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William Shakespeare

PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 02:02:06 UTC Contents

Articles Introduction 1

Main article 2 2

Life 25 Shakespeare's life 25

Plays 32 Shakespeare's plays 32 Shakespeare in performance 41

Poems 51 Shakespeare's sonnets 51

Style 60 Shakespeare's style 60

Influence 64 Shakespeare's influence 64

Critical reputation 69 Shakespeare's reputation 69 Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 77

Speculation about Shakespeare 86 Shakespeare authorship question 86 Shakespeare's religion 125 Sexuality of William Shakespeare 130 134

List of works 142 List of Shakespeare's works 142 Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 151 155 156 Shakespearean 158 159 References Article Sources and Contributors 164 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 168 Article Licenses License 170 Introduction 1

Introduction

Note. This book is based on the Wikipedia article, "William Shakespeare." The supporting articles are those referenced as major expansions of selected sections. 2

Main article

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

The , artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, .

Born baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown) Stratford-upon-Avon, ,

Died 23 April 1616 (aged 52) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Occupation Playwright, poet,

Literary movement English

Spouse(s) Anne Hathaway (m.Ä1582Ä1616)

Children Judith Quiney

Signature

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616)[a] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[1] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".[2] [b] His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays,[c] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[3] Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a called the 's Men, later known William Shakespeare 3

as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.[4] Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.[5] [d] His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. He then wrote mainly until about 1608, including , King , and , considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First , a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "".[6] In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Life

Early life William Shakespeare was the son of , a successful glover and alderman originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.[7] He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised on 26 April 1564. His actual birthdate is unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George's Day.[8] This date, which can be traced back to an eighteenth-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616.[9] He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.[10] Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare may have been educated at the King's New School in Stratford,[11] a free school chartered in 1553,[12] about a quarter of a mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the , but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England,[13] and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. Two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds the next day as surety that there were no impediments to the marriage.[14] The couple may have arranged the ceremony in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times.[15] Anne's pregnancy could John Shakespeare's house, believed to be Shakespeare's birthplace, in Stratford-upon-Avon. have been the reason for this. Six months after the marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, who was baptised on 26 May 1583.[16] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised on 2 February 1585.[17] Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried on 11 August 1596.[18]

After the birth of the twins, there are few historical traces of Shakespeare until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. Because of this gap, scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost William Shakespeare 4

years".[19] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, ShakespeareÅs first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching.[20] Another eighteenth-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.[21] reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.[22] Some twentieth-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.[23] No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death and the name Shakeshafte was common in the Lancashire area.[24]

London and theatrical career

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts..."

[25] , Act II, Scene 7, 139Ä42.

It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[26] He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene: ...there is an , beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.[27] Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words,[28] but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers, such as , and Greene himself.[29] The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from ShakespeareÅs Henry VI, part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as GreeneÅs target.[30] GreeneÅs attack is the first recorded mention of ShakespeareÅs career in . Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid- to just before GreeneÅs remarks.[31] From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London.[32] After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.[33] In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the Thames, which they called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man.[34] In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, , and in 1605, he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.[35] Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages.[36] Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of 's Works names him on the cast lists for (1598) and Sejanus, His Fall (1603).[37] The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for JonsonÅs is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end.[38] The of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played.[39] In 1610, of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles.[40] In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the William Shakespeare 5

of Hamlet's father.[41] Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the Chorus in ,[42] though scholars doubt the sources of the information.[43] Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames.[44] He moved across the river to by 1599, the year his company constructed the there.[45] By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs and other headgear.[46]

Later years and death Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death;[47] but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time,[48] and Shakespeare continued to visit London.[47] In 1612 he was called as a witness in a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary.[49] In March 1613 he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory;[50] and from November 1614 he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, .[51] After 1606Ä1607, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613.[52] His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher,[53] who succeeded him as the house playwright for the KingÅs Men.[54] Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616[55] and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607,[56] and Judith had married , a vintner, two months before ShakespeareÅs death.[57] In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna.[58] The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body".[59] The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying.[60] The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending ShakespeareÅs direct line.[61] Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically.[62] He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my ", a bequest that has led to much speculation.[63] Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.[64] Shakespeare's funerary monument in Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after Stratford-upon-Avon. his death.[65] The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008:[66] William Shakespeare 6

Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones, And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.[67] Sometime before 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory on the north wall, with a half-effigy of him in the act of writing. Its plaque compares him to , Socrates, and .[68] In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published.[69] Shakespeare's grave. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the world, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poet's Corner in .

Plays Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics agree that Shakespeare did the same, mostly early and late in his career.[70] Some attributions, such as Andronicus and the early history plays, remain controversial, while and the lost Cardenio have well-attested contemporary documentation. Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the plays were revised by other writers after their original composition. The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early during a vogue for historical . Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date, however,[71] and studies of the texts suggest that , , The Taming of the and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to ShakespeareÅs earliest period.[72] His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of 's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland,[73] dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty.[74] The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca.[75] The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk story.[76] Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of rape,[77] the Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics and directors.[78] Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies.[79] A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, magic, and comic lowlife scenes.[80] Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of , contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender , which reflects Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences.[81] The wit and wordplay of [82] , Titania and with Dancing. About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like By , c. 1786. Tate Britain. It, and the lively merrymaking of complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies.[83] After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between William Shakespeare 7

comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work.[84] This period begins and ends with two tragedies: and , the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death;[85] and Julius CaesarÇbased on Sir 's 1579 translation of 's Parallel LivesÇwhich introduced a new kind of drama.[86] According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each other".[87] In the early , Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays" , and , and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies.[88] Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy "To be or not to be; that is the question".[89] Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, and , are undone by hasty errors of judgement.[90] Hamlet, , Marcellus, and the Ghost of Hamlet's Father. Henry Fuseli, 1780Ä5. The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or Kunsthaus ZÅrich. flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves.[91] In Othello, the villain stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him.[92] In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the murder of his daughter and the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester. According to the critic Frank Kermode, "the play offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty".[93] In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies,[94] uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, , to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn.[95] In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and and , contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot.[96]

In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: , The Winter's Tale and , as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors.[97] Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day.[98] Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably with John Fletcher.[99]

Performances It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes.[100] After the plagues of 1592Ä3, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in , north of the Thames.[101] Londoners flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, "Let but come, Hal, Poins, the rest...and you scarce shall have a room".[102] When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark.[103] The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.[104] William Shakespeare 8

After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new King James. Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of .[105] After 1608, they performed at the indoor during the winter and the Globe during the summer.[106] The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged , allowed Shakespeare to introduce more The reconstructed Globe Theatre, London. elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The fall on their knees."[107]

The actors in Shakespeare's company included the famous , , and . Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.[108] The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in and in , among other characters.[109] He was replaced around the turn of the sixteenth century by Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the in King Lear.[110] In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony".[111] On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision.[111]

Textual sources

In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare's friends from the King's Men, published the First Folio, a collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It contained 36 texts, including 18 printed for the first time.[112] Many of the plays had already appeared in quarto versionsÇflimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves.[113] No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies".[114] Alfred Pollard termed some of them "bad " because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory.[115] Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the other. The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare's own papers.[116] In some cases, for example Hamlet, and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern additions do conflate them, the 1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto, that prints them both, arguing Title page of the First Folio, 1623. Copper that they cannot be conflated without confusion.[117] engraving of Shakespeare by .

Poems William Shakespeare 9

In 1593 and 1594, when the were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and . He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin.[118] Influenced by 's ,[119] the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust.[120] Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects.[121] and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in , published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission.[122]

Sonnets

Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership.[123] Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends".[124] Few analysts believe that the published collection follows Shakespeare's intended sequence.[125] He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the ""), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth"). It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed that with the sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart".[126] The 1609 edition was dedicated to a "Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of the poems. It Title page from 1609 edition of Shake-Speares Sonnets. is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, , whose initials appear at the foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication.[127] Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual , procreation, death, and time.[128]

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate..."

[129] Lines from Shakespeare's .

The production of Shakespeare's Sonnets was in some way influenced by the Italian sonnet: it was popularised by Dante and and refined in Spain and by DuBellay and Ronsard.[130] Shakespeare probably had access to these last two authors, and read English poets as and John Davies.[130] The French and Italian poets gave preference to the Italian form of sonnetÇtwo groups of four lines, or quatrains (always rhymed a-b-b-a a-b-b-a) followed by two groups of three lines, or tercets (variously rhymed c-c-d e-e-d or c-c-d e-d-e)Çwhich created a sonorous music in the vowel rich Romance languages, but in Shakespeare it is artificial and monotonous for the English language. To overcome this problem derived from the difference of language, Shakespeare chose to follow the idiomatic rhyme scheme used by in his Astrophel and Stella (published posthumously in 1591), William Shakespeare 10

where the rhymes are interlaced in two pairs of couplets to make the quatrain.[130]

Style Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama.[131] The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetoricalÇwritten for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.[132] Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, RichardÅs vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays.[133] No single play marks a change from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles.[134] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself. Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony.[135] Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius by William Blake, 1795, Tate Britain, is an Caesar and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the illustration of two similes in Macbeth: "And pity, [136] turmoil in Hamlet's mind: like a naked new-born babe, / Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd / Upon the sightless Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting couriers of the air". That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. RashlyÄ And prais'd be rashness for itÄlet us know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well... Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4Ä8[136] After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical".[137] In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length.[138] In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35Ä38); "...pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air..." (1.7.21Ä25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense.[138] The late romances, with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity.[139] Shakespeare's poetic genius was allied with a practical sense of the theatre.[140] Like all playwrights of the time, Shakespeare dramatised stories from sources such as Petrarch and Holinshed.[141] He reshaped each plot to create William Shakespeare 11

several centres of interest and show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama.[142] As ShakespeareÅs mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays, however. In his late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.[143]

Influence

Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre.[144] Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy.[145] Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore characters' minds.[146] His work heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse from Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes."[147]

Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. The American novelist Herman Melville's soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed [148] Head. By Henry Fuseli, 1793Ä94. Folger Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King Lear. Scholars Shakespeare Library, Washington. have identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare's works. These include two operas by Giuseppe Verdi, and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares with that of the source plays.[149] Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even translated Macbeth into German.[150] The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.

In Shakespeare's day, English grammar and spelling were less standardised than they are now, and his use of language helped shape modern English.[151] quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type.[152] Expressions such as "with bated breath" (Merchant of Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech.[153]

Critical reputation

"He was not of an age, but for all time."

[154] Ben Jonson

Shakespeare was never revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise.[155] In 1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English writers as "the most excellent" in both comedy and tragedy.[156] And the authors of the at St John's College, , numbered him with Chaucer, Gower and Spenser.[157] In the First Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage", though he had remarked elsewhere that "Shakespeare wanted art". He was also recognised highly by James I by making them his 'Kings Men'.[158] William Shakespeare 12

Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the seventeenth century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson.[159] Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare".[160] For several decades, Rymer's view held sway; but during the eighteenth century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in 1765 and in 1790, added to his growing reputation.[161] By 1800, he was firmly enshrined as the national poet.[162] In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him were the writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and .[163] (detail). By John Everett Millais, 1851Ä52. Tate Britain. During the Romantic era, Shakespeare was praised by the poet and literary philosopher ; and the critic August Wilhelm Schlegel translated his plays in the spirit of German .[164] In the nineteenth century, critical admiration for Shakespeare's genius often bordered on adulation.[165] "That King Shakespeare," the essayist wrote in 1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible".[166] The Victorians produced his plays as lavish spectacles on a grand scale.[167] The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as "bardolatry". He claimed that the new naturalism of Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.[168]

The modernist revolution in the arts during the early twentieth century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the avant garde. The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. The poet and critic T. S. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made him truly modern.[169] Eliot, along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the 1950s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for "post-modern" studies of Shakespeare.[170] By the eighties, Shakespeare studies were open to movements such as structuralism, , New Historicism, African American studies, and queer studies.[171] [172]

Speculation about Shakespeare

Authorship Around 150 years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to emerge about the authorship of the works attributed to him.[173] Proposed alternative candidates include , Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.[174] Several "group theories" have also been proposed.[175] Only a small minority of academics believe there is reason to question the traditional attribution,[176] but interest in the subject, particularly the Oxfordian theory, continues into the 21st century.[177] William Shakespeare 13

Religion Some scholars claim that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a time when Catholic practice was against the law.[178] Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. The document is now lost, however, and scholars differ on its authenticity.[179] In 1591, the authorities reported that John had missed church "for fear of process for debt", a common Catholic excuse.[180] In 1606, William's daughter Susanna was listed among those who failed to attend Easter communion in Stratford.[180] Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove either way.[181]

Sexuality Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May 1583. However, over the centuries readers have pointed to Shakespeare's sonnets as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than sexual love.[182] At the same time, the twenty-six so-called "Dark Lady" sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.[183]

Portraiture There is no written description of Shakespeare's physical appearance and no evidence that he ever commissioned a portrait, so the Droeshout engraving, which Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness,[184] and his Stratford monument provide the best evidence of his appearance. From the eighteenth century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare portraits fueled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare. That demand also led to the production of several fake portraits, as well as misattributions, repaintings and relabelling of portraits of other people.[185] [186]

List of works

Classification of the plays

Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed below according to their folio classification as comedies, histories and tragedies.[187] Two plays not included in the First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now accepted as part of the canon, with scholars agreed that Shakespeare made a major contribution to their composition.[188] No Shakespearean poems were included in the First Folio.

