Top 5 Shakespeare Authorship Candidates

Everyone loves a good scandal, and scandals are particularly juicy when they involve someone taking credit for someone else's work. So, the idea of some guy named William Shakespeare becoming globally famous for hundreds of years-- for a job that he totally griggsed-- seems particularly enthralling.

Theories and speculations about the author of Shakespeare's plays have been around since shortly after William Shakespeare's death. Over the years, they have gathered steam and the list of possible Shakespeares has grown. In fact, to date, Wikipedia lists over 80 individuals who just might have been Shakespeare.

Here are a few of the most popular theories about William Shakespeare's authorship, and why none of them add up.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

I like this guy because he has a fancy name. Wouldn't it be great to end your all of your introductions with, "Seventeenth Earl of Oxford"? (If you're not sneering and saying it with an exaggerated high-British accent, you're not doing it right.)

The Earl of Oxford was a renowned poet, so hundreds of people have spent hundreds of years trying to prove that he wrote all of Shakespeare's sonnets. Of course, there's absolutely no reason that Oxford wouldn't have simply published these under his own name; he actually enjoyed receiving recognition for his work because he was an aristocratic snob, and that's what aristocratic snobs do.

Proponents of the theory that Edward de Vere wrote Shakespeare's work have been frighteningly steadfast. There have been arguments, slanderous essays, and even fistfights over the matter. But, when 1991 brought a miraculous new contraption called a computer, a few people with way too much time on their hands went to work to prove that the Earl of Oxford was responsible for Shakespeare's plays.

The computer thought long and hard about it, and finally came up with the correct answer. Forty-two. Also, it said that the differences in Shakespeare and de Vere's writing styles were immense, and that they couldn't have possibly been the same person.

Sir Francis Bacon

This guy's got a million credentials under his belt. He was a mathmetician, inventor, scientist, scholar, philosopher, essayist, lawyer, physicist, and a bunch of words that I can't even begin to spell or pronounce. In essence, he was one of the world's last renaissance men, and he knew it. The dude's gotten plenty of recognition over the years, but now, according to Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theorists, he wants to be Shakespeare, too. Tough luck, buddy.

This story doesn't add up for several reasons. For one thing, Bacon write in a very calculated, unpoetic tone that lacks the rhythm, metaphor and meter so inherent in Shakespeare's work.

For another thing, Bacon was a stuck-up jerk and wouldn't have allowed anyone to take credit for his work under any circumstances. Why would a super-genius, recognized both during and after his life, want credit to go to some schmuck? Bacon wasn't one to let his work go un-noticed, and he would have had no motivation to ghost-write for Shakespeare.

Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England

This widespread theory says that Queen Elizabeth authored all of Shakespeare's plays. However, either because she was female or because she was queen, she was not permitted to write plays. This line of logic doesn't add up because, as the Queen of England, Elizabeth could have done whatever the heck she wanted to do. It also doesn't make sense because there's no evidence that she ever had any specific interest in writing plays.

Although not entirely out of the question as a possibility, the Queen Elizabeth theory of Shakespeare authorship fails because there is simply no evidence to support it.

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe wrote his own plays, and he became quite successful as a playwright. However, he never quite reached the same level of achievement as his friend, William Shakespeare. So why would he have written under his friend's name, knowing that they were competitors?

I don't know about you, but, if my career as a writer were failing, the last thing I would do is find an untalented author and offer to ghost-write for him for free. If Marlowe wrote Shakespeare, it would be like Steve Jobs creating Windows. In other words, it didn't happen.

James Stuart, King of England,

The same guy behind the King James version of the Bible. Only he didn't write it-- several dozen people, including William Shakespeare and Francis-Bacon, Jack-of-all-Trades, did. The odds that James I wrote Shakespeare's sonnets are slim to none, as his own private letters lack any form of poetry or legibility. And, as with most other candidates of Shakespearean authorship, there is no reason that James I would have written under a non-royal person's name, when he had the authority to do whatever he pleased.

The bottom line? We know who wrote William Shakespeare's plays. They were all written by a man named William Shakespeare.