What do we really know about William Shakspere? Where
did he learn the French,
Italian, Latin and Greek that provided the material for
the plays? If he had attended
the village school (and there is no record of his having
done so), he would have
learned only small Latin and possibly Greek. Never
having attended university; how
did the man from Stratford gain the knowledge the plays
reveal of the law and
medicine? Never having been at sea, how did he
gain the knowledge the plays
reveal of navigation?
There is very little evidence in order to Shakspere to
keep the authorship. The
information we have makes us doubt even more: his character,
his background, his
education, his family, his friends, his behaviour towards
his debtors and his neighbors,
as well as his attitude to money and property.
However, it is not those things that make us doubt, but
the absence of all the
documentary about the life of the world's greatest writer.
There is no document
showing that the man from Stratford did write these works.
There should be a
record: his manuscripts, his letters, the letters sent
to him, the letters about him
between others, and printed stories and pamhplets about
him. But there is nothing
at all. There are reviews and comments on the plays and
poems, yet nothing on their author.
There is however documentation on a man who lived in the
village of
Stratford-upon-Avon, who commonly went under Shaksper.
He got involved in
several minor court cases and he was sought for non-payment
of taxes. But there
are no documents which show that he had any connection
with the plays or poems.