Contested Will – Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro. 2010. Read in September 2011.
With
monotonous repetition the question of who really wrote Shakespeare pops up and
makes the rounds. Even people who should know better claim that someone else
did and I find it more and more puzzling.
It shouldn’t really bother me but the substitutes offered are so silly
it’s insulting.
That’s
why this book is so refreshing. In a calm, thoughtful, scientific manner
Shapiro goes through the history of this odd phenomenon, explains why the
theories were presented when they were and how none of the candidates are
feasible.
In
the 19th century Shakespeare had been burdened with a Godlike status
similar to that of Jesus and when scientific development brought doubt to the
veracity of the tales in the Bible, a doubt of Shakespeare’s divinity also
swept through the western world. Good so far. I doubt that Shakespeare ever
wanted to be divine. The problem was that, while the evidence against the
possibility of the Bible being true is sound, the evidence against Shakespeare
writing Shakespeare is not. And there is fact a difference between trying to
prove that Shakespeare was God, or at least God’s word in literature, and that
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.
As
for the candidates – mainly Delia Bacon and Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford,
Shapiro shows with meticulous reference to existing documents, that nobody but
Shakespeare is a plausible alternative.
Shapiro
ends his study with a discussion on why this question seems to be so
interesting and he writes, “It makes a difference as to how we imagine the
world in which Shakespeare lived and wrote” (page 316). This book is a fascinating study of that. If
you believe someone else than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and you want to
continue to believe that, don’t read this book.
If you haven’t figured out what you think about it, or if you want
thorough and reasonable arguments favouring Shakespeare, then this is a must
read.
