“We cannot be sure of Shakespeare’s intentions. Indeed, some would say we can’t be sure of anything about Shakespeare. Who was he? Did he really write the plays? We are living through a time when a barrage of nonsense is making the rounds about Shakespeare’s supposed or hidden identity. Shakespeare, whose genius uncovers every aspect of the human condition, has been identified as a dry essayist moonlighting as a playwright, or as one or another of a couple of extraordinarily privileged aristocrats, who, for some reason (which varies according to their proponents), could never reveal their involvement in such a lower-class pastime as the theatre. It is true that we don’t know very much detail about Shakespeare’s life, or his theatre, and therefore what he expressed as his intentions.” But, it turns out, there is quite a lot we do know…