write about them with such accuracy and skill.


But this is dangerous territory, I think. I mean I get it, and I can’t make it make sense either, how Shakespeare would have known the things that he knew, that he wrote into his plays. But it is a little dangerous to assume that someone is incapable of something because they lack higher education or because they weren’t nobility. That’s verging on some kind of elitist bias. We know people have achieved incredible things who came from humble beginnings, modest, middle class, high school drop outs. The Wright brothers, remember, episode 92, the first flight. Orville and Wilbur Wright were completely self educated. And we’re talking about complex math and engineering here. They didn’t go to college. They just taught themselves. So it is possible and it happens more than you might think. Often these savant genius types don’t fit into the traditional mold of schooling. It doesn’t work for them. But that doesn’t mean they are lesser or incapable. Shakespeare could have been self-taught, right? Like the Wright brothers. Maybe he read a lot of books. Except, there’s no evidence that Shakespeare even owned any books. Books were a rather expensive and valuable asset back then and none were listed in Shakespeare’s will. He did though, fun side fact, he did bequeath to his wife in his will his quote “second best bed.” I don’t know who got the best bed but it wasn’t poor Anne.  


When it comes to Shakespeare, though, one of the biggest issues for the anti-Stratfordians is that there is just a complete lack of any real evidence that he did write the stuff. There’s nothing physical to back it up. I mean his name is on the works. He’s listed as the author on these plays and poems. But they look at that and they say “anyone can put anyone’s name on something, especially if the real author doesn’t want to be revealed.” We also know for sure that Shakespeare was an actor with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, there are pay stubs, essentially, and that he owned a share in the Globe theatre so it makes sense that he would have authored the plays they often performed, he was part of that world after all. But that is, of course, entirely circumstantial. Working as an actor and owning part of a theatre does not definitively prove that he wrote anything. Although it does make it more likely. Circumstantial. 


So what kind of evidence would suffice? Well anything at all written in Shakespeare’s handwriting would be helpful. Witness accounts would be nice, lasting records outside of his name printed in the publications. According to Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship quote “At least ten eyewitnesses who knew Shakspere or his family, and who left behind significant writings, never mentioned he was a writer. Shakspere’s son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, kept a journal in which he wrote of the “excellent poet” and Warwickshire native Michael Drayton. But Hall, among at least ten eyewitnesses with personal knowledge of Shakspere or his family, and who left behind significant writings, never mentioned that Shakspere himself was a writer (much less the greatest of the age). There’s no evidence that Shakspere or any member of his family, even decades after he died, ever claimed he was the author of the works of “Shakespeare” — or had any literary career at all! People often cite Ben Jonson, whose actual relationship with Shakspere is unclear. But there’s no record of Jonson ever suggesting Shakspere was a writer during Shakspere’s lifetime — nor in 1616 after he died, when Jonson published a folio with epigrams addressed to half a dozen writers and to actor Edward Alleyn. Jonson merely listed “Shakespeare” twice (hyphenated once) as a cast member in Jonson’s plays,” end quote. 


But why? Why publish the man’s name as the author of the works if he didn’t actually write them? Because it’s not the same as like a pen name. William Shakespeare was a real person, he existed, he went by that name. It’s not a fake name like Mark Twain or Dr. Seuss. It was the guy’s real name. Why give so much credit to the wrong guy? Well, I guess the reason for that depends on who you believe the real author was because there are quite a few theories. The main theory is that all of it was actually written by a guy named Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. De Vere was a known poet and dramatist himself as well as a patron of the arts. But, unlike Shakespeare, he was highly educated and of the nobility. He was raised and educated in the household of Queen Elizabeth’s chief advisor, William Cecil, you know one of the guys Shakespeare made fun of in his plays and got away with it, almost in a way only someone tight with Cecil would be able to pull off. In a “it’s only funny when he said it” kind of way. De Vere traveled extensively throughout Europe. He was very interested in the Italian language and culture, Italy being the setting of many of Shakespeares plays. De Vere was also super into ancient history which shows up in plays like Julius Caesar. Soon after the first works attributed to Shakespeare appeared, de Vere stopped publishing poetry, at least under his own name. Proponents of this theory, the Oxfordian theory, claim that he used Shakespeare as a front to protect his own high profile position within the court, paying him with the annual royal annuity he received from court to go along with the scheme. Interestingly, De Vere died in 1606, around ten years before Shakespeare and well before a lot of the works were published. But remember that book of sonnets that was published in 1609 where the author is described as “our ever living poet” meaning dead? That would actually kind of make sense if De Vere was the author and also already dead. 


Another theory is that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author. This was one of the earliest theories from around the mid 19th century. You’ve heard of Bacon. You're probably trying to recall how you know him right now. His main claim to fame is as the “father of the scientific method.” Yeah, he came up with the whole, question, hypothesis, experiment, analyze, conclude, all that. He was a Tudor era philosopher and also a statesmen, rising through the Tudor court to become Lord Chancellor and a member of the Privy Chamber. Bacon was highly educated as a Cambridge graduate. Proponents of the theory claim that, as a philosopher and also a politician, he wanted to write plays that secretly attacked the political institution he was part of, to like make a statement but that he didn’t want his reputation tarnished as a lowly playwright. Because the theatre, acting, performing, writing plays at the time, these weren’t very respectable careers, not for someone like Sir Francis Bacon.


