Did Shakespeare write his plays? - Natalya St. Clair and Aaron Williams

[@WillyTheComposerOfficial]

Anybody else notice that the music at the end of the video is just the music at the beginning in reverse?

[@colinswain9235]

+130166wsjr Dude, you just Blew my Mind.

[@BudderB0y2222]

glad I'm not the only one

[@KalimeroShow]

WillyTheComposer OH MY FUCKING GOD

[@akshay888able]

mind=blown

[@virgiliaspight4482]

WillyTheComposer Yes

[@saman9291]

When you try to explain English with Math

[@Dental_Talion]

😭

[@Pixiesfairiedust]

Mason Conway hey! That’s not nice 😡

[@saman9291]

@JayoJay I live in america. It's Math here.

[@saman9291]

@JayoJay uhh... okay..? go cry about it colonizer lmaooo

[@saman9291]

@JayoJay its the fact you're using the 😂 emoji for me. now leave me alone for using my own dialect that I was taught from the beginning.

[@deborahchinn2439]

I’ve read a great deal of both Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe and absolutely recognize the overlapping influence (which is not the same as plagiarism.) Writers “borrow” from each other frequently and it is not only acceptable, it is flattering.

[@Neonusrat]

It's kinda sad how people don't believe that there are individuals capable of such greatness and all without money, power and nepotism

[@nithin1729s]

People don't believe that homer ever existed

[@eshmawi]

I don't think Nusrat that it's people "don't believe..." in general, but it's I think that they don't believe in the instance of "Shakespeare." I personally find it very unlikely that a person would be able to write plays set in places like Italy for example, so often, with such vivid characters and obvious understandings of the culture and place in his time, without actually having traveled there. That's where things begin to appear illogical to me.

[@Neonusrat]

@@eshmawi romeo and juliet is a story that existed before Shakespeare he just turned the story into a play is all

[@msamarth2397]

And it turns out to creation of new theory which not only helps in finding his identity but also has various applications

[@MN8]

@@coolnamebro thank you

[@storiiies1480]

Shakespeare is actually Shakespeare. Wow.

[@Neha-ue3uk]

I know, mind-blowing

[@miraclewest6218]

ᎾᎷᏩ ᎡᎬᎪᏞᏞY

[@meowkris]

Groundbreaking!

[@2x2leax]

@Comrade Kabo Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[@jacobmalic5037]

He’s not Shakespeare. He’s Shakespeare

[@judgeholden8654]

Linguistics was not the right crossword answer, it didn't fit.

[@sepphorallanes3686]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed HAHAHA

[@Zekiraeth]

Here I'll save you four minutes: Was Shakespeare real? Yes.

[@davidpoa7775]

Thank you im hungry but wanted to see the answer so now I can eat and know the answer! :)

[@avaneeshkhadye6816]

@@davidpoa7775 That reply took 4 minutes.

[@ruizhuchen3610]

great you saved a whole 4 minutes

[@jamesbevan9939]

Yeah, but they needed to provide the evidence to convince people who still don't believe it.

[@dahawk8574]

Except that this video did not give specific evidence. It stated the general conclusion. If a stylistic fingerprinting was compared, then they could have shown a graph to let us know just how closely these fingerprints matched, or did not match. And that would have given us a solid notion of how confident the researchers were in this result. Instead what was delivered here is... Yes. Trust us. You know, like when we are told that a new study has determined that coffee is a carcinogen. It is science. So if you question the results then you are castigated as being anti-science.

[@DuckiBoiHasPizza]

You are a saucy boy What, you egg? _[He stabs him.]_

[@limebean]

I love literature

[@Sibzoti]

Young fry of trechary

[@Squantle]

0:33 that dab tho

[@crystalbrooks2684]

Squantle 😆Lol

[@weonanegesiscipelibba2973]

i think dats a genuflect lmao

[@francinev3971]

Squantle I think it's a curtsy.

[@gaboxaldo]

It isn’t a dab

[@chloei_]

I hate myself for laughing at this

[@hunnitbaehunnitbae8804]

came for Shakespeare learned about Statistics instead

[@jathebest2835]

English learner like me came to learn Literature..instead..learned statistics and math after the video..

[@Blokewood3]

The plays were written to be performed on stage, and it is clear that the playwright was an intimate of the company that performed them: The Lord Chamberlain's Men (renamed The King's Men after King James became their patron). The author knew that John Sinklo would play minor roles in Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV part 2, and Henry VI part 3. The author of Henry IV part 1 knew that the company had a boy actor who could speak Welsh and sing. The author of Much Ado about Nothing knew that the roles of Dogberry and Verges would be played by William Kempe and Richard Cowley. The author of As You Like it knew they had a boy actor capable of carrying the whole show by playing Rosalind. Only an intimate of the company could have written these plays (with some occasional collaboration). When the plays were printed together as the First Folio, this book was compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell, both of whom had been actors in the company, and both of whom were mentioned in the will of William Shakespeare of Stratford. They knew that their friend Will was the author.

[@mrrodriguezHLP]

Stop, your facts and reasoning are ruining elaborate conspiracy theories and a movie about Queen Elizabeth I having an affair with her own son who ghostwrites Shakespeare.

[@Blokewood3]

@@mrrodriguezHLP I'm very sorry I ruined "Aonymous" for you. :)

[@MandyJMaddison]

Yes, Heminges, Condell, Shaksper of Stratford, Ben Johnson and a number of other people were involved in the Shake-speare Conspiracy, including, almost certainly, the Queen herself. Of course the writer of the plays knew what caste were available. Someone communicated this stiff two him. You don't think the delivery of the plays was a one-way traffic, do you?

[@allanrichardson1468]

Isaac Asimov published a really insightful analysis of Shakespeare's knowledge, or rather lack of it, about astronomy as it was believed and taught in his era. He pointed out that in his balcony speech to Juliet, Romeo tells her that each star in the sky travels in its own orb (not orbit as we say today, but orb, meaning a crystal [not solid] sphere. The Ptolemaic model of the cosmos said that the seven bodies known then as planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) each moved in perfect circles, or circles upon spheres, in individual orbs, but the stars (what we would call extrasolar objects) are all affixed to the SAME orb, which is the boundary of Heaven. Asimov claimed that any man with a FORMAL education would not have written that line, but a self educated man might very well make that "mistake." As an authority not only on science but of the HISTORY of scientific theories, Dr. A. had a qualification most LITERARY scholars do not.

[@stevenhershkowitz2265]

Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow, That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops -- Juliet. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. Juliet is the speaker, and she is referring to the cycles of the moon i.e. the changes of the appearance of the moon as it waxes and wanes. If Asimov knew anything he would know that the moon goes through cycles (shortening "orbit" to "orb" seems merely poetic license to fit the meter...). Asimov might also know that "O" is Oxford, who is represented by Romeo ( it should be pointed out that "Shakespeare" changed the original "Romeus" to "romEO" - E.O. being a signature that the Earl of Oxford used sometimes) The Moon itself is Queen Elizabeth, who was represented by Diana Goddess of the Hunt and of Virginity (note that Shakespeare refers to Elizabeth's death in Sonnet 107 - "The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured..." - even orthodox scholars accept this). Allegorically, the writer is making sport at the expense of Queen Elizabeth, who constantly shifted her favoritism from one courtier to another, but that meaning evaporates when Willy Stratford is the writer - as per the intent of those who separated Oxford from his work by permanently crediting the uneducated Shakspere (at least Asimov got that part right...)

[@sharpekathryn]

Can you point me to the article by Asimov about Shakespeare's knowledge of astronomy?

[@ericloscheider7433]

Allan Richardson Romeo doesn’t say that

[@mstexasg6243]

Steven Hershkowitz high five! Exactly right!

[@cicciograziani5122]

On top it's fair to point out that these are the words Shakespeare wrote for Romeo. It doesn't necessarily mean Shakespeare believed in what Romeo says. Never confuse the author with his characters.

[@1bunnyadam]

To be, or not to be; that is the question...

