orship. Did Shakespeare really exist and write his own work or was there someone else behind Shakespeare? There has been a lot of research on the life of a man named Gulielmus Shaksper. He was a poor man born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. Shakespeare’s considers his characters to be hisbest work royalty. Shaksper on the other hand was nearly illiterate. There is no record of anyone having met, seen or talked to a man he identified as Shakespeare the writer. Even the Earl of Southampton never met him despite all of the letters and dedication of sonnets and poems. On the other hand, it appears that the Earl bought Shaksper’s cooperation to pretend to be Shakespeare for one thousand pounds. Out of all the evidence for each argument, the strongest piece of evidence shows that Shakespeare’s plays were written too early to be credited to Shaksper and were the work of an older man. There can be no doubt that Shakespeare compounds two very different men. The next controversy deals not with Shakespeare’s life or works, but of a youngman who forged some of Shakespeare’s work. In 1795, an eighteen-year-old namedWilliam Henry Ireland was able to fool people into believing he held some ofShakespeare’s original works and writings. These included legal deeds, promissory notes, letters to and from Shakespeare, and a “lost” tragedy called Vortigern. People actually believed that these were Shakespeare’s documents, even the educated public and some of the leading scholars and critics of the day. William Henry was mainly driven by his desire to please his father, Samuel Ireland. He was trying to make himself be seen as the next young bard and every as a true descendent of Shakespeare artistically and genealogically. After Vortigern was laughed off the stage, William Henry was forced to confess to the forgeries of Shakespeare in 1796. He published many confessions. He also went on to w...
