Why Some Believe Shakespeare Wasn’t Shakespeare.

Ever since 1597, when Elizabethan satirist Joseph Hall published a series of pamphlets hinting that the author of Venus and Adonis shifted his writings “to another’s name,” people have questioned whether the man from Stratford-upon-Avon, known in legal documents as William “Shaxpere” or “Shagspere,” was the real author of the Shakespeare works, or whether this identification may be a matter of mistaken attribution. Numerous facts in the official story of the Stratford man lead many to ask: Was the name “Will Shake Spear” a pseudonym?


The Stratford man’s name was similar to the famed author’s, but not an exact match. In the 30 legal entries of the family name found in the Stratford Register of christenings, marriages and burials, only ONE reproduces the name as “Shakespeare,” and that's for the christening of Will's daughter Susanna, who 20 years later is married as Susanna “Shaxpere.” 


Well after the fame of the author, Will's daughter Judith gave birth to a son in 1616, and in honor of her father named him “Shaxper” Quiney.

The locals of Stratford referred to Will only as a grain dealer, with contemporary documents mentioning his holdings of “grain,” “malt,” “corn and hay.” Not once in Stratford is he referred to as a writer, poet, actor or playwright. 









His original memorial bust in Holy Trinity Church depicts a man clutching what appears to be a sack of grain, even though such memorials were meant to depict one’s occupation in life. 


The church bust we find today is a revised version believed to be from 1746, when pen and paper were added to it.

Katherine Chiljan, in her book Shakespeare Suppressed, has outlined at least 11 Elizabethan writers who refer to Shakespeare as a high-born man not given proper credit. 


She also cites examples in contemporary works in which writers made fun of a country bumpkin posing as a famous writer!


There are other problems for the Stratford man to claim the title of writer - a claim that apparently neither he nor his family ever made during their lifetimes. He never left England, yet the plays are filled with specific details and little-known colloquialisms from Italy. And in 1589, writer Thomas Nashe notes that Hamlet has already been played onstage. The Stratford man was a mere 25 years old at the time, and could not have written his greatest work by then. 


Other than a similar name, there is no evidence of a literary trail for a man named William Shaxpere (or Shakespeare). Diana Price, in her book Shake-speare’s Unorthodox Biography, has traced the literary trails of 24 authors of the period. In looking at Jonson, Massinger, Lyly, Middleton, Marlowe, Greene, Kyd, Peele, and others, she shows evidence of education, written correspondence, payments, relationships with patrons, extant original manuscripts, inscriptions, commendatory verses, ownership of books, being personally referred to as a writer, and notice at death as a writer. Most of the 24 authors appear on most of these lists. Shakespeare appears on NONE of them! When the Stratford man died in 1616, what happened in commemoration of the passing of Queen Elizabeth’s and King James’ favorite playwright was NOTHING! No ceremony, no procession, and no burial with other great writers at Westminster Abbey. Instead, he was buried at Holy Trinity Church under a stone that curses those who are tempted to dig up his bones.


For these, among many other reasons, some scholars believe that William Shaxpere of Stratford-upon-Avon was not our William Shake-speare!

Why Some Believe Oxford Was Shakespeare.

Who Was Shakespeare Homepage.



Similarly, the famous Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare in the First Folio, an image which Mark Twain said resembles “a bladder,” and of which the artist Gainsborough remarked, "I never saw a Stupider face," does not seem to portray a writer. An examination of most writers’ portraits of the period shows laurel wreaths, books, and other literary insignias. It is more a comic caricature (with many intentional errors in it).


The man’s grave inscription has also troubled many scholars:

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,

TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE!

BLESTE BE THE MAN THAT SPARES THESE STONES,

AND CURSED BE HE THAT MOVES MY BONES.

Did the greatest poet of the English language write such doggerel?


A more serious revelation in the will comes with the Stratford man’s signatures. Not only did he never develop a distinctive signature, unlike other writers of the day, but also each of his signatures is scribbled in a hand that appears never to have held pen to paper! And each time he scratched his name, he spelled it differently... within the SAME document! 


This has led some scholars to speculate that he must have had some sort of stroke before signing. But if that were the case, the clerk would have had Shaksper seal rather than sign his will, a document that begins with the claim that he is “in perfect health & memorie god be praysed." Besides, three other poorly written signatures survive from legal documents dating from four years earlier.


The Stratford man’s last will and testament also poses a problem. Despite itemizing every pot, pan, bed and sword, it mentions no plays, manuscripts, shares in the Globe theatre, or books.


Books were extremely rare and expensive. The Shakespeare works refer to and rely on more than 200 books, many not available in England, and some not yet translated from Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian or French.


By comparison, scholars have found over 200 books belonging to playwright Ben Jonson and poet John Donne.


Shaksper bequeathed no books in his will, which was unusual for that time. By comparison, Sir Philip Sidney bequeathed all of his books to court poets Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer. His will also contains no mention of furniture to hold books, no bookcases or shelves, nor even a writing desk, paper, ink nor pen! It reveals a life with no literary or musical or artistic or cultural interests.


Another problem with the will is that the only line that ties this document to the London theatre scene is a gift of money for remembrance rings to fellow actors John Hemmings, Richard Burbage and Henry Condell. But upon close examination, it is clear that this line of text was inserted at a later date between two original lines of the will in another clerk’s handwriting. So the only tie between Shaxpere and his dearest friends in the theatre world was apparently an afterthought.


One other thing about the scrawled signatures is that they reveal that the first syllable of the family name was sounded with a short and not a long “a”.