Shakespeare Lessons in Critical Thinking

How many are true, noble, pure, and admirable critical thinkers? Not many, perhaps. Let’s look at the following example.

Recently, my daughter-in-law, Andrea, asked who wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. I quickly responded, “Everyone knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Some people suggested Francis Bacon as the author, but that idea has been effectively refuted.”

Afterwards, I began to question my supposition. Are those things we learn in our formal education true? How much of our knowledge is based on traditional concepts passed down through the generations? Am I excluding any ideas that deviate from my core beliefs? Have I been selectively choosing evidence that supports what I have been taught? To answer those questions, I abandoned my preconceived ideas and dug deeper into the evidence.

Let’s start with the supposition that innate genius can reach its fullest potential through the best possible education. If so, how did William of Stratford, a provincial businessman and part-time actor with minimal formal education, suddenly begin producing plays?

William Shakespeare died a wealthy man, but he was not regarded as an intellectual. At his death, he left behind no books, maps, or scholarly materials. His will did not include any bequests to the Stratford grammar school that allegedly nurtured him, nor did he allocate funds for his granddaughter’s education. He didn’t mention any manuscripts that he might have written. No one in Stratford identified him as the author of the plays attributed to him.

The individual who wrote the plays credited to Shakespeare exhibited an intricate legal knowledge. He knew passages from ancient Greek tragedies and understood foreign affairs. He demonstrated meticulous attention to the details of history and culture and was familiar with colloquialisms, customs, geography, and landmarks in the European continent. Yet, there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever left England.

The only surviving samples of his handwriting are six signatures, poorly formed scrawls showing struggles to sign his name. These illiterate scrabbles should forever preclude Shakespeare from consideration as the author of the works associated with him. This man could not write his own name, let alone anything else.

If Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him, who did? There have been many suggestions: Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlow, William Stanley the 6th Earl of Derby, Mary Sidney, and other 16th-century women and men.

Mary Sidney deserves special recognition. As one of the first English women to gain significant attention as a poet and patron of the arts, she followed in the footsteps of Christine de Pizan, who sparked controversy by critiquing misogynistic narratives in her famous work, The Book of the City of Ladies, published in 1405. In 1560, Anne Locke became the first woman in England to publish a sonnet sequence.

The case for Mary Sydney as the Shakespearean author follows the same reasoning as other proposed writers. She was supremely educated, knew the Elizabethan court intimately, and was multilingual with noted literary interest. Because some plays show feminine rather than masculine intuition, Sydney, along with other women, should be considered as contributors to the works attributed to Shakespeare. Given the wide range of material in the Shakespearean compendium, it is unlikely that these women are the primary sources.

I’m putting my money on Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. The 17th Earl was born into incredible wealth and privilege. Scion of the most illustrious lines of English nobles, he was among the most brilliant young noblemen in Elizabeth’s court.

Edward de Vere’s early education was supervised by Sir Thomas Smith, a renowned Greek scholar and professor of civil law at Cambridge. He spent time at the Queen’s court at Windsor Castle, the setting of the Merry Wives of Windsor. His father sponsored dramatists while his uncle translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the source for Venus and Adonis.

His mother remarried after her husband’s death. In Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark mourns the loss of his father and scorns his mother’s remarriage to “the most wicked seed” of another man. Polonius, the King’s  advisor in Hamlet, may have been based on Lord William Cecil Burghley, the Elizabeth’s scheming advisor with whom Oxford had close contact

Evidence supports Oxford’s use of specialized vocabulary. He served in a military campaign in Scotland, a source for martial knowledge and the extraordinary understanding of soldiers, helpful in writing Macbeth, Hamlet, and the Histories. He was involved in legal affairs throughout his life, enabling him to write eloquent discourses in the Merchant of Venice.

His massive library contained volumes of French and Italian literature and Greek and Roman mythology along with the works of Plutarch, Cicero, Plato, and the Geneva Bible, all recognized sources of influence on Shakespeare’s compendium. He was presented at the French court in Paris and Roussillon, the setting for All’s Well That Ends Well. He traveled to Milan and Venice, the settings of Shakespeare’s Italian plays. Portia’s estate in The Merchant of Venice has been identified as a Villa Foscari, near Venice.

Between 1594 and 1604, an astonishing 16 Shakespeare plays were written. After Oxford’s death in June 1604, the stream of publications stopped.

Substantial evidence suggests that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, may be the true author of the works attributed to William Shakespeare. This exploration highlights the significance of personal investigation as a critical safeguard against groupthink.

Groupthink occurs when an assemblage prioritizes cohesion over questioning core assumptions, often leading to the exclusion of anyone who deviates from the prevailing beliefs. In contrast, critical thinkers strive to avoid prejudices and biases.