Was Shakespeare Actually Italian?
England’s greatest poet may not have been English
On the 23rd April 1564, a legend was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Or was he?
William Shakespeare is considered one of England’s greatest writers ever. His legacy has continued on for 500 years since he graced Elizabethan England thanks to his huge body of work. However, despite the national pride he evokes in us Brits, a whopping thirteen out of thirty-seven of his plays were either based in Italy or around Italian characters.
Over the years there has been a lot of debate surrounding Shakespearean authorship. Some question how someone of Shakespeare’s non-aristocratic background could have had such worldly knowledge. There’s been a huge list of Englishmen backed to be the ‘real’ Shakespeare, which includes Sir Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford.
However, Sicilian-born Martino Iuvara took the argument up a notch with his book entitled Shakespeare era Italiano. It translates simply to “Shakespeare was Italian”. It’s a bold claim but Italy has appropriated Shakespeare in many ways; even the wall outside my apartment building in Venice had an enormous Shakespeare mural. Let’s hear his theory out.
