Who Wrote Shakespeare?
It could not be the glover’s son;
_it had to be the Earl.
To know how courts and kingdoms run
_is far beyond a churl.
The poet knew Verona well,
_the politics of Rome.
How could a Stratford merchant tell
_of things so far from home?
His father could not read a word;
_his children were the same.
The mortgage deed looks quite absurd—
_he barely scrawled his name!
So, Stratford—now the jig is up—
_return our rightful quill.
Where are those plays—the manuscripts?
_There’s nothing in this will!
“God is dead,” the thinkers say
and pour themselves a drink.__
But churches open every day
whatever thinkers think!__
So shout about your noble earl
and die upon this hill!__
It makes no difference in the world;
we’re here for William still.__
The house is full, for truth is truth;
the cash keeps rolling in.__
Go play the pompous, Looney sleuth,
and William’s going to win!__
Saad Kayani lives in Toronto. Recent poems appear in Neologism Poetry Journal and Shot Glass Journal.
Thank you, Saad, for a rousingly good argument vis-a-vis Shakespearian authorship. I have watched the academicians and historians rehash this for 60+ years and this was as good as it gets IMO. Kudos to you, sir!!
There’s something in this Will.
Shall I compare his language to a grave? It is more lively and more flowery. His rough-shook words refuse to be death’s slave. No tomb’s as showy or so showery. A sepulchre, though hard as rock, erodes, and shrines do often lose their lustre’s prime, while monuments, though nice, make poor abodes, and sadly catacombs decay in time. But Shakespeare’s language will not go away. Unceasingly, his lines play in the mind. They pop up even on a summer’s day. Unlike a crypt, they will not stay behind. Alas, poor Oracle, his song goes on, despite all efforts of oblivion.
This is amazing, Bruce!
Moderator, the final verses are almost unseen, since they are pasted to the right-hand side.
This gave me a big smile. Brilliant stuff!
One of the earliest conspiracy theories, which really annoys me since it’s clear that credit should go where credit is due despite the waters being intentionally muddied.
You’ve said it well, Saad.
That said, I did write a satirical ‘Who was Shakespeare?’ story (14 years ago!), which you can read here, if you wish:
https://everydayfiction.com/an-elizabethan-tale-by-paul-a-freeman/
Thanks for the read.
A five-star story, Paul, but my rating was gazumped by the sneering jackanapes pretending to technology knowledge.
Thanks, Margaret. That was one of the most enjoyable pieces of writing I have ever done. In Sudan in 1986-87, Sudanese English teacher’s used to joke about Sheik Uzubier of Morocco being Shakespeare. It took a while to put him into a story – like 30 years!
Some of the older stories do have technical issues when it comes to rating.
This is expertly done, and right on target. The rhythm and diction are both as smooth as oil.
It amazes me how many otherwise intelligent people are anti-Stratfordians. Like the Flat Earth Society, they always seem to have some deluded scholar popping up to argue for them.
Saad, this is an excellent poem of logic about Shakespeare’s ability to write plays. Your logical poem makes a lot of sense. There are so many good arguments he did or did not write them though most concede the sonnets were his, since they seemed personal, although published after his death. Here are some of my thoughts both pro and con:
1. Signatures of doctors and their prescriptions are even less readable.
2. Some people from austere beginnings have been successes in life.
3. He could have interviewed merchants who traveled to Rome and then written down their stories.
4. Some of the wealthy of his day were afraid to publish under their own name thinking they would be made fun of.
Two long poems “he wrote” were sexually almost obscene: “Venus and Adonis,” and “Rape of Lucrece.”
5. A contemporary, Ben Jonson called him “The soul of our age,” although “soul” may have been an entendre.
6. Perhaps Shakespeare had some great ideas, and they became ghost written while credited to him.
There are so many more theories presented over the 410 years since his death. These are just some of my musings.
Your poem is entertaining and plausible.
Beautifully crafted, highly entertaining, and very clever indeed! Thank you!
I don’t want this to be true, but these are great questions–questions that may never be answered.
Pure entertainment, Saad, always welcome at the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable. For a short while, my work required me to attend that fun at The Francis Bacon Library. Oxford was the favored earl, but do you have any feeling for the fair Southampton?
Mr. Kayani’s enjoyable balladic couplets prompted these:
He was no Francis Bacon, the first English essayist.
He was no Euclid demonstrating proofs, like SAS.
He was no Aristotle breaching philosophic spans.
He did not have the gravity that Newton would command.
He was no Thomas Edison who helped light up the Globe,
nor gaseous discoverer frocked in a Priestley Robe.
He was no sage Herodotus creating history,
nor Leonardo in his notebooks, or his artistry.
He was no Einstein with his relativity in tow,
yet he held firm his brandished lance, as any matched with those.
Just to add that William Shakespeare attended Stratford Grammar School and would have been familiar with the classics and Renaissance Europe, especially Italy.
There are two magisterial scholarly texts that deal (in great and intricate detail) with the kind of education that was available to someone like Shakespeare. They are “William Shakspere’s Small Latine and Lesse Greeke” by T.W. Baldwin (in two massive and heavily footnoted volumes); and “William Shakspere’s Petty School,” by the same author.
Both of these studies were published by The University of Illinois Press in the 1940s, long before scholarship in English literature degenerated into a politically correct joke.
The anti-Stratfordians claim that Shakespeare must have been uneducated or ignorant or just a country bumpkin. These solidly researched books by Baldwin blow that claim right out of the water, like a broadside from a man-of-war.