[@ibpn4284]

aliens wrote for him

[@roidroid]

HAARP wrote Shakespeare's plays

[@roidroid]

911 was an inside job (written by Shakespeare)

[@sebastianbehrens8370]

his works consist of ink chemtrails...No? Ok : (

[@rohinishinde2632]

hi

[@rohinishinde2632]

hi

[@samn4002]

Though I've never fully felt stylometry completely solved the problem (considering it led some people to think the Earl of Essex wrote the plays due to some fanciful wording in his Devices, which were later confirmed by manuscript to have been written by Francis Bacon and his older brother Anthony,) I still found this video fascinating as it is the first I've seen that breaks down what stylometry is and how it works. One problem I can see is that, in the case of Bacon, he was well known as being able to adapt his style, and could thus wrote entire letters for people without the receiver ever suspecting that it wasn't the man in question. And the Essex device is a beautiful example... No one suspected Francis Bacon until Spedding uncovered the manuscript in Bacons hand with notes from Essex for corrections he desired... If a man was that adaptable, it would almost be like he had mastered stylometry long before anyone ever coined the term, and was an expert at using it to his advantage. In fact, when I read Bacon I detect a variance of style from piece to piece so staggering that it almost seems hard to believe the Essays and the New Atlantis were by the same man, then you read the remains of what we have of the Device of the Earl of Essex.... it's unthinkable that bacon could have written it... it was only proved via manuscript. Sadly, it seems we will never know what happened to the Shakespeare manuscripts, which to me seem the only piece of physical evidence that could ever solve the so-called Authorship Question. :( love this video though.

[@tvfun32]

Here's a deeper dive into Francis Bacon's relationship to the First Folio.sirbacon.org/downloads/The_1623_Shakespeare_First_Folio_A_Bacon.pdf

[@joeycmore]

Does this methodology prove anything beyond a specific author of Shakespeare's works? Not who this was, or even whether there are multiple authors presuming they wrote simultaneously as a collective.

[@tvfun32]

sirbacon.org/downloads/aphoenix/FINAL-HOLINSHED.pdf

[@tvfun32]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGS4fWeDm950kMU

[@brianl6128]

I was gonna say haha

[@АнастасияПопова-г7ф]

I believe that people who argue that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays, don’t want to look at that time and understand what the life of the actors was like. Shakespeare was 20-year-old and he had to do everything on the theater - build scenery, sell tickets, play several roles and of course, write plays. He was a godsend for the theater. Actually, he didn’t believe in himself and that’s why he didn’t publish his works.

[@genossn6452]

I believe that Shakespeare was the author of his works. He was recognized by other actors and playwrights and worked with them for about 20 years. They spoke of him as a real dramatist and admired him. Some criticized his approach to drama, but still considered him one of the best writers of the time.

[@futurez12]

I don't think that's strictly true. From what I've researched, there were some people who started to mention him long after his death, but those people wouldn't have known the man. You've got to ask yourself, how a man with no record of an education, who's parents were illiterate; who's children after him were illiterate; who didn't own _any_ books to leave in his will; who left behind _zero_ trace of any manuscript, or even so much as a letter (the only writer of that time period to leave _nothing_ behind at all); who spelled his own name multiple different ways in the few signatures he left (most of which were unsightly, almost intelligible); who, when he died, there was no mention of him having died - this famous playright of the greatest work ever written in the English language - not even in his small hometown.... You've got to ask, how did such a seemingly anonymous man (at the time) write works that included deep knowledge of law, medicine, languages... without any record of education, not a single book from his library (he must have had one, right?) left behind, not so much as a trace of him even being a writer. How did all that happen? We have clear evidence of other writers from his day, lots of manuscripts/letters etc. How? _"Shakespeare is the best-known unknown person that have ever drew breath upon the planet."_ - Mark Twain

[@Blokewood3]

@@futurez12 Education: although the records of students from the Stratford grammar school have not survived, William Shakespeare's father John Shakespeare was a town official, and his children were entitled to a free education, so it's pretty safe to assume that Will attended it. For that matter, his education is not atypical for playwrights of the time. Ben Jonson was another accomplished playwright with no university degree. Literacy of Parents: Uncertain. John Shakespeare signed his name with a mark, which might lead you to think that he was illiterate, but he held the position of high bailiff of Stratford (the equivalent of mayor). It would have been very tedious to do such administrative work without at least being able to read. In any case, John Shakespeare's children were entitled to a free education at the Stratford Grammar School, so his literacy has no bearing on that of his children. Also, it was not unheard of for literate men to sign their name with a mark. Adrian Quiney also signed documents with a mark, but we know he was literate because we have a letter that he wrote to William Shakespeare! He just didn't always feel like signing his name. Literacy of Children: William Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was not illiterate. Her signature has been found. And since even literate people would sometimes sign their name with a mark, it's clear that someone would not actually sign their name unless they knew how to write. Ownership of books: A will is not the same thing as an inventory. Books are considered to fit in the category of chattels. For that matter, Shakespeare's will is not unusual for the time. Francis bacon also did not mention any books in his will, though he had many. Letters: Shakespeare did write a dedication to his patron for his poem Venus and Adonis, and we do still have a letter addressed to Shakespeare by Adrian Quiney. People don't save every letter they receive, let alone for 400 years. We are lucky to have as much as we do. Signatures: You need to look at the signatures in context. Most of the legal documents they come from require the name to be fit in a small box, requiring Shakespeare to cram his long name inside. The other signatures come from his will, when he was probably not in good health. As for the variations, spelling was not standardized at the time, and there is nothing out of the ordinary about having variations. In the surviving signature of Christopher Marlowe, Marlowe writes his name as "Christopher Marley." Shakespeare definitely left traces of being a writer, unless you just ignore the plays and poems published under his name, his dedication page for Venus and Adonis, the reference to him by Robert Greene, Francis Meres' acknowledgement of him as a playwright, and so on. The plays were written to be performed on stage, and it is clear that the playwright was an intimate of the company that performed them: The Lord Chamberlain's Men (renamed The King's Men after King James became their patron). He tailored his plays to fit his company. The author knew that John Sinklo would play minor roles in Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV part 2, and Henry VI part 3. The author of Henry IV part 1 knew that the company had a boy actor who could speak Welsh and sing. The author of Much Ado about Nothing knew that the roles of Dogberry and Verges would be played by William Kempe and Richard Cowley. The author of As You Like it knew they had a boy actor capable of carrying the whole show by playing Rosalind. Only an intimate of the company could have written these plays (with some occasional collaboration). When the plays were printed together as the First Folio, this book was compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell, both of whom had been actors in the company, and both of whom were mentioned in the will of William Shakespeare of Stratford. They knew that their friend Will was the author. Ben Jonson wrote a dedication to him too. Shakespeare was in fact, Shakespeare. And there really isn't anything unusual about what we know. Many documents have been lost over the years (nearly the entire city of London even burned down in the 1660s). The only reason it seems unusual now is because the plays have been so celebrated that they've been blown out of proportion. When they were written, they were meant to appeal to the audience of the day. Shakespeare was a success in his own time, but many other authors were also widely celebrated. It wasn't until long after his death that his work took on a god-like status that made the idea of the man completely unapproachable.

[@fredbarker9201]

@@futurez12 he also didn’t mention any socks or trousers in his will Shakespeare was a nudist ! see that logic just doesn’t work. Everyone back then misspelt their name. Walter Raleigh left over 15 versions of his. Shakespeare the actor definitely existed so if u think he wasn’t the writer, then the writer used the actor as a fake. Why not pick someone a bit more believing, according to you the man could barely read or write, and yet he would have needed to take loads of rehearsal question queries about important aspects only the play write would know

[@fatalisticbunny]

Agree with you: Occum’s razor.

[@Hallows4]

Conspiracy theories aside, what I’d really like to know is; where did all of this doubt come from in the first place? What are the earliest recorded instances of Shakespeare’s authorship being disputed? Did they appear in his own lifetime, or not until years or even centuries after his death? Do they have their origins in legitimate scholarship or fringe gossip? I think answering these questions would be far more interesting than debating something that - if this video is indeed reflective of mainstream opinion - has already been determined.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

In summary, the first doubts were expressed in the mid-19th Century, by which time Shakespeare had become a god. This godliness didn't seem a good fit for a mere actor from a small town. While some intelligent people have been suckered by arguments for this alternate Shakespeare or that, it is most popular among conspiracy-theorists. A few thousand people worldwide have taken it seriously enough to sign a petition in support of the idea that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare. Even fewer of us bother to engage with them.

