Three hundred actors in Britain have sighed a 'Declaration of Reasonable Doubt' regarding whether Shakespeare really did pen all those plays. The thrust of their argument is that William Shakepseare was a commoner who was raised in an illiterate household, so where did he get his background information on historical figures, high society and geography of far off cities in Italy for example.
They want to see more research done to look into who might actually have written the plays. Of course for some this is the literary equivalent of denying the holocaust, so it is not without it's critics (not least from the people of Stratford on Avon who make a tidy living selling the Shakespeare brand to US tourists).
Still, there are some heavy weight actors behind this including Sir Derek Jacobi, whom I saw performing as Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford.
Ultimately the authorship will do nothing to take away the brilliance of the plays, but it would be great to know the truth and if Shakespeare was not the author, who was and why were they so happy for Shakespeare to take all the credit?
A sign of life
6 months ago
2 comments:
Just about good-to-know as why Mona Lisa smiles.
Good plays - good painting.
I agree that from an artistic perspective it does not matter.
But, since we know Leonado did paint the Mona Lisa, from a historical perspective, there is real mystery here. who wrote the plays, why did they let Will take the credit, what part if any did Will have in contents of the text?
It would be funny if Shakespeare's only real contribution was to put in the rude bits and sex jokes to make the work appeal to the common man!
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