yesterday’s ruse

SHAKESPEARE DIDN’T WRITE HIS OWN PLAYS No individual has had a more pronounced effect upon English language and culture than William Shakespeare. This isn’t an opinion, it’s an objective fact: the guy single-handedly invented around 1700 words, from ‘arouse’ to ‘bedroom’, ‘dawn’, ‘jaded’, ‘skim milk’ and ‘scuffle’. Yet, for all of that, surprisingly little is known about his life. He was born in Stratfordupon-Avon in 1564, married a woman named Anne Hathaway and died in 1616, having penned some 38 plays in the interim. To certain Shakespearean scholars, this dearth of biographical information is fishy – it’s made them question whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays now credited to him. Instead, they argue, he was a convenient cover for either Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford,