SB replied: The view that every line in the plays attributed to William Shakespeare was written by him alone is only held by the most devout Stratfordians. Virtually everyone now acknowledges that the plays would have been written with a series of different collaborators over the years - Marlowe, Kyd, Nash, Middleton, Fletcher, Beaumont, etc.

The use of collaboration also throws a massive spanner in the Alternative Authorship works, making it even harder to believe that the supposed truth of the real author could have been concealed.

Mark Haslett wrote: One has to ask "what would a smoking gun look like?" Manuscript pages of the plays with a recognizable signature would be great-- but we don't have that.

SB replied: As noted above, "Hand D" in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More is widely, if not universally, accepted as being that of William Shakespeare. 

It's odd that Mark denies that such evidence exists, as he goes on to say...

Mark Haslett wrote: I believe that the "Sir Thomas Moore" manuscript, with at least 5 different hands writing on it, shows us how "Shakespeare's" works were written -- in a group effort, like we write Television today. All of the evidence seems to be headed this way.

SB replied: Good heavens, we're in agreement! Yes, the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were almost certainly not written solely by him.

Although - and rats, I thought I was on the cusp of reaching a concord with Mark! - the role of collaboration also confounds the notion of De Vere, or someone else, of having been the true author. 

(I removed the chart not to mess up the formatting of the webpage.)

SB replied: It's generally accepted that plays in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period were written collaboratively, even if the extent of the collaboration and the identities of the collaborators isn't always clear.

The New Oxford Shakespeare editions of the three parts of Henry VI now officially credit Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe as having been the co-authors. 

Michael Penn: I'm not aware anybody argues that there was collaborative effort on Shakespeare's poems. 

SB replied: As far as I know, they don't. Unlike the plays, the poems are seen as being the work of one writer.

Michael Penn wrote: For Stratfordians, therefore, Stratford Will was the primary or exclusive author of much (most?) of the Shakespeare corpus.

SB replied: For the more devout Stratfordians, yes, Will of Stratford was the sole genius behind the writing. To most lovers of Shakespeare, he was, or became, the principal author of the plays that ended up bearing his name alone.

There were references to Shakespeare as a writer while he lived. Francis Meres acclaimed him in his Palladis Tamia, published in 1598. The anonymous authors of The Parnassus Plays (roughly 1598-1602) derided him.

We have Hand D in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More, which is widely, if not universally, held to be that of Will of Stratford.

Do we have proof that Will of Stratford was educated? Nope.  He would have had the opportunity to attend the King's New School. My belief is that he did, at least for a period. I accept that there is no absolute proof of this, and I agree that it's wrong to assert that he definitely did. And he definitely didn't go to university.

However, the plays don't indicate deep learning. There are errors of history and geography. They don't adhere to the theory of unity of time, place and action. To Augustan critics, they were a mess, and they much preferred the works of Ben Jonson, whose plays do follow the proper rules of drama (as they were then understood). 

And it's with Jonson that Price really trips herself up, obviously trying to make a contrast with him, ticking all her boxes, and Shakespeare, who she - somewhat misleadingly - depicts as not ticking one. In his commendatory poem in the First Folio in 1623, Jonson teases Shakespeare for his lack of learning, rather than praising his superlative education. In private conversation with William Drummond some years later, he compounds his criticism of Shakespeare (and other writers), accusing him of lacking Art, making all kinds of silly mistakes. And in his De Shakespeare Nostrat, he repeats his criticism of Shakespeare's educational shortcomings, before ending by stating: "But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned".

If anyone was in the position to know the supposed truth behind Will's feigned authorship, it was Jonson - but while he vacillated in his view of Will's writing, he never once expressed any doubts over his authorship.

And in terms of an audit trail - and sorry, I know I've posted this umpteen times before! - we have the royal charter of 1603 creating The King's Men, which includes the names of William Shakespeare, John Heminges and Henry Condell; we have Shakespeare's will in 1616, giving small bequests to Heminges and Condell; and we have the First Folio of 1623, which Heminges and Condell explain they arranged to be published to commemorate the memory of the man they'd known.

That's a fairly compelling line of evidence. I don't doubt that Alternative Authorship theorists will find some way to explain it away, but they can't pretend it doesn't exist. 

Here's a Stratfordian position: 

the name Shakespeare had a wide variety of spellings, including those used by or about Stratford Will and by and about others with that last name, that would undoubtedly refer to the same person; 

therefore, it is unjustifiable for doubters to doubt that the grain merchant documents featuring William Variant-Last-Name do refer to Stratford Will and the theater personage documents featuring William Variant-Last-Name do refer to Stratford Will, but the author documents featuring William Variant-Last-Name do not.