Was William Shakespeare a Real Person?

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them” – Twelfth Night.

While we may never know whether or not Shakespeare feared greatness, few can argue that he achieved greatness – after all, we’re still reading his plays a good 400 years after they were written.

To this day, the works of William Shakespeare is considered one of the greatest bodies of work in English Literature and the Bard of Stratford has gone down in history as probably the most influential playwright in the English Language. His characters are complex, his plots have universal and timeless appeal, and then there’s the variety – from histories to comedies to drama, Shakespeare wrote it all. Or did he?

The Upstart Crow

When I started my research for this episode, I found a surprising question floating around the internet: Was William Shakespeare a real person? Well, he was – and we can prove it!

William Shakespeare was baptized in the Holy Trinity, the parish church of Stratford-Upon-Avon, on April 26th, 1564. That means that he had probably been born around the 23rd of April which is generally accepted as his birthday. Keep in mind, this was over 400 years ago and bureaucracy wasn’t quite the discipline it is now, so it’s not uncommon for birth records of 1564 to be lacking.

John Shakespeare, Will’s father, was the son of a farmer and land tenant, who moved away from the family farm to become a glover and dabble in money lending. John appears to have had a rather eventful life.

Those in favour of the bard like to focus on John’s political career. By 1565, he was an alderman in Stratford, and in 1568 he was elected as bailiff for the year. This is the highest political office in town. He owned multiple properties and even applied for a coat of arms which was granted many years later.

Those against the bard prefer to focus on the fact that John was a money lender and an illegal wool trader. The truth is that John Shakespeare was both criminal and politician which, allegedly, is not unusual.

Mary, Will’s mother, was the daughter of Robert Arden, a powerful and wealthy landowner, and, by all accounts, her father’s favourite.

It’s generally accepted that both Mary and John were illiterate. However, Mary was named as one of two executors of her father’s will which suggests that Mary, at least, must have had some level of literacy. Women of the middle and lower classes weren’t educated, but this was not always the case for wealthier families, and the Arden family had money.

From the 1570s, the family’s fortunes took a downturn, but the Shakepeares were not poverty stricken, uneducated country bumpkins – they were probably comfortably middle class for the most part.

Will married his wife, Anne Hathaway, in November 1582. Two documents survive in the diocesan archives that prove the marriage was performed. At the time, Anne was 26 while William was only 18. Their daughter, Susanna, was born six months after the wedding. Since shotguns weren’t commonly used at the time, I guess we can describe it as a crossbow wedding. In February of 1585, Anne gave birth to twins, Hamnet, who would sadly die age 11, and Judith.

At this point, Shakespeare vanishes off the records for about eight years and pops up again in London, apparently without his family, working as an actor.

Robert Greene first mentions “the upstart crow” in 1592 – an actor, who considers himself to be a writer, as good as other scholars of his time, despite his lowly origins. He accuses the actor of considering himself to be “…in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country”. Apparently, in 1592, even critics and insults sounded posh. I suppose going down in history as the man who insulted Shakespeare is one way to be remembered, so well done Bobby.

Shakespeare’s name crops up all over London. He’s listed as a player in The Lord Chamberlain’s men. In 1603, when The Lord Chamberlain’s Men becomes the King’s Men, his name was listed second, after the King’s favourite actor, so apparently the upstart crow had come a long way by then. He’s mentioned on a legal document as one of the shareholders of the Globe theatre and on the title deed for the Gatehouse at the Blackfrairs theatre.

It appears that he never actually lived there though; he simply rented it back to its previous owner.

In his career as a playwright, from around 1590-1613, it’s generally accepted that Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays. If you add The Two Noble Kinsmen and the two lost plays, Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won, we’re looking at 40. He also wrote 154 sonnets and five long narrative poems, though some sources say two. Considering that he was also an actor and had time to dabble in the property market, Shakespeare was a very busy man.

In around 1613, he retired from his life of actor and playwright and permanently moved back to Stratford where he finally passed away in 1616 at the age of 52.

