The Shakespeare Controversy

Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? This authoritative collection of essays brings fresh perspectives to bear on an intriguing cultural phenomenon.

Theories stating that plays attributed to Shakespeare were in fact written by other authors have existed for more than 200 years; some theories have been ridiculed and reviled while some have gained growing popular and scholarly support. The history of the Shakespeare controversy is presented in this revised edition of the 1992 work, with much new information and three additional chapters. Part I documents and critically assesses the most important theories on the authorship question. Part II is an annotated bibliography, arranged chronologically, of the many works that deal with the controversy from its vague beginnings to the present.

For two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had written his plays. Since then dozens of rival candidates - including The Earl of Oxford, Sir Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe - have been proposed as their true author. Contested Will unravels the mystery of when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote the plays (among them such leading writers and artists as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, and Sir Derek Jacobi) Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro's fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined. If Contested Will does not end the authorship question once and for all, it will nonetheless irrevocably change the nature of the debate by confronting what's really contested: are the plays and poems of Shakespeare autobiographical, and if so, do they hold the key to the question of who wrote them? '[Shapiro] writes erudite, undumbed-down history that . . . reads as fluidly as a good novel.' David Mitchell, the Guardian.

ÊIs Shakespeare Dead? is a short, semi-autobiographical work by American humorist Mark Twain. It explores the controversy over the authorship of the Shakespearean literary canon via satire, anecdote, and extensive quotation of contemporary authors on the subject. Ê The original publication spans only 150 pages, and the formatting leaves roughly half of each page blank. The spine is thread bound. It was published in April 1909 by Harper & Brothers, twelve months before Mark Twain's death. Ê The book attracted controversy for incorporating a chapter from The Shakespeare Problem Restated by George Greenwood without permission or proper credit, an oversight Twain blamed on the accidental omission of a footnote by the printer. Ê The book has been described as "one of his least well received and most misunderstood works". Although she admits that Twain appears to have been sincere in his beliefs concerning Shakespeare, Karen Lystra argues that the essay reveals satirical intentions that went beyond the ShakespeareÑBacon controversy of the time. Ê Though it is commonly assumed to be nothing more than a stale and embarrassing rehash of the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, Twain was up to something more than flimsy literary criticism. He was using the debate over Shakespeare's real identity to satirize prejudice, intolerance, and self-importanceÑin himself as well as others.... But after his passionate diatribe against the "Stratfordolators" and his vigorous support of the Baconians, he cheerfully admits that both sides are built on inference. Leaving no doubt about his satirical intent, Twain then gleefully subverts his entire argument. After seeming to be a serious, even angry, combatant, he denies that he intended to convince anyone that Shakespeare was not the real author of his works. "It would grieve me to know that any one could think so injuriously of me, so uncomplimentarily, so unadmiringly of me," he writes mockingly. "Would I be so soft as that, after having known the human race familiarly for nearly seventy-four years?" We get our beliefs at second hand, he explains, "we reason none of them out for ourselves. It is the way we are made." Twain has set a trapÑan elaborate joke at the expense of what he scornfully refers to as the "Reasoning Race." He is satirizing the need to win an argument when it is virtually impossible to convince anyone to change sides in almost any debate. His excessive rhetoric of attack is obviously absurdÑcalling the other side "thugs," for exampleÑyet it has been taken at face value.

Who really wrote the plays of Shakespeare?