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How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: the Historical Facts by Tom Reedy and David Kathman

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How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: the Historical Facts by Tom Reedy and David Kathman How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Facts by Tom Reedy and David Kathman Contents Introduction William Shakespeare was born in April, 1564, the oldest son of John Shakespeare. His father, a glover, trader, and landowner, married Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowner of Wilmcote. John Shakespeare was ambitious, and he filled many municipal offices in Stratford including that of burgess, which privileged him to educate his children without charge at the King's New School in Stratford. He rose by election to the position of Alderman in 1565; and in 1568 he was elected Bailiff (equivalent to mayor), and in that year he made an application to the Herald's office for a grant of arms. In his position as Bailiff he was responsible for licensing companies of actors who applied to play in the Guild Hall. William Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway in November, 1582, and six months later their daughter, Susanna, was born. Two other children were born, the twins Hamnet and Judith, in February, 1585. Sometime after this he joined a troupe of players and made his way to London. As a member of London's leading theater company, the Lord Chamberlain's Company, he wrote plays and eventually became a sharer in the Globe theater. He was so successful that in 1596 he successfully renewed his father's application for a grant of arms, and the following year he bought and restored New Place, the second-largest house in Stratford. He also bought other real estate in Stratford and London. Shakespeare semi-retired from London life some time around 1610. He died 23 April 1616, disposing of his large estate in his will. These, in bare outline, are the facts of Shakespeare's life. Antistratfordians claim that this William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was not the author of the plays and poems that bear his name, but actually the evidence for Shakespeare's authorship is abundant and wide-ranging for the era in which he lived, much more abundant than the comparable evidence for most other contemporary playwrights. This evidence falls into several different categories, all mutually reinforcing. A strong, tight web of evidence shows that a real person named William Shakespeare wrote the poems and plays attributed to him; that a real person named William Shakespeare was an actor in the company that produced the plays attributed to him; that the actor was the same William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon; that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was part-owner of the Globe Theater, where his acting company produced the plays attributed to him; and that those who knew the writer of the plays and poems knew that he was William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon- Avon. It's true that no one single document states categorically that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote Hamlet and King Lear, but then no such document exists for any other playwright of the time either. The evidence is cumulative and interconnected, and taken as a whole it leaves no doubt that a single man was actor, author, and Stratford property owner. In this essay we summarize this evidence in order to illustrate the speciousness of antistratfordian claims that there is some "mystery" about the authorship of Shakespeare's works. 1. The name "William Shakespeare" appears on the plays and poems. Good evidence that William Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems bearing his name is the fact that his name appears on them as the author. 1a. In 1593, the narrative poem Venus and Adonis was published by Stratford native Richard Field, with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton signed "William Shakespeare." This dedication refers to the author's "unpolisht lines" and contains the typically fawning language of a commoner addressing a nobleman for patronage. It is manifestly not the work of one nobleman addressing another, as Oxfordians believe. The following year, The Rape of Lucrece was published, also with a dedication to Southampton signed by William Shakespeare. Both poems went through many editions over the next half century, all with the same dedications signed by William Shakespeare. 1b. In 1601, the volume Loves Martyr by Robert Chester contained short poems by several well- known theatrical poets. One of these poems (untitled in the volume, but now known as "The Phoenix and the Turtle") is signed "William Shakespeare." This volume was printed by Richard Field, who had also printed Shakespeare's two narrative poems. 1c. In 1609, the volume Shake-speares Sonnets was published by Thomas Thorpe. Whether one believes that the publication was authorized or not, the volume is clearly attributed to "Shakespeare." 