Florian theory of Shakespeare authorship
The Florian theory of Shakespeare authorship holds that the Protestant pastor Michelangelo Florio (1515–1566) or his son the English lexicographer John Florio (1552–1625), or both, wrote the plays of William Shakespeare (1564–1616). First thought up in 1927, the idea placed both Florios among the over 80 alternative candidates proposed since mid-19th century as the secret authors of the works of Shakespeare. The intertextual relations between the respective works of John Florio and Shakespeare have been intensely investigated by scholarship but, at the same time, have given rise to 'persistent pseudo-scholarly' attempts. Scores of works of "biographism", proposing different candidates and using similar arguments, have emerged since the mid-19th century to question Shakespeare's authorship, but no one in his own time entertained any doubts that he was the author of his works.
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