What Did Shakespeare Really Look Like?

“Over the cen­turies a num­ber of images have been put for­ward as life por­traits of our great­est writer, but at present none of them is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed as such. Up until now… With the emer­gence of the Cobbe por­trait, we are pre­sent­ed with a con­tem­po­rary por­trait that has strong claims to rep­re­sent the drama­tist as he appeared to his con­tem­po­raries.”

These lines from shakespearefound.org.uk (asso­ci­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick) set the stage for a 20 minute video/film that fea­tures Prof. Stan­ley Wells talk­ing about the Cobbe por­trait, and why it’s believed to present the real Shake­speare, the tow­er­ing author we still know lit­tle about today. You can watch the video above, or find it on iTune­sU, where it’s among the most down­loaded videos.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Goethe and Shake­speare on Google

Shake­speare and the Uses of Polit­i­cal Pow­er