1d. Many plays were also attributed in print to William Shakespeare. Following is a list of the plays first published in quarto up until the publication of the First Folio, along with the dates of publication and the name of the author. Titus Andronicus - Q1 1594, Q2 1600, Q3 1611, all with the author unnamed. Henry VI Part 2 - Q1 1594, Q2 1600, both with the author unnamed, Q3 1619 by William Shakespeare, Gent. Henry VI Part 3 - Q1 1595, Q2 1600, both with the author unnamed. Romeo and Juliet - Q1 1597, Q2 1599, Q3 1609, all with the author unnamed. Richard II - Q1 1597 with the author unnamed, Q2 1598, Q3 1598, Q4 1608, Q5 1615, all by William Shake-speare. Richard III - Q1 1597 with the author unnamed, Q2 1598 by William Shake-speare, Q3 1602 by William Shakespeare, Q4 1605, Q5 1612, Q6 1622, all by William Shake-speare. Love's Labor's Lost - Q1 1598 by W. Shakespeare. Henry IV Part 1 - Q1 1598 with the author unnamed, Q2 1599, Q3 1604, Q4 1608, Q5 1613, all by W. Shake-speare. Midsummer Night's Dream - Q1 1600, Q2 1619, both by William Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice - Q1 1600 by William Shakespeare, Q2 1619 by W. Shakespeare. Henry IV Part 2 - Q1 1600 by William Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing - Q1 1600 by William Shakespeare. Henry V - Q1 1600, Q2 1602, Q3 1619, all with the author unnamed. Merry Wives of Windsor - Q1 1602 by William Shakespeare, Q2 1619 by W. Shakespeare. Hamlet - Q1 1603 by William Shake-speare, Q2 by William Shakespeare. King Lear - Q1 1608 by M. William Shak-speare, Q2 1619 by M. William Shake-speare. Pericles - Q1 1609, Q2 1609, Q3 1611, all by William Shakespeare, Q4 1619 by W. Shakespeare. Troilus and Cressida - Q1 1609 by William Shakespeare. Antistratfordians sometimes make much of the fact that the early quartos of Shakespeare's plays did not have an author's name on them, implying that there was some effort to keep the author's name secret. But contemporary plays at that time were not considered literature, and most people didn't pay much attention to their authors, at least not until after 1600. Only about a third of all the plays printed in the 1590s named the author on the title page, and a significant portion of these were the Shakespeare quartos late in the decade. The only playwrights to be named on any title pages from 1590-97 were Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Christopher Marlowe, John Lyly, and Robert Wilson. Of those, Greene and Marlowe had never been mentioned on a title page while they were alive; in fact, neither had been mentioned as a playwright at all while he was alive. John Lyly had been one of the most popular playwrights of the 1580s, writing for the Children of Paul's, yet six of his plays were published, in ten different editions over a dozen years, before his name ever appeared on a title page (in 1597, on The Woman in the Moon). In this context, there is nothing peculiar about the lack of Shakespeare's name on the title pages of the few early quartos of his plays, as he was just becoming established. 1e. In 1598 Palladis Tamia: Wits Treasury by Francis Meres was published. Meres attributed twelve plays to Shakespeare, including four which were never published in quarto: [Two] Gentlemen of Verona, [Comedy of] Errors, Love labors wonne, and King John. In addition he identified some of the plays that were published anonymously before 1598 -- Titus, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry IV -- as being written by Shakespeare. Sadly for Oxfordians, he mentions Edward Earl of Oxford as being a writer of comedy in the same paragraph as he does Shakespeare. 1f. The First Folio of 1623 clearly attributes the plays in the volume to William Shakespeare. The volume is titled Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies; Heminges and Condell's dedication says that they organized the volume "onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend, & Fellow alive, as was our Shakespeare"; all four commendatory poems refer to the author as "William Shakespeare"; and the last page of the front matter calls this volume "The Workes of William Shakespeare." Oxfordians claim that the name "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym used by Oxford, and that there is nothing to tie the name to William Shakespeare of Stratford. But "William Shakespeare" has none of the characteristics of a pseudonym; it was the real name of a person closely connected with the production of the plays, and there is no indication in the historical record that anybody ever suspected it of being a pseudonym or said that anybody other than William Shakespeare was the author. (The antistratfordian claim that the occasional hyphenation of "Shake-speare" indicated a pseudonym is completely groundless and unsupported by any evidence; see The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name.) All the historical evidence ties William Shakespeare of Stratford to the plays bearing his name, as we will now demonstrate.
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