[@dillitz]

@@Jeffhowardmeade and to summarize your summary: you know the first doubts were not expressed until long after his death. Just curious… how long after his death was it before Stratford upon Avon’s cottage industry fully got up and rolling? The entire fabricated lineup of wholly imagined “historical sites” might as well have been laid out by Constantine’s mother. blechhhhh

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

@@Jeffhowardmeade By a crazy person, no less, Delia Bacon!

[@user-love_is_inside]

Thanks for posting it! I think that there was a person, who has written all poems. As i know , he was well educated and was able to understand and to remember all things for the first time. That's why a such good education mean that it's enough only one person to write such beautiful and big stories.

[@garynorthtruro]

The question I have is, how could someone with that level writing skill not have been better noted in history? There is seems an odd inconsistency to the story.

[@rin_etoware_2989]

not better noted? we just know his baptism date, how he got a dispensation to marry early, how the local town council checked on his stock of ten quarters of malt at one point

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

@@rin_etoware_2989 And that's pretty much it!

[@kimcruz3889]

the "voiceover" sounds really handsome

[@idontgiveafaboutyou]

lmao

[@elekashkara6456]

Synesthesia

[@elekashkara6456]

@Peitian ZHANG all the 5 senses. Not just colour and smell.

[@elekashkara6456]

@Peitian ZHANG fix your sentence

[@Michelle-pn9xt]

Voiceover is a technique, not a person. Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice-that is not part of the narrative (non-diegetic)-is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations. ... It may also be read live for events such as award presentations.

[@julianaoctavio1659]

the narrative shifted from literature to statistics, im freaking astounded

[@jalexander9520]

3:07 HEEEYY Wassuh my dudes it's Shakes here. Today we're gonna be doin an EPIC collab with my fellow youtube star CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, aka a great dude.

[@gabrieldinizdemoraes]

Jonathan Alexander Underrated comment

[@UmarAli-zc8xs]

Marlowe is a CIA agent.

[@nex8165]

This is beautiful

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

Kit had that hall pass from the qUEEn........ hmmmmmm

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

Aka DEAD DUDE as well!

[@NitsugaStone]

Linguistic prove it was written by a single person, not necessarily Shakespeare.

[@tyran9153]

Hmmm

[@oliverbland5072]

+Nitsuga Stone Things like his will and personal letters were compared to his plays using linguistics and matched.

[@oliverbland5072]

+Oliver Bland i think.....

[@NitsugaStone]

That's the strange +Oliver Bland !!! :-O There are no personal letters. He only sign his will, in which he didn't mention a single book or play. It's even possible that Shakespeare (the actor) didn't even knew how to write (he probably need to know how to read to learn the lines but no more). We only have his signature. Maybe his name was the only word he knew how to write, like a five year old boy. The movie Anonymus (not related to the masked guys, that's V de Vendetta) give a possible and accurate (but completely fictional) solution to this mistery.

[@oliverbland5072]

Nitsuga Stone yeah sorry I got it wrong, I was guessing lol. I went to the website this video is on and it says that Stylometric Analysis is used to prove the plays were written by a single person and not a well known playwright. It debunks all claims that the name "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym used by a group of authors or a common playwright (such as Marlowe) because the writing styles of the plays don't match up with there older works. Had to watch the video again to catch that. And that movie looks pretty cool!

[@doom-driveneap4569]

I’m so glad I found this video, for years I heard about the theory that Shakespeare was not actually a person, or that none of his work was originally his. Thank you so much TED, you have given me peace

[@Zerepzerreitug]

that's how most discussions about computer analysis end. "Computer cannot do X... at least, not yet"

[@jonathanwright8025]

0:37 I think they mixed up Oxford and Marlow - the EARL of Oxford was a courtier and Marlowe was the other famous playwright.

[@sandnerdaniel]

You are right! Although you could argue that Marlowe was also a politician and Oxford a writer and poet too.

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

@@sandnerdaniel But Oxford wasn't as talented as Shakespeare!

[@onlynameMrBlank]

You would think there'd be more controversy surrounding Homer writing the Iliad and the Odyssey; there's a lot more evidence suggesting that he didn't exist at all.

[@jeffmeade8643]

That's just it. Nearly everyone respects the evidence regarding Homer, so there's no controversy. If everyone would just respect the evidence regarding Shakespeare, this video wouldn't be necessary.

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

@@jeffmeade8643 Especially Derek Jacobi and other Oxfordians!

[@raparapa443]

I believe that William Shakespeare wrote his works by himself, because in my opinion he is the greatest writer. Of course there are several assumptions in people that he did not write himself, but I do not think so. He is a very educated person, and I do not understand why people think that someone wrote for him.

[@ronaldomontero3624]

I think it was plagiarism

[@learn2xpand862]

@@ronaldomontero3624no one asked

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

Exactly, bravo, I could not agree more!

[@mohamedfarah1053]

I find it extremely useful and informative. Students of discourse analysis and litterary studies may find it useful, too.

[@julianhobrough1290]

The Shakespeare Juggernaut continues inexorably on. I've studied WS since my wife died almost 13 years ago. From Frank Kermode, to idiots online. Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare! Okay?! He collaborated a few times, but Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare! Occam's Razor applies. I was english(e) born and birthed, but have been a kiwi for 54 years. The Shakespeare juggernaut moves inexorably on.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Shakespeare deniers have had about as much luck gaining converts as have vegans, but you've got to admire their stalwart character. In the face of ridicule, overwhelming rejection, and a mountain of evidence, they soldier on. And to help justify that fortitude, I will continue to ridicule, reject, and present evidence against them. Somebody's gotta do it. By the way, good move. I once visited my former college roommate in Aukland, and now wish I had stayed.

[@joynabil]

Caius Martius Coriolanus Keep doing it, brother. Someone's gotta oppose the morons.

[@joshuapray]

@@Jeffhowardmeade What an odd comparison! I'm with you, mate, but there are _far_ more vegans in the world than even people who care one iota whether Shakespeare's work is authentic, much less that are convinced his authorship is a fabrication.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@joshuapray Some context was probably in order. The percentage of the US population that is vegan or vegetarian has not changed in my lifetime, despite their evangelical attitude. A certain percentage is just prone to adopt a outlier attitude or practice, it seems.

[@joshuapray]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Reviving a 2-year-old discussion! Thanks for the response. I certainly agree that many simply rebel to rebel (for a time, at least), but most grow out of that and either rebel for a reason or conform. That's just my own view based on purely anecdotal evidence. But statistically it does appear that veganism and vegetarianism is on the rise. According to The Economist, rising enough that this year is projected to see the biggest rise yet (my guess, due to immediacy of climate change and/or well-marketed activism). But even that isn't my point, really. Do you think we can compare the amount of vegans (and especially vegetarians) in the US to this fringe conspiracy theory? I think this is apples and oranges. The numbers are super unlikely to be similar. One counted in hundreds of thousands, the other...eh, not so much. www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/06/who-are-americas-vegans-and-vegetarians-infographic/ worldin2019.economist.com/theyearofthevegan

[@prashantmishra1994]

Hi there! Shakespeare is Shakespeare because this unique personality can't be copied. Thanks.

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

As the bard himself said, "Brevity is the soul of wit"!

[@BinaryRex18]

King Lear, to me, is the greatest literary work of the last seven centuries.

[@tverdyznaqs]

I'm just curious, have stylometrists analized the bible?

[@videogyar2]

Read "O Último Segredo" by José Rodrigues Dos Santos its pretty much about examining the bible, how different and controversial it is but with also a great storyline meanwhile.

[@jonpitts4925]

Albeit not stylometry, Thomas Paine analyzed the bible in The Age of Reason and tore it a new one.

[@brandonstednitz8408]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I am aware conducting that kind of analysis would be pointless, as the Bible was assembled at the Council of Nicaea from a truly massive volume of "literature" that had been floating around for a great many years, written by a laundry list of different people. Such an analysis would prove utterly inconclusive.

[@videogyar2]

Brandon Stednitz Its only about the new testament. And yes, its been written by hundreds of people through centuries. Some copiers changed it because they didnt like it, some added, some made mistakes etc.

