First some miscellaneous responses:
It wasn't taboo for Earls to write poetry; it was taboo for those poems to be published and sold for money. It wasn't taboo for them to write plays; it was taboo for those plays to be performed in public. These taboos (related to chivalric codes) may seem silly, but
they were real. There is plenty of specific evidence from that time period that Earls in general and Oxford specifically took those taboos seriously. When the young Oxford's poems (signed "E.O.") were published without Oxford's consent he objected strenuously, even forcing that 1st edition out of the book-stalls IIRC.
Writing anonymously, Oxford was able to hint at inside court information, or write with a political context that would have been very inappropriate if known to come from a court insider. Thus he'd "painted himself into a corner" and he
and his Monarch had very important reasons to keep the authorship secret independent of the taboo.
That Oxford was a playwright cannot be in doubt. He is not only mentioned as a playwright in several documents, he is shown in superlatives: "the best for comedy" etc. (I'm not going to Google for every single cite. Most of these facts are readily available to anyone interested enough to do their own sincere Googling.) Oxford was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth and was her "court playwright." Some of the plays, e.g.
Midsummer Night's Dream and
Taming of the Shrew, seem to have been written (or rewritten) for specific noble marriages. Writing plays for private performances for Her Majesty or at private weddings was NOT taboo.
Politesse said:
Just wait til you see my theory that "Geoffrey Chaucer" was really "Dame Julian of Norwich", writing under a different pseudonym than usual so she could indulge in more secular topics without recrimination.
Because otherwise, How did he know so much about nuns???!
I had applauded the open-mindedness exhibited in this thread, but it's not without exception. And from someone who started his participation by admitting he knew little about the matter! Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Ruth B. Ginsburg, several other S.C. Justices, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud ...? Were they all gullible crackpots?
The case against Stratford is extremely strong. The case for Oxford is extremely strong. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge these facts is simply not well-read on the topic. I propose this: Each skeptic peruse the literature by anti-Stratfordians (there are many books, and hundreds of webpages on the topic. I'll supply links if needed.) If you find 20 anti-Stratfordian or pro-Oxfordian claims in the articles you read, and believe 19 of them to be outrageous or stupid, don't tell us about them. Tell us about the one fact that makes you stop and think; that you can't wave away as confusion or coincidence. If you can't find such a claim, then there's something wrong with your reading skills.
Having stated that the pro-Oxfordian case is very strong, let me also admit that the anti-Oxfordian case is very strong as well! This leaves a quandary.
It is the difference in word frequencies and constructions that makes one doubt the two authors can be the same. This is a big problem for Oxfordians. I certainly have no simple answer, but will give some possibilities. First, however, note that there ARE some similarities between the poets. I've already mentioned that both used iambic pentameter, relatively uncommon at that time IIUC. Certain metaphors are found in both poets: "silver ... music", "salve for ... sore" just off the top of my head; I just noticed the frequent mention of Phoebus from both writers as I was posting the sample poems upthread. Oxford's annotated Geneva Bible is considered hard evidence by some. Many word inventions credited to Shakespeare have since been found in earlier letters by Oxford.
(Romeo and Juliet contains a love-poem written when Stratford was a child. Why would the great poet re-use an old poem when he could easily write his own? Perhaps that old love-poem
was written by
Romeo's playwright.)
Nevertheless the differences are severe. How can these be explained if Oxford is the poet? We know that Oxford operated (at the house called Fisher's Folly) a sort of Bohemian club where poets and playwrights congregated. Oxford certainly had access to many expert writing tutors.
In fact, for a while two of London's top playwrights were employed by Oxford as private secretaries. One of these was John Lyly, often cited as the strongest influence on Shake-speare. Could one or two of these other top poets have served as a collaborator? Collaborative poetry is rare ... but so are the splendid works of Shake-speare.
I had to Google "enjambment." There's another fancy word referring to the use of two nouns or two verbs where one would suffice ("slings and arrows of ...") This is a rarish device also found in the letters of Edward de Vere.
Finally, let's please not make all Oxfordians responsible for the excesses of a few. I've not watched
Anonymous, but even a well-intentioned effort would suffer from the needs of a screenplay. (Certainly it would be absurd to regard any such effort as a documentary: even Oxfordians admit there are mysteries.)
But I believe I am open to reason, and may be convinced. First, I have some questions that I haven’t seen addressed. Number 1, why the secrecy? Number 2, what would have been the mechanism of writing and producing a play without the actors knowing who the author was, or were they in on it? Number 3, how did he come to write some of his greatest dramatic works, including Lear, Othello, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, among others, after he was dead?
(1) Asked and answered. In addition to the general taboo, many of the plays had serious political content, which was disguised by the putative commoner authorship. These plays would have been read in a new and unacceptable light had it become known they were written by an intimate of H.M. Oxford refers to his special "office" for which he received the otherwise-unexplained £1000 salary. I think this large sum was partly to compensate Oxford for the imposed anonymity.
(2) Many people would have been aware of the hoax. H.M. and her top ministers and secret police; Oxford's noble relatives and friends; much of London's literary elite; and some of the players in
Lord Chamberlain's Men. These all would have had little motive to disclose the secret, and very strong motive (the wrath of the Earl and more especially Her Majesty) to preserve the secret. Nevertheless — as I've listed up-thread — we can find several examples of people in-the-know leaving cryptic hints.
If scores of people were in on the hoax, could it have been kept secret? Recall the "Ultra secret" of W.W.II code-breaking. Hundreds of people were aware of the secret, yet it was kept secret for 35 years!
(3) The dating of the plays is controversial. Presumably the staging company kept records, but they've been ... mislaid(?). Dates are often twisted to fit the traditional narrative.
Hamlet was performed when Stratford was still in his teens? "That must have been a different
Hamlet by a different writer."
Many plays are dated based on their first known performance, but this can't be treated as the date of writing! This is a complicated topic, but I'll just note that the second known performance of
MacBeth was in 1664, 48 years after the death of the Stratford man! (Performances mentioned by chance in letters can be used as an upper bound on the play's writing, but not as a lower bound.
Claims the certain plays must have been written after 1604 are flimsy. In most cases, even the flimsy evidence goes away if one assumes, correctly, that scripts are edited to include topical references. OTOH, there is evidence they were written
before 1604: I'm fond of the astronomical argument myself.