The truth is that Shakespeare didn’t leave much of a paper trail to follow – there is a lot about him we simply don’t know. What did he do for the eight years before he started ruffling feathers in the theatre scene? Was he at home when his son died and how did that affect him? These questions we’ll probably never be able to answer, and since human beings hate a vacuum, all kinds of stories and theories began to surface.

The Question of Authorship

The question of authorship of the Shakesepare plays has been around since the 1800s. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund Freud, and even Charlie Chaplin have all expressed doubts that Shakespeare from Stratford was really the man behind the quill. In 1909, Mark Twain even published a book on the authorship question, Is Shakespeare Dead?

But where did this question come from?

As the story goes, the man behind the controversy is one James Wilmot, a literary scholar, who decided to write an in-depth biography of William Shakespeare in 1785, almost 170 years after the playwright’s death.

From what I could gather, what is known about James Wilmot mostly comes from a biography written by his niece in 1813. The man appears not to have left much of a paper trail of himself or his work which is a little ironic.

As was the accepted practice of the day, James Wilmot set off to Stratford to research and write a biography on this beloved poet and playwright. He visited Shakespeare’s home, other homes the bard would’ve visited, and looked for correspondence in local libraries. To his surprise, there was no paper trail to indicate that William Shakespeare had ever read a single book or wrote a letter. It appeared that the greatest poet of all time had managed to go through his entire life without leaving any literary trail to follow.

Privately, Wilmot came to the conclusion that the Shakespeare from Stratford and the Shakespeare who wrote the wonderful plays couldn’t possibly be the same man. Surely, a man who wrote so extensively would have diaries, letters, or notes in books to sort out his deep and complex thoughts. Instead, he decided, all these wonderful works were written by none other than Francis Bacon. Oddly, he never published his opinion. It was first mentioned in a series of lectures by his friend, James Corton Cowel, in 1805.

However, according to some sources, these lectures were only rediscovered in 1931. A Shakespearean scholar, James Shapiro, because apparently everyone involved in this is called James, is of the opinion that the lectures were a forgery created in the 20th century to support the Baconian theory after the Oxfordian theory started becoming more popular.

Whether Wilmot ever came to this conclusion and never published it, or whether it was a fabrication, the bard was out of the bag. The question was out in the universe. Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare?

If Not Shakespeare, Then Who?

This question has kept many a Shakespeare fan up at night. Societies were founded, dedicated to finding the truth. Was it a single author, there are around 80 candidates, or an entire cabal of writers working together to create the biggest deception in literary history?

There are a couple of theories to consider, so let’s start with the Anti-Stratfordian theory. The Anti-Stratfordians firmly believe Shakespeare of Stratford and the Bard are two different people. Most other theories are rooted in the same objections, so this is a good place to dive into the tangled web of deceit.

Probably the biggest objection to Shakespeare being Shakespeare boils down to his lack of education.

According to the Anti-Stratfordians, Shakespeare had, at most, a primary school level of education. They’re not wrong. There are no records showing Shakespeare ever attended school or university. While some accept that he probably attended the King’s New School, a grammar school in Stratford, they claim that still means his education was limited at best.

It’s simply not possible that a man of limited education could have such an extensive knowledge of history, the classics, languages like Greek and Latin, and such an extensive vocabulary.

Of course, there are some who believe that this means Shakespeare of Stratford definitely existed but never attended school at all and was basically illiterate. So, they argue, how could a man that could barely read and write produce such a vast body of work?

Another pillar of Anti-Stratfordian objection lies in Shakespeare’s limited experience and travel.

Shakespeare married at the age of 18, so it’s unlikely that he would’ve had time to finish a proper apprenticeship. Being a commoner with limited education, he wouldn’t have had any experience or insight into complex legal codes, courtly traditions, and those who rule.

There are also no records of the bard ever leaving England. In fact, it seems that the only travelling he did was between Stratford and London until his retirement in 1613. Not being a local lass myself, I’m not sure how far apart London and Stratford are, but if you’re of the school that believes one can only write what one knows, it’s unlikely that Will would’ve bumped into many members of the Italian court, ghosts from Denmark, Jewish moneylenders from Venice, or Julius Caesar in his travels.

