William Shakespeare did not write the comedy "All's well that ends well" by himself. Experts from Oxford believe that the work was created in collaboration with Thomas Middleton, according to Professor Laurie Maguire.
These conclusions were reached by analyzing the vocabulary, rhyme, style and grammar of the piece. Maguire says that the inconsistency in style and text is the result of a team of authors, and at the time most plays were written by multiple authors, although Shakespeare's status rarely challenged his exclusive copyright.
Maguire and Dr Emma Smith of Oxford have studied the work and think Shakespeare's contemporary Thomas Middleton is the most likely candidate.
Both writers have a recognizable "signature", a kind of stylistic DNA, and with a detailed analysis of the text, you can see "markers" that point to Middleton, according to the professors.
The rhyme and rhythm of parts of the piece, phrases, spelling and even certain words indicate that the text was also written by Middleton (1580-1627), who was a younger contemporary of Shakespeare, and precisely the traces of his more modern grammar can be seen in the text, says Maguire.
Middleton was quite famous in his day with works like "The Changelings" and "Women Beware Women" but, says Smith, the collaboration between him and Shakespeare in 1607 can be compared to that of a famous musician and a rising star.
The authorship of Shakespeare's plays has often been the subject of speculation, but Maguire says that so far no serious study has appeared to question whether Shakespeare wrote all the plays attributed to him.
Although Shakespeare undoubtedly wrote most of his texts himself, "All's Well That Ends Well" was the result of the collaboration that was common in Elizabethan and Jacobite theatre, as plays were written quickly and for large audiences.
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