It is there in black and white

The argument

The Stratfordian position here rests on the ordinary standard of evidence rather than on any special theory of authorship. Contemporary documents show that the man in question was named Shakespeare. They record that he was the son of a glover and that he was educated at the grammar school in Stratford-Upon-Avon. They record that he married Anne Hathaway. They record that he was an actor, and they record that he died in 1616. These are not inferences drawn from the plays; they are entries in the documentary record of his own time, generated by the institutions — parish, school, theatre, court — that had occasion to note him. The argument's force lies in what that record is taken to settle. A man identified by name, parentage, education, marriage, profession and date of death is identified as fully as anyone of his period and station can be. The documents attribute the plays to that name, and nothing in them points elsewhere. On the ordinary basis for accepting any historical attribution, the question is answered: this is what the documents say. The burden of proof is then placed where the argument insists it belongs. Doubt about authorship is not sustained merely by observing that the record is incomplete, because the record of every life of that period is incomplete, and an argument from silence can be constructed against almost any attribution of the period. What would be required is positive evidence that the man named in the documents did not write the plays — and there is no convincing evidence to the contrary of that kind. Because the documentary record plainly identifies the author and nothing credible contradicts it, the Stratfordian position is the correct answer to who Shakespeare was.

Context

We know that a man named Shakespeare wrote the plays. He put his name on them.

Premises

Counter-arguments

All that tells us is that there was a man from Stratford called "Shaksper" and that, for whatever reason, the similar name, "Shakespeare" or "Shake-Speare" appeared on a number of plays attributed to him. That does not prove that he wrote them. Books were often printed without an author and often under pseudonyms. We don’t even know if that is how he spelt his name. The only surviving example of Shakespeare’s writing are six scratchy signatures spelt several different ways. There is also significant evidence to suggest he did not write the plays. What we know of his education suggests that the Stratford man may not have had the necessary schooling to produce works of the calibre attributed to his name, because there is no documentation for his having attended school in Stratford, only assumption.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] There is significant evidence to suggest that Shakespeare did not possess the necessary education to write the plays and sonnets.