Then there’s the lack of literary evidence.

Other than title deeds and legal documents that contain only his signature, there are no original manuscripts, no letter, no diaries – in fact, there is no physical proof that Shakespeare ever wrote a word in his lifetime. The only proof, according to the Anti-Stratfordians, that we have of Shakespeare writing his plays is the fact that his name is on the printed versions. However, without the original manuscript as proof, anybody’s name could be slapped on the play, so a writer wanting to stay anonymous could simply have used the name of William Shakespeare, perhaps even paid the real Williams Shakespeare to keep quiet, and no-one would be any the wiser.

To add more fuel to this fire is the fact that his name is not always spelled the same way; there are different versions: Shake-speare or Shakespere. If the man could barely spell his name, how did he write 37 plays?

Despite being such a celebrated playwright in his time, it appears that no-one in Stratford had much to say about the celebrity in their midst. No letters or dairies have been found of friends or family singing the praises of their local hero. There are also no records of a grand funeral in 1616. Surely, the death of such a great man should’ve led to a funeral procession that stopped traffic for days!

Finally, Anti-Stratfordians argue that the style and lexicon is too varied for all the works to have been written by the same author. Not to mention the sheer volume of work. It’s simply not possible that a single man wrote all those plays by himself.

There are more reasons why Shakespeare of Stratford is not Shakespeare the playwright, but we’d have to make an entire video to cover all of them, so let’s move on.

The Suspects

Shakespeare clearly didn’t write his own plays because he was an uncouth, uneducated, country bumpkin who could barely sign his own name. So who was the true master at work? Suggestions range from Francis Bacon and Walther Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth herself, but let’s focus on the two most likely culprits: Francis Bacon (the Baconian theory) and Edward De Vere (the Oxfordian theory).

Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon was born January 22, 1561, three years before the Bard from Stratford, and died on April 9, 1626, a full 10 years after Shakespeare. This means that, as far as historical timelines are concerned, they were alive at the same time which, to me, already makes him a slightly more likely candidate than some of the others.

Baconian theorists firmly believe that Francis Bacon, Viscount Saint Alban, had the connections that would’ve have given him access to a superior education and intimate knowledge of the Elizabethan court – and they’re right. Bacon has all the necessary qualifications.

He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, served as the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. His cousin, through his mother’s side, was Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister of the Crown by the end of Elizabeth’s reign.

As for Bacon, he was admitted to Gray’s Inn, an institute for Legal education, in 1576, and eventually rose to the position of Solicitor General and, finally, Attorney General, so he would’ve had an in-depth knowledge of the legal system.

Bacon was also a successful politician, representing first Melcombe Regis in Dorset, and later Taunton, Liverpool, the county of Middlesex, Southampton, Ipswich and the University of Cambridge as a member of parliament. He already had access to the royal court and, if you add his political career, he had first-hand experience of the system in power at the time.

This is also one of the main reasons why Baconians feel he would’ve written under an alias. Writing under an assumed name would’ve given him the opportunity to comment on the politics of his day without risking his reputation and reprisals from the Queen.

Of course, most people today are more familiar with the important role Francis Bacon played in science. He is commonly considered to be the father of the scientific method. I’m not a scientist, so I’m not even going to try and explain this; suffice to say, the idea of formulating a theory and collecting data was born from Francis Bacon’s empirical method. So why is this relevant? Shakespeare was a playwright, not a scientist.

Baconians argue that this proves Francis Bacon’s intelligence, his inquisitive nature, and his ability to think creatively about a problem. As is often the case, philosophy and science were close companions and so Bacon was also considered a great philosopher with a collection of essays to prove it.

Through his essays, Bacon shows a deep understanding of Latin and ancient Roman history and philosophy. According to scholars, his writing shows a love for metaphors, analogies and vivid imagery. He uses wit as a way to reach to his audience and prefers to use quick, brief statements rather than pages of rambling. After all, we know that “brevity is the soul of wit”. Sounds familiar?

