4. Shakespeare. Is he myth or reality?

5. The life of the great playwright William Shakespeare has remained poorly studied. So the question was raised if he was real at all!

6. According to the official sources, William Shakespeare was born on the 23 rd of April in 1564. But is it probably just biographers’ fiction? Although stories about the Shakespeare’s childhood and his youth are full of colorful moments, science does not account them to be faithful. And we know nothing about the school years of William.

7. It is known only that on the 27 th of November in 1582 William was married. His wife was eight years older. Soon they had a daughter and the twins. There is nothing about the next 8 years of his life, so this period was called the "lost years“.

8. Finally there is no historical evidence that William Shakespeare received indeed primary education! There is no single piece of paper, written with his hand, any books were not found in his library, which the playwright certainly had to have. And the most important fact about Shakespeare as a poet is that there is no mention of contemporaries of him! As if no one in England has ever seen the writer !

9. And one more thing, when Shakespeare died in Stratford, no one in England said a word! The only response to the death of the genius was a note in Stratford parish register. Although in those days it was usual to write the elegies about the death of poets and to publish them in commemorative books.

10. Shakespeare’s phenomenon has recently appeared. There is a rumor in British press that the poet was Italian. The documents was allegedly found affirming that Shakespeare was born in Sicily, and his name was Michelangelo Krolalantsa. Then, fleeing from the Inquisition, he moved to England and changed his name.

11. But in 1920 the Englishman Thomas Looney drew ​​ a sensational inference from the analysis of Shakespeare's works that the author could well be Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford. The main argument was the amazing similarity of biographical facts and ideas in private correspondence with the plots of Shakespeare's plays.

12. Edward de Vere, unlike William Shakespeare, the son of illiterate parents, was born in a literary family. His father was a playwright John Bale patronized a theater. His uncle was Henry Howard, the fifth Earl of Surrey, who invented poetic form of English sonnet.

13. In 1975, the Encyclopedia Britannica actually stated officially supporting the hypothesis that Edward de Vere was the most likely candidate for the authorship of Shakespeare's plays."

14. Although it is unknown who was Shakespeare indeed and who wrote the plays more than four centuries ago, the tragedies, comedies and historical notes are still alive anyway, exciting and shocking the imagination of readers and viewers. The great mystery of the Great Bard has all chances to remain unsolved.

15. Thanks for your attention!