Shakespeare is in the spotlight again. There is nothing new in Shakespeare being in the news for his literary merits. However, this time he is again being pilloried for the credibility of his authorship. According to a new research, Thomas Watson is the real author of the works credited to Shakespeare.

Doubts have been raised from time to time about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works. One can only wonder why Shakespeare has been the object of so much curiosity and doubt. The only answer that comes to one’s mind is that a genius is always envied, doubted and riled against. His genius is not accepted in the spirit that it should be and is often questioned and skepticism is expressed about it. Probably, it is the jealousy index that underwrites it. It is the inferiority complex of being out shorn by one who appears to be like us — it is the curse of being left behind.

There is also a very strong strain of class bias here. How could a man who did not belong to the upper classes become famous and be counted as a genius? It was the ultimate insult to the superiority on which the class system or any system that divides society is based. And it is not only privilege but privilege growing out of meritocracy. There is also growing discussion about the status of women during Shakespearean times. Either they were too repressed to come out and their work was poached upon by men or each of them had a public profile through a male pseudonym.

Obviously, it is the genius of Shakespeare that people find difficult to comprehend. It is surmised some times that such great works could not have been the creation of one man, that it must have actually been a team effort. Thus it is suggested that the people associated with the plays’ production all put in their bit and this team effort was primarily responsible for the great works.

Such doubts surfaced early. However, the controversy gathered momentum in the 19th century. The claims later became a deluge in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Thomas Watson is known as the translator of Greek playwrights Euripides and Sophocles and the originator of the poetic form of madrigal. He is said to have been from an affluent background. He did not want to be known as a bard or vaudevillian peddler. A career in theatre was supposed to be for those who were on the margins of society. It was not meant for gentlemen. So, he hid his true identity and Shakespeare benefited from this subterfuge.

It is also assumed that Edmund de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, the lover of Queen Elizabeth I, was the real force behind Shakespeare’s plays. Since he, too, belonged to the upper echelons of society, he feared a political backlash because of the outspoken views expressed in the plays. So he hid his true identity and the one to benefit from this subterfuge was Shakespeare.

An entire industry has sprung up to examine the question of Shakespeare’s true authorship. Some of the greatest minds in the last hundred odd years have joined in the march of challenging Shakespeare.

Those who believe that someone other than Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him are called ‘Anti-Stratfordians’. They argue that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author (or authors), who for some reason, usually social rank, state security, or gender, did not want or could not accept public credit.

The controversy has generated a vast body of literature. More than 80 candidates have been proposed, the most popular being Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmond Vere, Christopher Marlow and William Stanley. Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Henry James, John Paul Stevens, Prince Philips and Charlie Chaplin have all argued against Shakespeare’s authorship. Their endorsements add weight to the many anti-Stratfordian arguments.

Even in the 19th century, beginning at least with Hazlitt and Keats, critics frequently noted that the essence of Shakespeare’s genius consisted in his ability to have his characters speak and act according to their given dramatic natures, rendering the determination of Shakespeare’s authorial identity from his works much more problematic. The Romantics, being good poets, could not write plays and often wondered how one man could do it and often speculated whether it was a team effort.

With the rise of a more strident form of feminism in recent years, a few have advanced the case that Shakespeare might well have been a woman. One candidate is Mary Sidney, the countess of Pembroke, the beloved sister of the celebrated poet Philip Sidney. She was one of the most educated women of her time, a translator and a poet. She and her husband were patrons of one of the first theater companies to perform Shakespeare’s plays. Was Shakespeare’s name just a useful camouflage, allowing her to publish what she otherwise couldn’t?

Another candidate is Emilia Bassano. She was one of the first women in England to publish a volume of poetry, suitably religious yet startlingly feminist, arguing for women’s “Libertie” and against male oppression. Her existence was unearthed in 1973 by the Oxford historian AL Rose, who speculated that she was Shakespeare’s mistress, the “dark lady” described in the sonnets. More recently in a play on her by the playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Shakespeare is portrayed as a plagiarist.

In the recent past, the emphasis has shifted more towards the person and what he/she has created. Who would be interested in it if it were not slanderous? Of course, many have just ridden the bandwagon of Shakespeare to be noticed.