Baconians also argue that a lot of Bacon’s philosophies and theories are reflected in Shakespeare’s writing, which indicates that even if he didn’t write all the plays, he certainly had a hand in writing or editing some of them.

Of course, other than commenting on the politics of the day, another reason Bacon would’ve used a pseudonym, according to Baconians, is the fact that being a playwright was a lowly occupation and no proper nobleman would want to be associated with anything so crass.

However, Bacon did write poetry and plays, which, to me anyway, blows the entire theory of being a lowly playwright out of the water. If Bacon didn’t want to be associated with such an unworthy profession, why would he have written anything under his own name? Scholars also feel that his poetry is stilted and his character development lacked the depth and insight of Shakespeare. Who knows, perhaps he wrote bad plays under his own name to make sure nobody would suspect him of being Shakespeare.

Of course, considering that Bacon was a trained lawyer, politician, scientist, and philosopher who found time to write essays on philosophy and develop the scientific method, I’m not sure when he would’ve had the time to write 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 narrative poems.

And then there are the ciphers.

Now, we could probably do an entire video on the mystery of the ciphers. In 1605, Bacon devised a method of steganography - essentially hiding one message in another message or image. According to many Baconians, starting with Delia Bacon (no relation) in 1857, Francis Bacon hid messages all through the plays indicating that the works were, in fact, written by him, or a collection of other Renaissance writers, depending on who you believe, and not William Shakespeare.

At this point though, I feel the need to reign in the unicorns a little. If you consider the sheer number of words found in 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 narrative poems, I’m fairly sure you could find a cipher claiming Elvis Presley as the true author. Just make sure you use the second letter of every third word on every fifth page but only the plays he wrote before 1612 and only those printed by the Globe Theatre between 1605 and 1612. Let us know what you find – it might be the identity of the true Shakespeare!

Edward de Vere

According to the Oxfordian theory, another favourite contender, and one that has gained considerable popularity, is Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford. The theory was first proposed by, the very aptly or very unfortunately named, J. Thomas Looney in 1920.

De Vere was born on April 12, 1550, so he would’ve been 14 years old when Shakespeare was born. He died on June 24, 1604, which presents a bit of problem. If we assume that De Vere was, in fact, Shakespeare, around 14 plays, including some of his best known works such as King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest, were published between 1605 and 1613, after his death. Writing and publishing works from beyond the grave would have been an incredible feat.

However, much like Bacon, Edward de Vere has the right qualifications.

He attended the Queen’s College and St John’s College in Cambridge, so he had an education befitting a gentleman. He inherited the title of Earl in his teen years and spent eight years living as a royal ward of William Cecil, who happened to be the father of Robert Cecil if you remember our Baconian theory, so apparently the Cecils got around. He also lived with his uncle, Arthur Golding, who translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses from Latin into English. This is significant because Ovid is considered by scholars to be one of the major influences in Shakespeare’s work, and De Vere had a front row seat to its translation.

So, here we have a gentleman who has the right breeding and the right background, who was a well-known patron of the arts as well as a writer. There is some evidence that he wrote plays, though no examples exist anymore, and he stopped publishing around the same time Shakespeare rose to prominence.

Once again, the assumption is made that De Vere wrote under a pseudonym to protect his noble reputation from the lowly theatre which everyone knows was filled with gambling, drunkenness and general debauchery, not something a man of breeding would ever engage in. It also protected him from reprisals should he say anything the crown didn’t like.

So far, it seems like a very similar theory to Bacon. However, Oxfordians firmly believe that events from De Vere’s life are reflected in the plays of Shakespeare which meant that De Vere, unlike Shakespeare, was writing what he knew (an idea that was only popularized by Mark Twain by the way). Let’s look at some examples.

While Shakespeare never left England, De Vere travelled the continent for about a year and spent a lot of time in Italy, so he would’ve had a deep insight into Italian history, the language, the court, the politics, the literature and the art.

