I am only back in town for 24 hours or so, so don't be miffed if any response to this post is left unanswered for another week or two.   While I was away, the discussion on whether our Bill wrote the sonnets and plays seems to have drifted off into a interesting, if somewhat sterile, side streams.   

Was it our Bill what wrote them masterpieces?   

Some argue that our Bill did not have the education or noble background to write so well, and others rightly dismiss this as being elitist nonsense.   The case that it might not of been him really rests on the facts that Bill never claimed authorship, never did anything in any way to support any claim that he was the author, and the people of Stratford who argue long and loud that Bill was the man: well, they rely on others who said they knew it was him.    What matters, really, is those others, back in the 1600's, who gave our Bill credit for authorship - if they were right to do so, our quest is over..

How did those others know?   Let me back-track for a moment.

We know that there are 154 sonnets and about 40 plays that were written by one person in the late 1580's early 1600's.   They were attributed to our Bill some 7 years after he died.

The earliest play seem to have been written before Bill arrived in London, and several are given co-authors who, from all contemporary records, were people who never actually met our Bill.   (Not necessarily suspicious - many works have been changed after their first issue by others who want to revise areas worthy of revision).   

Our Bill was a member of an informal club "The Mermaid Tavern" from about 1604 to 1613, (along with Ben Johnson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher and others).    Members of this group printed the first portfolio of plays and gave the author's name as William Shake-speare.   They did this 7 years after Bill had died.   The hyphen the typesetter put in our Bill's name was not of any significance.

Later editions of these early plays showed some revisions had taken place after Bill's death, which means that others definitely did have their hand in "correcting" those masterpieces.   This is accepted as being normal for the day.

The sonnets fall into two groups 1 to 126 addressed to a fair young man, and 127 to 154 to "a dark lady".   Most scholars agree that the fair young man is the Earl of Southampton, but where and when our Bill had an affair with him remains a mystery.   

The early reign of King James holds several tantalizing clues as to the court's attitude to our Bill.   When Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford died, King James had ten of our Bill's plays performed in court, to honor Edward's life.   Later, when Edward's wife died, another dozen of our Bill's plays were performed in court.   (Hypothesis: King James recognized that the works had been written by a great author)

To produce a revised bible, King James summoned the finest English poets and writers of the day to work on the project, which lasted from 1604 to 1611.   Our Bill was not included.    One may wonder why.   (Hypothesis: King James did not include our Bill on his list of great authors).

In 1610, our Bill left London and returned to Stratford to become a Corn Merchant.   He died in 1616.   It was not until 1623 that his name was finally linked as the author of the plays and sonnets, and the people so saying were his good friends and colleagues from the Mermaid Tavern.   If those good people had correctly identified the author, we are still left with an overwhelming doubt as to their veracity: why had none of them ever written it down before in diaries, correspondence, play bills - anything at all?   They maintained an absolute and total silence on the topic throughout Bill's life, for another 7 years after his death, and then suddenly remembered that it was him, after all.

We have had a long and interesting discussion on whether Guilliam Shagspere, proved or did not prove anything by constantly signing himself with variations of the name Shackspere.    The absence of an "e" in Shack and the absence of an "a" in spere is worthy of discussion, but quickly turns into a circular chase.   Let us, instead, concentrate on why Bill's friends acted in such a bizarre manner over revealing his name.   Oh - we cannot can we?   All they have ever had to say on the topic was said in the one act of publishing the first portfolio.   Any discussion can only be based on theoretical conceptions, can't it?

Perhaps we face a situation which is rather like that Theory of Evolution: until we have hard and fast data to overwhelm any alternative, we will always have some people who genuinely believe in the concept of intelligent design.   Not that their belief is "correct" or "incorrect", it is the only belief they have to be going on with.    Ask our educators in Kansas, they can explain it better than I.

May be it is a bit like that with this authorship debate.   Some have so long held the belief that our Bill wrote the plays - possibly gained from a school teacher who had gained the same view in a similar manner - that for it be untrue is quite unthinkable.    Until there is something that "proves" our Bill was not the author, they find it simpler to continue to accept the belief that he was.   It possibly helps them if they belittle and mock those with a different point of view, because making mock requires no critical thought.

Now, in my view, showing that others make more credible candidates for authorship simply magnifies the serious and continuing doubts about our Bill being the author.   

Was the real author De Vere or Neville?   I really don't know.   But De Vere certainly has more stuffing in his case than Bill ever had.   I have yet to read on the case for Neville, but early reviews suggest that it is merely based on chronology and little else.   

But was it our Bill?   

Let me turn it round and ask you the most basic of basic questions: "If you think William Shakespeare, citizen of Stratford upon Avon, wrote the sonnets and plays attributed to him after his death, what is the basis of your belief?"

Is it from some higher authority whose point of view you accept without question?   From historical evidence that overwhelming supports your view?   Or from some other basis?