So far as I know, the only historical document that even suggests a link between the playwright and the actor is the preface to the First Folio, by Ben Jonson and (purportedly) Hemings and Condell:
Even in this text, the connection is pretty artful. And the Elizabethan era is not exactly well-known for frank, transparent confessions in print. The Folio is a rather slender evidentiary basis for supporting a large breeding population of zebras.
You have to remember how status-conscious the Elizabethan era was. Imagine if a scathing academic novel becomes a bestseller, nominally fiction, but obviously a scathing roman-a-clef about the NYU English Department. But the name of the author, as shown on the book, is the name of an illiterate immigrant from Senegal, who happens to sell sunglasses on the pavement outside the NYU English Department.
A zebra would be that the immigrant is actually a brilliant writer, who has overheard many conversations among the professors. A horse would be that the novel is written by one of the professors, who asked the immigrant his name and thought it sounded cool. Or maybe was the immigrant's lover. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
We are inclined to find the "zebra" version heartwarming and believable, because we believe in the American dream. Elizabethans did not believe in the American dream. They would have found the "country-bumpkin actor wrote courtly sonnets" theory preposterous, and paid very little attention to attestations on paper -- which were notoriously fraudulent. Today's professors have all kinds of problems in figuring out which Elizabethan actually wrote what.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/firstfolio.html
Even in this text, the connection is pretty artful. And the Elizabethan era is not exactly well-known for frank, transparent confessions in print. The Folio is a rather slender evidentiary basis for supporting a large breeding population of zebras.
You have to remember how status-conscious the Elizabethan era was. Imagine if a scathing academic novel becomes a bestseller, nominally fiction, but obviously a scathing roman-a-clef about the NYU English Department. But the name of the author, as shown on the book, is the name of an illiterate immigrant from Senegal, who happens to sell sunglasses on the pavement outside the NYU English Department.
A zebra would be that the immigrant is actually a brilliant writer, who has overheard many conversations among the professors. A horse would be that the novel is written by one of the professors, who asked the immigrant his name and thought it sounded cool. Or maybe was the immigrant's lover. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
We are inclined to find the "zebra" version heartwarming and believable, because we believe in the American dream. Elizabethans did not believe in the American dream. They would have found the "country-bumpkin actor wrote courtly sonnets" theory preposterous, and paid very little attention to attestations on paper -- which were notoriously fraudulent. Today's professors have all kinds of problems in figuring out which Elizabethan actually wrote what.