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| The Only Verified Portrait of Shakespeare, First Folio, 1623. |
The overwhelming trait required to write the Bard’s plays was artistic genius, a product of neither upbringing nor birthright. Shakespeare had the good fortune to be born with exceptional gifts as well as middle class parents who could afford to send him to grammar school.
Second, the playwright needed theatrical experience of more than a superficial kind, something an actor could certainly possess, but not a nobleman of this era. Witness the evolution of the Bard from his early, sub-par output to his later masterpieces, plus the changes in text over time as the theater company and Bard learned what worked with audiences and what didn’t.
Shakespeare's writing also required a modest understanding of literature, science, politics, etc., and his modest education, combined with a hip life as a man about town in London, proved more than sufficient in these regards.
Roland Emmerich's film Anonymous has stoked the old anti-Stratfordian flames, but check out James Shapiro's Review in The New York Times for a sobering critique.
