Учебное пособие 4 unit I. The renaissance 1485-1649

UNIT XVI.
THE AUTHORSHIP CONTROVERSY
With the exception of Homer, about whom nothing definite is known,
Shakespeare is the only major writer in the world’s history whose authership
has been so widely disputed. Since the 18
th
century, scores of books have
been written to prove that Shakespeare’s works were written by another
person or persons. Dozens of candidates have been proposed, including
writers such as Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, the earls of Ruthland and Derby,
Robert Greene, Chrisopher Marlowe, John Lyly; a multitude of titled men,
including Sir Philip Sidney, the Earl of Oxford and even Queen Elizabeth I.
We need hardly emphasize the point that the identity of Shakespeare was
thrown upon doubt as well in the 19
th
century and it provided the basis for
many concepts and hypothesis about the identity of the Great Bard.
BACONIAN CONCEPT
The first systematic theory doubting Shakespeare’s authorship was set
forth by William Henry Smith, who published a book declaring that Francis
Bacon was the real author of the plays in 1856. In the same year, an
American schoolteacher named Delia Bacon (no relation to Francis Bacon)
wrote an article and then a book supporting Bacon’s authorship
1
where she
confirmed that the pen-name Shakespeare belonged to her namesake Francis
Bacon (1561 – 1626), philosopher and orator. Her concept was based on
Bacon’s erudition, the affinity of both men great ideas and ambiguous hints
of their contemporaries. D. Bacon believed that political secrecy was the
reason of keeping secret of Francis Bacon’s authorship.
D. Bacon’s idea of finding documents hidden in the grave of Stratfordian
monument became an obsession with her and after her unlucky attempts to
penetrate into the grave she was arrested and later died in a mad house. She
was not able to find direct evidences about F. Bacon’s authorship, but her
hypothesis was supported by many progressive people in the 19th and 20th
centuries.
In the second half of the 20th century the Baconian concept was very
popular with the English audience. The adherents of this concept did not find
evidences in favour that Shakespeare is the literary pen-name of Bacon and
began to look for similarities in their writings. The Baconians ( or admirers
of Baconian concept) decoded or “deciphered” the texts of both great men
seeking to the explanation of “secret information” but their hypothesis was
dethroned. The Baconians were criticized hard by many literary scholars

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because of their anti-scientific methods.
As for Russian Shakespearian scholarship in 1932 the Minister of Culture
A.A. Smirnov formulated some principles, so called instructions about
inadmissibility of all the non- Stradfordian concepts and all the discussions
concerning Shakespeare’s identity were excepted from our domestic literary
studies while in English Shakespearian scholarship this discussion has been
going on.