There has long been speculation among English Renaissance enthusiasts that William Shakespeare – perhaps the most celebrated writer of the period if not in the entire English literary canon – did not write all of the plays attributed to him. Some conspiracists even maintain that the person we know as William Shakespeare never existed in the first place, and is simply a pseudonym for a number of different collaborating playwrights. Proponents of this theory usually refer to the fact that Shakespeare was not formally educated; he is one of few early modern playwrights who did not attend university, instead having grown up as the son of a glove-maker and serving as a Latin tutor before moving to London to pursue an acting career.
While this theory has been refuted by Renaissance scholars, some of those who still question Shakespearean authorship often point to Francis Bacon as a contender for one of the "true" authors of plays attributed to the Bard. In reading Bacon's major works, one can easily see where this speculation comes from: especially in the Essays, Bacon expresses a number of philosophical ideas that appear again and again on the early modern stage and especially in Shakespeare's work. In the essay "Of Revenge," for example, Bacon argues that the notion of revenge, while natural and enticing, is ultimately a fruitless pursuit that merely equates two enemies. Instead, Bacon argues, one should strive to decline opportunities for revenge in order to rise above their enemy. This same kind of moralizing was frequently dramatized on the English stage through the genre of revenge tragedy, which began in the late sixteenth century with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (1585). Many see Kyd's early revenge tragedy as a precursor to Shakespeare's own tragedies built around the notion of revenge, particularly Hamlet (1601).
While the connection can easily be made between Bacon and Shakespeare, scholars of the period refute this theory by pointing toward the fact that literature and philosophy during the Renaissance were indelibly connected. Despite his lack of formal education, Shakespeare was still well-versed in the same literature and philosophical tenets that Bacon was. Finally, other elements of Bacon's work suggest his lack of investment in the English theater. In The Advancement of Learning, Bacon all but declares poetry – and especially poetry designed for the stage – as a useless flight of fancy that distracts man from the pursuit of pure knowledge. While Bacon frequently acknowledges the importance of poetry in tantalizing man's natural imagination, his critiques of theater as a place of feigning and indulgence make it quite unlikely that he would have been involved in writing plays at all, let alone those attributed to his contemporary William Shakespeare.
