By ohno - 17/03/2015 20:35 - United States - Spring Lake

Today, for the second time, I had an argument with my mother about whether William Shakespeare was a real person or not. FML
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Same thing different taste

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Top comments

Unbweavable 17

nothing ends arguments like Google

211 4

Comments

drayloon 50

To have been, or not to have been, that is the question

6 1
tj4234 35

Plot twist, Shakespeare's plays were real life, Shakespeare himself was the play.

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sousaphonist 14

To be fair, a lot of professional academics are having the same debate.

5 1
janfleury 19

Do she believe that we never landed on the moon and that it was/is all a huge Hollywood hoax also???

0 5
hamburgerjung 23

Well actually while It's sure, that a man named Shakespeare existed, it's not confirmed, that he wrote one of the plays we know him for, let alone all of them. Probably the plays were written by a couple different people who are unknown, so Shakespeare gets the credit.

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hamburgerjung 23

Well actually while It's sure, that a man named Shakespeare existed, it's not confirmed, that he wrote one of the plays we know him for, let alone all of them. Probably the plays were written by a couple different people who are unknown, so Shakespeare gets the credit.

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Sionnach 10

It's not an uncommon thought. I've heard Marlowe and several English lords suggested as candidates for the person who took to calling himself William Shakespeare. No idea how much evidence there is to back up any such claims, but it's not likely people will ever really know one way or another.

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be82tw 17

Not exactly: That a man named William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon and attended Kings New School, a local Grammar school, opened a theater etc, is all very well established. Records remain clear up until the birth of his third child in 1585: after that the historical records of his life largely absent until he starts showing up again in 1592. The only real dispute is the authorship of some or all of his credited works. The theories are essentially that one of these lords or other respectable figures used the man William Shakespeare, an actual separate human being, to publish and produce their plays, not that they masqueraded under a pseudonym. I won't go into the weeds on the theories, but the mainstream literary community does not generally accept these theories, as the evidence to support them is very light and longer on supposition than fact. In particular, they seem to depend on dismissing Shakespeare's ability to author the plays since he was a commoner who did not attend University, owing to his family's financial situation (Marlowe, a fellow playwright, did attend). This ignores that a grammar school education in that time was actually very broad education on languages, mythology, ancient history, etc.

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Delial 14

I can't decide if this is a FYL or a YDI . . . OP, you didn't tell us which side of the argument you were on . . .

3 2
ballbags 14

You know it's your fault for continuing to argue. Mothers always right

0 4
kenerics 12

that's actually a valid argument, like actual literary experts have that argument all the time

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be82tw 17

Not about him existing: that is pretty well documented. The question experts dispute is whether he was the author of his credited works.

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