I think MT makes a convincing case against Shakespeare. While certainly not providing definitive evidence, MT's devastating commentary on Shakespeare's tombstone inscription is, to me, telling. There was an interesting debate at UC Berkeley last week, in which it was claimed (I'm sorry, I forget his name) that the Earl of Oxford (DeVore, I think, was his name) wrote the plays and used a penname to avoid criticism. In the debate, it was pointed out that the Earl of Oxford was intimately experienced with the various higher social circles in England, particularly the nobility, addressed in Shakespeare's plays. It was also suggested that Hamlet could be autobiographical and has many parallels to the Earl's own life. Of course, I'm no Shakespeare scholar, and I find MT to vacillate between satire (as in, MT really thinks Shakespeare didn't write the plays) and humor (as in, wouldn't it be good clean fun to gin up an essay about how Shakespeare didn't write his own plays, making fun of old Will in the process?). My $0.02...