In the late nineteenth century, classified four of the late comedies as romances, and though many scholars prefer to call them tragicomedies, his term is often used.[189] These plays and the The Plays of William Shakespeare. By Sir John Gilbert, 1849. associated Two Noble Kinsmen are marked with an asterisk (*) below. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem plays" to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet.[190] "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays."[191] The term, much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a tragedy.[192] The other problem plays are marked below with a double dagger (Å). William Shakespeare 14

Plays thought to be only partly written by Shakespeare are marked with a dagger (É) below. Other works occasionally attributed to him are listed as apocrypha.

Works

Comedies Histories Tragedies Ç All's Well That Ends WellÑ Ç Ç Romeo and Juliet Ç As You Like It Ç Richard II Ç Coriolanus Ç The Comedy of Errors Ç Henry IV, part 1 Ç Titus AndronicusÉ Ç Love's Labour's Lost Ç Henry IV, part 2 Ç Timon of AthensÉ Ç Measure for MeasureÑ Ç Henry V Ç Julius Caesar Ç The Merchant of Venice Ç Henry VI, part 1É Ç MacbethÉ Ç The Merry Wives of Windsor Ç Henry VI, part 2 Ç Hamlet Ç A Midsummer Night's Dream Ç Henry VI, part 3 Ç Troilus and CressidaÑ Ç Much Ado About Nothing Ç Richard III Ç King Lear Ç Pericles, Prince of Tyre*É Ç Henry VIIIÉ Ç The Taming of the Shrew Ç Othello Ç The Tempest* Ç Ç Twelfth Night Ç Cymbeline* Ç The Two Gentlemen of Verona Ç The Two Noble Kinsmen*É Ç The Winter's Tale*

Poems Lost plays Apocrypha Ç Shakespeare's Sonnets Ç Love's Labour's Won Ç Ç Venus and Adonis Ç CardenioÉ Ç The Birth of Ç The Rape of Lucrece Ç Ç The Passionate Pilgrim[e] Ç The London Prodigal Ç The Phoenix and the Turtle Ç Ç A Lover's Complaint Ç The Second Maiden's Tragedy Ç Sir Ç Ç Ç Edward III Ç Sir

See also Ç Shakespearean romances Ç World Ç Wikipedia Books: William Shakespeare

Notes Ç a. Ä Dates follow the Julian calendar, used in England throughout Shakespeare's lifespan. Under the Gregorian calendar, adopted in Catholic countries in 1582, Shakespeare died on 3 May.[193] Ç b. ÄThe "national cult" of Shakespeare, and the "bard" identification, dates from September 1769, when the actor organised a week-long carnival at Stratford to mark the town council awarding him the freedom of the town. In addition to presenting the town with a statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the "matchless Bard".[194] William Shakespeare 15

Ç c. Ä The exact figures are unknown. See Shakespeare's collaborations and Shakespeare Apocrypha for further details. Ç d. Ä Individual play dates and precise writing span are unknown. See Chronology of Shakespeare's plays for further details. Ç e. Ä The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name in 1599 without his permission, includes early versions of two of his sonnets, three extracts from Love's Labour's Lost, several poems known to be by other poets, and eleven poems of unknown authorship for which the attribution to Shakespeare has not been disproved.[195]

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External links Ç William Shakespeare - Digital Collection [202] Ç The Internet Shakespeare Editions [203] Ç Open Shakespeare (complete works, search engine, stats and more all as open content/open source) [204] Ç Open Source Shakespeare (complete works, with search engine and concordance) [205] Ç Shakespeare's Will [206] from The National Archives Ç "William Shakespeare" [207]. Find a Grave. Ç Free scores by William Shakespeare in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

Related information Authority control: PND: 118613723 [208] | LCCN: n78095332 [209] | VIAF: 96994048 [210]

References [1] Greenblatt 2005, 11; Bevington 2002, 1Ä3; Wells 1997, 399. [2] Dobson 1992, 185Ä186 [3] Craig 2003, 3. [4] Shapiro 2005, xviiÄxviii; Schoenbaum 1991, 41, 66, 397Ä98, 402, 409; Taylor 1990, 145, 210Ä23, 261Ä5 [5] Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 270Ä71; Taylor 1987, 109Ä134. [6] Bertolini 1993, 119. [7] Schoenbaum 1987, 14Ä22. [8] Schoenbaum 1987, 24Ä6. [9] Schoenbaum 1987, 24, 296; Honan 1998, 15Ä16. [10] Schoenbaum 1987, 23Ä24. [11] Schoenbaum 1987, 62Ä63; Ackroyd 2006, 53; Wells et al. 2005, xvÄxvi [12] Baldwin 1944, 464. [13] Baldwin 1944, 164Ä84; Cressy 1975, 28, 29. [14] Schoenbaum 1987, 77Ä78. [15] Wood 2003, 84; Schoenbaum 1987, 78Ä79. [16] Schoenbaum 1987, 93. [17] Schoenbaum 1987, 94. [18] Schoenbaum 1987, 224. [19] Schoenbaum 1987, 95. [20] Schoenbaum 1987, 97Ä108; Rowe 1709. [21] Schoenbaum 1987, 144Ä45. [22] Schoenbaum 1987, 110Ä11. [23] Honigmann 1999, 1; Wells et al. 2005, xvii [24] Honigmann 1999, 95Ä117; Wood 2003, 97Ä109. [25] Wells et al. 2005, 666 [26] Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 287, 292 [27] Greenblatt 2005, 213. [28] Greenblatt 2005, 213; Schoenbaum 1987, 153. [29] Ackroyd 2006, 176. [30] Schoenbaum 1987, 151Ä52. [31] Wells 2006, 28; Schoenbaum 1987, 144Ä46; Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 59. [32] Schoenbaum 1987, 184. [33] Chambers 1923, 208Ä209. [34] Chambers 1930, Vol. 2: 67Ä71. [35] Bentley 1961, 36. [36] Schoenbaum 1987, 188; Kastan 1999, 37; Knutson 2001, 17 [37] Adams 1923, 275 William Shakespeare 21

[38] Wells 2006, 28. [39] Schoenbaum 1987, 200. [40] Schoenbaum 1987, 200Ä201. [41] Rowe 1709. [42] Ackroyd 2006, 357; Wells et al. 2005, xxii [43] Schoenbaum 1987, 202Ä3. [44] Honan 1998, 121. [45] Shapiro 2005, 122. [46] Honan 1998, 325; Greenblatt 2005, 405. [47] Ackroyd 2006, 476. [48] Honan 1998, 382Ä83. [49] Honan 1998, 326; Ackroyd 2006, 462Ä464. [50] Schoenbaum 1987, 272Ä274. [51] Honan 1998, 387. [52] Schoenbaum 1987, 279. [53] Honan 1998, 375Ä78. [54] Schoenbaum 1987, 276. [55] Schoenbaum 1987, 25, 296. [56] Schoenbaum 1987, 287. [57] Schoenbaum 1987, 292, 294. [58] Schoenbaum 1987, 304. [59] Honan 1998, 395Ä96. [60] Chambers 1930, Vol. 2: 8, 11, 104; Schoenbaum 1987, 296. [61] Chambers 1930, Vol. 2: 7, 9, 13; Schoenbaum 1987, 289, 318Ä19. [62] Charles Knight, 1842, in his notes on Twelfth Night, quoted in Schoenbaum 1991, 275. [63] Ackroyd 2006, 483; Frye 2005, 16; Greenblatt 2005, 145Ä6. [64] Schoenbaum 1987, 301Ä3. [65] Schoenbaum 1987, 306Ä07; Wells et al. 2005, xviii

[66] "Bard's 'cursed' tomb is revamped" (http:/ / news. . co. uk/ 2/ hi/ uk_news/ england/ coventry_warwickshire/ 7422986. stm), BBC News, 28 May 2008, accessed 23 April 2010. [67] Schoenbaum 1987, 306. [68] Schoenbaum 1987, 308Ä10. [69] National Portrait Gallery, Searching for Shakespeare, NPG publications, 2006 [70] Thomson, Peter, "Conventions of Playwriting". in Wells & Orlin 2003, 49. [71] Frye 2005, 9; Honan 1998, 166. [72] Schoenbaum 1987, 159Ä61; Frye 2005, 9. [73] Dutton & Howard 2003, 147. [74] Ribner 2005, 154Ä155. [75] Frye 2005, 105; Ribner 2005, 67; Cheney 2004, 100. [76] Honan 1998, 136; Schoenbaum 1987, 166. [77] Frye 2005, 91; Honan 1998, 116Ä117; Werner 2001, 96Ä100. [78] Friedman 2006, 159. [79] Ackroyd 2006, 235. [80] Wood 2003, 161Ä162. [81] Wood 2003, 205Ä206; Honan 1998, 258. [82] Ackroyd 2006, 359. [83] Ackroyd 2006, 362Ä383. [84] Shapiro 2005, 150; Gibbons 1993, 1; Ackroyd 2006, 356. [85] Wood 2003, 161; Honan 1998, 206. [86] Ackroyd 2006, 353, 358; Shapiro 2005, 151Ä153. [87] Shapiro 2005, 151. [88] Bradley 1991, 85; Muir 2005, 12Ä16. [89] Bradley 1991, 94. [90] Bradley 1991, 86. [91] Bradley 1991, 40, 48. [92] Bradley 1991, 42, 169, 195; Greenblatt 2005, 304. [93] Bradley 1991, 226; Ackroyd 2006, 423; Kermode 2004, 141Ä2. [94] McDonald 2006, 43Ä46. [95] Bradley 1991, 306. William Shakespeare 22

[96] Ackroyd 2006, 444; McDonald 2006, 69Ä70; Eliot 1934, 59. [97] Dowden 1881, 57. [98] Dowden 1881, 60; Frye 2005, 123; McDonald 2006, 15. [99] Wells et al. 2005, 1247, 1279 [100] Wells et al. 2005, xx [101] Wells et al. 2005, xxi [102] Shapiro 2005, 16. [103] Foakes 1990, 6; Shapiro 2005, 125Ä31. [104] Foakes 1990, 6; Nagler 1958, 7; Shapiro 2005, 131Ä2. [105] Wells et al. 2005, xxii [106] Foakes 1990, 33. [107] Ackroyd 2006, 454; Holland 2000, xli. [108] Ringler 1997, 127. [109] Schoenbaum 1987, 210; Chambers 1930, Vol. 1: 341. [110] Shapiro 2005, 247Ä9. [111] Wells et al. 2005, 1247 [112] Wells et al. 2005, xxxvii [113] Wells et al. 2005, xxxiv [114] Pollard 1909, xi. [115] Wells et al. 2005, xxxiv; Pollard 1909, xi; Maguire 1996, 28. [116] Bowers 1955, 8Ä10; Wells et al. 2005, xxxivÄxxxv [117] Wells et al. 2005, 909, 1153 [118] Rowe 2006, 21. [119] Frye 2005, 288. [120] Rowe 2006, 3, 21. [121] Rowe 2006, 1; Jackson 2004, 267Ä294; Honan 1998, 289. [122] Rowe 2006, 1; Honan 1998, 289; Schoenbaum 1987, 327. [123] Wood 2003, 178; Schoenbaum 1987, 180. [124] Honan 1998, 180. [125] Schoenbaum 1987, 268. [126] Honan 1998, 180; Schoenbaum 1987, 180. [127] Schoenbaum 1987, 268Ä269. [128] Wood 2003, 177. [129] Shakespeare 1914.

