In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of
Shakespeare in a Divided America, explains when and why so many people
began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.
For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death, no
one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then, however, dozens
of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally
agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English
language. In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro
explains when and why so many people began to question whether
Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers
and thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, and Helen
Keller. It is a fascinating story, replete with forgeries, deception,
false claimants, ciphers and codes, conspiracy theories--and a stunning
failure to grasp the power of the imagination.
As Contested Will makes clear, much more than proper attribution of
Shakespeare's plays is at stake in this authorship controversy.
Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe, Francis
Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays are fundamental
questions about literary genius, specifically about the relationship of
life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden
autobiography? Do Hamlet, Macbeth, and the other great plays somehow
reveal who wrote them?
Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship
controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why
it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that
William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This
is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone
interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.
