How many of William Shakespeare's original manuscripts have survived to the 21st century?

Correct answer: Zero

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What people think about it: 9 Comments
Nearlyfit
Nearlyfit
Usual conspiracy theories and as with most no evidence to back up claims
Sloane Ranger
Sloane Ranger
Shakespeare was not uneducated. He attended the local Grammar school in Stratford on Avon where he would have received a thorough grounding in the classics.
luckycatfay
luckycatfay
I live about 20 odd miles from Stratford so know it very well and you can visit the school that he attended his name is in the archives. So I don't think that you could call him uneducated.
Republic of China
Republic of China
Part 3 Explanation : Anti-Stratfordians often portray the town as a cultural backwater lacking the environment necessary to nurture a genius, and depict Shakespeare as ignorant and illiterate.[39 The school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar, the classics, and rhetoric at no cost.[47] The headmaster, Thomas Jenkins, and the instructors were Oxford graduates.[48] No student registers of the period survive, so no documentation exists for the attendance of Shakespeare or any other pupil, nor did anyone who taught or attended the school ever record that they were his teacher or classmate. This lack of documentation is taken by many anti-Stratfordians as evidence that Shakespeare had little or no education.[49] Anti-Stratfordians also question how Shakespeare, with no record of the education and cultured background displayed in the works bearing his name, could have acquired the extensive vocabulary found in the plays and poems. The author's vocabulary is calculated to be between 17,500 and 29,000 words.[50][b] No letters or signed manuscripts written by Shakespeare survive. The appearance of Shakespeare's six surviving authenticated[51] signatures, which they characterise as "an illiterate scrawl", is interpreted as indicating that he was illiterate or barely literate.[52] All are written in secretary hand, a style of handwriting common to the era,[53] particularly in play writing,[54] and three of them utilize breviographs to abbreviate the surname.[5
Republic of China
Republic of China
Part 2 Explanation : Anti-Stratfordians will sometimes focus on the issue of education. The idea is that a young country boy of no particular parentage couldn't possibly have written Shakespeare's plays. Where did he learn all his French and Latin and Greek? Wouldn't the plays have to be by a nobleman with access to a thorough education? The education question is a smokescreen for the real issue for anti-Stratfordianists: class. The thing that seems completely unbelievable to anti-Stratfordians is that the "son of a glover," as Derek Jacobi says in the opening of Anonymous, voice dripping with condescension, could have written the greatest literature of the English language. He’s so … common. He grew up poor, he was from a small town, and he only had a basic education. How could he have accomplished so much? Wouldn't it make more sense if the plays were written by a nobleman?
Republic of China
Republic of China
Anti-Stratfordian (plural Anti-Stratfordians) A person who, in the controversy over who wrote the Shakespeare canon, holds that it was probably written by someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare's biography, particularly his humble origins and obscure life, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and his reputation for genius,[6][7] arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him.[8] The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature,[9] and more than 80 authorship candidates have been proposed,[10] the most popular being Sir Francis Bacon; Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford; Christopher Marlowe; and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.[11] Over time, more and more celebrities have flocked to the anti-Stratfordian theory: Freud, Whitman, Malcolm X, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, Sir Derek Jacobi. And it’s not hard to understand why: It’s a romantic, glamorous, exciting theory filled with secret conspiracies. William Shakespeare, the idea goes, was no one but a mediocre actor from the middle of nowhere who was paid off by someone smarter and richer and better-educated for the use of his name.
Daybonn
Daybonn
Shakespeare was interred in the Tower of London at the same time as the future Queen Elizabeth. She would have met noble and royal people from all over Europe and had the opportunity to talk with them. She would have been a teenager with a mind possibly full of romance and adventure. She would have known how nobles dressed, talked, acted and the kind of servants they had. Few people were educated in her day and she had received an extraordinary education and spoke several languages fluently. She was also known for going to the Globe Theatre to watch the plays. At that time, that theatre must have been dirty, smelly and filled with the common people. Yet she was known to go there frequently.
Player #48458
Player #48458
Anthony , just because.we can't find something dissent mean it never existed. I'm sure Shakespeare might have hidden some of his plays somewhere.
Anthony
Anthony
But they can’t prove it!