Who is Shakespeare?

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THE BARD'S IDENTITY

There is a problem of literary identity started in 18^th century concerning one of the most famous writers of all the time: William Shakespeare.

Author of 31 masterpieces including tragedies, comedies and historical dramas, today he still attracts millions of people in Stratford-upon-Avon, his country of birth.

But maybe, there is something more interesting than his works: his identity!

At the beginning the reason of the debate was the lack of personal details of The Bard of Avon. Today, we have more informations, but however there are many discrepancies.
There are many points in his works and in his life that made doubt scholars like Mark Twain or Henry James and many others about his identity.

- Shakespeare’s father was an illeterate smuggler, but the official history let us belive that we was an educated knight.

- The most important thing is that Shakespeare attended King's School of Stratford until he was 14 years old.

- How could he, with no record of his education and cultured background, have acquired the extensive vocabulary which is characteristic of his plays and poems?

- And then, why in his testament, Shakespeare didn’t Shakespeare bequeath not a single book, the most valuable asset in 17^th century?

Well, the problem is that there are more of one possible Shakespeare.

The main four candidates are: De Vere, Bacon, Derby and Marlowe.

I think that the real writer of the famous masterpieces is Christopher Marlowe.

The history say that he died in 1593, while the works of Shakespeare are pubblished until 1624.

But the Marlovian Theory holds that the Elizabethan poet and playwright Marlowe did not die in 1593, but rather that his deathwas faked, and that he was the main author of poems and plays attribuited to Shakespeare.

- Scholars say that an important coincidence is, the first time the name of William is know to have been connected with any literary works is with the publication of Venus and Adonis, which came out just a week or two after Marlowe’s apparent death.

- Moreover are undeniable the similarities between their works.

- And lastly, Marlowe was much more cultured and he might be gone into exile, like certain sonnets suggest.

My opinion is that Shakespeare was an astute businessman who ran a company of actors under the famous name of

as a logo.

I might be wrong and certainly this question is very broad and too complicated to resolve it here, but I want to talk about it bacause sometimes the official version of history is not necessarily the correct one!