Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare?: A notes on the greatest writer in world history

Shakespeare's birthday, we think. What a shame to see Justice Stevens, ret., take the bait and raise the possibility that the plays of Shakespeare were written by some other writer who for whatever reason craved anonymity - the uber Salinger, Pynchon, Ferrante of his (or her?) time. Utterly ridiculous, of course, and what's the reason for? Because for 400+ years now there still are people who believe or want to believe that great art, or great artistic talent, is the province of the ruling class only - there's no other explanation for the mania of assuming that the Earl of Oxford or some other aristo wrote Hamlet and The Tempest. Why would he (or she?) hide his talent - and in fact how could he? The explanation often floated is that it would be unseemly for a duke or earl to be slumming and writing for live theater when he should be directing his talents into more socially acceptable channels - court poetry, for example. Nonsense. Writing these plays was obviously not a sideline - it was complete artistic output of the greatest writer in the history of civilization, without question or dispute. Nobody could do this work on the side or sub rosa, and no one with such talent would want to hide it (nor be able to, most likely). It's true, however, that writing for live theater in 1600 was not a pathway to wealth and fame, most likely. I often compare it with writing for television - a great medium of popular entertainment, but few can name any who write or have written for the medium. In his day, if he wanted primarily to be a famous writer, Sh. would have most likely stayed w/ lyric poetry (and then he would have needed another way to earn his living), just as a writer thinking today about fame (and fortune) would most likely pursue fiction. But it's obvious that, thanks to the advent of great TV series drama there are more opportunities for great writing on TV - and the concomitant fortune and, for very few, fame. TV seems to me like the medium Sh. would practice were he alive today - and he would have invented the genre of the TV series - as the only format capable of holding the output of his capacious imagination. Shakespeare even anticipated cinema and would have embraced the medium for sure - see his prelude to Henry V (I think): Oh, for a muse of fire! Shakespeare's relative obscurity in his own time is further evidence not only of his genius but also of the veracity of his identity - he chose the artistic genre that, in his day, was the most flexible, creative, exciting, popular, and adaptable to his extraordinary (to put it mildly) talent - and he changed theater, literature, culture, and human consciousness forever. William Shakespeare, a commoner, of Stratford-on-Avon. Carriere ouvert aux talents.