Hamlet, in particular, is considered to be a very autobiographical work. The character of Polonius has long been considered to be a parody of Sir William Cecil, whom De Vere lived with. Hamlet wishes to marry Polonius’ daughter, Ophelia, in the same manner as De Vere married Cecil’s daughter, Anne. And there is the delightful tale of Hamlet being captured by pirates and left on a beach – the same thing happened to De Vere.

Then we have the Ducats affair – in The Merchant of Venice, Antonio borrows 3,000 ducats from Shylock, a money lender. Oxford himself borrowed 3,000 pounds from a money lender named Michael Lok to finance a voyage looking for the Northwest Passage to India.

So not only does De Vere have the right breeding and education, certain episodes of his life is reflected in the plays of Shakespeare. This must be conclusive proof that the Earl of Oxford was, in fact, the well-known playwright.

Other Suspects

The Baconian and Oxfordian theories are the two most supported, but there are other possibilities.

In the 1930s, Gilbert Slater pointed out that, if you look at the strong female characters in Shakespeare’s plays, something that went against the norms of society, perhaps the writer was, in fact, a noblewoman, not nobleman. Two candidates, Mary Sidney, sister of poet Philip Sidney, and Emilia Bassano, daughter of a Venetian merchant, are both considered likely candidates.

Mary Sidney received an advanced education and spent a lot of time at the court of Queen Elizabeth. She was also a well-known writer of religious works, she was a patron of the arts, and she actually provided funds for one of the theatres that first produced Shakespeare’s plays.

Emilia Bassano was the first woman to publish a volume of poetry and she visited Denmark as a child. She was also a known mistress of one of the main patrons to Shakespeare’s acting company so even if she wasn’t the great Shakespeare, she probably met him.

Of course, don’t forget Christopher Marlowe – there were some rumours that after his suspicious death, which he faked of course, he continued writing under a new name. But that’s a mystery for another day, I think.

So, Who Wrote Shakespeare?

The most likely candidate is, well, William Shakespeare. To understand why this literary master left no manuscripts, no writings, and no paper trail behind, we need to understand the world in which Shakespeare lived.

In his time, Shakespeare was certainly well-regarded. However, his status as a literary genius and master wordsmith only came much later. In his time, he was simply a playwright.

Plays were not considered literature. In fact, libraries refused to carry published plays because it was considered pulp fiction. There was also no concept of copyright. Once a play was finished and sold to the company of players, the writer lost all rights to the play. He was paid a single sum and the play was sent for printing or copying out to the various players to prepare for the performance. So, once sold, the original manuscript didn’t have any value.

At the time, paper was expensive, so it was often re-used to stiffen book covers or line baking trays. Odds are, someone in London ate a well-read rye loaf for breakfast one morning.

And, just like Michaelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine chapel the first time he picked up a brush, it’s unlikely that Shakespeare’s first attempts were noteworthy in any way, so there is no reason why he would’ve kept his early writings either.

Diaries and essays were the pursuits of noblemen and royalty who didn’t actually have to grind for a living. Commoners, and Shakespeare and his neighbours in Stratford were all commoners, didn’t have the time to sit in well-furnished drawing rooms writing down their inner-most thoughts; they were far too busy trying to make a living.

Then we have the question of pseudonyms. The idea of noblemen writing under pseudonyms supposes that a pseudonym would have been necessary. The reason many of Shakespeare’s earlier plays were uncredited is simply because, at the time, it was not standard practice to put the name of the writer on the play. In fact, Christopher Marlowe, a famous playwright, never had his name printed on any of his plays before his death.

In an industry where anonymity was the norm, creating a pseudonym would actually have increased your chances of being found out!

The fact that Shakespeare’s name appears on some of his later works is actually very significant. It means that, at some point, Shakespeare’s plays became so popular that it was sold to the public using his name, much like movies are sold today using famous actors, so Shakespeare was well-known. At the time, it was common for playwrights to collaborate or for one writer to take over from another.

This was theatre, not literature, and the show must go on. If Shakespeare the actor was pretending to be a writer, but couldn’t do anything other than sign his name to some legal documents, one of his many collaborators, fellow actors, or adversaries would’ve noticed.

