ChatGPT and Shakespeare Authorship

 Intelligently I asked Artificial Intelligence

"What is the answer to the Shakespeare authorship question"

ChatGPT replied

The Shakespeare authorship question is a topic of debate among scholars and enthusiasts, and there is no consensus on the answer. The traditional view is that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the sole author of the plays and poems attributed to him. However, some individuals and groups have proposed alternative theories that suggest other individuals or groups wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare. These theories are not widely accepted by the academic community, and most scholars believe that William Shakespeare was indeed the author of the plays and poems attributed to him.

True enough--except for the phrase "William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon". William went by the family name Shakspere.

He did not become Shakespeare until the publication of the first book of Complete Plays (known as the "First Folio") in 1623--seven years after William's death, which went unnoticed by the London theater crowd and the community of poets.

To be more accurate it should read

The Shakespeare authorship question is a topic of debate among scholars and enthusiasts, and there is no consensus on the answer. The traditional view is that William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon was the sole author of the plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare. However, some individuals and groups have proposed alternative theories that suggest other individuals or groups wrote the works attributed to the writer known as "Shakespeare". These theories are not widely accepted by the academic community, and most scholars believe that William Shakspere was indeed the author of the plays and poems attributed to him.

Chalk one up for Human Intelligence.

Ghosted Writer

by David @ More

Sweet Swan of Avon! England's holy ghost!
Who chose to dispose of the trove of unpublished shows
that Marley composed not pre-'93, but post?
The Shakespeare First Folio is surely the most
audacious literary author hoax
(a front man getting credit when the writer croaks)
ever pulled on English-speaking folks.

In 1623, a collection of plays
performed during Kit's 'living-dead' phase
were gathered and published for cash with bold praise
for the dead author (addressed as Soule of the Age,
Star of Poets and wonder of our stage).

Described as a rash enterprise, the Folio offered
three dozen Shakespeare plays that Marley authored--
but words inside implied another father!
A necessary lie? Ah yes! But why bother?
This question isn't meant rhetorically;
the answer's evident historically:
Kit Marley's lurid 'rap sheet' killed his chance
of getting credit for his Art's advance
in the course of a stellar 20-year career
as the hidden poet-playwright "Shakespeare"
from The Rape of Lucrece through King Lear—
and every line in which he "shook a lance
at ignorance"—a stance gravely enhanced
by deathly banishment. No pun is meant,
just grievous and egregious punishment
about which Marley surely had no choice:
He lost his name, his love, his home, his voice.

When he was just a 20-something wit,
Kit wrote and said some irreligious shit
in jest, offensive to The Church. Alas,
those words came back to bite him in the ass
so hard that all the world believed he'd passed.
This public dead-and-buried circumstance
would cause his readership to look askance
if his name proudly crowned the title page
and Christopher Marley was hailed Soule of the Age.
They'd wonder "How'd a dead man write so much?
"He truly must possess a magic touch!"

So what else could the Grand Possessors do
to print Kit's Shakespeare plays for public view?
They execute a simple switcheroo:
Employ the dead Stratfordian anew—
as decoy for the hard-luck playwright who
could not (back then) get credit he was due.