[130] Bruce MacEvoy. " Shakespeare's Sonnets (http:/ / www. handprint. com/ SC/ SHK/ sonnets. html)", 2005. Retrieved on June 18th. [131] Clemen 2005a, 150. [132] Frye 2005, 105, 177; Clemen 2005b, 29. [133] Brooke, Nicholas, "Language and Speaker in Macbeth", 69; and Bradbrook, M.C., "Shakespeare's Recollection of Marlowe", 195: both in Edwards, Ewbank & Hunter 2004. [134] Clemen 2005b, 63. [135] Frye 2005, 185. [136] Wright 2004, 868. [137] Bradley 1991, 91. [138] McDonald 2006, 42Ä6. [139] McDonald 2006, 36, 39, 75. [140] Gibbons 1993, 4. [141] Gibbons 1993, 1Ä4. [142] Gibbons 1993, 1Ä7, 15. [143] McDonald 2006, 13; Meagher 2003, 358. [144] Chambers 1944, 35. [145] Levenson 2000, 49Ä50. [146] Clemen 1987, 179. [147] Steiner 1996, 145. [148] Bryant 1998, 82. [149] Gross, John, "Shakespeare's Influence" in Wells & Orlin 2003, 641Ä2.. [150] Paraisz 2006, 130. [151] Crystal 2001, 55Ä65, 74. [152] Wain 1975, 194. [153] Johnson 2002, 12; Crystal 2001, 63. William Shakespeare 23

[154] Jonson 1996, 10. [155] Dominik 1988, 9; Grady 2001b, 267. [156] Grady 2001b, 265; Greer 1986, 9. [157] Grady 2001b, 266. [158] Grady 2001b, 266Ä7. [159] Grady 2001b, 269. [160] Dryden 1889, 71. [161] Grady 2001b, 270Ä27; Levin 1986, 217. [162] Dobson 1992 Cited by Grady 2001b, 270. [163] Grady cites Voltaire's Philosophical Letters (1733); Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795); Stendhal's two-part pamphlet Racine et Shakespeare (1823Ä5); and Victor Hugo's prefaces to Cromwell (1827) and William Shakespeare (1864). Grady 2001b, 272Ä274. [164] Levin 1986, 223. [165] Sawyer 2003, 113. [166] Carlyle 1907, 161. [167] Schoch 2002, 58Ä59. [168] Grady 2001b, 276. [169] Grady 2001a, 22Ä6. [170] Grady 2001a, 24. [171] Grady 2001a, 29. [172] Drakakis 1985, 16Ä17, 23Ä25 [173] McMichael & Glenn 1962. [174] Gibson 2005, 48, 72, 124. [175] McMichael & Glenn 1962, p.Ä56.

[176] Did He or DidnÅt He? That Is the Question (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 04/ 22/ education/ edlife/ 22shakespeare-survey. html?_r=1), New York Times, April 22, 2007 [177] Kathman, David, "The Question of Authorship" in Wells & Orlin 2003, 620, 625Ä626; Love 2002, 194Ä209; Schoenbaum 1991, 430Ä40. [178] Pritchard 1979, 3. [179] Wood 2003, 75Ä8; Ackroyd 2006, 22Ä3. [180] Wood 2003, 78; Ackroyd 2006, 416; Schoenbaum 1987, 41Ä2, 286. [181] Wilson 2004, 34; Shapiro 2005, 167. [182] Casey; Pequigney 1985; Evans 1996, 132. [183] Fort 1927, 406Ä414. [184] Tarnya Cooper, Searching for Shakespeare, National Portrait Gallery, Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 48; 57. [185] Pressly, William L. "The of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass." . 1993: pp. 54Ä72. [186] David Piper" O Sweet Mr. Shakespeare I'll Have His Picture: The Changing Image of Shakespeare's Person, 1600-1800, National Portrait Gallery, Pergamon Press, 1980. [187] Boyce 1996, 91, 193, 513.. [188] Kathman, David, "The Question of Authorship" in Wells & Orlin 2003, 629; Boyce 1996, 91. [189] Edwards 1958, 1Ä10; Snyder & Curren-Aquino 2007. [190] Schanzer 1963, 1Ä10. [191] Boas 1896, 345. [192] Schanzer 1963, 1; Bloom 1999, 325Ä380; Berry 2005, 37. [193] Schoenbaum 1987, xv. [194] McIntyre 1999, 412Ä432 [195] Wells et al. 2005, 805

[196] http:/ / www. findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_qa3709/ is_199810/ ai_n8827074

[197] http:/ / shakespeare. palomar. edu/ rowe. htm

[198] http:/ / shakespeare. palomar. edu/ default. htm

[199] http:/ / www. bartleby. com/ 70/ 50018. html

[200] http:/ / www. bartleby. com/ 70/

[201] http:/ / www. canadianshakespeares. ca/ pdf/ sanders_costume. pdf

[202] http:/ / digital. lib. muohio. edu/ shakespeare/

[203] http:/ / ise. uvic. ca/

[204] http:/ / www. openshakespeare. org/

[205] http:/ / www. opensourceshakespeare. org/

[206] http:/ / www. nationalarchives. gov. uk/ dol/ images/ examples/ pdfs/ shakespeare. pdf

[207] http:/ / www. findagrave. com/ cgi-bin/ fg. cgi?page=gr& GRid=1450

[208] http:/ / d-nb. info/ gnd/ 118613723

[209] http:/ / errol. oclc. org/ laf/ n78095332. html William Shakespeare 24

[210] http:/ / viaf. org/ viaf/ 96994048 25

Life

Shakespeare's life

There are few facts known with certainty about William Shakespeare's life and death. The best-documented facts are that Shakespeare was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, 26 April 1564, at age 18 married Anne Hathaway, had three children, and died on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52.

William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery), in the famous Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed.

Early life

William Shakespeare[1] was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small country town. He was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman from Snitterfield, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. They lived on Henley Street, having married around 1557. The date of his birth is not known, but his baptismal record was dated 26 April 1564. This is the first official record of Shakespeare, as birth certificates were not issued in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Because baptisms were normally performed within a few days of birth it is highly likely Shakespeare was born in April 1564, although the The front of the house in Stratford known as long-standing tradition that he was born on 23 April has no historical 'Shakespeare's Birthplace' (although this status is uncertain) basis (baptisms at this time were not invariably performed exactly after birth as is sometimes claimed). Nevertheless, this date provides a convenient symmetry because Shakespeare died on the same day in 1616. It is also the Feast Day of Saint George, the patron saint of England, which might seem appropriate for England's greatest playwright.

Shakespeare's parents had eight children: Joan (born 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (1562Ä1563), William (himself, 1564Ä1616), Gilbert (1566Ä1612), Joan (1569Ä1646), Anne (1571Ä1579), Richard (1574Ä1613), and (1580Ä1607).[2] [3] Shakespeare's life 26

Shakespeare's father, prosperous at the time of William's birth, was prosecuted for participating in the black market in the dealings of wool,[4] and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence pointed to possible Roman Catholic sympathies on both sides of the family.[5]

Education

Shakespeare probably attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford from the age of seven.[6] Edward VI, the king honoured in the school's name, had in the mid-16th century diverted money from the dissolution of the monasteries to endow a network of grammar schools to "propagate good literature... throughout the kingdom", but the school had originally been set up by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a church institution in the town, early in the 15th century.[6] [7] It was further endowed by a Catholic chaplain in 1482. It was free to male Rear view of Shakespeare's House in children in Stratford and it is presumed that the young Shakespeare [8] Stratford-Upon-Avon, now one of the properties attended, although this cannot be confirmed because the school's belonging to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust records have not survived.[6] While the quality of Elizabethan era grammar schools was uneven, the school probably would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literatureÇ"as good a formal literary training as had any of his contemporaries"[9] Çreinforced with frequent use of corporal punishment. As a part of this education, the students would likely have been exposed to Latin plays, in which students performed to better understand the language. One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors, bears similarity to Plautus The Two Menaechmuses, which could well have been performed at the school.[10] There is no evidence that he received a university education.

Schoolmaster tradition The theory that Shakespeare acted as a schoolmaster in Lancashire was proposed by E. A. J. Honigmann in 1985,[11] founded on evidence in the will of a member of the Hoghton family, referring to plays and play-clothes and asking his kinsman Thomas Hesketh to take care of "...William Shakeshaft, now dwelling with me...". The supposed link was John Cottam, Shakespeare's reputed last schoolmaster, who was purported to have recommended the young man. "Shakeshaft" was, however, a common name in Lancashire at the time. A better documented, but still far from conclusive, link was established some twenty years later in Shakespeare's life: in the will of London goldsmith Thomas Savage, Shakespeare's trustee at the Globe Theatre, one of the beneficiaries was Hesketh's widow.[12] [13] Scope for further speculation is offered by records showing that Lord Strange's Men, a company of players linked with Shakespeare's early career in London, regularly performed in the area and would be well known to the Hoghtons and the Heskeths.[14] This would provide a neat explanation of Shakespeare's arrival on the London theatre scene when the troupe returned to the city, but no evidence to support this notion has been found.[15] Ackroyd adds that study of the marginal notes in the Hoghton family copy of 's Chronicles, an important source for Shakespeare's early histories, shows that they were in "probability" in Shakespeare's writing.[16] Shakespeare's life 27

Marriage On 29 November 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford, the 18 year old Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway who was 26. Two neighbours of Hathaway, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony: Hathaway was three months pregnant. On 26 May 1583 Shakespeare's first child, Susanna, was baptised at Stratford. Twin children, a son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptised on 2 February 1585. Hamnet died in 1596, Susanna in 1649 and Judith in 1662. After his marriage, Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London theatrical scene. Indeed, the period from 1585 (when his twin children were born) until 1592 (when Robert Greene called him an "upstart crow") is known as Shakespeare's "lost years" because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London.[17] A number of stories are given to account for his life during this time, including that Shakespeare got in trouble for poaching deer, that he worked as a country school teacher, and that he minded the horses of theatre patrons in London. There is no direct evidence to support any of these stories and they all appeared to have started after Shakespeare's death.[18]

London and theatrical career By 1592, Shakespeare was a playwright in London; he had enough of a reputation for Robert Greene to denounce him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (The italicized line parodies the phrase, "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" which Shakespeare wrote in Henry VI, part 3.) By late 1594, Shakespeare was an actor, writer and part-owner of a playing company, known as the Lord

Chamberlain's Men Ç like others of Shakespeare's signature, from his will the period, the company took its name from its aristocratic sponsor, in this case the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of and of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company and it became known as the King's Men, after the death of their previous sponsor. Shakespeare's writing shows him to indeed be an actor, with many phrases, words, and references to acting, but there isn't an academic approach to the art of theatre.[19]

Despite this lack of academia, Shakespeare long sought the status of a gentleman. His father John, a of Stratford with a wife of good birth, was eligible for a coat of arms and applied to the College of Heralds for one. But his worsening financial status prevented him from obtaining it. The application was successfully renewed in 1596, most probably at the instigation of William himself, as he was the more prosperous at the time. However as an actor he was not eligible and the application still relied on his father's qualifications. The motto on the coat of arms was "Non sanz droict", or "Not without right", showing a certain defensiveness and insecurity on the part of its author; most likely William. The theme of social status and restoration runs deep through the plots of many of his plays, and Shakespeare seems to mock his own longing.[20] Shakespeare's Coat of Arms Shakespeare's life 28

By 1596, Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and by 1598 he appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every Man in His Humour written by Ben Jonson. He is also listed among the actors in Jonson's Sejanus: His Fall. Also by 1598, his name began to appear on the title pages of his plays, presumably as a selling point.

There is a tradition that Shakespeare, in addition to writing many of the plays his company enacted, and being concerned as part-owner of the

Nash's House, Stratford-on-Avon, standing company with business and financial details, continued to act in adjacent to the site of New Place, Shakespeare's various parts, such as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Adam in As You home Like It, and the Chorus in Henry V.[21] He appears to have moved across the River Thames to Southwark sometime around 1599. In 1604, Shakespeare acted as a matchmaker for his landlord's daughter. Legal documents from 1612, when the case was brought to trial, show that in 1604, Shakespeare was a tenant of Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker (a maker of ornamental headdresses) in the northwest of London. Mountjoy's apprentice Stephen Belott wanted to marry Mountjoy's daughter. Shakespeare was enlisted as a go-between, to help negotiate the details of the dowry. On Shakespeare's assurances, the couple married. Eight years later, Belott sued his father-in-law for delivering only part of the dowry. Shakespeare was called to testify, but remembered little of the circumstances. On this case see article 'Bellott v. Mountjoy'.

Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew rich enough during his stay in London years to buy a property in Blackfriars, London and own the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place.

Later years and death

Shakespeare appears to have retired to Stratford in 1613. In the last few weeks of Shakespeare's life, the man who was to marry his younger daughter Judith Ç a tavern-keeper named Thomas Quiney Ç was charged in the local church court with "fornication". A woman named Margaret Wheeler had given birth to a child and claimed it was Quiney's; she and the child both died soon after. Quiney was thereafter disgraced, and Shakespeare revised his will to ensure that Judith's interest in his estate was protected from possible malfeasance on Quiney's part.

