Shakespeare was Italian, from Messina.

[wessexgirl]

I think you're all being had. It's not April Fools Day yet, but you're feeding the troll. Do you really think this poster is serious?

[Ultimo]

...

I think you're all being had. It's not April Fools Day yet, but you're feeding the troll. Do you really think this poster is serious?

...."a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. "

[Ultimo]

By the way, also like sang the "Frankie goes to hollywood"...

I think you're all being had. It's not April Fools Day yet, but you're feeding the troll. Do you really think this poster is serious?

RELAX....

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think you're all being had. It's not April Fools Day yet, but you're feeding the troll. Do you really think this poster is serious?

Yes I think you are right, I've had enough of this rubbish anyway.

[Virgil]

Holy smoke!!! How did this crazy thread get to four pages long in one afternoon?

[Ultimo]

Moderate yourself, please.

I've had enough of this rubbish anyway.

We are gentleman.

[Ultimo]

This thread have the typical taste of shakespearian play....

Holy smoke!!! How did this crazy thread get to four pages long in one afternoon?

...culture, tension, surreal, depth...and many readers.

Or not ?

[Niamh]

Holy smoke!!! How did this crazy thread get to four pages long in one afternoon?

I got involved thats how! Irish remember? gift of the gab.

[Ultimo]

My dear friends, goodnight for this night.

The hystorical diatriba Shakespear/Crollalanza still it's opened...and I will return, soon...


Ciao a tutti dall'Italia,
Ultimo.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Moderate yourself, please.

Originally Posted by Neely
I've had enough of this rubbish anyway.

We are gentleman.

I spoke as I did because I thought you weren't serious, a troll as the other poster suggested, in other words deliberately trying to cause offence, to enflame, to provoke. If you are genuine in your claims then I apologise somewhat, but I am still out of this discussion anyway. Really your claim is so outrageous either way that it is not surprising that people think you are joking, who's to blame them?

[Brasil]

There are a lot of theories about the real identity of Shakespeare:

1- He was a noble english, Shakespeare was his pseudonym.
2- He was not only one, but a group or authors.
etc...

I personally don't belive he was Italian, but it is possible. Even he was Italian, he still represents the English literature cause that was the language he chose.

The same about Clarice Lispector, she was born in Ukraine, but she lived in Brazil and her work was all written in portuguese, so she represents the Brazilian literature.

But the reason of this speculation here I can understand:
1- Shakespeare's identity is a mystery and always will be. The events and places of his biography (the birth house, for example) are fake. Just a actrative to improve tourism.
2- The reason why some scholars belive he was italian is clear: Shakespeare (wherever he was born) did not write something original. Almost all his plays are copies of Greek-Latin myths, arabic stories or italian popular plays (Commedia della Vita, especially). The origin of Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Caesares, Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, Il Mercante di Venezia is much earlier. Shakespeare translated to English what was well known in Italy. That is a fact!


Some may say he improved the plays. Some may say he made plagiarism.

But Shakespeare is still great for the theatre. That's the most important. Don't care the birth place, color of skin or nationality.

[kiki1982]

O'Leerie, O'Riley, O'Hare (?) and O'Hara
There's no-one as Irish as Barack Obama!

Obama also starts with O...

Shake is the same as 'Crolla'...

Although it is funny and the Corrigan Brothers had a great hit with their son, it is not more true than Shakespeare and Crollalanza (?).

[NisreenS]

In addition to this theory there is another saying that Shakespeare was Arab and his real name was Sheikh Jubair.

[Ultimo]

The theory about Michelagnolo Crollalanza/Shakespeare is serious, and has a wide following in the literary italian world : I speak about academic profesors, not about writers like Dan Brown....
I don't master enough English to going into specific details.

I'll dedicate to explain it when I'll have much more time.

My speech was and is serious, then a series of insults led me to defend myself.

The issue is very important, because involves national english traditions, politics issues and the credibility of English academic world, for almost 5 centuries.

The resistance is strong, but I think, the truth will come out. Would be fair also in memory of Shakespeare and for love of truth.

[Petrarch's Love]

Allora! Is Thomas Kyd a Spaniard now? Heaven knows where such logic could put Spenser, author of the Faerie Queene. I think I've got to give this the prize for one of the more creative "who is Shakespeare" theories I've ever heard. I had heard one where Marlowe didn't really die and went off to live in Italy, sending his manuscripts back to his actor friend from Stratford (indeed, there was a million pound prize for the person who could prove that one last I checked, so it might well be worth forging something on parchment and stashing it behind a loose brick in Verona), but this is the first I've heard of the Bard of Messina. I'm picturing this fellow in cinquecento Sicilia sitting about writing "this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England," after deciding that he should become fluent in English. This is, of course, primarily because it's the most unlikely language he can think of for an Italian to want to learn in the 1500's, but also because he's naturally completely inconspicuous and inept writing in his native tongue and yet has, not only a masterful command over writing English blank verse, but an ability to mimic a variety of dialects from all over London and various regions throughout Britain (what Italian worth his salt wouldn't naturally think of sticking a leek loving Welshman into his presentation of the Battle of Agincourt?). Then he decides to send all his manuscripts off to a theatre in London that just happens to be partly owned by an English actor whose name is an exact translation of his own...actually it might not make such a bad novel. Far more likely, of course, than the idea of a glover's son using the substantial basis in Latin he in all probability received in an Elizabethan grammar school in order to make out some Italian stories he picked up at the bookstands at St. Paul's.

P.S. When I posted the above, I had only read a bit of the thread and assumed it was at least partially tongue in cheek. In the above post Ultimo, seems quite serious, so I can only suggest, Ultimo, that you look a little more deeply into the evidence surrounding Shakespeare studies. It isn't as though we actually have no documentation at all about Shakespeare. I also don't know how well you know the original English texts of the plays, but to claim a non-native speaker wrote them is a bit like claiming that a German wrote Dante's Commedia.