The Greatest Literary Scandal Of All Time"
...works has been disputed for centuries. While many scholars have held beliefs that Shakespeare's works have been written by figures such as Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, and others, the most heated debate today is between William Shakespeare and Edward DeVere, the Earl of Oxford. Each side of this debate has many followers, the Stratfordians, or those who claim Shakespeare to be the true author, and the Oxfordians who believe that true credit should go to DeVere. My paper, far from being a complete analysis of the possibilities of Shakespearean authorship, attempts to recap and rationalize the arguments of these two groups. It would be impossible to include all arguments and evidence in a paper such as this. Full books have been written on pieces of the debate that I will not even mention. Hopefully after reading this paper, however, you will have a little better understanding of the debate of authorship. As many of these "facts" are quite opinionated and may be debated, I am not going to attempt to make a conclusion as to which of these men is the author, but rather to inform and explain the many arguments on both sides of this debate in the hopes that the reader will learn a little more about the ongoing debate and form an opinion of his or her own.
In countries all over the globe the name William Shakespeare brings to mind literary genius, a man so famed for his expression and creativity that none other comes close to him in reputation. Yet for centuries, scholars, students and readers have argued a very fundamental question: whether or not the plays and poems attribute to William
Shakespeare were truly written by the man of that name or whether Shakespeare was merely a pseudonym for another figure. While the ideas of the true identity of Shakespeare have differed over the years in an almost trend-like fashion, a very popular...
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