Shakespeare's funerary monument He died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52.[22] He was married to Anne Hathaway until his death and was survived by two daughters, Susanna and Judith. His son Hamnet had died in 1596. Susanna married Dr John Hall, and his last surviving descendant was their daughter Elizabeth Hall. There are no direct descendants of the poet and playwright alive today, but the diarist John Aubrey recalls in his Brief Lives that Shakespeare was the real father of the poet , his godson. Davenant was brought up as the son of a vintner at the Crown Tavern in Oxford, on the road between London and Stratford, where Shakespeare would stay when travelling between his home and the capital.[23] Shakespeare's life 29

Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honour of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for â440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). A monument on the wall nearest his grave, probably placed by his family,[24] features a bust showing Shakespeare posed in the act of writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust. He is believed to have written the epitaph on his tombstone.[25] Shakespeare's gravestone

Good friend, for ' sake forbear, Ä To dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.Å

Shakespeare genealogy

Richard Shakespeare John Arden

William Anne Joan William Shakespeare Hathaway Shakespeare Hart

John Susanna Hamnet Judith Thomas Hall Shakespeare Shakespeare Shakespeare Quiney

Elizabeth Barnard

See also Ç William Shakespeare Ç Shakespeare's reputation Ç Shakespeare's religion Ç Sexuality of William Shakespeare Ç Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare) Ç Shakespeare's England Ç Globe Theatre Ç Shakespeare's Way Shakespeare's life 30

External links Ç The Shakespeare Birthplace trust [26] has an excellent discussion of Shakespeare's life on its website. Ç A Warwickshire Lad [27] by George Madden Martin Ç The Internet Shakespeare Editions [28] provides an extensive section on his life and times. Ç The Stratford Guide [29] A visitor Guide to Stratford Upon Avon. Has sections on Shakespeare's life, Attractions in Stratford and much more. Ç The Shakespeare Resource Center [30] A directory of Web resources for online Shakespearean study. Includes a Shakespeare biography, works timeline, play synopses, and language resources. Ç Timeline [31] of Shakespeare's life with links to pictures of documents along with historical events. This is part of the interactive PBS web site with other resources as background for the documentary In Search of Shakespeare [32] with Michael Wood from the BBC. Ç The Shakespeare Paper Trail [33] with Documenting the Early Years [34] and Documenting the Later Years [35] are two sets of interactive articles written by Michael Wood to go with his BBC documentary In Search of Shakespeare [36] Ç Shakespeare's family tree [37] Ç The Literature Network [38] discusses Shakespeare's biography, his plays, and the history of them. There are lists of all of his plays and the order in which they were written. Ç Encyclopedia Britannica's Guide to Shakespeare [39] A comprehensive resource that includes historical information and background on Shakespeare's plays and in depth literary critiques.

References [1] also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper and Shake-speare, as spelling in Elizabethan times was not fixed and absolute. See Greg, Walter Wilson, "Old Plays and New Editions," The Library NS 3 (1902): 417.

[2] A Shakespeare Genealogy (http:/ / shakespeare. palomar. edu/ timeline/ genealogy. htm) [3] Holland, Peter (September 2008). "Shakespeare, William (1564Ä1616". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/58849.

[4] Michael Wood Shows these recently discovered documents along with others in the PBS show In Search of Shakespeare (http:/ / www. pbs.

org/ shakespeare/ ) and on DVD with the same title B00019JRFY (2004)

[5] For a more complete discussion of this see Ä| (1913). "The Religion of Shakespeare" (http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/

Wikisource:catholic_encyclopedia_(1913)/ the_religion_of_shakespeare). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . [6] 'Will in the World' by , Quebecor World, Fairfield; United States, 2004, p. 25 [7] Bate, Jonathan (2008). "Stratford Grammar". Soul of the Age: the life, mind and world of William Shakespeare. London: Viking. p.Ä81. ISBNÄ978-0-670-91482-1. [8] Honan, Park. Shakespeare: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 43.

[9] Baldwin, William (1944). William Shakespeare's small Latine and lesse Greeke (http:/ / durer. press. illinois. edu/ baldwin/ vol. 2/ html/ 663. html). 2. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. p.Ä663. OCLCÄ503305074. . "... he had as good a formal literary training as had any of his contemporaries. At least, no miracles are required to account for such knowledge and techniques as [Shakespeare] exhibits. Stratford Grammar School will furnish all that is required." [10] Greenblatt (2004: 27-8) [11] Honigmann, E. A. J. (1985). Shakespeare: the lost years. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. pp.Ä41Ä48. ISBNÄ0719017432. [12] Hotson, Leslie (1949). Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated. New York: Oxford University Press. OCLCÄ531743921., quoted in Schoenbaum, S. (1991). Shakespeare's Lives. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p.Ä544. ISBNÄ0-19-818618-5. [13] Michael Wood "In Search of Shakespeare" (2003) BBC Books, ISBN 0-563-52141-4 p.80 [14] Chambers, E.K (1944). Shakespearean gleanings. OCLCÄ463278779., quoted in Schoenbaum (1991: 535Ä6) [15] Schoenbaum (1991: 535Ä6) [16] Ackroyd, Peter (2005). Shakespeare the Biography. London: Chatto and Windus. p.Ä76. ISBNÄ1-856-19726-3. [17] Shakespeare: The Lost Years by E. A. J. Honigmann, Manchester University Press; 2nd edition, 1999, page 1.

[18] "The Lost Years," (http:/ / shakespeare. palomar. edu/ timeline/ lostyears. htm) Shakespeare Time line, accessed 7 November 2006. [19] Neilson, William (1915). "The Baconian question". The Facts about Shakespeare. New York: Macmillan. pp.Ä164Ä165. OCLCÄ358453. "Records amply establish the identity between Shakespeare the actor and the writer. Ö The extent of observation and knowledge in the plays is, indeed, remarkable but it is not accompanied by any indication of thorough scholarship, or a detailed connection with any profession outside of the theater..." Shakespeare's life 31

[20] 'Will in the World' by Stephen Greenblatt, Quebecor World, Fairfield, United States, 2004

[21] Article on Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (http:/ / www. zeenews. com/ articles. ?aid=367150& sid=ZNS) Zee News on Shakespeare, accessed 23 January 2007. [22] His age and the date are inscribed in Latin on his funerary monument: AETATIS 53 DIE 23 APR [23] Aubrey, John (1680). "William Davenant, Knight". Brief Lives. London. [24] Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the Shakespeare Myth by Graham Holderness, Univ of Hertfordshire Press, 2001, pages 152-54.

[25] Dowdall, John (1693). Traditionary anecdotes of Shakespeare: Collected in Warwickshire, in the year MDCXCIII (http:/ / books. google.

com/ books?id=OwpJAAAAIAAJ& printsec=frontcover& dq=shakespeare+ john+ dowdall& ei=T_7QSJaSDqG2jgGFktzmAw& client=firefox-a#PPA11,M1) (quoted in William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life by ed.). .

[26] http:/ / www. shakespeare. org. uk/ content/ view/ 12/ 12

[27] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 27187

[28] http:/ / ise. uvic. ca/ Library/ SLT/ index. html

[29] http:/ / www. theeasyguide. co. uk

[30] http:/ / www. bardweb. net/ man. html

[31] http:/ / www. pbs. org/ shakespeare/ events/ list. html

[32] http:/ / www. pbs. org/ shakespeare/

[33] http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ history/ british/ tudors/ #shakespeare

[34] http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ history/ british/ tudors/ shakespeare_early_01. shtml

[35] http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ history/ british/ tudors/ shakespeare_later_01. shtml

[36] http:/ / www. bbc. co. uk/ history/ programmes/ archive. shtml#in_search_of_shakespeare

[37] http:/ / www. shakespeare-w. com/ english/ shakespeare/ familytree. html

[38] http:/ / www. online-literature. com/ shakespeare

[39] http:/ / search. eb. com/ shakespeare/ article-232338 32

Plays

Shakespeare's plays

William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the 38 plays are divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy; they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being continually performed all around the world.

Among the most famous and critically acclaimed of Shakespeare's plays are Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Othello, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of Shakespeare, containing scenes and Venice and Richard III. characters from several of William Shakespeare's plays. Many of his plays appeared in print as a series of quartos, but approximately half of them remained unpublished until 1623, when the posthumous First Folio was published. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the categories used in the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays "problem plays" which elude easy categorization, or perhaps purposefully break generic conventions, and has introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies.

Theatre in Shakespeare's time When Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s, dramatists writing for London's new commercial playhouses (such as The Curtain) were combining two different strands of dramatic tradition into a new and distinctively Elizabethan synthesis. Previously, the most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays, which blend piety with farce and slapstick, were allegories in which the characters are personified of moral attributes who validate the virtues of a Godly life by prompting the protagonist to choose such a life over Evil. The characters and plot situations are largely symbolic rather than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have seen this type of play (along with, perhaps, mystery plays and miracle plays).[1] The other strand of dramatic tradition was classical aesthetic theory. This theory derived ultimately from Aristotle; in Renaissance England, however, the theory was better known through its Roman interpreters and practitioners. At the universities, plays were staged in a more academic form as Roman closet dramas. These plays, usually performed in Latin, adhered to classical ideas of unity and decorum, but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches over physical action. Shakespeare would have learned this theory at grammar school, where Plautus and especially Terence were key parts of the curriculum[2] and were taught in editions with lengthy theoretical introductions.[3] Shakespeare's plays 33

Theatre and stage setup Archaeological excavations on the foundations of and the Globe in the late twentieth century[4] showed that all London English Renaissance theatres were built around similar general plans. Despite individual differences, the public theatres were three stories high, and built around an open space at the centre. Usually polygonal in plan to give an overall rounded effect, three levels of inward-facing galleries overlooked the open centre into which jutted the stageÇessentially a platform surrounded on three sides by the audience, only the rear being restricted for the entrances and exits of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind the stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo and Juliet, or as a position for an actor to harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar. Usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were vulnerable to fire, and gradually were replaced (when necessary) with stronger structures. When the Globe burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a tile roof. A different model was developed with the Blackfriars Theatre, which came into regular use on a long term basis in 1599. The Blackfriars was small in comparison to the earlier theatres, and roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not.

Elizabethan Shakespeare For Shakespeare as he began to write, both traditions were alive; they were, moreover, filtered through the recent success of the University Wits on the London stage. By the late 16th century, the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as the English Renaissance took hold, and playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe revolutionised theatre. Their plays blended the old morality drama with classical theory to produce a new secular form.[5] The new drama combined the rhetorical complexity of the academic play with the bawdy energy of the moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned with simple allegory. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare continued these artistic strategies,[6] creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also explored and debated the basic elements of what it means to be human. What Marlowe and Kyd did for tragedy, and , among others, did for comedy: they offered models of witty dialogue, romantic action, and exotic, often location that formed the basis of Shakespeare's comedic mode throughout his career. Shakespeare's Elizabethan tragedies (including the history plays with tragic designs, such as Richard II) demonstrate his relative independence from classical models. He takes from Aristotle and Horace the notion of decorum; with few exceptions, he focuses on high-born characters and national affairs as the subject of tragedy. In most other respects, though, the early tragedies are far closer to the spirit and style of moralities. They are episodic, packed with character and incident; they are loosely unified by a theme or character.[7] In this respect, they reflect clearly the influence of Marlowe, particularly of . Even in his early work, however, Shakespeare generally shows more restraint than Marlowe; he resorts to grandiloquent less frequently, and his attitude towards his heroes is more nuanced, and sometimes more skeptical, than Marlowe's.[8] By the turn of the century, the bombast of Titus Andronicus had vanished, replaced by the subtlety of Hamlet. In comedy, Shakespeare strayed even further from classical models. The Comedy of Errors, an adaptation of Menaechmi, follows the model of new comedy closely. Shakespeare's other Elizabethan comedies are more romantic. Like Lyly, he often makes romantic intrigue (a secondary feature in Latin new comedy) the main plot element;[9] even this romantic plot is sometimes given less attention than witty dialogue, deceit, and jests. The "reform of manners," which Horace considered the main function of comedy,[10] survives in such episodes as the gulling of . Shakespeare's plays 34

Jacobean Shakespeare Shakespeare reached maturity as a dramatist at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and in the first years of the reign of James. In these years, he responded to a deep shift in popular tastes, both in subject matter and approach. At the turn of the decade, he responded to the vogue for dramatic satire initiated by the boy players at Blackfriars and St. Paul's. At the end of the decade, he seems to have attempted to capitalize on the new fashion for tragicomedy,[11] even collaborating with John Fletcher, the writer who had popularized the genre in England. The influence of younger dramatists such as John Marston and Ben Jonson is seen not only in the problem plays, which dramatize intractable human problems of greed and lust, but also in the darker tone of the Jacobean tragedies.[12] The Marlovian, heroic mode of the Elizabethan tragedies is gone, replaced by a darker vision of heroic natures caught in environments of pervasive corruption. As a sharer in both the Globe and in the King's Men, Shakespeare never wrote for the boys' companies; however, his early Jacobean work is markedly influenced by the techniques of the new, satiric dramatists. One play, Troilus and Cressida, may even have been inspired by the War of the Theatres.[13] Shakespeare's final plays hearken back to his Elizabethan comedies in their use of romantic situation and incident.[14] In these plays, however, the sombre elements that are largely glossed over in the earlier plays are brought to the fore and often rendered dramatically vivid. This change is related to the success of tragicomedies such as , although the uncertainty of dates makes the nature and direction of the influence unclear. From the evidence of the title-page to The Two Noble Kinsmen and from textual analysis it is believed by some editors that Shakespeare ended his career in collaboration with Fletcher, who succeeded him as house playwright for the King's Men.[15] These last plays resemble Fletcher's tragicomedies in their attempt to find a comedic mode capable of dramatizing more serious events than had his earlier comedies.