A third theory is that another playwright named Christopher Marlowe wrote it. Biography.com says quote “A celebrated playwright, poet and translator, Marlowe was a star of the Tudor age. His work undoubtedly influenced a generation of writers, but could he also have been the true author of Shakespeare’s works in addition to his own? Supporters of the Marlovian theory, first popularized in the early 19th century, argue that there are significant similarities in the two writing styles that cannot be overlooked, although modern analysis has called this into dispute. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe was from a modest background, but his intellectual ability saw him awarded both Bachelor and Master’s degrees from Cambridge University. Historians now believe he balanced his literary career with a clandestine role as a spy for the Tudor court. Marlowe’s support for anti-religious groups and publication of what was deemed an atheist work left him in a precarious and dangerous position.Marlowe’s mysterious death in May 1593 has led to centuries of speculation. Although a coroner’s inquest conclusively concluded he had  been stabbed during an argument in a pub, conspiracies swirl that his death was faked. Possibly to avoid an arrest warrant for that anti-religious writing. Or to help hide his role as Cecil’s secret agent. Or, as the Marlovians believe, to allow Marlowe to assume a new literary career as Shakespeare, whose first work under that name went on sale two weeks after Marlowe’s death,” end quote. 


And then, possibly my favorite theory, is that Shakespeare’s works were actually written by a woman. Theorists have pointed out what biography.com calls quote “feminine attributes to subject matter and writing style, as well as the long list of strong, convention-breaking female characters,” end quote. But why would a female author want to hide behind a man’s name? Well because she wants people to read the stuff she wrote and people weren’t reading things written by women in 16th century England. This is still an issue today, actually, it’s the reason Joanne Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series decided to publish her name as JK Rowling. Her publishers were concerned that boys wouldn’t want to read the books if they knew they were written by a woman. How freaking sad is that? So anywhere, yeah there’s motive for a woman to publish a literary work under a man’s name. It happened more than we know. So who might this woman have been? There are a few theories. One is Mary Sidney, the sister of poet Philip Sidney. Mary was very well educated for a woman of her time and spent time at the court of Elizabeth I so she would have been familiar with the politics so often written about in Shakespeare’s plays. She was also an accomplished writer and we know she authored several “closet dramas.” These were plays written for private performances. Women were not allowed to participate in theatre at this time so this was really the only way she could be involved was to write closet dramas. Or to, you know, pretend that a man wrote her plays. 


Another woman has been suggested more recently, Emilia Bassano. Emilia was born in London but her parents were Italian, they were Venetian merchants, so that checks out with the setting of 13 of Shakespeare's plays being in Italy. Emilia was one of the first women to publish a volume of poetry. And there are little clues in the plays that might possibly be a nod to Emilia as the author. Her family was thought to be originally Jewish, converted Jews, and Shakespeare often included Jewish characters and themes that were treated in a much more positive way than was typical of the era. Also the name Emilia, not a common name at all in England at the time, but is used more than once as the name of female characters in Shakespeare’s works. There is an Emilia in Othello and also in The Comedy of Errors. He also uses possible variations of her last name “Bassano.” I mean Emilia Bassano could be a Shakespeare character. But then again, it’s an Italian name, he was obviously into Italy, might just be a coincidence. She was in his circle somewhat though. She was the mistress of one of the key patrons of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Remember artists needed patrons back then, rich people to fund them. She was the mistress of one of those guys which possibly brought her into contact with Shakespeare himself. So people think she was just like “hey dude will you just put your name on these? You can get all the honor and glory I don’t really care I just want people to read them.” Some people also think that Emilia was Shakespeare’s mistress but I don’t know what the evidence is for that. 


There’s also another theory that Shakespeare’s works were written by more than one person, a whole collection of people, a group, writing under his name. Sir Francis Bacon is thought to be only part of this group that may have been led by none other than our boy Sir Walter Raleigh of Lost Colony fame. Mary Sidney’s name is thrown into this gorup. Some even go as far as to theorize that Queen Elizabeth herself was part of this group of authors but, I don’t know, this theory seems far-fetched to me. 


So did William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon actually write the 39 plays and 154 poems that he has been given the credit for? Probably. You know, usually the simplest answer is the correct one. The more complicated the theories get, the less likely they are to be true. But I have to admit, the anti-Stratfordians have some very compelling arguments. The complete lack of any solid evidence that Shakespeare was the author leaves us wondering for sure. It isn’t evidence to the contrary though. A lack of evidence in one direction can’t necessarily be used as evidence in the other direction. But, I mean, either way it’s a wild story, right? Either this uneducated middle class actor from small town 16th century England wrote the most highly acclaimed collection of literary works ever written arguably to this day or somebody else pulled off one of the greatest smoke and mirrors tricks of all time. Either way the story of William Shakespeare, if that’s even his real name, is remarkable. In the poem Ben Jonson wrote as the forward to First Folio, that first posthumous publication of Shakespeare’s plays, where he calls him the “Swan of Avon,” he also says that Shakespeare quote “was not of an age, but for all time.” And I think, you know, over 400 years later that really has been proven. Shakespeare has more than survived the test of time. He has triumphed over time. And I can’t decide what’s more impressive. That this uneducated nobody achieved that kind of timeless legacy, left that kind of mark on the world, or that an educated somebody did it and chose willingly to remain anonymous, to give someone else the credit, to deny that legacy for themselves. One defies societal expectations. The other defies human nature itself. I suppose the great bard left this one, the greatest of all his stories, for us to conclude. So, choose your own ending I guess. Until then, the curtain remains open.  


Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. That’ll make it much easier to get your next fix. 


Information used in this episode was sourced from poets.org, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, shakespeareauthorship.com, History Extra, Book Brunch, history.com, biography.com, Encyclopedia Britannica, EBSCO, and Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship. As always, linked in the show notes.