Will the Real Bard Please Stand Up?
They are at it again.
The debate is raging about whether or not a man named William Shakespeare, born to an illiterate peasant family in Stratford-on-Avon wrote the plays, sonnets, and poems that are attributed to him. (See article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070908/ap_on_re_eu/britain_shakespeare_debate)
I find it to be an interesting academic debate largely akin to a theological discussion of the existence of a higher power in that it is a passionate debate argued fiercely by two sides that rarely convince the other that they are right.
I have a confession to make. I do not much care for Shakespeare’s plays, no matter who wrote them. That is not to say that I do not respect them as some of the greatest works of English Literature ever written, only that I do not like them. I do not care for too many works that even as an extremely well read individual I more often than not I need to have explained to me. Of the several works of his that I have read I have appreciated them for their story lines, their form, style, and overall excellence; I just do not much care for them.
All that being said there was a time in my life when I like most twenty year olds believed that I knew everything and had to have an opinion on it. I ascribed to the belief that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the plays, and at the time had a few relatively valid arguments to make in favour of that point. Fifteen years later I cannot remember any of those points, but I do remember being quite vocal about it. More than even most of my age I was quite vocal about things that I was relatively ill-informed about.
The combined works of Shakespeare were written by a well-travelled man who had an intimate knowledge of such far off places as Italy and Denmark; he had a knowledge of History so detailed that today many ‘facts’ that we consider historical are actually fictions from his play (there is no historical record of Julius Caesar’s last words); he understood medicine, law, the royal courts of Europe, and countless other subjects, many of which were hidden from public knowledge until the last fifty years. The author would have literally have to have been the highest level Renaissance Man – or more likely someone with intimate access to a few of them.
The debate closely resembles a religious argument in another way, in that it is likely impossible to prove either way. It would be impossible to deny that Shakespeare’s works are works of literary genius, and though scholars may debate ad infinitum the identity of their author (or authors) it is a debate that is largely irrelevant. No other author has so influenced the English language and culture and it is unlikely that any ever will.
Discovering the true identity of the author if it was not William Shakespeare would create logistical nightmares that could never be resolved. It would not be as simple as having to change the author on every one of his works in print; that number would be eclipsed by the references to his works in other works, papers, articles, other plays and other books.
I also do not think it matters who wrote the works four hundred years later; if we decide to attribute them to Shakespeare or Francis Bacon or the third Duchess of Cornwall they would still be works of excellence and, to quote one of those sources, ‘A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.’