WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
AGAINST's
There is no evidence that he ever had a day of schooling
or wrote anything but
six signatures. His parents, siblings, wife and children
were illiterate except that
one of his daughters could, like her father, sign her
name. He never, as far as is
known, claimed to have written any of the works later
attributed to him, had no
part in their publication and, dying when twenty of the
plays remained unpublished,
made no mention of them in his will and showed no interest
in their survival.
There is no
reference during the lifetime of Shakepere of Stratford (1564-1616) which
either speaks of the author of the Shakespearean works as having come from
Stratford or speaks of the Stratford man as being an author. (The first
indication that the author of Shakespeare's plays came from Stratford appears,
ambiguously, in the prefatory materials of the 1623 First Folio.)
In an age of
copious eulogies, none was forthcoming when William Shakspere died in Stratford.
The first memorial verse to "Shakespeare" appears in the 1623 Folio.
The author of
Shakespeare's works had to be familiar with a wide body of knowledge for
his time --on such subjects as law, music, foreign languages, the classics,
and aristocratic manners and sports. There is no documentation that William
Shakspere of Stratford had access to such information.
In the Stratford
man's will, noteworthy for its detailed disposition of household furniture,
there is no mention of books, library, manuscripts, or of any literary
interest. Indeed, the only theatrical connection there appears as an interlined
bequest to three actors.
The only specimens
of William Shakspere's handwriting are six almost illegible signatures,
each different from the others. Three of these signatures are on
his will, one is on a deposition in someone else's breach of promise case,
and two are on property documents. None of these has anything to do with
literature. The first syllable, incidentally, in all these signatures is
spelled "Shak", whereas the published plays and poems consistently spell
the name "Shake".