[@samuelchristie570]

The answer is yes. Most modern biblical scholars believe some of the Pauline epistles to not have actually been written by him due to the exact same reasons we can confidently say Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

[@nameisrango]

This is the kind of page John Keating would ask to tear up.

[@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078]

A Macbeth line in Harry Potter... how convenient!

[@wanderingkernel5002]

J.K. Rowling was the real Shakespeare Author confirmed.

[@theakstonsrock]

I thought it was an established fact he worked with other writers, since he was more like a screenwriter doing it to earn a living as opposed to a literary author trying doing for artistic merit. When I heard it the example was Macbeth and Middleton adding in the stuff about the witches, but reading more on Wikipedia it seems that might have been done after Shakespeare's death so I could be completely wrong about this...

[@HoriaButnaru]

+theakstonsrock He was not a screenwriter, he wrote plays not movies.

[@allanrichardson1468]

+Horia Andrei Butnaru The post said he was LIKE a screenwriter of today, who aimed to please his audience (which included people of all educational levels). Obviously, he wrote for the stage rather than movies, but stage writing then (and now) was of a more immediate nature, not aimed at posterity. The script was probably variable for each performance of the same play. And since there was no automatic way of recording a performance to compare it with later ones, publishers had to work from one of several scripts of a given play.

[@JPFerraccio]

+Allan Richardson I love it when people make sense and don't repeat anti-Stratfordian gibberish.

[@UmarAli-zc8xs]

Yes because copyright laws didn't exist back then so nobody cared about credit and writing plays didn't earn the writer anything but the ticket sales from the shows was a writer's primary source of income. Shakespeare's plays were published throughout his life but Shakespeare didnt make a single penny out of it. So writing a kickass play with your buddies was more important than taking credit for it.

[@joshuapray]

@@allanrichardson1468 People who write for the stage today most definitely do it for art and posterity. What kind of assertion is this? Broadway musicals are just hammered out for cash...? The script being variable was due to handwritten scripts and frequent rewrites (then as now) and the fact that some actors/theatre owners may still have had their own copies from a previous show and based the next upon it rather than asking the playwright to pen it again. Variety in specifics or added/excised scenes and dialogue is hardly indicative of 'just doing it for the money', and qualifies in this case as a total non sequitur.

[@EndoftheTownProductions]

John Heminges, Henry Condell, and Richard Burbage, three actors of The Lord Chamberlain's Men, a famous acting company that included William Shakespeare, were given money by William Shakespeare of Stratford in his Last Will and Testament in 1616. Two of these actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, were responsible for having 36 of Shakespeare's plays published in the First Folio in 1623. Ben Jonson's eulogy in the First Folio clearly praises Shakespeare as a great writer and refers to him as the “Sweet Swan of Avon.” This obviously designates Shakespeare as from Stratford upon Avon. Furthermore, Jonson states that "thy writings to be such, /As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much." Heminges and Condell also praise Shakespeare as a writer, stating that "he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works, and give them you, to praise him." These are "his works" and "his papers" that they are publishing. He is clearly presented as the writer of these works in the First Folio. The Last Will and Testament of William Shakespeare of Stratford clearly connects him with the 1623 First Folio through Heminges and Condell and it is clear that Shakespeare is presented as the author of the plays.

[@RoninDave]

Shakespeare's plays were written by a sentient non-binary pansexual multiracial avocado.

[@arandomcomment1092]

Not a very clever or witty line but okay.

[@vetdoc35]

Speaking almost 5min without saying anything is a real Art this KZbinr did perfect!

[@librarylu]

Who's asking if he existed at all? There was an historic William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon, but was he William Shake-spear the author? That is the question. Another question is what works known to be by the Stratford man were used by the stylometricians for comparison? There are six signatures that may or may not be his and that's all, except, possibly, the words "by me" on the will. How do you use stylometry to compare "by me" to, say, this? "She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomi Over men’s noses as they lie asleep. Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, Her traces of the smallest spider’s web, Her collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, Her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid."

[@joshuapray]

I am right there with you on the question of his existence. I mean, sure, question the authenticity of his authorship if you want. But there is zero doubt that the man was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, was mentioned by name contemporaneously , married, had kids, died and was buried in his hometown. Literally none of that is up for debate.

[@glennjoshua9950]

A lot of Stephen King's fiction is set in Maine. Dostoevsky wrote about Russia, and Ohio appears prominently in several of Toni Morrison's novels, because the greatest artists draw from their own worlds to transform profound experiences into broader canvasses of symbolism, allusion and metaphor. Those specific indicators can then be interpreted and appreciated universally, even from those who've never stepped foot in Maine, Russia or Ohio. Likewise, the vast content and detail of Shake-Spear's plays and sonnets also speak to our common sense, as well as our love of fine art. The author of those plays and sonnets undoubtedly used HIS OWN EXPERIENCES as foundation, inspiration and inception of his creative vision.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

So when the faeries get involved in Midsummer Nights Dream, that was based on the author's personal experience?

[@glennjoshua9950]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Yeah and Margaret Atwood wrote "A Handmaid's Tale" from personal experience too, along with Gore Vidal writing the novel, "Lincoln", and especially Robert Graves and his "I Claudius", because he had a personal connect with Julio-Claudian dynasty. . .

[@glennjoshua9950]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Dante meeting up with Virgil was from personal experience, and Hesiod introducing us to the 9 daughters of Mnemosyne also came from somewhere close to him as well. The business of Inspiration and Imagination ALWAYS BEGINS with a personal experience, memory, provocation and reaction. And Shake-Spear isn't an anomaly to the rule. HE RULES that rule.

Wow! This is so misleading. It diesn’t answer the question “who was Shakespeare.”

[@secondstring]

But it at least excludes the other candidates from the Oxfordian campus such as Marlowe (except for Henry VI), Bacon, and de Vere....that's huge.

[@benrogers1671]

I lové the way you explained this and the quality!

[@alexanderwaugh7036]

This leaves no one in any doubt that 'Shakespeare' wrote 'Shakespeare' - but we always knew that. What does it tell us about the identity of the writer who put that name to the title pages of his works? Which of the alternative candidates does stylometric analysis reveal to be closest to 'Shakespeare'? I think the answer is Marlowe, but he wasn't the writer, was he? Or was he? Scholars have noted hundreds of stylistic similarities between Shakespeare and Edward de Vere. In the so-called Benezet Test lines from 'Shakespeare' were mixed up with lines from Edward de Vere and not a single scholar or stylometrician was able to tell which was written by whom. Who paid to make this moronic video, I wonder?

[@ericloscheider7433]

Thank God you are here. I thought I was all alone in the dark

[@loryyaacoubian8831]

Everybody is probably just watching this for school

[@Tolstoy111]

Shakespeare is one of the most popular writers in the world.

[@alexprincipeblu]

Why did Shakespeare set so many of his plays in Italy? Not only in large and famous cities such as Rome, Milan and Venice, but also in small and at the time little-known cities such as Verona, Padua and Messina. All places that in his works, he proves to know very well, also in reference to the laws, customs, proverbs and character of the inhabitants. But according to his official biography, he had never been to these places. He has never been to Italy and has never traveled outside England. Also according to his official biography, his family was not rich, he got married at 18 and at 20 he was already the father of 3 children. When, where and how did he have the time to study and learn all that news and culture, which allowed him to write all these works set in places unknown to him and far away?

