Some handwriting experts have opined that the writing is that of an illiterate, which stunningly compounds the mystery. There are exactly 14 words in total actually known to have been written by him, comprising his signature with both names six times and ‘by me’ in his Will. We do not know exactly how many plays he wrote – it is supposed there might actually have been more than 38 – or in what order.Īlso read: How Shakespeare Used Music to Tell Stories He may have had little Latin and less Greek, but he was very conversant with historical texts in both languages and classical mythology. His last Will does not mention any books, plays or poems. We do not know from where he derived his learning, or what happened to his own books, if any. We know Shakespeare never went to any university.

But there is not one extant scrap of draft, note, scribble or memorandum by the great man concerning any of this vast output that point to any definite and identifiable authorship, leave alone any manuscript copy of any of these works. My present assessment is that it is not wise to dismiss such theories out of hand as the fanciful ideas of crackpots.Įvery schoolboy knows that the Shakespeare opus consists of 38 plays (tragedies, comedies, histories), 154 sonnets, two narrative poems and some other verses. I belonged to a society of self-professed heretics at the university that propagated the view that the author of the Shakespeare canon was Francis Bacon, but subsequently, became agnostic on this matter. Vigilant observers would have noticed with puzzlement that in the first decade of this century some 300 people in the United Kingdom, including actor Derek Jacobi and former artistic director of the Globe Theatre, Mark Rylance, launched a fresh debate about who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare.

The works of shakespeare