To be or not to be Shakespeare?

The authorship of Shakespeare's works is the subject of ongoing debate in literary and theatrical circles, where it is doubtful that Shakespeare was really the man of Stratford recognized by the official story. This controversy surfaced because it is difficult to believe that the tradesman of Stratford could be the genius behind the greatest poems and playwrights ever written. Since the 19th century , a fierce debate arose between the sulfur Oxfordians ( who believe that a man so uneducated as William Shakespeare could not have written works as remarkable ) and the Stratfordiens , for whom the identity and genius of Shakespeare make no doubt. According to biographical information William of Stratford grew up in an illiterate household in the remote agricultural town of Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no record that he traveled at all or that he ever left England. Firstly, how can an uneducated man write such a titanic work ? The Anti-Stratfordians speculate that the man in Stratford who did not even go through a day’s school education, could not have revealed to the world, at the age of twenty, his first verses of the most highly-regarded poems and playwrights in history. The Anti-Stratfordians argue that only a well educated person, versed in history, linguistics, politics and many other fields could have reached such feats of written art. Secondly, anoter idea upon which the Anti-Stratfordians base their conspiracy theories is that which claims that the writer behind Shakespeare’s works was multi-lingual. According to them, Shakespeare must have had acces to a wide spectrum of books, in order to compose works which comprise such vast knowledge. There is no evidence, however, that the man in Stratford- upon- Avon ever owned a book or read . The writer of Shakespeare’s plays was skilled in languages such as Latin, Greek and also French. Among many examples, the Anti-Stratfordians state that the Comedy of Error, based on a Latin play by Platus, had no translation during those days. The third focus is on the deep historical knowledge depicted in Shakespeare’s works. Given the fact that the plays were created trough a deep grasping of classical Antiquity, the conspiracist claim that the author could have been a nobleman. The Oxfordians argue that only the higher classes could have accesed such knowledge during the Elisabethan period and therefore, Shakespeare, rather than being a tradesman, Shakespeare could have been a nobleman, or a person of the queen’s court. There is a large list of historically known individuals who could more accurately be the real Sakespeare, counting more than fifty possibilities. The three most favored are Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford of that period of time, Sir Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe. Even if those times were an era of unfogiving censorship, when writing meant taking the risk of being tortured and even executed, such persons stood firmly devoted to their works, their only common attribute being that they all are more likelly to have been the author that had written Shakespeare’s works. In conclusion, regardless of whom we choose to believe as being the true Shakespeare, until doing so, we should, of course, enjoy the poems and playwrights, as, undoubtebly the author desired, no matter who he was. We know who he wanted to be, and what he offered to posterity.