[@Nullifidian]

"Why did Shakespeare set so many of his plays in Italy?" Because he was living and writing in the early modern period. Have you bothered to look at the works of his contemporaries to see how many of _their_ works were set in Italy? "All places that in his works, he proves to know very well, also in reference to the laws, customs, proverbs and character of the inhabitants." So well that he thought that the Mediterranean sea was tidal. That you could sail from Verona to Milan-and he kept on thinking that Milan was a seaport until the end of his career, because his last solo-authored play, _The Tempest_ , has Prospero as the exiled Duke of Milan describing how he and Miranda were hustled onto a leaky hulk without first recounting the 120 km coach trip to Genoa, which is the actual nearest seaport. He thought that Padua was in Lombardy rather than Veneto (an error he got not from firsthand experience, but from consulting Abraham Ortelius' atlas _Theatrum Orbis Terrarum_ , which makes the same mistake.) He thought that Verona was ruled by a prince, even though it owed allegiance to Venice, and never had a prince even when it was independent. The former rulers of Verona were styled the "lord of Verona". Likewise, he thought that Venice was ruled by a Duke, which it famously had not been since the 8th century CE! Shakespeare knew Italy so well that... he ignored the well-known fact that Venice was a republic. Moreover, his depiction of a duke sitting in as judge over a minor lawsuit is ridiculous. However, it does have a parallel in Stratford-upon-Avon, where the aldermen were also magistrates. Shakespeare's father John would have heard cases argued, but not a Duke of Venice, even back in the distant days when it had one. Likewise, he was unaware of the custom of locking Jews in the ghetto at night because the entire elopement subplot with Jessica requires that Shylock go out of the house after dark to dinner, and then she takes advantage of her absence to flee with her lover, Lorenzo. Lorenzo could neither have come to her (as in the play), nor could she have fled to him. I could go on, but I think I've made the point: Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy barely extended beyond the fact that it _existed_ . "But according to his official biography, he had never been to these places. He has never been to Italy and has never traveled outside England." And which "official biography" is that? The one you just made up? Because there is absolutely no evidence _excluding_ Shakespeare from having gone to Europe. Even if he couldn't afford to do so on his own account-which he certainly could have after just a few years with the Lord Chamberlain's Men, if he was enabled to buy New Place as early as 1597-actors frequently toured the Continent or traveled in the retinues of noblemen. We simply cannot say whether he'd ever been to Europe or not. Hanging your case on such a slender peg as that is not wise. "Also according to his official biography, his family was not rich, he got married at 18 and at 20 he was already the father of 3 children." His family was rich enough by 1597 for him to purchase the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place. He was rich enough to buy 107 acres in Old Stratford from John Combe and William Combe for £320, a very large sum at the time, a mere five years after his purchase of New Place. "When, where and how did he have the time to study and learn all that news and culture, which allowed him to write all these works set in places unknown to him and far away?" Most of what Shakespeare includes of the "culture" of the faraway places he writes about is baked into his sources. So he just had to read those. If he wanted to know anything extra, he lived in the same London as John Florio, an earnest advocate of the appreciation of Italian literature and language, as well as in the same London as the Venetian glassblowers in Bishopsgate who would gather every afternoon for what a visiting Italian called their "Rialto hour". And even if he couldn't afford to travel or lacked the time (the more likely constraint after he became the Lord Chamberlain's Men's house playwright), he could stand a beer for someone who had in exchange for his impressions of the Continent. From the impression one gets of travelers from the literature of the period, they would happily tell you everything they knew, and even a lot they didn't, at the drop of a hat. In any case, since on the evidence of his works his knowledge of Italy and Europe in general (Bohemia with a coastline, anyone?) was extremely cursory, it really doesn't matter _where_ he got the smidgen of knowledge that he possessed. Personally, I think it's likely that most everything he knew of Europe came out of Ortelius' atlas.

[@lampenfieber]

​@@Nullifidian Hey, I'm currently writing a thesis about Shakespeare's work "The Tempest" and I'd love to know where you got the information from your comment! I'd love to add some of your arguments into my thesis but I need concrete evidence. So could you possibly tell me about where you have gotten your information from? Anyways thanks a lot for your comment! I learned lots!

[@thenablade858]

Italy was, at the time, the cultural and scientific capital of the world. Elizabeth I spoke fluent Italian, and many highly educated noblemen and women were expected to learn the language, alongside Latin. Why wouldn’t he set plays in Italy? Also, by setting many plays in Italy he could distance his works from the politics of England. England was Protestant, Italy was Catholic. Portraying corruption and violence between Italian nobles was much less risky than portraying corruption and violence between English nobles.

[@thenablade858]

@@Nullifidian Great comment, but I think you got Venice mixed up with Florence. Although in later years Venice was a republic, the city state had something called a Doge with was equivalent to a Duke. Most of them are little documented with the exception of Enrico Dandalo, one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade.

[@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n]

Um, why would we WANT to know that?

[@dradnozklongtime3147]

At the start, the quote you used was said by Malvolio in twelfth night

[@pln_ust]

Oh, good question... To my mind, Shakespeare wrote his plays himself because he was very clever even though he was uneducated (only 7 classes). He knew a lot of languages and worked a lot at the theatre. He did everything himself! It's my point of view! You can agree and disagree , it's your choice!

[@mattiamechtatel]

I usually think you are right, but looking for John Florio, he could be the “real” Shakespeare.

[@FilmFloozy]

The works were all written by the same person, but that person was not the William Shakespeare we've been led to believe.

[@juliannevogt8325]

“And even some women.” Oh yeah!

[@jaschenski]

According to Dr John Hall, businessman William Shakspere of Stratford's son-in-law, who wrote biographies of notable locals but never once mentioned his pa-in-law as a playwright, the poet "Shakespeare" (whoever he was, but certainly not his pa-in-law) had an allowance of £1K pa to produce two plays per year for the royal court. The person who historically did in fact receive this allowance was ... Edward de Vere!

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Justin Geronimo Wow! I'm amazed at how many things you got wrong in only a single paragraph. John Hall kept medical notebooks reporting on his patients. He did not write biographies. His widow sold two of them to another physician who published one of them. It does not mention Shakespeare at all. Either he was mentioned in the lost book, or not mentioned at all because he was not his son-in-law's patient. Vicar John Ward wrote in his diary, 40 years after Shakespeare died, that he had such a large income that he SPENT £1,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation (which was severe during the English Civil War), that's a pretty close estimate of Shakespeare's budget. Ward wrote that Shakespeare produced two plays a year for the THEATER, not for the Court. A vicar in Stratford half a century later would have had no way of knowing about De Vere's welfare payment.

[@jaschenski]

Yes, you are right, I've checked in Hank Whittemore's brilliant new book, "100 Reasons Shake-speare was the Earl of Oxford", this is Reason 43, John Ward not John Hall (who as I said married Shakspere's ILLITERATE daughter Susanna - she couldn't even sign her name!!) So that's one reason taken care of - I look forward to seeing you debunk the remaining 99! :-) (and of course, if traditionalists could find even ONE reason of similar calibre on behalf of the Stratford man, you would be jubilant ...)

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Justin Geronimo One? Go to Shakespearedocumented.org and you can look at scores of original documents proclaiming Shakespeare to be Shakespeare. A dozen different well-placed people declared him to be the poet. How many said De Vere wrote Shakespeare's works? Right. None. And Susanna signed her name just fine. Twice. Incidentally, she'd was married to a Puritan. Literacy was a big thing for them, for everyone. There would have been nothing more scandalous than for a Puritan physician's wife to be illiterate. Yet nobody ever mentioned that she was. It's just another claim (like all your other claims) that you make with no evidence whatsoever. Oh, and FYI, Shakespeare spent Susanna's entire childhood away in London. He wouldn't have been responsible for her education. And Oxfraud.com have thoroughly debunked every one of Hanky's theories. Using actual evidence.

[@jaschenski]

De Vere couldn't write as himself, he was a senior peer. One thing he did do was patronise the arts - commissioning translations of eg Italian works - one of whose content closely mirrors the famous Hamlet speech - and run a house where contemporary writers eg Lyly, Munday could fraternise and work. There is one glaring omission from the list of those he patronised, though - "William Shakespeare"! I wonder why??Anyhow thanks for the link, I am open-minded and will look through it. My own understanding is that there is nothing that directly links the works with the Stratford man, but I will eagerly scour these pages for something that does!

[@jaschenski]

Only just noticed the rest of your post - well, if either side had any unequivocal evidence, then clearly the debate would be at an end! (unfortunately, some possible evidence in the form of a work from De Vere's library came up for sale recently, but it was spirited away by an unknown buyer and no doubt lost to posterity for every - wonder why?)

[@LXDV]

This doesn't answer whether or not Shakespeare wrote his plays. It only answers that the play were written by a single person. There is so much evidence to suggest that Shakespeare was only a front. I wish that they had address more of the doubt surrounding him and his works.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Alex D There is no way to prove that anyone wrote anything. Nobody who could have seen him doing the writing is alive today. If half a dozen eulogists testifying that he was the author won't convince people, if him saying twice in The Sonnets "My name is Will" won't do it, if his including the names of Stratford townsfolk in his plays isn't enough, if his use of a Stratford friend to print the only poetry over which he had exclusive control doesn't persuade, if the acting company he owned having exclusive rights to perform his plays won't make some people see reason, THEN NOTHING WILL.

