To be or not to be Shakespeare, 450 years on

"After God, Shakespeare has created most", said 19th c. novelist Alexandre Dumas. Indeed, the Bard of Avon has traditionally been considered as the greatest playwright of all time, with a skill of language unequalled and a profound understanding of the human nature.

Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night´s Dream... are part of our collective cultural inheritance but, was this actor and sharer in an outstanding theatre company, a newcomer in London with humble provincial origins and without much education, the real author of these masterpieces?

The scarce details of his life have been analysed under countless microscopes and several literary critics and scholars have taken the international world of Shakespeare by storm with the idea that the universal genius was another. At the heart of his authorship controversy, three names:

Christopher Marlowe? Also on his 450th birth anniversary this year, he represented the first true voice of Rennaissance in that Tudor England. He was regarded as their best poet and playwright when he was supposedly stabbed to death, very young, in a tavern brawl. Being a spy for the crown, he might have faked his own death and, hidden, could have gone on writing signing with another name.

Theatre patron Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford? At that time it was deemed socially unacceptable for a noble man to be involved in such a a low art as writing, and he might have used a pseudonym. Unlike Shakespeare, he had travelled to Italy, where many of these paramount plays are set, and had enough experience in law and politics to write about it with such complex brilliance.

Essayist Francis Bacon? It´s been affirmed that the philosophical ideas promulgated throughout all these plays reflect the personal opinions of this Cambridge graduate, one of the creators of empiricism. Furthermore, there are ciphers, coded messages about politics, and similarities in style and terminology to the rest of his work.

Thus, to be or not to be Shakespeare, that is the question for some skeptics. Nevertheless,  what is undeniable is that these plots and characters are as alive today as they were when they were originally staged during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. We humans still experience love, loyalty, betrayal, loss, forgivenes, revenge, jealousy, lust, thirst for power... and we still have so much to learn... Definitely, it'd be a lovely option to turn to some of these plays, once again, during these summer holidays, and reflect upon these universal human values and concerns.