Style During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "drama became the ideal means to capture and convey the diverse interests of the time."[16] Stories of various genres were enacted for audiences consisting of both the wealthy and educated and the poor and illiterate.[16] Shakespeare served his dramatic apprenticeship at the height of the Elizabethan period, in the years following the defeat of the ; he retired at the height of the Jacobean period, not long before the start of the Thirty Years' War. His verse style, his choice of subjects, and his stagecraft all bear the marks of both periods.[17] His style changed not only in accordance with his own tastes and developing mastery, but also in accord with the tastes of the audiences for whom he wrote.[18] While many passages in Shakespeare's plays are written in prose, he almost always wrote a large proportion of his plays and poems in iambic pentameter. In some of his early works (like Romeo and Juliet), he even added punctuation at the end of these iambic pentameter lines to make the rhythm even stronger.[19] He and other dramatists at the time used this form of blank verse for a lot of the dialogue between characters in order to elevate drama to new poetic heights. To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet for suspense.[20] A typical example is provided in Macbeth: as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder Duncan (to the sound of a chiming clock), he says,[21]

Hear it not Duncan; for it is a knell ÄThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.Å

Shakespeare's writing (especially his plays) also feature extensive wordplay in which double entendres and clever rhetorical flourishes are repeatedly used.[22] [23] Humor is a key element in all of Shakespeare's plays. Although a large amount of his comical talent is evident in his comedies, some of the most entertaining scenes and characters are found in tragedies such as Hamlet and histories such as Henry IV, Part 1. Shakespeare's humor was largely influenced by Plautus.[24] Shakespeare's plays 35

Soliloquies in plays Shakespeare's plays are also notable for their use of soliloquies, in which a character makes a speech to him- or herself so the audience can understand the character's inner motivations and conflict.[25] In his book Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies, James Hirsh defines the convention of a Shakespearian soliloquy in early modern drama. He argues that when a person on the stage speaks to himself or herself, they are characters in a fiction speaking in character; this is an occasion of self-address. Furthermore, Hirsh points out that Shakespearian soliloquies and "asides" are audible in the fiction of the play, bound to be overheard by any other character in the scene unless certain elements confirm that the speech is protected. Therefore, a Renaissance playgoer who was familiar with this dramatic convention would have been alert to Hamlet's expectation that his soliloquy be overheard by the other characters in the scene. Moreover, Hirsh asserts that in soliloquies in other Shakespearian plays, the speaker is entirely in character within the play's fiction. Saying that addressing the audience was outmoded by the time Shakespeare was alive, he "acknowledges few occasions when a Shakespearean speech might involve the audience in recognizing the simultaneous reality of the stage and the world the stage is representing." Other than 29 speeches delivered by choruses or characters who revert to that condition as epilogues "Hirsh recognizes only three instances of audience address in Shakespeare's plays, 'all in very early comedies, in which audience address is introduced specifically to ridicule the practice as antiquated and amateurish.'"[26]

Source material of the plays As was common in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other playwrights and recycled older stories and historical material. His dependence on earlier sources was a natural consequence of the speed at which playwrights of his era wrote; in addition, plays based on already popular stories appear to have been seen as more likely to draw large crowds. There were also aesthetic reasons: Renaissance aesthetic theory took seriously the dictum that tragic plots should be grounded in history. This stricture did not apply to comedy, and those of Shakespeare's plays for which no clear source has been established, such as Love's Labour's Lost and The Tempest, are comedies. Even these plays, however, rely heavily on generic commonplaces. For example, Hamlet (c.1601) may be a reworking of an older, lost play (the so-called Ur-Hamlet),[27] and King Lear is likely an adaptation of an older play, . For plays on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and Greek plays are based on Plutarch's (from the 1579 English translation by Sir Thomas North,[28] and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed's 1587 Chronicles. While there is much dispute about the exact Chronology of Shakespeare plays, as well as the Shakespeare Authorship Question, the plays tend to fall into three main stylistic groupings. The first major grouping of his plays begins with his histories and comedies of the 1590s. Shakespeare's earliest plays tended to be adaptations of other playwright's works and employed blank verse and little variation in rhythm. However, after the plague forced Shakespeare and his company of actors to leave London for periods between 1592 and 1594, Shakespeare began to use rhymed couplets in his plays, along with more dramatic dialogue. These elements showed up in The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Almost all of the plays written after the plague hit London are comedies, perhaps reflecting the public's desire at the time for light-hearted fare. Other comedies from Shakespeare during this period include Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like It. The middle grouping of Shakespeare's plays begins in 1599 with Julius Caesar. For the next few years, Shakespeare would produce his most famous dramas, including Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear. The plays during this period are in many ways the darkest of Shakespeare's career and address issues such as betrayal, murder, lust, power and egoism. The final grouping of plays, called Shakespeare's late romances, include Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. The romances are so called because they bear similarities to medieval romance Shakespeare's plays 36

literature. Among the features of these plays are a redemptive plotline with a happy ending, and magic and other fantastic elements.

Canonical plays The plays are here according to the order in which they are given in the First Folio of 1623. Plays marked with an asterisk (*) are now commonly referred to as the 'romances'. Plays marked with two asterisks (**) are sometimes referred to as the 'problem plays'.

Comedies The Tempest * The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Merry Wives of Windsor Measure for Measure ** The Comedy of Errors Much Ado About Nothing Love's Labour's Lost A Midsummer Night's Dream The Merchant of Venice ** As You Like It The Taming of the Shrew All's Well That Ends Well ** Twelfth Night The Winter's Tale * Pericles, Prince of Tyre * (not included in the First Folio) The Two Noble Kinsmen * (not included in the First Folio) (of doubtful authorship; may have been written in collaboration with John Fletcher)

Histories King John Richard II Henry IV, Part 1 Henry IV, Part 2 Henry V Henry VI, Part 1 Henry VI, Part 2 Henry VI, Part 3 Richard III Henry VIII Shakespeare's plays 37

Tragedies Troilus and Cressida Coriolanus Titus Andronicus Romeo and Juliet Julius Caesar Macbeth Hamlet King Lear Othello Antony and Cleopatra Cymbeline

Dramatic collaborations Like most playwrights of his period, Shakespeare did not always write alone, and a number of his plays were collaborative, although the exact number is open to debate. Some of the following attributions, such as for The Two Noble Kinsmen, have well-attested contemporary documentation; others, such as for Titus Andronicus, remain more controversial and are dependent on linguistic analysis by modern scholars. Ç Cardenio, a lost play; contemporary reports say that Shakespeare collaborated on it with John Fletcher. Ç Cymbeline, in which the Yale edition suggests a collaborator had a hand in the authorship, and some scenes (Act III scene 7 and Act V scene 2) may strike the reader as un-Shakespearian compared with others. Ç Edward III (play), of which Brian Vickers' recent analysis concluded that the play was 40% Shakespeare and 60% Thomas Kyd. Ç Henry VI, Part 1, possibly the work of a team of playwrights, whose identities we can only guess at. Some scholars argue that Shakespeare wrote less than 20% of the text. Ç Henry VIII, generally considered a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Ç Macbeth, may have revised this tragedy in 1615 to incorporate extra musical sequences. Ç Measure for Measure may have undergone a light revision by Thomas Middleton at some point after its original composition. Ç Pericles, Prince of Tyre may include the work of , either as collaborator, reviser, or revisee. Ç Timon of Athens may result from collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton; this might explain its unusual plot and unusually cynical tone. Ç Titus Andronicus may be a collaboration with, or revision by George Peele. Ç The Two Noble Kinsmen, published in quarto in 1654 and attributed to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare; each playwright appears to have written about half of the text Shakespeare's plays 38

Lost plays Ç Love's Labour's Won - a late sixteenth-century writer, Francis Meres, and a scrap of paper (apparently from a bookseller), both list this title among Shakespeare's recent works, but no play of this title has survived. It may have become lost, or it may represent an alternative title of one of the plays listed above, such as Much Ado About Nothing or All's Well That Ends Well. Ç Cardenio - a late play by Shakespeare and Fletcher, referred to in several documents, has not survived. It re-worked a tale in Cervantes' . In 1727, Lewis Theobald produced a play he called Double Falshood, which he claimed to have adapted from three manuscripts of a lost play by Shakespeare that he did not name. Double Falshood does re-work the Cardenio story, and modern scholarship generally agrees that Double Falshood represents all we have of the lost play.

Plays possibly by Shakespeare Note: For a comprehensive account of plays possibly by Shakespeare, see the separate entry on the Shakespeare Apocrypha. Ç (play) - possibly by Shakespeare Ç - a collaborative work by several playwrights, including Shakespeare. There is a "growing scholarly consensus"[29] that Shakespeare was called in to re-write a contentious scene in the play and that "Hand D" in the surviving manuscript is that of Shakespeare himself.[30]

Shakespeare and the textual problem Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson, Shakespeare did not have direct involvement in publishing his plays and produced no overall authoritative version of his plays before he died. As a result, the problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote is a major concern for most modern editions. One of the reasons there are textual problems is that there was no copyright of writings at the time. As a result, Shakespeare and the playing companies he worked with did not distribute scripts of his plays, for fear that the plays would be stolen. This led to bootleg copies of his plays, which were often based on people trying to remember what Shakespeare had actually written. Textual corruptions also stemming from printers' errors, misreadings by compositors or simply wrongly scanned lines from the source material litter the Quartos and the First Folio. Additionally, in an age before standardised spelling, Shakespeare often wrote a word several times in a different spelling, and this may have contributed to some of the transcribers' confusion. Modern editors have the task of reconstructing Shakespeare's original words and expurgating errors as far as possible. In some cases the textual solution presents few difficulties. In the case of Macbeth for example, scholars believe that someone (probably Thomas Middleton) adapted and shortened the original to produce the extant text published in the First Folio, but that remains our only authorised text. In others the text may have become manifestly corrupt or unreliable (Pericles or Timon of Athens) but no competing version exists. The modern editor can only regularise and correct erroneous readings that have survived into the printed versions. The textual problem can, however, become rather complicated. Modern scholarship now believes Shakespeare to have modified his plays through the years, sometimes leading to two existing versions of one play. To provide a modern text in such cases, editors must face the choice between the original first version and the later, revised, usually more theatrical version. In the past editors have resolved this problem by conflating the texts to provide what they believe to be a superior Ur-text, but critics now argue that to provide a conflated text would run contrary to Shakespeare's intentions. In King Lear for example, two independent versions, each with their own textual integrity, exist in the Quarto and the Folio versions. Shakespeare's changes here extend from the merely local to the structural. Hence the Oxford Shakespeare, published in 1986 (second edition 2005), provides two different versions of the play, Shakespeare's plays 39

each with respectable authority. The problem exists with at least four other Shakespearian plays (Henry IV, part 1, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, and Othello).

Performance history

During Shakespeare's lifetime, many of his greatest plays were staged at the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre.[31] [32] Shakespeare's fellow members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men acted in his plays. Among these actors were Richard Burbage (who played the title role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet, Othello, Richard III and King Lear),[33] Richard Cowley (who played Verges in Much Ado About Nothing), William Kempe, (who played Peter in Romeo and Juliet and, possibly, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream) and Henry Condell and John Heminges, are most famous now for collecting and editing the plays of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623).

Shakespeare's plays continued to be staged after his death until the Interregnum (1642Ä1660), when all public stage performances were banned by the Puritan The modern reconstruction of the rulers. After the English Restoration, Shakespeare's plays were performed in Globe Theatre, in London. playhouses with elaborate scenery and staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks. During this time the texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage, an undertaking which has seemed shockingly disrespectful to posterity.

Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in "authentic" historical costumes and sets. The staging of the reported sea fights and barge scene in Antony and Cleopatra was one spectacular example.[34] Too often, the result was a loss of pace. Towards the end of the 19th century, William Poel led a reaction against this heavy style. In a series of "Elizabethan" productions on a thrust stage, he paid fresh attention to the structure of the drama. In the early twentieth century, Harley Granville-Barker directed quarto and folio texts with few cuts,[35] while Edward Gordon Craig and others called for abstract staging. Both approaches have influenced the variety of Shakespearian production styles seen today.[36]

See also Ç William Shakespeare Ç Shakespeare's late romances Ç Chronology of Shakespeare's plays Ç Elizabethan era Ç Globe Theatre Ç List of Shakespearean characters Ç Shakespeare on screen Ç The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) Shakespeare's plays 40

External links Ç William Shakespeare - Digital Collection [202] Ç Complete text of Shakespeare's plays, listed by genre [37] Ç Narrative and Dramatic Sources of all Shakespeare's works [38] Also publication years and chronology of Shakespeare plays Ç The Shakespeare Resource Center [39] A directory of Web resources for online Shakespearean study. Includes play synopses, a works timeline, and language resources.

