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The Shakespeareo With A Thousand Faces
All Isn’t True
Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare.
He was William Alexander.
Or Lancelot Andrewes.
No, Anthony Bacon.
Sir Francis Bacon?
At the time of writing, eighty-eight alternative names have been proposed as the genuine author of the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.
The vehemence of each mutually exclusive claim doesn’t undermine the validity of all.
But is suggestive of something, surely.
What?
The many religions don’t rule out the claim of any one to know the true nature of God.
But they do dent it.
If one is true, the others —
The majority —
Are false, necessarily.
No, my mistake.
The surfeit of pretenders to the mantle of the Bard undermines the case for any one being valid more than the contentions of the different religions do for God.
It’s possible —
Not impossible —
That each version of the almighty is a distinct vision of an identical entity.
The selfsame one in different forms.
Seen from alternate perspectives.
But how likely is it that one poet presented in multiple disguises?
Was observed by contemporaries in contrasting guises?
It’s not a given that all rivals to the title of supergenius must be imposters either, but —
Mutually excluding —
Even their fiercest champions would concede that they can’t all be genuine.
Nevertheless, each is presented as if this were the case.
With the same rigour.
Vigour.
MOST OBSTINATE…
