William Shakespeare: Fraud or Genius?

With the new movie "Anonymous" coming out in theaters on Friday, people are once again ratcheting up the age-old debate of whether Shakespeare's work was actually created by William Shakespeare. "Anonymous" looks at Shakespeare as a complete fraud. According to this political thriller, the "Shakespeare" plays were in fact written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

The debate over Shakespeare's authenticity as a playwright is supported by a wealth of evidence on each side. It is hard to make a judgment call on the debate without understanding both arguments. After checking out the evidence provided by the opposing sides of the debate, you can decide for yourself whether Shakespeare was a genius or a fraud.

Most Shakespeare supporters point to the playwright's epitaph as evidence of authorship. The Shakespeare epitaph is a short verse with flowing lyricism to match the great plays:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forebear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man who spares these stones,
and cursed be he, who moves my bones."

Some doubters shrug off the epitaph as just a small piece of evidence and not enough to counter the ocean of evidence on the other side of the debate. Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt doesn't feel that mountains of evidence should be necessary to prove Shakespeare's authorship. He points to evidence of Shakespeare's name on plays published during his lifetime as strong evidence. And responding to questions about the lack of letters and manuscripts penned by Shakespeare, he explains, "It's true ... that there are no manuscripts and no letters, but we're talking about something a very long time ago."

Although Stephen Greenblatt provides some convincing arguments, most of the support in this debate still lies on the side of William Shakespeare doubters. Their main argument is the lack of manuscripts and letters written by Shakespeare. The supposed playwright's contemporaries all left piles of documents, but not a single one could be found for William Shakespeare.

Some of history's most influential figures doubted the authenticity of Shakespeare's plays. Famous doubters include Sigmund Freud, Helen Keller, Charles Dickens and Orson Welles. One of Amerrica's favorite authors certainly didn't buy the pro-Shakespeare arguments: Mark Twain. In 1909, Twain penned a humorous pamphlet entitled "Is Shakespeare Dead?" Twain didn't feel that a man with a simple background and no evidence of scholarly pursuits could have written "such stuff as dreams are made on."

We may never know who actually penned the works of William Shakespeare. There just isn't enough conclusive evidence on either side of the debate. "Anonymous" screenwriter John Orloff doesn't think the debate will end in the near future: "I don't think anyone can be totally convinced either way...all the evidence is circumstantial whether you think it's him or you don't think it's him."