Historical Evidence in the Authorship Question

If Shakespeare is a fraud, what about the historical evidence?

Transcript

Leon: What I cannot understand is the way people who say he didn’t write the work have to ignore all the evidence that shows he did. Let’s get this story straight. We aren’t talking about a belief that can be interpreted differently depending on our point of view. The evidence for William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon is not circumstantial. It is factual and multifaceted. 

Sure, we don’t have personal letters or diary entries, but that’s not all that unusual for people of that period. At least fourteen other writers mentioned him by name as a playwright and poet and discussed his work. Printers and publishers worked with him. Seven of his plays were co-authored for God’s sake. Readers, actors, and theatre audiences were part of the living and breathing testimony of thousands of people. 

On his death he was memorialised as a writer, and his reputation grew. To claim that Shakespeare of Stratford didn’t write the plays is no less than to deny history and slap the greatest writer the world has ever known in the face.

AJ Leon

AJ is an entrepreneur, blogger and digital Shakespearian. He serves as a trustee of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and has launched more web-based Shakespeare-related projects than anyone in the world. 

@ajleon