Another interesting aspect of Shakespeare’s plays is that they are written with the stage in mind. Acting companies were small - The Lord Chamberlain’s Men consisted of eight players. The Tempest has at least 18 characters, so actors had to play multiple characters at the same time. Shakespeare considered this. Some characters will never be on stage at the same time, and there would be enough time for costume changes between different scenes where a single actor might play two or three characters. This may sound obvious now, but it implies that the writer of the Shakespeare plays had something neither Bacon nor De Vere had – an intimate and practical knowledge of the theatre and basic stage management, not something that was part of a Cambridge education.

Speaking of education, a grammar school education, which is what Shakespeare would’ve received, consisted of writing verse, studying classical drama, Latin and Rhetoric, and the system was based on memorization, so Shakespeare would most likely have remembered vast sections of the classics. It’s true that he didn’t attend a university, but neither did Christopher Marlowe, Mark Twain, or Stan Lee, for that matter. As for experience, he was an actor performing for the royal court and, as such, would’ve been exposed to the inner workings of courtly life.

Shakespeare didn’t write all his plays alone - through modern day attribution research, which essentially looks at literary tics and habits that occur subconsciously, we know that at least 17 of Shakespeare’s plays were written with other playwrights, including Thomas Nashe, John Fletcher, and George Peele. There have also been some suggestions that Shakespeare collaborated with Christopher Marlowe.

At the heart of it, the argument against Shakespeare is based in classism. No-one wants to believe that the greatest writer in the history of English literature was a commoner. A man with no titles, no posh education, and no conceivable importance managed to achieve a level of greatness reserved for the important members of society.

Conclusion

Shakespeare is one of the greats. He was a common man with humble origins that turned the world of literature on its head. This lack of education and class allowed him to understand and write for the common man as much as the court – an insight that neither De Vere nor Bacon would’ve had. He relied on his wonderful imagination to write stories that is still considered some of the best works more than 400 years after his death.

The boy from Stratford proved that you don’t need to be born into privilege to achieve greatness.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was William Shakespeare a real person?

Yes, William Shakespeare was a real person. He was baptized in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-Upon-Avon on April 26, 1564, and is generally accepted to have been born around April 23, 1564.

What is known about William Shakespeare’s parents?

William Shakespeare’s father was John Shakespeare, a glover and money lender who had a political career in Stratford. His mother was Mary Arden, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, Robert Arden.

When and whom did William Shakespeare marry?

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in November 1582. They had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith.

What is the ‘Upstart Crow’ reference?

The ‘Upstart Crow’ is a term used by Robert Greene in 1592 to describe an actor who considered himself a writer, as good as other scholars of his time, despite his lowly origins. This reference is believed to be about William Shakespeare.

How many plays did William Shakespeare write?

It is generally accepted that Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays. If you add The Two Noble Kinsmen and the two lost plays, Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won, the total is 40 plays.

What are some of the arguments against Shakespeare being the author of his plays?

Some arguments against Shakespeare being the author include his lack of formal education, limited travel and experience, and the absence of literary evidence such as manuscripts or letters. Additionally, some argue that the style and volume of his work suggest multiple authors.

Who are the main suspects proposed as the true authors of Shakespeare’s works?

The main suspects proposed as the true authors of Shakespeare’s works are Francis Bacon (the Baconian theory) and Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (the Oxfordian theory).

Why did Shakespeare’s plays not have his name on them initially?

Initially, Shakespeare’s plays did not have his name on them because it was not standard practice to credit the writer. Plays were considered pulp fiction and were often sold to acting companies without the writer’s name.

What is the significance of Shakespeare’s name appearing on some of his later works?

The appearance of Shakespeare’s name on some of his later works indicates that his plays became popular enough to be sold to the public using his name, similar to how famous actors’ names are used to sell movies today.

Did Shakespeare collaborate with other playwrights?

Yes, Shakespeare collaborated with other playwrights. Modern attribution research suggests that at least 17 of his plays were written with other playwrights, including Thomas Nashe, John Fletcher, and George Peele.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: Was William Shakespeare a Real Person?
• Hero image source by thegetty / openverse, cc0.