The Shakespeare conundrum: England glory? 莎士比亞的難題：英格蘭的榮耀？
今年是威廉·莎士比亞（William Shakespeare，1564-1616）逝世400周年，英國人津津樂道。莎士比亞出生並在埃文河畔斯特拉特福去世。在今年的慶祝活動中，自己的作者身份令人吃驚的事實，自然被回避或消除了。由於幾乎沒有人知道他的個人生活，所以這是虛弱的，這導致了各種各樣的幻想推理和猜想。例如，詹姆斯·夏皮羅（James Shapiro）1599年和1606年的“學術”書籍充斥著“他可能擁有”和“他可能擁有”。
無論對莎士比亞了解甚少的個人事實，與他所作的37部戲劇，兩首大詩和150多首十四行詩的作者都無關。 13歲以後沒有正規教育的記錄;他當然從沒去過任何一所大學，根據本瓊森（Ben Jonson）的說法，他的“小拉丁少”（Greeke）。他顯然知道法語，但沒有人知道他是如何通過這種知識來的。盡管他唯一的“全英文”劇本是“溫莎的風流妻子”，但他也似乎從來沒有離開過英格蘭，其他所有人都對外國有直接或間接的暗示。一個女兒是文盲，另一個可能是如此。他的意誌不會提到任何書籍或手稿或文學興趣，他的六個例子是在法律文件上不穩定和不一致的簽名。唯一的另外一個寫給他的文章是共同編寫的Thomas More爵士中的一個高度可競爭的部分。
無論是在他的一生中，還是在幾十年後，都沒有人對莎士比亞的生活感到困惑。從1577年他離開學校到1588年左右，當他開始寫劇本的時候，是什麽都不知道和猜測的“失去的歲月”。他的女婿約翰·霍爾在他的日記裏沒有提到威廉·莎士比亞的文學活動。他的女兒也沒有提及他們。直到19世紀才有人質疑莎士比亞的作者身份，但到了20世紀，成千上萬的學者們已經鑽了數百萬份文獻，但卻通過證據來證明莎士比亞的作品。絕對沒有文件痕跡。當代很少有人提到他的名字，直接與劇本聯係起來。
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丹麥王子哈姆雷特的千古之問，To be or not to be, that is a question. The Shakespeare conundrum
The Shakespeare conundrum
This year is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Britain has celebrated the occasion with enormous gusto. Shakespeare was born and died in Stratford-upon-Avon. During this year&’s celebrations, the fact that his case for authorship is surprisingly weak has naturally been sidestepped or elided. It is weak because almost nothing is known of his personal life, and this has led to all manner of fanciful inference and conjecture; for instance, the “scholarly” books on the years 1599 and 1606 by James Shapiro are replete with “he might have” and “he could have”.
Whatever few personal facts are known about Shakespeare have nothing to do with the claim that he is the author of 37 plays, two major poems and over 150 sonnets. There is no record of his formal education after the age of 13; he certainly never went to any university and, according to Ben Jonson, he had “small Latine and less Greeke”. He obviously knew French but no one knows how he came by this knowledge. He also never seems to have left England, though his only “all-English” play is The Merry Wives of Windsor — all the others have allusions, direct or indirect, to foreign countries. One daughter was illiterate and the other probably so. His will does not mention any books or manuscripts or literary interests and the six examples of his writing are shaky and inconsistent signatures on legal documents. The only other writing attributed to him is a highly contestable segment in the jointly written Sir Thomas More.
No one bothered, either during his lifetime or for decades afterwards, with examining Shakespeare&’s life. From when he left school in 1577 to around 1588, when he started writing plays, are “lost years” when nothing is known and much speculated. His son-in-law, John Hall, in his diaries makes no mention of William Shakespeare&’s literary activities. Nor did his daughters leave any reference to them. There was no questioning Shakespeare&’s authorship until the 19th century, but in the 20th century thousands of scholars have pored over literally millions of documents but produced little more by way of evidence connecting the man with the opus. There is absolutely no paper trail. Very few of the few contemporary mentions of his name link him directly with the plays. How did he come to know about the Bermuda shipwreck of 1610 on which he based The Tempest written in 1611 or 1612, when having nothing to do with the Virginia Company directors, who were the only ones to receive the report of the catastrophe?
http://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/the-shakespeare-conundrum-142473.html