[@shellymaycock6676]

There is a lot of evidence. They just don't talk about it, and most mainstream profs don't know about it because they think they don't have to. See shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Shelly Maycock A lot of evidence for Oxford? Hardly. There is nothing that qualifies as "evidence" as most people define the term. There are a few coincidences between aristocratic characters in Shakespeare's plays and the well-known biography of a contemporary aristocrat. Even if they weren't vastly exaggerated (they are) they would not be evidence that any particular person was the author.

[@fredbarker9201]

Alex D the man is the greatest in all literature and people are trying to take it away just because no one is left alive who saw him write. It's like saying dickens didn't write great expecatations.

[@jaelynrae5493]

Fred Barker ahh but that brings up a curious point. There are MANY prolific authors across time, why is it that Shakespeare is the only one who's authorship has been in question...seemingly from the very beginning? Even when authors originally published under a pseudonym (i.e. Wuthering Heights), the collective audience had no problem with accepting true name of the author when it was later revealed, and it's true authorship was never in question. Yet the conspiracy surrounding Shakespeare has persisted over the course of several hundred years, why is that? Could it be because lack of evidence aside, some intangible part of the person making such aco sideration is saying "this is not right!". It may be as simple as human intuition in this matter, but something is causing enough people to question the narrative, for the masses to take notice.

[@everythingthrice]

0:46 except that Romeio and Juliet was proven a true story

[@NighteeeeeY]

Ever heard of Wolfgang Beltracchi? The greatest art faker in history? Well, he was so good, that he painted over 300 pieces worth over 150 million dollars in all variations and styles of the biggest historic artists before him and never was detected. So if he could paint a world class picture in just one afternoon in the style of anyone - i guess there could have existed some guy or a troup of people writing the same style as "Shakespeare".

[@MisterJasro]

Well he must have been found out else you wouldn't be able to know that he was a faker.

[@alexandraduarte3961]

Painting is very different from writing though. Although I do understand your point and it makes some sense, the parallelism is just not that linear. For two people to write basically equally is almost impossible - you would have to fake sentence structure, choice of words, story telling, and a whole lot of other characteristics perfectly. I'm not saying it's easy to fake a painting perfectly, but it's certainly not as hard or impossible, apparently.

[@АлександраЗамараева-й9о]

We know a lot of plays which were written by William Shakespeare. But are all of them was written by him? It is a very controversial question. As for me, William Shakespeare wrote plays by himself. He might have some people who helped him, gave some ideas, but I am definitely sure that he is an author of all of them!

[@RDB0199118]

I WISH SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS WERE NEVER RECOVERED BECAUSE IM SO CONFUSED AND IM FAILING ENGLISH CLASS BECAUSE OF HIM!!!!!

[@apollocobain8363]

Six signatures and "by me" are the only evidence of writing directly connected to William Shakspeare of Stratford Upon Avon. In none of these 6 signatures does he spell his surname "S H A K E S P E A R E". In these six signatures, the Stratford businessman wrote or permitted his name to be written: “Willm Shakp”; “William Shaksper”; “Wm Shakspe”; “William Shakspeare”; “Willm Shakspear”; “By me, William Shakspear”. THAT is the extent of primary source evidence we have for the Stratford man's writing. Responsible experts have stated that this sample size is too small and inconsistent. Stylometrics are a tool. You have to feed in a sample of what you want it to match or identify as similar. So if you feed it "Huckleberry Finn" and "Roughing It" and then let it compared those to other American works from the mid-1800s it should find similarities in "Tom Sawyer". If it doesn't then you tweak the algo until it does because you know it SHOULD find Tom Sawyer. This is sometimes called "training" the algo. We don't blindly accept what someone's algo says -- we have to look at how they trained it. The debate and criticisms about stylometrics look at the methods and accuracy of the algo. Stylometrics is being used here to claim that the six signatures guy is the same person as the 37 plays, 2 long form narrative poems and 208 Sonnets guy. You don't have to be Bill Gates to know that you can't use FOUR WORDS as the only input for such an endeavor! This video jumps over a huge gap which is the crux of the whole debate, eg. the gap between everything we have documented with certainty from primary source about the Stratford man versus the background, skills, life experience and political connections that were needed to produce the works. Stratford Shakspeare never claims to be a writer. He leaves Heminges and Condell money for rings and he makes no mention of manuscripts, books, quartos, foul papers, etc. Was the text of Stratford's will or his Mountjoy deposition used in these stylometric model(s) for Shakespeare? Was the way Stratford spelled his own name, always without the middle "e" and never hyphenated used in the model?

[@justinspicyrhino3075]

Yes! Not to mention even his own children didn't know how to read!

[@jeffmeade8643]

​@@justinspicyrhino3075 That's funny, because his older daughter was literate and left an elegant signature. There is no evidence either way for his younger daughter or his son who died age 11.

[@MrMABO15]

'Linguistics' clearly wasn't the right word in that crossword puzzle...

[@wesleyhunt7599]

I do not doubt Shakespeare wrote his plays. However, he had little authority when it came to publishing them. Certain textual discrepancies and messing up when they were compiled into the Folio meant details were lost in translation. So it's not a matter of if Shakespeare was real, rather what did the originals look like?

[@ritukumar8215]

Shakespeare got them ghost writers. XD

[@jonathanwright8025]

Thankfully today with the internet it is easy to trace who created what works of art. 500 years from now people will be able to know for sure that the TRUE and HONEST creator of Sonichu was Jimmy Hill.

[@ЕленаАрзянина]

Thanks for the video, it was very interesting to watch 😌I believe that Shakespeare was a very talented person. Many sources say that he was a very educated, well-read and creative person and I think the same. I am sure that he himself wrote his works! Proving that this is not his work is difficult, so why not just enjoy his work? By the way, even though most of the works are tragic, I like Othello! And you?😉

[@Twentythousandlps]

The best argument against the anti-Stratford line is the beautiful tribute his colleague Ben Jonson wrote aftet his death, and the fact that if Will had been a fake someone would written that soon after his death . No one did.

[@zross8471]

I like that it confirms collaboration with Marlow. It doesn't put the question to rest though.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Z Ross If his autobiography were found tomorrow detailing every last instant of his life, and were it witnessed be every person alleged to be the "real" Shakespeare, that would not put the matter to rest. That Shakespeare was publicly believed to be the author of the works attributed to him is easily proved. That he was the one who actually wrote the 90% of the canon which can reliably be attributed to a single author is unprovable, especially when critics have such expansive notions of what constitutes "reasonable doubt" and are eagerly willing to believe that anyone who claimed Shakespeare was Shakespeare was in some way lying.

[@hillarymay513]

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is the first line of Sonnet 18. It is not from Romeo and Juliet. Small but unnecessary error.

[@TomRegnier]

Many readers will readily believe anything a computer tells them, but a computer is only as good as the data and programs that go into it. If the program is flawed, the result will be flawed. Stylometrics, while it uses computers, still has its glitches. How do we know? Different stylometrics analyses come out with different answers as to who collaborated with whom on what, as Ramon Jiménez has demonstrated (Ramon Jiménez, “Stylometrics: How Reliable is it Really?” in “Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? Exposing an Industry in Denial,” John Shahan & Alexander Waugh, editors). Several years ago, Donald Foster attributed a poem called “A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter” to William Shakespeare based on a stylometric computer analysis. Later analyses by Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers showed Foster’s attribution to be flawed and that the true author may have been John Ford. Foster admitted his error in 2002. Besides, the most that stylometric studies might show is that the person who wrote the bulk of the plays (whoever that was) sometimes collaborated with others. They cannot prove that that central figure was the Stratford man because there is no known writing unquestionably belonging to the Stratford man to be used as a standard. As Ramon Jiménez has said, stylometric analysis “can never be more than a portion of the evidence needed to [identify the work of an individual author].”

