Who was the real Shakespeare? Who wrote the 38 plays, two long poems, and 154 sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. I will give you the details, but the conclusion is up to you.

The Stratford merchant baptized Gulielmus Shakspere:

In the 1780's Rev. James Wilmot spent four years trying to link William Shakespeare to the literary works.

Skeptics about Gulielmus Shakspere being the true bard range from Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Orson Welles, and John Gielgud to current entertainment luminaries such leading Shakespearean actors Michael York, Kenneth Branagh, and Derek Jacobi.

There isn't even the slightest piece of documentation that Shakspere, the merchant, ever wrote anything in his life. No scratches of poems or diary and no mention of his literary work in his will.

Shakspere had a grammer school education and was not known to have traveled further than London and Stratford, which is significant because a great knowledge of several disiplines, court life, and foreign countries, especially Italy, would be necessary.

Shakspere was known to have acted in William Shakespeare's plays.

There isn't even the slightest piece of documentation that Shakspere, the merchant, ever wrote anything in his life. No scratches of poems or diary and no mention of poems or sonnets in his will.

Eighteen years after Shakspere's death, an engraved monument in a Stratford church show Shakspere holding what looked like a sack of grain, a full century later, it was changed to a pen and paper.

Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford's:

The Earl of Burford, a direct decendant of Edward de Vere, believed his ancestor wrote the plays under the hyphenated pseudonym "William Shake-speare."

Skeptics about Gulielmus Shakspere being the true bard range from Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Orson Welles, and John Gielgud to current entertainment luminaries such leading Shakespearean actors Michael York, Kenneth Branagh, and Derek Jacobi.

Six years after the death of Shakspere, The Compleat Gentleman was published, listing the Elizabethan era's greatest poets and first on the list was Edward de Vere. In this edition and the next three, there is no mention of Shakespere, Shakespeare, or anything close to this name.

Edward de Vere died in 1604, before one-third of the plays were published.

Edward de Vere earned two masters degrees, studied law for three years, traveled throughout Italy, and had first-hand experience with court life and politics.

The Edward de Vere was a playwright and stopped using his own name the same year that Shake-speare's name began to appear, which is probably a pseudonym since hypens were rarely used.

The de Vere family crest was of a lion shaking a spear and Edward de Vere was known as spear shaker in the courts.

A pseudonym was commly used because playwrights could be imprisoned for going against the norm, being too radical, and not conforming to the political and religious practices of the day.

In 1999, an eight year study was completed on the Geneva Bible, owned by de Vere. Many phrases were highlighted and more than a fourth of them were in the writings of William Shakespeare. Also, William Shakespeare has 66 allusions to biblical stories, 29 of which were found highlighted in the Geneva Bible.

Now comparing the facts above, who do you think was the real William Shakespeare? While it may not be known for sure, that takes nothing away from his brilliant writings. No, on the contrary, this debate just adds to the mystique of our beloved William Shakespeare.

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