Scholars Argue if Shakespeare Penned Plays Scholars Argue if Shakespeare Penned Plays - Yahoo! News
LONDON - Some scholars just won't let Shakespeare be Shakespeare. A small academic industry has developed to prove that William Shakespeare, a provincial lad from Stratford-upon-Avon, could not have written the much-loved plays that bear his name.

The "real" author has been identified by various writers as Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

Now, a new book claims that the real Bard was Sir Henry Neville, an English courtier and distant relative of the Stratford Shakespeare. Shakespeare himself was simply a front man, claim Brenda James and William Rubinstein in "The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare."

James, an English literature lecturer, said Neville "wanted (the plays) to go under another name and wanted a poor relation to have a hand up."

James and Rubinstein, a professor of history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, argue that Shakespeare of Stratford, who came from a modest background and did not attend university, could not have had enough knowledge of the politics, foreign languages and European cities described in the plays to have written them.

Neville, in contrast, was well-educated, had traveled to all the countries used as settings in the plays and had a life that matched up with what "Shakespeare" was writing about at the time, the book says.  ¶ 11:37 AM