[@murrayhill9000]

The language, the syntax, etc., is very close to the style of Queen Elizabeth. It would be members of the aristocracy who would speak and write in that style and Edmund de Vere is the most logical person. It was very usual for younger members of the aristocracy to collaborate on plays that they themselves would act in. This was the entertainment of the times. Instead of parlor games, they collaborated in plays in lieu of going to a theatre where there were too many common people to contend with. The plays involve an extensive background in the classics and the histories that was only available to the upper classes. If you believe in angels, that a lonely Jewish man became god and that a magical elf comes out every Christmas with gifts, then these arguments might be beyond your periphery.

[@HoriaButnaru]

+Tom Regnier And to deny the work of supposed authors (Bacon, Marlowe, de Vere, etc) There is indeed no proof of his writing and it leaves us with a question, but until we can prove it was not him, we can not deny without having sufficient evidence of another writer.

[@jephmat]

There have been a lot of stylometric analyses that have shown the plays in line with the writing style of Marlowe, and beyond simply being a "contributor", sometimes to a degree that surprised many. Something this video fails to mention.

[@keybawd4023]

Of course, William Shakespeare didn't write those plays, it was another William Shakespeare.

[@ShotDownInFlames2]

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford died in 1604, before a third of the plays were produced. Those plays, including Macbeth, Coriolanus and The Tempest, had references to current events of the time that he could not have known.

[@truth8287]

+ShotDownInFlames2 Actually the dating of Shakespeare's plays is based on the assumption that Shakspere from Stratford wrote them. There are no proven references to any events or publications after 1604 that Oxford could not have known about. If you would like to offer me some examples, I will happily show you how the quotes you offer could easily have been written before 1604.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Truth82 There are many references which date the later plays to after 1604, which is why the "collaborators finished half-written plays" theory had to be promulgated.

[@dukadarodear2176]

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, had the Genius, the Education, the Experience in Italy and the Social and Court Status in England to put together the entire corpus attributed to 'Shakespeare'. The Stratford-on-Avon wool merchant, money lending and partial theatre owner could not read or write and neither could his parents nor children.

[@ShotDownInFlames2]

@@dukadarodear2176 Edward de Vere was no genius. Being an aristocrat he was probably told how great he was many times. The poor guy spent the last ten years of his life suffering from a terrible disease, the only thing he wrote then was a letter to the Queen beggiing for money. The writer of the plays did not need to travel to Italy, they were not travelogues, they were about universal human experience.

[@Nullifidian]

@@dukadarodear2176 If he had genius, then why doesn't that appear in his letters and the poetry written under his name? As far as his education goes, he had a worse education than the average Elizabethan grammar school student, and not even as good an education as William Cecil gave to his son Robert, despite the fact that Cecil was responsible for de Vere's education as the Master of the Queen's Wards. His tutor left him, evidently without a pang, at the age of 13 and after that he was given specialized instruction in things like dancing and horsemanship. Even when he was being tutored, his education amounted to nothing more than two hours a day of Latin, two hours a day of French, an hour on cosmography (mapmaking), drawing and writing, "exercises with his pen" (which is evidently different from writing, so I guess he was being trained in penmanship), and dancing. A grammar school lad would be spending all day translating works out of Latin and into English and then back into Latin without consulting the original, being evaluated not only on the accuracy of the translation but also its style. Often they would be tasked with creating dialogues in Latin based on a range of different scenarios. If you wanted to create a training program for genius playwrights, you could hardly do better than an Elizabethan grammar school education. And how much experience of Italy does it take to locate Padua in Lombardy, posit a voyage by sail between two inland Italian cities, and to write two plays set in Venice and never mention the canals, even when mentioning the name of the oldest bridge over the Grand Canal? For that matter, it's not clear that Shakespeare understood that the Rialto was a bridge. It appears from the way he wrote about it that he thought it was a public square, like St. Mark's (another famous Venetian locale that goes unmentioned). Since William Shakespeare wasn't a wool merchant, you may be referring to someone else, but that is doubtful. If you are erroneously referring to Shakespeare, then you're equally inaccurate about the literacy of his family. It's inconceivable that John Shakespeare could have served as high bailiff and chief magistrate without at least knowing how to read, and an illiterate person would be an odd choice for executor, as Mary Shakespeare was for her father and as Susanna Hall would be for her husband. Speaking of Susanna, we have an extant signature of hers and that of her daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's granddaughter. We also have an extant signature from Gilbert Shakespeare, William's brother, and we have evidence that Richard and Edmund followed their elder brother into the theatre as actors. As actors, William, Richard, and Edmund would all have had to have been able to read their cue scripts. However, it always amuses me to see this "Shakespeare was illiterate" lie getting floated again and again, because it shows that the anti-Shakespeareans don't even believe what they're saying themselves. If they bothered to think it through, they'd see how instantly disqualifying it is that they're positing that an _illiterate_ became a front man for a _writer_ . Who couldn't detect the imposture if that really happened? How was the secret supposed to be kept when everybody who knew Shakespeare would have known that he couldn't possibly have written anything?

[@gideonbrown4215]

One day, I hope that I do something so undeniably amazing that people question if I could even be real.

[@Russia_uzbekistan47]

I consider that it Shakespeare didn’t write his plays.I think that some nobleman wrote plays and Shakespeare was like a trademark,because judging by the Shakespeare’s works, he visited many countries, traveled all over Italy, knew all the details of the area, which is difficult to describe, never seeing them. Meanwhile, according to Shakespeare’s biography he never left England.

[@taliaroses]

Даниил Шлык hmm. smells like classism in here

[@michaelrowsell1160]

You do not have to go somewhere to know about a place ,.You can talk to people and read books about a place

[@masonkane5884]

Seeing as "Ownership is 9/10 of the law", does it really matter? He got the credit and fame and no matter how many times this question is brought up, proving otherwise will be pretty well impossible.

[@flibbernodgets7018]

You can always tell an Anne Rice novel by how many times the word "preternaturally" is used. Ugh. There is no book I regret reading more than "Memnoch the Devil". Just... ugh... I don't know how to explain it. I'm not a fan.

[@aagh8714]

preternaturally preternaturally preternaturally

[@VampiraVonGhoulscout]

It's mainly just snobbery because he was working class, and of course a poor person could never have written a play. At least that's what a lot of upper class people thought.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Ironically, Shakespeare's works are nearly devoid of the sorts of Greek classical references that his better-educated peers loved. They even made mention of his lack of scholarship. Part of what makes Shakespeare great is his freedom with language. His clever puns. His reaching metaphors. Verbs used as nouns and nouns used as verbs. A university education would have beaten all of those things out of him. Thank god he never went to university.

[@mess4501]

You've already added math to science... why, oh why, must you add math to reading..?

[@satwikchivukula8905]

As a machine learning student, I see this as an absoluter W.

[@golddropper2747]

Fun fact: Shakespeare invented the name Jessica

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

And Imogen.

[@Blokewood3]

And Miranda.

[@I_Boys]

ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg@@Blokewood3 gggggggg

[@reubenmarchant2229]

Even if Shakespeare did not write the plays he got the credit. If the most brilliant writer of the Shakespeare's era wrote the plays very few remember him. Mention Shakespeare and most people will know who you are talking about.

[@LittleImpaler]

Shakespeare was real and he wrote his plays.

[@04hutchn]

Thanks for clearing that up. Didnt know you were around then and have factual evidence

[@MarcosVinicius-nm7oo]

@@04hutchn why you belittle the man? Only because he achieved such greatness that are deemed impossible to whom that cannot.

[@ronaldomontero3624]

​@@MarcosVinicius-nm7oo I don't know this plays were very confusing to read in high school

[@linamardiana592]

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet , Henry V , midsummers night's sleep, Anthony and Cleopatra , Macbeth. Are from William Shakespeare

[@Валерия-г8р3г]

It's a really very interesting question! But people's opinion on this topic is quiet different. Some people say that he was a real person, but other say that it was a group of people, and "Shakespeare" was their nickname. Unfortunately, the researchers of creativity of the poet did not give a clear answer. And we can just imagine who actually wrote the poems

[@samueldistefano6824]

Dont tell Derek Jacoby

[@Monkey-l8s]

*_Severus Snape in 1700s with no hook nose_*

[@kylekraemer5116]

Doesn’t this suggest that Shakespeare’s works were all written by one person? If so, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was Shakespeare…

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

It shows that it wasn't any other known writer. It also shows that the three pages of the play Sir Thomas More, which are in the handwritong of the actor William Shakespeare, were written by the author William Shakespeare.

