Authorship debate

William Shakespeare’s works being just that is a notion most accept; however, there has been a lot of evidence and arguments by historians, who opt to challenge this notion, arguing that Shakespeare was the pen name of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford had to conceal his authorship for social and political reasons. After careful examination of historian’s evidence this theory doesn’t measure up and it was indeed Shakespeare, who was the genuine author.

The world has come to accept that William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, during the year of 1564. The register of Holy trinity, the parish church in Stratford, records his baptism on April 26. According to the custom at the time, infants were baptized about three days after their birth. William’s father was a glover, trader, and landowner who married Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowner of Wilmcote. Therefore, the generally accepted date for Shakespeare’s birth is April 23 (World Book 344). John Shakespeare, William’s father rose [by election] to the position of Alderman in 1565; and in 1568 he was elected Bailiff, the equivalent to mayor (Reedy & Kathman). It’s believed that because William’s father was a town official, the young William was entitled to a free education at the Kings school. It has been accepted [for the most part] that William Shakespeare attended the Stratford grammar school. The Stratford grammar school prepared students for the university; however there is no evidence that William ever attended a university. The reason being is when William Shakespeare was thirteen his father suffered business losses. William was pulled from school and apprenticed to a trade, not an uncommon occurrence during the Elizabethan Age.

William Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway in November 1582 at the age of eighteen. Anne was twenty-six. It would only be six months later that their daughter, Susanna was born. William also had a set of twins in February 1585. Between the years of 1585-1590, Shakespeare disappeared. We considered these years as his lost years mainly because there has yet to be found any documentation or know whereabouts of him.

It’s accepted that Shakespeare was in London by 1590 working as an actor and playwright. Approximately for twenty-three years he was a workin...

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... died too early to have been the real Shakespeare (Michell 171). Oxford did not leave a will. If he were to have left a will, Oxfordians and Anti-Strafordians would have no doubt have more weight to their theory, that’s if his will contained Shakespeare plays and sonnets.

The 17th Earl of Oxford was a recognized poet in his day, and the Oxfordians make the most of this in their attempts to prove that he wrote the works of Shakespeare. There is evidence presented about his reputation in actual context of the times and shows that while Oxford work had some admirers, but don’t all authors have some admirers, nobody seems to have considered him a great poet or playwright.

Belief in the Oxfordian story that Shakespeare's works were written not by Shakespeare but by the seventeenth Earl of Oxford requires not merely suspending the rules of evidence that would normally be used to establish the authorship of a body of work, but also accepting a set of Oxfordian myths -- tales that are presented as fact but that research shows are simply not true. Some of these myths have been repeated and handed down from Oxfordian to Oxfordian for decades, without any attempt being made to verify them