Questioning the Shakespearean Orthodoxy

Does it matter who wrote the works of Shakespeare? Would we read the plays and poems any differently if we believed they were written by Christopher Marlowe? We may be about to find out. Until recently it was believed that doubts about Shakespeare’s authorship of the works attributed him were first raised 164 years after his death, and that the Shakespeare Authorship Question is a relatively recent phenomenon. This paper will demonstrate that doubts about Shakespeare’s authorship began in the year of the very first publication to appear under the name ‘William Shakespeare’ and provide evidence from the late 16th and early 17th centuries to suggest a number of Shakespeare’s contemporaries believed that ‘Shakespeare’ was a pseudonym.

That such evidence exists and has been largely ignored by scholars raises interesting questions about the nature and influence of our belief systems. When we ‘know’ something we will tend not to perceive evidence conflicting with that belief, and will attempt to interpret evidence to support it. This research suggests that scholarship – in all disciplines - would benefit significantly if we were able to remove restrictions to our thinking by recognising that all ‘knowledge’ is essentially ‘belief’.