Why Did Shakespeare Think At All

William Shakespeare was a man of many talents. He wrote plays, sonnets, comedies and histories, as well as acting on stage. It is widely stated that William Shakespeare is the greatest artist of the English language, and perhaps even the greatest artist of all time. But, what if William Shakespeare wasn’t who we think at all? What if he was in-fact, a front for another man or another group of men, looking to hide themselves from the public. There are many details about the past of William Shakespeare that we know, which point themselves towards this theory. His upbringing, his lack of a higher education, his penmanship, and many other factors lead people to believe that this man was simply a front for another person. With these things
His mother and father signed official documents with a simple mark, an indication that they knew not how to write their own name. There is even evidence that Shakespeare himself was mostly illiterate (Sitterson) . The surviving signatures that we know about are all jumbled up and are basically a scribble. They hardly even resemble his own name at all. Not only that, but the spelling of the name differs from signature to signature. Are we to believe that a man who is touted to have been the greatest playwright of all time, a man whose creative genius transcended his time, was likely completely illiterate? There are arguments to be made against this, however. It is known that there was a free history and grammar school in the Stafford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare grew up. It is possible that he may have attended this school to learn how to read, write, and learn about ancient Greece and it’s storied. This could be a reason there are a lot of Shakespeare plays with a heavily Grecian flavor. There is no documented evidence that Shakespeare attended this school, as all student registries for this specific school were destroyed some time
Some forms of evidence have already been discussed, like his lack of literacy and overall just not having the proper knowledge to be the writer (Sitterson). The part I’d like to focus on the most is that there is such a pitifully scarce amount of documentation that we can attribute to his life and his works. There is nothing that officially documents William Shakespeare as the composer of 37 plays, or writer of 154 sonnets. With such an absence of proof, most skeptical people would do a double take on their opinion of Shakespeare’s authorship, reconsidering whether they think he is the true author or not. With this being said, there is also no hard evidence that points to anyone but Shakespeare being the author of these works. Many Stratfordians (Shakespeare’s supporters) believe that there is enough evidence that points to Shakespeare being the author. These bits of evidence include printed copies of his plays and sonnets with his name printed on them, as well as theater company records and comments by contemporaries like Ben Jonson and John Webster (History.com Staff) . At this moment in time, there is little evidence that pushed Shakespeare away as being the architect of these masterpieces, as there is no one to replace him on the