[@jenjen-ii3kv]

Shakespeare was Shakespeare. That´s it :)

[@maheshkamble9585]

+Jenny Rose Linguistic prove it was written by a single person, not necessarily Shakespeare

[@HoriaButnaru]

+Mahesh Kamble It also proves it was written by none of the supposed writers (Marlowe, Bacon, Edward de Vere, etc) so the only one left to write them is... Shakespeare.

[@georgegrubbs2966]

Shaksper was basically uneducated. He had hen scratching as a signature. No original manuscripts. Left no books or manuscripts in his Will. It’s a huge ruse that has worked for centuries. Well done!

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Can you name one theater poet who DID leave books or manuscripts in his will? And your inability to read 16th Century handwriting isn't Shakespeare's fault.

[@georgegrubbs2966]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Compare Shaksper's signature with Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe. Both Jonson and Marlowe had original manuscripts and a library. Shaksper is a fraud, but not his fault. He went along with the ruse.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@georgegrubbs2966 Ben Jonson has a surviving masque in his handwriting, which is the newer Italic style which is similar to what we used before we invented computers. He has no play scripts in his handwriting. Marlowe MAY have one extant page of a play script, but we have no way of verifying that it's his. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has three extant pages of the play Sir Thomas More in his handwriting. That's more play pages than either Marlowe or Jonson. If you can read those three pages, you can read Shakespeare's signatures, because they're in the same handwriting. Jonson had a library, which we know because he wrote his name in his books. Marlowe didn't have a library that we know of. Neither of them mentioned any books or manuscripts in his will. Doesn't it bother you that you have to make up lies in order to have an argument?

[@shakespeareandflorio9954]

It's a really very interesting topic! The main and most interesting question is: Was he the only one who wrote the plays or it was a group of authors with the name Shake-Speares?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Aside from co-authored works at the beginning and end of his career, they were mostly written by one person. The method of stylometry is to graph the word and grammatical choices of individual authors so as to see what was written by whom. If it were a group of authors writing under a single name, one would expect to see the graph all over the place. Instead, it shows distinct differences between them.

[@shakespeareandflorio9954]

@@Jeffhowardmeade absolutely, I agree. In all probability he was helped at the beginning of his career, I believe less at the end to be honest, but most of the works are written by one person. It's interesting, from this perspective, to analyse and understand what kind of collaboration he had in the first years of his career, and with whom.

[@Max-nd1uz]

“As fictional as his plays” gg

[@y4juhty]

It was the lizard ppl

[@silasfrisenette9226]

Ah, the Shakespeare quote in the beginning of the video clearly inspired Glinda's sentence "Are people born Wicked? Or do they have Wickedness thrust upon them?" from the musical Wicked! :D

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

Ironically, people consider that one of Shakespeare's profounder quotes. Yet they are spoken by Malvolio, a windbag of a servant, who has been tricked into thinking the lady he serves is in love with him and will raise him up to the nobility.

[@gcecg]

Interesting and educational, as always. Thanks.

[@hellyF3]

What about heteronyms? Some writers such as portuguese Fernando Pessoa have known heteronyms that differ in all of the aspects mentioned. Does this technique allow us to still see it was written by the same person? I'm curious

[@stza16]

get to the point!

[@MandyJMaddison]

Contrary to the introduction of this video, I don't think that anyone has ever doubted the existence of a man from Stratford upon Avon whose name was William Shakespeare, or a variant of it, such as Shaksper.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

You should hang around Anti-Stratfordians for a while. You would be amazed at the theories they come up with.

[@vaishaligupta948]

so i've been fooled for a long time????? *sob sob* i can't take it anymore :'(

[@maheshkamble9585]

+Vaishali Gupta Hmmm.

[@entr3_nou5]

So y’all really not gonna bring up Shakespeare’s collaboration with George Peele on Titus Andronicus huh

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

It's a four minute video. That's a subject for a semester-long class.

[@entr3_nou5]

Fair enough

[@tre-moon-dous6122]

Some people even concluded that shakespeare is actually a woman..which is really confusing to me

[@UshioKiss]

It is popular to think that a prominent man is really just a face put on some woman's work, be she his wife, sister, or what have you. It's happened before, so that's why people would theorize this with Shakespeare. I've heard that his sister wrote some things but he took credit because women's work wasn't taken seriously. That might be another person I'm thinking of though.

[@librarylu]

UshioKiss You may be thinking of Sir Philip Sidney. That's not exactly what happened, though.

[@JillH1995]

It is possible that Shakespeare was a woman writing under a masculine pseudonym. There really isn't any way to prove or disprove that. All this study proved was that Shakespeare was a single author who wasn't another author of the time period writing under a pseudonym.

[@UmarAli-zc8xs]

It could well be Queen Elisabeth writing under a pseudonym. There is no point in such speculations since there is no evidence.

[@Rachel-fi4sc]

I recently read and adored the novel The Shakespeare Curse by J Carrell. The author openly says in the Afterword that is 110% fiction - no Dan Browning here - but it's still all historically plausible and brilliantly creative.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

It was okay.

[@Rachel-fi4sc]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Not a fan? What didn't you like about it?

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@Rachel-fi4sc I thought some of the plot devices to be a bit unlikely. Of course, that's true of most tea cozy murder mysteries.

[@Rachel-fi4sc]

@@Jeffhowardmeade Fair enough. The book did manage to keep my suspension of disbelief, but reflecting on your comment, I don't know how much of that is because a) I generally like murder mysteries, tea cozy or otherwise (though I had never heard that expression until your comment, so thank you), and b) the topics of this book hit all my happy nerd hyper-obsession buttons.

[@Jeffhowardmeade]

@@Rachel-fi4sc I have a hard time suspending disbelief for weird motives. I want to ask "You murdered someone over THAT?" But of course it's not a murder mystery without it. Her writing was good, though. I'll give her that.

[@keircutler]

This video is absolute nonsense. It states that the works are consistent and belong to the same writer, and the works do not match the writings of other candidates. This may or may not be true, but it in no way means Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. We do not have any writings known to be written by the man from Stratford. The originals of his plays and poems are lost, and there are no letters or diaries in his own hand. So, saying that a consistency in the writing proves the man from Stratford wrote them is an absolute bald-faced lie. The most that can be said about stylometry, if you believe in this pseudo-science, is that large parts of the plays were written by the same person, and we do not know who this person was.

[@murrayhill9000]

Logically, my money is on Edmund de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

[@keircutler]

I don't like alternate candidates for the man from Stratford. Pushing Oxford or anyone else allows the Stratfordians to go on offence, and let's them ignore all the evidence against their man from Stratford. Right now all that matters is showing people that the traditional story is a fairy tale. It's not that the traditional story didn't happen, it's that it couldn't happen. People need to learn this, and accept it. Then it will be time to figure out how these works were created.

[@AtheosNous]

Keir Cutler I agree with both your points. 1. Of course "Shakespeare" wrote Shakespeare, the majority of work attributed to him. Stylometry does *not* prove Mr. Shakspere of Stratford wrote those plays, which is a different issue. 2. Two logical premises are at stake - A) Whether the Stratford man was indeed the playwrite? B) Who wrote those plays? Let's address the first question, Part A first. And *it is a legitimate academic question*.

[@keircutler]

The video is solely about stylometry. Nothing else. This video reveals the prejudice that most people approach the Shakespeare Authorship Question with. They think that simply stating a few of the alternate candidates didn't write the works, somehow proves that William of Stratford did.

[@AtheosNous]

Keir Cutler Yes, another logical fallacy, a non sequitur. My comment on another video was met with the red herring charge of conspiracy theorist and other, more colorful ad hominems. I told him that was hardly rational behavior in an intellectual discussion and asked him to focus on the evidence. A pleasure to speak with you, sir. Thank you for a wonderful performance of _Mark Twain's "Is Shakespeare Dead"_, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Reading Mark Twain's essay was what led me to my own research. Like other Shakespeare fans, I was taught the orthodoxy and never examined the actual evidence until recently. Once I did, I signed the declaration at the non-profit site DoubtAboutWill. True scholarship should never fear questions and critical thinking. It is the Socratic Method.

[@ant7936]

What's in a name? A Shakespeare by any other name would be as brilliant.