was shakespeare a fraud or a plagiarist?

[Leanne]

I think the premise for Marlowe being Willy's ghost writer is a staged death, which seems an awful lot of effort for anyone to go to considering he was already quite a successful playwright/poet in his own (heavily indebted) name and suggests a great deal more forethought than most poets are actually capable of, given we're a procrastinating bunch as a rule. As for most of the other theories, I think a few too many people have taken the Gwyneth Paltrow version as fact

It is true that we've become jaded to Shakespeare simply by his ubiquitousness. My aversion to his sonnets likely comes from little more than an inescapable horror of all things soppy and overly sentimental -- though he really did flog that poor expired pony to an horrific degree.

I would rather remember the silly Willy, the man who could destroy his enemies with a single phrase.

Shakespearean Insult Generator