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This is William Shakespeare—he used to write plays and wear silly neck skirts.
If you’ve dabbled in his work, cool, if not, also cool—whether you’ve got a theatre
arts degree or you’re a contributing member of society, we know you know who he is.
He’s such a big deal, in fact, that you’ve likely come across rumors that maybe Billy
S. didn’t actually write all those famous plays… and if you’ve heard those rumors
before and went “ehh…
I could see it,” or whether you’re a believer yourself, you’re not alone; famous people
from the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, and who I’m told to be famous
people in the Shakespeare acting world like Derek Jacobi and Marky Rylance, all the way
to famed dead robe-lovers John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia are all doubters, too.
So, why do so many old white guys with well-cited Wikipedia pages think that Bill Shakes was
a stone-cold liar?
Well, the answer has to do with a combination of scant evidence and human psychology.
To be clear, we here at the Half as Interesting content mines are of the opinion that these
theories are, well, dumb.
But nonetheless, we’re going to explain them, because as American news media has taught
us, all stories have two equal sides that should be given the same amount of attention.
Okay, so the biggest Shakespeare deniers are called Anti-Stratfordians—a properly pompous
British title for the art world’s tinfoil hatters that also offers a pretty concise
explanation as to why they doubt Shakespeare: because of his roots in Stratford.
You see, even the Bard bashers agree that Shakespeare was a real person from a town
called Stratford-upon-Avon—which was just a rural market town far from London.
It was in this humble town that a humble papa Shakespeare, an illiterate glove-maker, married
an illiterate mama Shakespeare and made a baby Shakespeare, and that’s where the Anti-Stratfordians
see strike one: Shakespeare didn’t come from a well-to-do family with fancy things
like books, or written words, and his parent’s couldn’t even read—and as we all know,
if your parents didn’t do something, you can’t do it either.
But the Anti-Stratfordians go further.
They also point to Shakespeare’s limited paper trail as proof that he couldn’t have
written literary bangers like Othello.
As the haters point out, there’s no record of an education, no leftover personal letters,
no proof he actually owned any books, and when it came time to be dead, Billiam left
an uncharacteristically boring will with no reference to personal papers or any of his
unfinished plays.
Thus, strike two: as we all know, pics or it didn’t happen.
Now I know what you’re thinking: doesn’t it take three strikes to get someone out?
Well you’re quite right—see, your youth t-ball trauma was worth it!
But much like grocery store workers, Anti-Stratfordians can’t seem to get the strike they need:
because it turns out, they can’t come up with an alternative author that makes any
sense.
Other playwrights and rich guys like Edward de Vere and Christopher Marlowe?
Well, they would’ve had to write plays while they were dead.
Smart guys who did science like Francis Bacon?
Well, he didn’t write plays and using a cypher to uncover his hidden signature in
Shakespeare’s plays doesn’t count as evidence in real life.
We could keep going down the list here too, explaining why each option they’ve come
up with is dumb, but the Wikipedia list is 87 names long and we just don’t have enough
stock footage to cover that.
The point is, these theories are so far fetched that to those who actually study Shakespeare—professors
of Shakespeare, independent scholars, folks at the Royal Shakespeare Company, me since
Monday—suggesting an alternative author of Shakespeare’s works is the equivalent
of questioning the moon landing or climate change or thinking the guys from Wendover
and HAI are the same person.
Why then, have so many people, whether it be the famous, the intelligent, the not intelligent
but good at acting like it, and whoever Derek Jacobi is, come to entertain these theories?
That’s a good question, and the answer stems from our tendency to take a few factual oddities
or points where evidence is lacking—in this case, a modest background and a missing paper
trail—and turn them into the bedrock of a false new reality.
Don’t feel bad if you’ve done this—according to one study, about half of all Americans
believe in at least one disproven conspiracy theory.
Then again, 20% of Americans can’t find America on a map, but the point is, conspiracy
theories can be easy to fall for because they take advantage of some of the dumber parts
of our smooth little egg brains.
You see, as the American Psychological Association highlighted in an article I read so you didn’t
have to, “What do we know about Conspiracy Theories?,” conspiracies tend to offer neat,
tidy explanations for confusing and/or scary things, which then fosters both confidence
in the face of tough times or a confusing subject, and also a sense of community with
other believers.
By the way, if you’re feeling like conspiracies are really in right now, you’re right…
and that’s because life has gotten really confusing in the last few years, and as these
fancy academics have displayed, when crises arise, wild theories that try to explain away
the confusing scariness become increasingly popular.
When things get weird, we want something to blame, a sense of security, and a community…
and conspiracy theories offer all the above.
For example, say, a complicated disease showed up one day and forced everyone inside for
11 months… that would be a really scary development—and you’d have no idea what’s
going on or how epidemiology works because you studied Shakespeare in college.
Well, then, it’d probably be pretty empowering if you read a few blog posts that told you
it was all a hoax created by the reptilian elite that you should overthrow with your
buddies instead of a confusing disease that you can’t even understand, makes you feel
powerless, and forces you to isolate yourself.
All it takes are a few cherry-picked facts that cast some doubt, a seemingly plausible
alternative explanation and bingo, now you think that Pizza is a “gate,” lizard people
have taken over your government, and some other bald, white guy wrote Shakespeare.
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shows that there’s more out there in the dark corners of the internet for you to watch
out for beyond Shakespeare conspiracies.
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