References [1] Will In The World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, page 34. [2] Baldwin, T. W. Shakspere's Small Latine and Less Greek, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1944), 499-532). [3] Doran, Madeleine, Endeavors of Art (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1954), 160-171. [4] Gurr, pp. 123-31 and 142-6. [5] Bevington, David, From Mankind to Marlowe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965, passim. [6] Shakespeare's Marlowe by Robert A. Logan, Ashgate Publishing, 2006, page 156. [7] Irving Ribner, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (Princeton: Press, 1957: 12-27. [8] Eugene Waith, The Herculean Hero in Marlowe, Chapman, Shakespeare, and Dryden (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. [9] Doran 220-25. [10] Edward Rand, Horace and the Spirit of Comedy (Houston: Rice Institute Press, 1937, passim. [11] Arthur Kirsch, "Cymbeline and Coterie Dramaturgy," [12] R. A. Foakes, Shakespeare: Dark Comedies to Last Plays (London: Routledge, 1968): 18-40. [13] O. J. Campbell, Comicall Satyre and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1938, passim. [14] David Young, The Heart's Forest: A Study of Shakespeare's Pastoral Plays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 130ff. [15] Ackroyd, Peter (2005). Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Chatto and Windus. pp.Ä472Ä474. ISBNÄ1-856-19726-3.

[16] Elizabethan Period (1558Ç1603), from ProQuest Period Pages (http:/ / gateway. proquest. com/ openurl?url_ver=Z39. 88-2004&

res_id=xri:pqllit-US& rft_dat=xri:pqllit:reference:per015). ProQuest. 2005. [17] Wilson, F. P. (1945). Elizabethan and Jacobean. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p.Ä26. [18] Bentley, G. E. "The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 115 (1971), 481. [19] Introduction to Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Barron's Educational Series, 2002, page 11. [20] Miller, Carol (2001). Irresistible Shakespeare. New York: Scholastic Professional. p.Ä18. ISBNÄ0439098440. [21] Macbeth Act 2, Scene 1 [22] Mahood, Molly Maureen (1988). Shakespeare's Wordplay. Routledge. p.Ä9.

[23] "Hamlet's Puns and Paradoxes" (http:/ / www. clicknotes. com/ hamlet/ Pap. html) (HTML). Shakespeare Navigators. . Retrieved 2007-06-08. [24] "Humor in ShakespeareÅs Plays." Shakespeare's World and Work. Ed. John F. Andrews. 2001. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. eNotes.com. December 2005. 14 June 2007. [25] Shakespeare's Soliloquies by Wolfgang H. Clemen, translated by Charity S. Stokes, Routledge, 1987, page 11. [26] Maurer, Margaret (2005). "Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies". Shakespeare Quarterly 56 (4): 504. doi:10.1353/shq.2006.0027. [27] Welsh, Alexander. Hamlet in his Modern Guises. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001: 3

[28] Plutarch's Parallel Lives (http:/ / www. . tufts. edu/ JC/ plutarch. north. html). Accessed 10/23/05. [29] Woodhuysen, Henry (2010). "Shakespeare's writing, from manuscript to print". in de Grazia, Margreta; Wells, Stanley. The New Cambridge companion to Shakespeare (2 ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p.Ä34. ISBNÄ978-0-521-88632-1. [30] Woodhuysen (2010: 70) [31] Editor's Preface to A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Simon and Schuster, 2004, page xl [32] Foakes, 6. Ü Nagler, A.M (1958). Shakespeare's Stage. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 7. ISBN 0300026897. Ü Shapiro, 131Ä2. [33] Ringler, William jr. "Shakespeare and His Actors: Some Remarks on King Lear" from Lear from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism edited by James Ogden and Arthur Hawley Scouten, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1997, page 127. [34] Halpern (1997). Shakespeare Among the Moderns. New York: Cornell University Press, 64. ISBN 0801484189. [35] Griffiths, Trevor R (ed.) (1996). A Midsummer's Night's Dream. William Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Introduction, 2, 38Ä39. ISBN 0521575656. Ü Halpern, 64. [36] Bristol, Michael, and Kathleen McLuskie (eds.). Shakespeare and Modern Theatre: The Performance of Modernity. London; New York: Routledge; Introduction, 5Ä6. ISBN 0415219841.

[37] http:/ / www. opensourceshakespeare. org/ views/ plays/ plays. php Shakespeare's plays 41

[38] http:/ / www. shakespeare-w. com/ english/ shakespeare/ source. html

[39] http:/ / www. bardweb. net/ works. html

Shakespeare in performance

Numerous performances of William Shakespeare's plays have occurred since the end of the 16th century. While Shakespeare was alive, many of his greatest plays were performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men but King's Men acting companies at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres.[1] [2] Among the actors of these original performances were Richard Burbage (who played the title role in the first performances of Hamlet, Othello, Richard III and King Lear),[3] Richard Cowley, and William Kempe.

Shakespeare's plays continued to be staged

after his death until the Interregnum Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of William Shakespeare, containing (1642Ä1660), when most public stage scenes and characters from several of William Shakespeare's plays. performances were banned by the Puritan rulers. After the English Restoration, Shakespeare's plays were performed in playhouses, with elaborate scenery, and staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks. During this time the texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage, an undertaking which has seemed shockingly disrespectful to posterity.

Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in "authentic" historical costumes and sets. The staging of the reported sea fights and barge scene in Antony and Cleopatra was one spectacular example.[4] Such elaborate scenery for the frequently-changing locations in Shakespeare's plays often led to a loss of pace. Towards the end of the 19th century, William Poel led a reaction against this heavy style. In a series of "Elizabethan" productions on a thrust stage, he paid fresh attention to the structure of the drama. In the early twentieth century, Harley Granville-Barker directed quarto and folio texts with few cuts,[5] while Edward Gordon Craig and others called for abstract staging. Both approaches have influenced the variety of Shakespearean production styles seen today.[6]

Performances during Shakespeare's lifetime The troupe for which Shakespeare wrote his earliest plays is not known with certainty; the title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that it had been acted by three different companies.[7] After the plagues of 1592Ä3, Shakespeare's plays were performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a new company of which Shakespeare was a founding member, at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames.[8] Londoners flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recalling, "Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest...and you scarce shall have a room".[9] When landlord of the Theatre announced that he would not renew the company's lease, they pulled the playhouse down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first London playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark.[10] The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.[11] Shakespeare in performance 42

The Globe, like London's other open-roofed public theatres, employed a thrust-stage, covered by a cloth canopy. A two-storey facade at the rear of the stage hid the tiring house and, through windows near the top of the facade, opportunities for balcony scenes such as the one in Romeo and Juliet. Doors at the bottom of the facade may have been used for discovery scenes like that at the end of The Tempest. A trap door in the stage itself could be used for stage business, like some of that involving the ghost in Hamlet. This trapdoor area was called "hell", as the canopy above was called "heaven." Reconstructed Globe theatre, London. Less is known about other features of staging and production. Stage props seem to have been minimal, although costuming was as elaborate as was feasible. The "two hours' traffic" mentioned in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet was not fanciful; the city government's hostility meant that performances were officially limited to that length of time. Though it is not known how seriously companies took such injunctions, it seems likely either that plays were performed at near-breakneck speed or that the play-texts now extant were cut for performance, or both.

The other main theatre where Shakespeare's original plays were performed was the second Blackfriars Theatre, an indoor theatre built by , father of Richard Burbage, and impresario of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. However, neighborhood protests kept Burbage from using the theater for the Lord Chamberlain's Men performances for a number of years. Finally, in 1608 the King's Men (as the company was then known) took possession of the theatre. Thereafter the King's Men played in Blackfriars for the seven months in winter, and at the Globe during the summer. After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new court of King James. Performance records are patchy, but it is known that the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of Venice.[12] After 1608, the troupe performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer.[13] The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean vogue for lavishly staged masques, created new conditions for performance which enabled Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees."[14] Plays produced at the indoor theater presumably also made greater use of sound effects and music. On June 29, 1613, the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry the Eighth. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance, misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man who put out his burning breeches with a bottle of ale.[15] The event pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision. Sir Henry Wotton recorded that the play "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony".[16] The theatre was rebuilt but, like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. The actors in Shakespeare's company included Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, Henry Condell and John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear.[17] The popular comic actor Will Kempe played Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, among other parts. He was replaced around the turn of the sixteenth century by Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King Lear.[18] Little is certainly known about acting styles. Critics praised the best actors for their naturalness. Scorn was heaped on ranters and on those who "tore a passion to tatters", as Hamlet has it. Also with Hamlet, playwrights complain of clowns who improvise on stage (modern critics often blame Kemp in particular in this regard). In the older tradition of comedy which reached its apex with Richard Tarlton, clowns, often the main draw of a troupe, were responsible for creating comic by-play. By the , that type of humor had been supplanted by verbal wit. Shakespeare in performance 43

Interregnum and Restoration performances

Shakespeare's plays continued to be staged after his death until the Interregnum (1642Ä1660), when most public stage performances were banned by the Puritan rulers. While denied the use of the stage, costumes and scenery, actors still managed to ply their trade by performing "" or short pieces of larger plays that usually ended with some type of jig. Shakespeare was among the many playwrights whose works were plundered for these scenes. Among the drolls taken from Shakespeare were Bottom the Weaver (Bottom's scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream)[19] and The Grave-makers (the gravedigger's scene from Hamlet.[20]

At the Restoration in 1660, Shakespeare's plays were divided between the two newly-licensed companies: the King's Company of and the Duke's Men of William Davenant. The licensing system prevailed for two centuries; from 1660 to 1843, only two main companies regularly presented Shakespeare in London. Davenant, who had known early-Stuart actors such as and , was the main figure establishing some continuity with earlier traditions; his advice to his actors are thus of interest as possible reflections of original practices.

On the whole, though, innovation was the order of the day for Frontispiece to The Wits (1662), showing theatrical Restoration companies. John Downes reports that the King's Men drolls, with Falstaff in the lower left corner. initially included some Caroline actors; however, the forced break of the Interregnum divided both companies from the past. Restoration actors performed on proscenium stages, often in the evening, between six and nine. Set-design and props became more elaborate and variable. Perhaps most noticeably, boy players were replaced by actresses. The audiences of comparatively expensive indoor theaters were richer, better educated, and more homogeneous than the diverse, often unruly crowds at the Globe. Davenant's company began at the Salisbury Court Theatre, then moved to the theater at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and finally settled in the Dorset Garden Theatre. Killigrew began at Gibbon's Tennis Court before settling into 's new theatre in Drury Lane. Patrons of both companies expected fare quite different from what had pleased Elizabethans. For tragedy, their tastes ran to heroic drama; for comedy, to the comedy of manners. Though they liked Shakespeare, they seem to have wished his plays to conform to these preferences. Shakespeare in performance 44

Restoration writers obliged them by adapting Shakespeare's plays freely. Writers such as William Davenant and rewrote some of Shakespeare's plays to suit the tastes of the day, which favoured the courtly comedy of and the neo-classical rules of drama.[21] In 1681, Tate provided , a modified version of Shakespeare's original tragedy with a happy ending. According to , Tate's version "supplanted Shakespeare's play in every performance given from 1681 to 1838,"[22] when William Charles Macready played Lear from a shortened and rearranged version of Shakespeare's text.[23] "Twas my good fortune", Tate said, "to light on one expedient to rectify what was wanting in the regularity and probability of the tale, which was to run through the whole a love betwixt Edgar and that never changed words with each other in the original".[24]

Tate's Lear remains famous as an example of an ill-conceived adaptation arising from insensitivity to Shakespeare's tragic vision. Tate's genius was not in language - many of his interpolated lines don't even scan - but in structure; his Lear begins brilliantly with the Edmund the Bastard's first attention-grabbing speech, and ends

Restoration actor as Hamlet, with Lear's heroic saving of Cordelia in the prison and a confronted by his father's ghost (with both Hamlet and restoration of justice to the throne. Tate's worldview, and that of in contemporary dress) (1709) the theatrical world that embraced (and demanded) his "happy ending" versions of the Bard's tragic works (such as King Lear and Romeo and Juliet) for over a century, arose from a profoundly different sense of morality in society and of the role that theatre and art should play within that society. Tate's versions of Shakespeare see the responsibility of theatre as a transformative agent for positive change through holding by holding a moral mirror up to our baser instincts. Tate's versions of what we now consider some of the Bard's greatest works dominated the stage throughout the 18th century precisely because the Ages of Enlightenment and Reason found Shakespeare's "tragic vision" immoral, and his tragic works unstageable. Tate is seldom performed today, though in 1985, the Riverside Shakespeare Company mounted a successful production of The History of King Lear at The Shakespeare Center, heralded by some as a "Lear for the Age of Ronald Reagan.".[25]

