Nice article here on the BBC about claims that William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him, and attempts by mainstream scholars to debunk such views.
[W]hat
has stirred Prof Wells, who has edited the Oxford Shakespeare for 35 years, is
his worry that this question about Shakespeare's authentic authorship seems to
be entering the mainstream.
"What's
annoying is that it's spreading," he says.
A
Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare has
gathered prominent signatories, with the claim that there is insufficient
unambiguous evidence to link the man from Stratford and the plays attributed to
his name.
And
a movie, Anonymous, fanned the embers of the idea that the Earl of Oxford was
the true author.
Prof
Wells, like one of Shakespeare's own grey-haired faithful retainers, has gone
into battle once again.
"It's
quite true that we don't know as much as we would like to know about
Shakespeare. However, we do know more about him than most writers of his
period."
Demolishing
rival claims is much more straightforward than standing up Shakespeare's.
Sound familiar?