The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy Mud-slinging One of the saddest and least helpful aspects of the Shakespeare authorship controversy is the mud-slinging indulged in by advocates of both 'sides' - the so-called 'Stratfordians' who represent the orthodox traditional viewpoint that the Stratford-upon-Avon actor William Shakespeare wrote the Shakespeare plays, and the 'anti-Stratfordians' (I prefer the term 'non-Stratfordians') who reckon that the actor did not actually write the plays himself but was a mask for the true author or authors.