Was Shakespeare a Fraud?
Have you heard about the new movie coming out today, Oct. 28, that calls Shakespeare’s authorship into question? Anonymous takes that age old question to the big screen. We want to know what you think. As scholars, professors and readers, do you question Shakespeare as the author of Hamlet, Richard III and other classic stage plays? Read what the experts have written over the years using the links below. Or, add your comments to the debate.
Shakespeare’s Authorship – Sampling of Articles
Shakespeare’s Authorship – Sampling of Books
By Luisa Cywinski & Kristyna Carroll
Image courtesy of The New York Times
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I remember reading one of the “Horrible Histories” books when I was a kid and they mentioned the theory that Christopher Marlowe really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. They said that he may have used “William Shakespeare” as a pseudonym or that William Shakespeare published them for him, but in his own name.
Here’s what NPR writer David Edelstein said in his review of Anonymous: “At least The Rum Diary isn’t a desecration, like Anonymous, an outgrowth of the Shakespeare-skeptic cottage industry. These are people who think William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon had nothing to do with the plays carrying his name because a) there’s hardly a scrap of writing in Shakespeare’s own hand and b) no one so meagerly schooled, untraveled and unacquainted with court life could have written so discerningly about kings, queens, thanes and Danes. Whereas Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, the makers of Anonymous claim, had every reason to conceal his authorship.”