5 ms·

Loved your comparison to the historical Elvis. Whenever I saw news articles reporting on artifacts purportedly related to the historical Jesus, I always though

• toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  Or indeed, some people don’t even believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays! As passionate as people can be about Shakespeare, it’s nothing compared to religion, and record keeping and sources of information on Shakespeare are a lot easier to come by than anything from a couple of millennia ago.
  • sjwright 8y ago
    All we can say is that Shakespeare was credited for his plays. It's functionally impossible to know who wrote them, at best we can hypothesise based on an analysis of his writing—and such analysis doesn't bode well for Shakespeare as the author...
    • djur 8y ago
      Your initial point is true about just about anyone who wrote more than a certain amount of time ago. It's true of Jonson and Spenser and Marlowe, too. The latter point is just false -- textual analysis is entirely consistent with the historical evidence (such as the writings of his contemporaries) that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works of Shakespeare.
      • sjwright 8y ago
        Interesting; I was led to the impression that Shakespeare's writings showed a level and stratum of life experience that would have been beyond his reach or means.