Perhaps a more typical example of the purpose of Restoration revisions is Davenant's The Law Against Lovers, a 1662 comedy combining the main plot of Measure for Measure with subplot of Much Ado About Nothing. The result is a snapshot of Restoration comic tastes. Beatrice and Benedick are brought in to parallel Claudio and Hero; the emphasis throughout is on witty conversation, and Shakespeare's thematic focus on lust is steadily downplayed. The play ends with three marriages: Benedick's to Beatrice, Claudio's to Hero, and Isabella's to an Angelo whose attempt on Isabella's virtue was a ploy. Davenant wrote many of the bridging scenes and recast much of Shakespeare's verse as heroic couplets. A final feature of Restoration stagecraft impacted productions of Shakespeare. The taste for opera that the exiles had developed in France made its mark on Shakespeare as well. Davenant and John Dryden worked The Tempest into an opera, The Enchanted ; their work featured a sister for , a man, Hippolito, who has never seen a woman, and another paired marriage at the end. It also featured many songs, a spectacular shipwreck scene, and a of flying cupids. Other of Shakespeare's works given operatic treatment included A Midsummer Night's Dream (as The Fairy Princess in 1692) and Charles Gildon's Measure for Measure (by way of an elaborate masque.) Shakespeare in performance 45

However ill-guided such revisions may seem now, they made sense to the period's dramatists and audiences. The dramatists approached Shakespeare not as bardolators, but as theater professionals. Unlike Beaumont and Fletcher, whose "plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage", according to Dryden in 1668, "two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's".[26] , Shakespeare appeared to them to have become dated. Yet almost universally, they saw him as worth updating. Though most of these revised pieces failed on stage, many remained current on stage for decades; 's Roman adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, for example, seems to have driven Shakespeare's original from the stage between 1680 and 1744. It was in large part the revised Shakespeare that took the lead place in the repertory in the early 18th century, while Beaumont and Fletcher's share steadily declined.[27]

18th century The eighteenth century witnessed three major changes in the production of Shakespeare's plays. In England, the development of the star system transformed both acting and production; at the end of the century, the Romantic revolution touched acting as it touched all the arts. At the same time, actors and producers began to return to Shakespeare's texts, slowly weeding out the Restoration revisions. Finally, by the end of the century Shakespeare's plays had been established as part of the repertory outside of Great Britain: not only in the United States but in many European countries.

Britain

In the 18th century, Shakespeare dominated the London stage, while Shakespeare productions turned increasingly into the creation of star turns for star actors. After the Licensing Act of 1737, one fourth of the plays performed were by Shakespeare, and on at least two occasions rival London playhouses staged the very same Shakespeare play at the same time (Romeo and Juliet in 1755 and King Lear the next year) and still commanded audiences. This occasion was a striking example of the growing prominence of Shakespeare stars in the theatrical culture, the big attraction being the competition and rivalry between the male leads at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, Spranger Barry and David David Garrick as Richard III. By , 1745. Walker Art Gallery. Tent scene before the Battle Garrick. In the 1740s, Charles Macklin, in roles such as Malvolio of Bosworth: Richard is haunted by the ghosts of those and Shylock, and David Garrick, who won fame as Richard III in he has murdered. 1741, helped make Shakespeare truly popular.[28] Garrick went on to produce 26 of the plays at Drury Lane Theatre between 1747 and 1776, and he held a great at Stratford in 1769.[29] He freely adapted Shakespeare's work, however, saying of Hamlet: "I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick, Osrick, & the fencing match."[30] Apparently no incongruity was perceived in having Barry and Garrick, in their late thirties, play adolescent Romeo one season and geriatric King Lear the next. Eighteenth century notions of verisimilitude did not usually require an actor to be physically appropriate for a role, a fact epitomized by a 1744 production of Romeo and Juliet in which Theophilus Cibber, then forty, played Romeo to the Juliet of his teenaged daughter Jennie. Shakespeare in performance 46

Elsewhere in Europe Some of Shakespeare's work was performed in continental Europe even during his lifetime; Ludwig Tieck pointed out German versions of Hamlet and other plays, of uncertain provenance, but certainly quite old.[31] but it was not until after the middle of the next century that Shakespeare appeared regularly on German stages.[32] In Germany Lessing compared Shakespeare to German folk literature. Goethe organised a Shakespeare jubilee in Frankfurt in 1771, stating that the dramatist had shown that the Aristotelian unities were "as oppressive as a prison" and were "burdensome fetters on our imagination". Herder likewise proclaimed that reading Shakespeare's work opens "leaves from the book of events, of providence, of the world, blowing in the sands of time."[33] This claim that Shakespeare's work breaks though all creative boundaries to reveal a chaotic, teeming, contradictory world became characteristic of Romantic criticism, later being expressed by Victor Hugo in the preface to his play Cromwell, in which he lauded Shakespeare as an artist of the grotesque, a genre in which the tragic, absurd, trivial and serious were inseparably intertwined.[34]

19th century

Theatres and theatrical scenery became ever more elaborate in the 19th century, and the acting editions used were progressively cut and restructured to emphasize more and more the soliloquies and the stars, at the expense of pace and action.[35] Performances were further slowed by the need for frequent pauses to change the scenery, creating a perceived need for even more cuts in order to keep performance length within tolerable limits; it became a generally accepted maxim that Shakespeare's plays were too long to be performed without substantial cuts. The The Theatre Royal at Drury Lane in 1813. The platform stage is gone and the orchestra pit divides the actors from the audience. platform, or apron, stage, on which actors of the 17th century would come forward for audience contact, was gone, and the actors stayed permanently behind the fourth wall or proscenium arch, further separated from the audience by the orchestra (see image at right). Shakespeare in performance 47

Victorian productions of Shakespeare often sought pictorial effects in "authentic" historical costumes and sets. The staging of the reported sea fights and barge scene in Antony and Cleopatra was one spectacular example.[4] Too often, the result was a loss of pace. Towards the end of the century, William Poel led a reaction against this heavy style. In a series of "Elizabethan" productions on a thrust stage, he paid fresh attention to the structure of the drama.

Through the 19th century, a roll call of legendary actors' names all but drown out the plays in which they appear: Sarah Siddons (1755Ç1831), John Philip Kemble (1757Ç1823), Henry Irving (1838Ç1905), and Ellen Terry (1847Ç1928). To be a star of the legitimate drama came to mean being first and foremost a "great Shakespeare actor", with a famous interpretation of, for men, Hamlet,

The American Cushman sisters, Charlotte and and for women, Lady Macbeth, and especially with a striking delivery Susan, in Romeo and Juliet in 1846. of the great soliloquies. The acme of spectacle, star, and soliloquy Shakespeare performance came with the reign of actor-manager Henry Irving and his co-star Ellen Terry in their elaborately staged productions, often with orchestral incidental music, at the Lyceum Theatre, London from 1878 to 1902. At the same time, a revolutionary return to the roots of Shakespeare's original texts, and to the platform stage, absence of scenery, and fluid scene changes of the Elizabethan theatre, was being effected by William Poel's Elizabethan Stage Society.[36]

20th century In the early twentieth century, Harley Granville-Barker directed quarto and folio texts with few cuts,[37] while Edward Gordon Craig and others called for abstract staging. Both approaches have influenced the variety of Shakespearean production styles seen today.[6] The twentieth century also saw a multiplicity of visual interpretations of Shakespeare's plays. Gordon Craig's design for Hamlet in 1911 was groundbreaking in its Cubist influence. Craig defined space with simple flats: monochrome canvases stretched on wooden frames, which were hinged together to be self-supporting. Though the construction of these flats was not original, its application to Shakespeare was completely new. The flats could be aligned in many configurations and provided a technique of simulating architectural or abstract lithic structures out of supplies and methods common to any theater in Europe or the Americas. Craig's iconoclastic design was the first of many paradigm shifts in the design of Shakespeare's plays of the twentieth century. The second major shift of twentieth-century scenography of Shakespeare was in Barry Vincent Jackson's 1923 production of Cymbeline at the Birmingham Rep. This production was groundbreaking because it reintroduced the idea of modern dress back into Shakespeare. It was not the first modern-dress production since there were a few minor examples before World War II, but Cymbeline was the first to call attention to the device in a blatant way. Iachimo was costumed in evening dress for the wager, the court was in military uniforms, and the disguised in knickerbockers and cap. It was for this production that critics invented the catch phrase "Shakespeare in plus-fours".[38] The experiment was moderately successful, and the director, H.K. Ayliff, two years later staged Hamlet in modern dress. These productions paved the way for the modern-dress Shakespearean productions that we are familiar with today. In 1936, was hired by the Federal Theatre Project to direct a groundbreaking production of Macbeth in Harlem with an all African American cast. The production became known as the , as Welles changed the setting to an eighteenth century Haiti run by an evil king thoroughly controlled by African magic. Initially hostile, the black community took to the production thoroughly, ensuring full houses for ten weeks at the Shakespeare in performance 48

Lafayette Theatre and prompting a small Broadway success and a national tour.[39] Despite its innovative nature, this Macbeth exhibited some of the patronizing attitudes that black leaders had been denouncing. When Macbeth (Maurice Ellis) fell ill, Welles went on in the title role wearing blackface, a politically loaded decision that stirred some controversy.[40] Other notable productions of the twentieth century that follow this trend of relocating Shakespeare's plays are H.K. Ayliff's Macbeth of 1928 set on the battlefields of World War I, Welles' Julius Caesar of 1937 based on the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg, and Thacker's Coriolanus of 1994 costumed in the manner of the French Revolution.[41] In 1978, a deconstructive version of The Taming of the Shrew was performed at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.[42] The main character walked through the audience toward the stage, acting drunk and shouting sexist comments before he proceeded to tear down (i.e., deconstruct) the scenery. Even after press coverage, some audience members still fled from the performance, thinking they were witnessing a real assault.[42]

21st century The Propeller company have taken all-male cast productions around the world.[43] In May 2009, Hamlet opened with in the title role at the West End season at Wyndham's. He was joined by , Peter Eyre, Gwilym Lee, John MacMillan, Kevin R McNally, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Matt Ryan, Alex Waldmann and Penelope Wilton. The production officially opened on 3 June and ran through 22 August 2009.[44] [45] A further production of the play ran at Elsinore in from 25Ä30 August 2009.[46] The Jude Law Hamlet then moved to Broadway, and will run for twelve weeks at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York. Previews began on 12 September and the official opening was 6 October 2009.[47] [48] Most of the original cast moved with the production to New York. There were some changes, already incorporated in Elsinore: new were Ross Armstrong, Geraldine James and Michael Hadley.[49] [50] The Broadway cast with Law also includes Harry Attwell, Ian Drysdale, Jenny Funnell, Colin Haigh, James Le Feuvre, Henry Pettigrew, Matt Ryan, Alan Turkington and Faye Winter.

Shakespeare on screen More than 420 feature-length film versions of Shakespeare's plays have been produced since the early 20th century, making Shakespeare the most filmed author ever.[51] Many of the film adaptations, especially Hollywood movies marketed to teenage audiences, use his plots rather than his dialogue, while others are simply filmed full-length versions of his plays.

Dress and design For centuries there had been an accepted style of how Shakespeare was to be performed which was erroneously labeled "Elizabethan" but actually reflected a trend of design from a period shortly after Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare's performances were originally performed in contemporary dress. Actors were costumed in clothes that they might wear off the stage. This continued into the 18th century, the Georgian period, where costumes were the current fashionable dress. It wasn't until centuries after his death, primarily the 19th Century, that productions started looking back and tried to be "authentic" to a Shakespearean style. The Victorian era had a fascination with historical accuracy and this was adapted to the stage in order to appeal to the educated middle class. Charles Kean was particularly interested in historical context and spent many hours researching historical dress and setting for his productions. This faux-Shakespearean style was fixed until the twentieth century. Shakespeare in performance 49

See also Ç Elizabethan era Ç Globe Theatre

Bibliography Ç Arrowsmith, William Robson. Shakespeare's Editors and Commentators. London: J. Russell Smith, 1865. Ç Cappon, Edward. Victor Hugo: A Memoir and a Study. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1885. Ç Dryden, John. The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden. Edmond Malone, editor. London: Baldwin, 1800. Ç DÅntzer, J. H. J., Life of Goethe. Thomas Lyster, translator. New York: Macmillan, 1884. Ç Glick, Claris. "William Poel: His Theories and Influence." Shakespeare Quarterly 15 (1964). Ç Hill, Erroll. Shakespeare in Sable. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984. Ç Houseman, John. Run-through: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1972. Ç Jackson, Russell. "Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, 1994-5." Shakespeare Quarterly 46 (1995). Ç Nettleton, George Henry. of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (1642-1780. London: Macmillan, 1914. Ç Pfister, Manfred. "Shakespeare and the European Canon." Shifting the Scene: Shakespeare in European Culture. Balz Engler and Ledina Lambert, eds. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2004. Ç Sprague, A. C. Beaumont and Fletcher on the Restoration Stage. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1954. Ç Tieck, Ludwig. Alt-englischen drama. Berlin, 1811.

