Ill-founded Common Arguments about Shakespeare

It is a common argument of Stratfordians that Anti-Stratfordians (i.e. those who do not believe William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the poems and plays attributed to him) can't bear to think the actor wrote the Shakespeare works because they can't bear to think that a mere commoner with just a brief grammar school education could have created such great literary works of art. This is such a crass argument and ignores the actual evidence of the works themselves and the well-researched life of the Stratford man, which evidence is the whole point of why the attribution of authorship is questioned.

In the Shakespeare works the high level of scholarship and detailed knowledge of a vast array of literary sources, read in several languages, ancient and modern, and of people and places, as well as of court politics and law, is astounding. The evidence of Will Shakspere’s life, however, depicts the life and experience of a very different person. The detailed knowledge of law and legal terms, and their application, for instance, pervades the sonnets and plays so intimately that it shows the author to have thought like a lawyer—but where did Will Shakspere learn the law and when did he have time to practice it so as to become so habitually expert?

There is also a book, Polimanteia, published in 1595 by the Cambridge University authorities no less, that lists Shakespeare as one of the illustrious graduates of the universities and, moreover, declares Shakespeare to be the “heir” of Thomas Watson, a highly learned poet and accomplished classical scholar. Idiomatic language used in the Shakespeare plays, which is peculiar to Cambridge University, identifies the latter as being Shakespeare’s university. But there is no record in the university archives of William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon as having attended the university, let alone gaining a degree, which suggests that the name ‘Shakespeare’ is the pseudonym of someone else who was a Cambridge alumnus and a great scholar-poet.

Moreover, another common Stratfordian argument is that no one in Shakespeare’s time questioned the authorship or pointed to another author. This is a false statement. Seven contemporary poets questioned the ascription of authorship to the actor Shakspere. These were Robert Greene, George Wither, Ben Jonson, John Davies of Hereford, John Marston, Joseph Hall and one anonymous poet. Of these, Ben Jonson, John Davies of Hereford and the anonymous poet strongly hinted that the actor Shakespeare was not the author Shakespeare but was a mask for the real author; Robert Greene and George Wither categorically declared that the actor Shakespeare was not the author Shakespeare but pretended to be so; and John Marston and Joseph Hall specifically identified Francis Bacon as the author of the Shakespeare poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.

Francis Bacon is well recorded as having written plays for the stage as well as all his other works, in a multitude of different styles, and as being the leader of a literary society and scrivenry of poets and writers. His scrivenry produced the collection of manuscripts known as the Northumberland Manuscript, on the flyleaf of which is a list of contents including two Shakespeare plays, Richard II and Richard III, which were part of the collection before they were published and which are noted as being “by Mr Frauncis Bacon”. The flyleaf also associates Bacon’s name with the name “William Shakespeare”, but not in the sense of the latter as being the author but rather as a pen-name of Bacon. This attribution is further confirmed by Bacon’s own record of his meeting with the Queen in March 1599, where he admits that the matter of John Hayward’s book concerning the deposition of Richard II, whose source was the Shakespeare play of Richard II, had grown from him and then gone about “in other’s names”. Fifteen months after this interview with the Queen, he was again involved on the same subject when Essex was arraigned before the Queen’s Council on a charge of disobeying Her Majesty’s orders in Ireland. Bacon, as one of the Queen’s Counsel, was given the specific role of charging Essex concerning the use of Hayward’s book, a role to which he objected, remarking that “it would be said that I gave in evidence mine own tales”.

Ben Jonson referred to Bacon not only as “one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages”, but also as the “mark and acme of our language”, “who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece, or haughty Rome”. Not only is the latter part of this tribute identical to that which Jonson gave to the “Author William Shakespeare” in the Shakespeare Folio, but ‘numbers’ certainly included and usually specifically meant poetry, which itself included drama—and, according to Jonson, Bacon had “filled” them all and was the very best of all the English poets and writers.

Many poets and others referred to Bacon as a secret poet who was their Apollo and leader of the Muses. One of them, in a tribute to Bacon, stated that Bacon had renewed Philosophy “‘walking humbly in the socks of Comedy” and the “buskin of Tragedy”. The Earl of Essex even wrote to the Queen (in 1594) complaining that Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony wrote plays for the stage and were about to portray him as a character in one of their plays. Other writers said that Bacon had filled the world with his writings.

Well, where are they? What has happened to all these plays—plays powerful enough and popular enough and voluminous enough to have renovated the whole of Philosophy? Which plays of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras can be said to have accomplished this—and are still doing the same job today?

To simply ignore these records (and Bacon), or brush them (and him) under the carpet, and give out falsehoods or misleading statements just simply to maintain an illusion of superior knowledge concerning the Shakespeare authorship, is not serving society well. The truth does matter, especially when it concerns such a great masterpiece of English culture that has a profound effect throughout the world.

© Peter Dawkins, 2007