Who are the Anti-Stratfordians?
People who think Shakespeare wasnât actually Shakespeare, but that âShakespeareâ was a secret pseudonym for someone more important and better educated, like the Earl of Oxford.Â
See also: imbeciles.
Not to piss anyone off, but why does this matter? The author is literally (and possibly metaphorically) dead.
I feel like I have to address this. I tried not to, but I actually think itâs really important. Most of the people who make the argument that âShakespeare wasnât Shakespeareâ are doing so on the basis that the real William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon simply didnât have the literary wherewithal to have written what are now the most famous plays in the English (or possibly any) language. They like to argue that because Shakespeareâs family wasnât particularly wealthy or influential, and that he never got more than the Elizabethan equivalent of a grade school education, he couldnât possibly be as well-read or as eloquent as the person who wrote Hamlet, or Macbeth, or what have you.Â
The reason Stratfordians are so vehemently defensive of Shakespeare as himself is because (a) thereâs literally no proof that he wasnât exactly who we think he was and (b) we believe that itâs entirely possible that a man who was nominally ordinary became the worldâs most famous playwright. If you take that away from him, you are doing the world a huge disservice, by reinforcing the idea that in order to have a significant impact on the course of history, you have to be wealthy or politically powerful or socially superior. I for one want to be able to tell any struggling middle school kid with average grades not to give up, because passion is more important than money or power, and he or she could be the next Shakespeare.Â
So, thatâs why it matters.Â
^^^This^^^
Yes. All of this. The Oxfordian authorship theory is rooted in classist, elitist attitudes that insist that a glovemakerâs son from Stratford-on-Avon who never left England couldnât possibly have written 37 plays based simply on extensive reading and a great deal of imagination.
Also they have no conception of what âgrammar schoolâ actually means. A grammar school education in the sixteenth century usually included extensive study of rhetoric, philosophy, and history. Ben Jonson claimed that Shakespeareâs Latin was mediocre and his Greek nonexistent, but there were a wide variety of classical texts available in English translation during his lifetime and we can clearly see echoes of those translations in Shakespeareâs works.
Lastly, the Oxfordian theory is rooted in an 18th century forgery popularized by a man named Looney (pronounced Loh-ney, but WHATEVER). The best book Iâve seen on the subject is Contested Will by James Shapiro, which is marvellous and snarky and everyone should read it.
Itâs the exact same logic that tries to discredit Mary Shelley as the author of Frankentstein, because a particular school of (white, upper class, male) critical thought canât stand the idea that an eighteen year old girl could have written something so profound that it founded an entirely new literary genre.Â
They donât like being confronted with the fact that great art is not the preserve of the ruling class.
Also, hereâs another reason it matters: Shakespeare populated his plays with characters from all the social strata, from prostitutes to monarchs, and everyone in between.
The view of such people, their attitudes and foibles looks a lot different when youâre looking at them from the same level than if youâre looking down at them from above, with only a vague, abstract, view of what their lives are like.
Therefore, knowing that Shakespeare had come from âcommonâ origins and worked his way into the patronage of King James by the time he retired, gives us a different understanding of his plays, and the history of the time and place in which he wrote them.
