Shakespeare? Or not?

Was it really Shakespeare who wrote the countless sonnets and plays that have enchanted millions of readers and theater goers for ages?  This has been a topic i've been kicking around in my head for a little while, and a debate that has been going on for ages in the literary community and i was just wondering what the AE community had to say about it.

Originally posted by Cywr A more interesting theory is the one that his plays contain coded messages for Catholics at a time when their oppresion was at an all time high in England. Now that is both interesting and controversial.

Originally posted by Theodore Felix Also, he has never been reported to have left England ever, so many question how he can have such a vast knowledge of countires such as Italy. The fact that a Verona existed in Italy would be pretty common knowledge to anybody with any kind of knowledge, unbless you may be the lowest of peasents. But the fact that Shakespeare was ignorant of the outside world comes out pretty easy when you read his plays. Whether its Othello, Julius Caesar or Romeo and Juliet, nearly all of the plays have pretty much the same feel, that you are in Elizabethan England. When reading Hamlet I did not feel at all like I was really in Denmark, nevermind the mention in Caesar of modern clothing... In terms of diversity of enviroments Shakespeare was very very weak...

Edited by kilroy - 03-Sep-2006 at 01:37

Which play, what message and how was it coded?

Pretty much all of them apparently, its not a complex code as such, more of a hidden messages and double meaning type thing.

A verse in Romeo and Juliet was one cited, i didn't pay much attention to the program though.
Googling it threw up a few articles:
http://english.people.com.cn/200509/03/eng20050903_206315.html
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20050801_110172_110172

I think people like to doubt the existences of the great writers (Homer, Shakespeare, Moses) for the simple fact that they are terrified that those brilliant minds might have actually ensconced within the skulls of individual men, and are not just the byproduct of an entire culture. That's why Shakespeare, Moses, and Homer are so controversial even today hundreds (and in some case, thousands) of years after their deaths. All a man must do is read the works of someone like Borges to understand that surely such genius can be found within the life, mind and experience of one individual man.
John Milton's Paradise Lost is also a case of a brilliant mind of one man, who knows more than anyone man could/should.

By the way, Theodor Felix... You're kidding, right? Shakespeare weak? From what pinnacle of human creation on high do you cast slurs down upon one of the greatest literary minds of all time? Next time your works are the definition of the canon of literature in a widely-spoken language like English, I'll take that statement a bit more seriously. Until then...
Cheers.

Nice sophistic answer. We're looking for evidence, backed up by facts.

Ah, hell. Feeling will work too. People can be brilliant. Give the credit where credit's due.

Does it really matter? After all the vast majority of the stories are taken from ancient Greek ones. He only changed them some. That is the reason so many of his characters have Greek names.

The whole Codes in texts thing is ridiculous. This is modern ideas being placed upon early modern texts. You can place any mathmatic code on these texts and come up with at least some sort of message. Whether or not the authors were capable of such coding is another matter. Nor is it in anyway logical. Shakespeare - if he wrote the texts, which i will look at in a sec - would have absolutely no reason to place messages within his texts. What would be the purpose? Propaganda? Well why didn't he just publish "anonymous" pamphlets etc - more effective as propadanda and easy to get away with in this period, its not like forensic evidence could be used against him :rolleyes: Or he's trying to get messages to his 'friends', well coded letters would be much more suitable for this task.

The fact is, there are no such messages. Just like there are no codes in the Bible and there are not homosexual codes within Oscar Wildes texts. They are just texts written for the purpose of the text. Entertainment, history, religion etc.

As for Shakespeare being the author. Well the evidence for him not being the author is shaky at best. The main problem is that certain Historians and amateurs go out with the question to begin with, "who could have written Shakespeares work". They look specifically for evidence that Shakespeare DID NOT write it, rather than taking a balanced look at all the evidence for Shakespeares work. This is believe leaves us with a banal argument that leads us no where.

There is a possibility in my mind that some to many of his works were not written by Shakespeare - there are some doubts that texts have been mistakingly attributed to Shakespeare. Again I ask the question of - why would someone intentionally falsify such things? I could understand texts being attributed to a famous noble, rather than an ordinary person, but please, this argument is again one of modern obsession.

The other thing is how can Shakespeare prove that he wrote the texts? How can any author prove that they wrote something. I mean come on, did Jane Austen really write those books? Did dan brown actually write  anything - perhaps it was his wife?? Kafka, did he even exist? etcetcetc. The fact is, we cannot prove who wrote something. There is some ability to textually analyse texts and place comparisons between the styles, but there is no way to prove things. Especially when they are 400years old.

The other thing i don't understand, is the point of all this. Shakespeares work did not change history. It had an influence on the English language, but only because of the work not because of the author. It wouldn't bother me if the Pope had written the texts, i do nto believe it is that interesting.

Originally posted by The_Jackal_God to further your point on "modern" obsession, i would also say modern bias; when people doubt his intelligence for lack of formal training, similar to people who think the Odyssey must have been written by a woman.