Thread: Anonymous

Does anyone plan to see this movie that is being released this weekend? I'm looking forward to it, though I don't really have an opinion one way or the other about whether or not a man named William Shakespeare actually penned the works attributed to him. Although if I really think about it, I'm not that bothered because we have the gift of these timeless works regardless of who really wrote them. I don't, however, see the point in pointing out it was someone else who wrote them now, so many years later. If the idea put forth in the story is that a nobleman really wrote them, but couldn't take credit because writing was for the lower classes, then he clearly couldn't or didn't want to take credit for the works then or now.

Not that old chestnut again! The idea that it was the Earl of Oxford who wrote Shakespeare's plays, and not the man himself, is from the literary elite who can't cope with the fact that a lower class person contributed so much to language and education. It's just plain snobbery!

I don't know much about the film, but the premise is enough to put me off seeing it.

Okay then.

I will see the movie but will it change my view of the sonnets ? No it won't , romance is not dead and to think that the bard wrote all this stuff is for me romantic and enchanting. As for if it is or isn't true, that he did or did not write them, i am not really bothered, i,m sure the man himself would like the twist and the mystery of it all regardless.

Seems interesting to me. I will eventually watch once it is released on Movies on Demand. I never knew the controversy had existed among scholars until I read about the movie.

I kinda figured there was something suspicious going on when I read years ago that Shakespeare only wrote one draft of his plays. (i.e. first draft was final draft). Made me feel like I had no natural talent.

That controversy began very early on, and there have always been several candidates put forward as the real author of Shakespeare's works.

But while the Shakespeare controversy has been going on for four hundred years, there is a similar dispute that's over two thousand years old. The claim by some is that Homer did not write the Iliad and the Odyssey, but that they were written by another blind Greek poet who lived at the same time and coincidentally had the same name.

And that makes just as much sense as the nonsense over who wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare.

I'm dusting off this thread to share an article I found on another forum I belong to...

William Shakespeare, Gangster

It is bigiferous drivel and anyone giving it more than a moments serious consideration..... It tells that Shakespeares plays were written by an incompetent rapist and murderer, Edward De Vere, who died before 4 or 5 of the plays were even written, so presumably he did it via a ouija board. I assume that the British actors, who should know better, were desperately in need of money.

What is far worse is that Sony Entertainment is circulating US schools with so called "Education packs" based on this complete twaddle.