Hi orda,
Disagree. His contemporaries seem to have thought Shakespeare was Shakespeare and the theory that he was not is a recent thing. I know the Oxfordians find an ingenious way to deny everything that is available to support Shakespeare's authorship, including Ben Jonson's commentary. But taken together, there's a lot of denying and plenty to confirm WS was WS, when the evidence is added together and the words are read on their face. On top of which, in spite of a number of neat coincidences, there's plenty to suggest Oxford was not WS, such as the fact that we have examples of both of their writing and they are noticeably different.
Oxford seemed to like the company of authors, musicians and actors. If he met the bard, and shared his stories with him, would he not have absorbed them and cast them in his plays if he wished?
I wouldn't expect there to be much biographical evidence about a hard-working, middle-class Elizabethan playwright. But what there is seems straightforward to me.
Personally, I see no reason to believe he wasn't educated well in Stratford-upon-Avon; I suspect he went up to London and spent some time performing in court as a lawyer before falling in love with the theatre (a not dissimilar stage); he probably spent time on the periphery of the court while acting in a company; and then he ended up writing, because that was the pathway to fortune and fame in those days.
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