William Shakespeare Research Paper

Edward de Vere = William Shakespeare

By Marcia Smith

Abstract

Everyone knows of William Shakespeare, the author of thirty-seven full length plays and 154 sonnets. Romeo and Juliet is one of the most popular stories as it is read in most high school English classes. There is not a theatre goer anywhere who has not heard of, or seen, Hamlet. Anyone involved in the theatre, on a regular basis, will tell you that they never say Macbeth in any space they call a theatre. What if it was all a lie? What if Shakespeare was not the great Shakespeare? What if someone else wrote “his” works? There are many books and theories in the world today about the true authorship of Shakespeare’s works. Edward de Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford, Francis Bacon
Since the early 1700’s scholars have been asking themselves the question of Shakespeare’s identity. The great William Shakespeare, who was known throughout history to have existed and to have written the greatest literary works of all time, is being questioned over and over again. Did the William Shakespeare that is on record actually write Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, etc.? This debate has suggested many names as the possible Shakespearian author. However, none have had so much evidence to support his case than the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. As Oxfordians that has done extensive research and wrote numerous books on the subject cannot prove there point either way, there is no possible way that this paper could be presumptuous enough to prove it either. Instead this paper is going to discuss the evidence of the de Vere being William
As Ogburn says “the author of the greatest literary works of the time (and most popular plays) would have been held in high regard-certainly as high a regard as Marlowe, Jonson, Spencer, Chapman, et al.- by those who knew who he was” (Ogburn, and Ogburn 31). “If Shaksper wrote the plays, the fact would have been generally known. Yet, while special, if peculiarly sporadic, praise was given to the dramatist Shakespeare as a name, Shaksper the corporeal man was never, so far as is known, treated by his contemporaries as in any way distinguished” (Ogburn, and Ogburn 31). There is no evidence that states that Shakspere of Stratford wrote any of the plays or sonnets. His name is on none of them. Oxford, on the other hand, was held with high regard by the Queen and many other writers of the day such as Arthur Golding, Thomas Churchyard, and many others. However, no one when referring to Oxford mentioned the name “Shakespeare” or even Shaksper. “The first time the dramatist “Shakespeare” was associated with Stratford was seven years after Shaksper’s death when it was stated in the First Folio, ambiguously, “When…Time dissolves thy Stratford monument” (Ogburn, and Ogburn 35). It is interesting that this is when the case for Shaksper is most evident and it comes so long after Shaksper’s