在他去世150年之后，關(guān)于莎士比亞戲劇原作者的爭(zhēng)議接踵而至。學(xué)者和文學(xué)評(píng)論家列出了一系列名字，推斷他們?yōu)閼騽〉恼嬲髡摺Ｆ渲邪死锼雇懈?馬洛、愛德華?德?維爾和弗朗西斯?培根，這些人擁有更知名的背景，更具文學(xué)水準(zhǔn)或靈感更豐富。這一現(xiàn)象大部分是由于對(duì)莎士比亞的生平描述得不夠詳細(xì)，而且那一時(shí)代的資料來(lái)源很缺乏。圣三一教堂和斯特拉福德政府的官方記錄記載了威廉?莎士比亞這個(gè)人的存在，但是沒有一處資料能證實(shí)他是個(gè)演員或劇作家。

懷疑者也質(zhì)疑，教育背景如此平庸的人卻能在莎士比亞的作品里展示出那么敏銳的洞察力和詩(shī)歌表現(xiàn)力，到底是如何做到的。幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)，涌現(xiàn)出了一些團(tuán)體，他們對(duì)莎士比亞戲劇的原作者提出了疑問(wèn)。

最嚴(yán)重、最廣泛的懷疑開始于19世紀(jì)，那時(shí)人們對(duì)莎士比亞的崇拜達(dá)到了頂峰。批評(píng)者認(rèn)為，對(duì)于這個(gè)來(lái)自埃文河畔斯特拉福德的威廉?莎士比亞，唯一確鑿的地方就是，他一開始身份卑微，年紀(jì)輕輕就結(jié)了婚，后來(lái)做房地產(chǎn)生意很成功。莎士比亞牛津?qū)W會(huì)（成立于1957年）的成員們說(shuō)，身為牛津第17代伯爵的英國(guó)貴族愛德華?德?維爾是“威廉?莎士比亞”詩(shī)歌和戲劇的真正作者。牛津?qū)W者說(shuō)德?維爾出身貴族，學(xué)識(shí)淵博，教育背景深厚，而且他的詩(shī)歌與被認(rèn)為是莎士比亞的作品在結(jié)構(gòu)上很相似。他們主張，威廉?莎士比亞不具備應(yīng)有的教育背景和文學(xué)修養(yǎng)，寫不出如此雄辯的散文，也創(chuàng)造不出如此豐富的人物。

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays.

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon—men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration—as the true authors of the plays. Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a William Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate. Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare." The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that William Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that William Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds. They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays. Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging William Shakespeare as author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John. Royal records from 1601 show that William Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company (formally known as the Chamberlain's Men) and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays. There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century. Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for William Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

(biography.com)

（中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）