References [1] Editor's Preface to A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Simon and Schuster, 2004, page xl [2] Foakes, 6. Ü Nagler, A.M (1958). Shakespeare's Stage. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 7. ISBN 0300026897. Ü Shapiro, 131Ä2. [3] Ringler, William jr. "Shakespeare and His Actors: Some Remarks on King Lear" from Lear from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism edited by James Ogden and Arthur Hawley Scouten, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1997, page 127. King,T.J. (Thomas J. King, Jr.) (1992). Casting Shakespeare's Plays; London actors and their roles 1590-1642, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521327857 (Paperback edition 2009, ISBN 0521107210) [4] Halpern (1997). Shakespeare Among the Moderns. New York: Cornell University Press, 64. ISBN 0801484189. [5] Griffiths, Trevor R (ed.) (1996). A Midsummer's Night's Dream. William Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Introduction, 2, 38Ä39. ISBN 0521575656. Ü Halpern, 64. [6] Bristol, Michael, and Kathleen McLuskie (eds.). Shakespeare and Modern Theatre: The Performance of Modernity. London; New York: Routledge; Introduction, 5Ä6. ISBN 0415219841. [7] Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xx. [8] Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xxi. [9] Shapiro, 16. [10] Foakes, R. A. (1990). "Playhouses and Players". In The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama. A. R. Braunmuller and Michael Hattaway (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 6. ISBN 0521386624. Ü Shapiro, 125Ä31. [11] Foakes, 6. Ü Nagler, A.M. (1958). Shakespeare's Stage. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 7. ISBN 0300026897. Ü Shapiro, 131Ä2. Ü King, T.J. (Thomas J. King, Jr.) (1971). Shakespearean Staging, 1599-1642. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674804902. [12] Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xxii. [13] Foakes, 33. [14] Ackroyd, 454. Ü Holland, Peter (ed.) (2000). Cymbeline. London: Penguin; Introduction, xli. ISBN 0140714723.

[15] Globe Theatre Fire (http:/ / www. william-shakespeare. org. uk/ globe-theatre-fire. htm). [16] Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, 1247. Shakespeare in performance 50

[17] Ringler, William Jr. (1997)."Shakespeare and His Actors: Some Remarks on King Lear". In Lear from Study to Stage: Essays in Criticism. James Ogden and Arthur Hawley Scouten (eds.). New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 127. ISBN 083863690X. [18] Chambers, Vol 1: 341. Ü Shapiro, 247Ä9. [19] Nettleton, 16. [20] Arrowsmith, 72. [21] Murray, Barbara A (2001). Restoration Shakespeare: Viewing the Voice. New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 50. ISBN 0838639186. Ü Griswold, Wendy (1986). Renaissance Revivals: and in the London Theatre, 1576-1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 115. ISBN 0226309231. [22] Stanley Wells, "Introduction" from King Lear, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 63. [23] Wells, p. 69. [24] From Tate's dedication to The History of King Lear. Quoted by Peter Womack (2002). "Secularizing King Lear: Shakespeare, Tate and the Sacred." In Shakespeare Survey 55: King Lear and its Afterlife. Peter Holland (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 98. ISBN 0521815878. [25] See Riversides Shakespeare Company. [26] Dryden, Essay of Dramatick Poesie, The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, Edmond Malone, ed. (London: Baldwin, 1800): 101. [27] Sprague, 121. [28] Uglow, Jenny (1997). Hogarth. London: Faber and Faber, 398. ISBN 0571193765. [29] Martin, Peter (1995). Edmond Malone, Shakespearean Scholar: A Literary Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 27. ISBN 0521460301. [30] Letter to Sir William Young, 10 January 1773. Quoted by Uglow, 473. [31] Tieck, xiii. [32] Pfister 49. [33] DÅntzer, 111. [34] Cappon, 65.

[35] See, for example, the 19th century playwright W. S. Gilbert's essay, Unappreciated Shakespeare (http:/ / diamond. boisestate. edu/ gas/

other_gilbert/ short_stories/ shakespeare. htm), from Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales [36] Glick, 15. [37] Griffiths, Trevor R (ed.) (1996). A Midsummer's Night's Dream. William Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Introduction, 2, 38Ä39. ISBN 0521575656. Ü Halpern, 64. [38] Trewin, J. C. Shakespeare on the English Stage, 1900-1064. London, 1964. [39] Hill, 106. [40] Houseman, John, 205. [41] Jackson 345. [42] Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance by Dennis Kennedy, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pages 1 to 3. [43] Theatre programme, Everyman Cheltenham, June 2009.

[44] Mark Shenton, "Jude Law to Star in Donmar's Hamlet." (http:/ / www. thestage. co. uk/ news/ newsstory. php/ 18174/ jude-law-to-star-in-donmars-hamlet) The Stage. 10 September 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2007.

[45] "Cook, Eyre, Lee And More Join Jude Law In Grandage's HAMLET." (http:/ / broadwayworld. com/ article/ Cook_Eyre_Lee_And_More_Join_Jude_Law_In_Grandages_HAMLET_20090204) broadwayworld.com. 4 February 2009. Retrieved 18 February 2009.

[46] "Jude Law to play Hamlet at 'home' Castle." (http:/ / www. mirror. co. uk/ celebs/ 3am/ 2009/ 07/ 10/

it-s-the-highest-accolade-for-115875-21508571/ ) The Daily Mirror. July 10, 2009. Retrieved July 14, 2009.

[47] "Shakespeare's Hamlet with Jude Law". (http:/ / www. charlierose. com/ view/ interview/ 10641) Charlie Rose Show. video 53:55, 2 October 2009. Accessed 6 October 2009.

[48] Dave Itzkoff, "Donmar WarehouseÅs áHamletÅ Coming to Broadway With Jude Law." (http:/ / artsbeat. blogs. nytimes. com/ 2009/ 06/ 30/

donmar-warehouses-hamlet-coming-to-broadway-with-jude-law/ ) New York Times. June 30, 2009. Retrieved September 10, 2009.

[49] "Complete Casting Announced For Broadway's HAMLET With Jude Law." (http:/ / broadwayworld. com/ article/ Complete_Casting_Announced_For_Broadways_HAMLET_With_Jude_Law_Previews_912_Opening_106_20090730) Broadway World. June 30, 2009. Retrieved September 10, 2009.

[50] Hamlet on Broadway (http:/ / www. hamletbroadway. com/ whoswho/ ), Donmar New York, Official website. [51] Young, Mark (ed.). The Guinness Book of Records 1999, Bantam Books, 358; Voigts-Virchow, Eckart (2004), Janespotting and Beyond: British Heritage Retrovisions Since the Mid-1990s, Gunter Narr Verlag, 92. 51

Poems

Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Author William Shakespeare

Country England

Language

Genre(s) Renaissance poetry

Publisher Thomas Thorpe

Publication date 1609

Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144 had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim. The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal. The first 17 sonnets, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are ostensibly written to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the next generation.[1] Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little Love-god" Cupid. The publisher, Thomas Thorpe, entered the book in the Stationers' Register on 20 May 1609: Tho. Thorpe. Entred for his copie under the handes of master Wilson and master Lownes Wardenes a booke called Shakespeares sonnettes vjd. Whether Thorpe used an authorized manuscript from Shakespeare or an unauthorized copy is unknown. printed the quarto, and the run was divided between the booksellers and John Wright. Shakespeare's sonnets 52

Dedication

The sonnets include a dedication to one "Mr. W.H.". The identity of this person remain a mystery and has provoked a great deal of speculation. The dedication reads:

Dedication page from The Sonnets

TO.THE.ONLIE.BEGETTER.OF. THESE.INSUING.SONNETS. ÄMr.W.H. Ä ALL.HAPPINESSE. AND.THAT.ETERNITIE. PROMISED. BY. OUR.EVER-LIVING.POET. WISHETH. THE.WELL-WISHING. ADVENTURER.IN. SETTING. FORTH. T.T. Å

Given its obliquity, since the 19th century the dedication has become, in Colin Burrow's words, a 'dank pit in which speculation wallows and founders'. Don Foster concludes that the result of all the speculation has yielded only two "facts," which themselves have been the object of much debate: First, that the form of address (Mr.) suggests that W.H. was an untitled gentleman, and second, that W.H., whoever he was, is identified as "the only begetter" of Shakespeare's Sonnets (whatever the word "begetter" is taken to mean).[2] The initials 'T.T.' are taken to refer to the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, though Thorpe usually signed prefatory matter only if the author was out of the country or dead.[3] Foster points out, however, that Thorpe's entire corpus of such consists of only four dedications and three stationer's prefaces.[4] . That Thorpe signed the dedication rather than the author is seen as evidence that he published the work without obtaining Shakespeare's permission.[5] The capital letters and periods following each word were probably intended to resemble an ancient Roman lapidary inscription or monumental brass, thereby accentuating Shakespeare's declaration in that the work will confer immortality to the subjects of the work:[6] Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this pow'rful rhyme, 126 of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a young man (often called the "Fair Youth"). Broadly speaking, there are two branches of theories concerning the identity of Mr. W.H.: those that take him to be identical to the youth, and Shakespeare's sonnets 53

those that assert him to be a separate person. The following is a non-exhaustive list of contenders: Ç William Herbert (the Earl of Pembroke). Herbert is seen by many as the most likely candidate, since he was also the dedicatee of the First Folio of Shakespeare's works. However the "obsequious" Thorpe would be unlikely to have addressed a lord as "Mr".[7] Ç Henry Wriothesley (the Earl of Southampton). Many have argued that 'W.H.' is Southampton's initials reversed, and that he is a likely candidate as he was the dedicatee of Shakespeare's poems Venus & Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Southampton was also known for his good looks, and has often been argued to be the 'fair youth' of the sonnets. The reservations about "Mr." also apply here. Ç A simple printing error for Shakespeare's initials, 'W.S.' or 'W. Sh'. This was suggested by Bertrand Russell in his memoirs, and also by Foster[8] and by [9] . Bate supports his point by reading 'onlie' as something like 'peerless', 'singular' and 'begetter' as 'maker', ie. 'writer'. Foster takes "onlie" to mean only one, which he argues eliminates any particular subject of the poems, since they are addressed to more than one person. The phrase 'Our Ever-Living Poet', according to Foster, refers to God, not Shakespeare. 'Poet' comes from the Greek 'poetes' which means 'maker', a fact remarked upon in various contemporary texts; also, in Elizabethan English the word 'maker' was used to mean 'poet'. These researcher believe the phrase 'our ever-living poet' might easily have been taken to mean 'our immortal maker' (God). The 'eternity' promised us by our immortal maker would then be the life that is promised us by God, and the dedication would conform with the standard formula of the time, according to which one person wished another 'happiness [in this life] and eternal bliss [in heaven]'. Shakespeare himself, on this reading, is 'Mr. W. [S]H.' the 'onlie begetter', i.e., the sole author, of the sonnets, and the dedication is advertising the authenticity of the poems. Ç William Hall, a printer who had worked with Thorpe on other publications. According to this theory, the dedication is simply Thorpe's tribute to his colleague and has nothing to do with Shakespeare. This theory, originated by Sir in his A Life of William Shakespeare (1898), was continued by Colonel B.R. Ward in his The Mystery of Mr. W.H. (1923), and has been endorsed recently by Brian Vickers, who notes Thorpe uses such 'visual puns' elsewhere.[10] Supporters of this theory point out that "ALL" following "MR. W. H." spells "MR. W. HALL" with the deletion of a period. Using his initials W.H., Hall had edited a collection of the poems of Robert Southwell that was printed by George Eld, the same printer for the 1609 Sonnets.[11] There is also documentary evidence of one William Hall of Hackney who signed himself 'WH' three years earlier, but it is uncertain if this was the printer. Ç Sir William Harvey, Southampton's stepfather. This theory assumes that the fair youth and Mr. W.H. are separate people, and that Southampton is the fair youth. Harvey would be the "begetter" of the Sonnets in the sense that it would be he who provided them to the publisher, after the death of Southampton's mother removed a obstacle to publication. The reservations about the use of "Mr" did not apply in the case of a knight.[7] [12] Ç William Himself (i.e. Shakespeare). This theory was proposed by the German scholar D. Barnstorff, but has not found much support.[7] Ç William Haughton, a contemporary dramatist.[13] [14] Ç William Hart, Shakespeare's nephew and male heir. Proposed by Richard Farmer, but Hart was nine years of age at the time of publication, and this suggestion is regarded as unlikely.[15] Ç Who He. In his 2002 Oxford Shakespeare edition of the sonnets, Colin Burrow argues that the dedication is deliberately mysterious and ambiguous, possibly standing for "Who He", a conceit also used in a contemporary pamphlet. He suggests that it might have been created by Thorpe simply to encourage speculation and discussion (and hence, sales of the text).[16] Ç Willie Hughes. The 18th century scholar Thomas Tyrwhitt first proposed the theory that the Mr. W.H. (and the Fair Youth) was one "William Hughes", based on presumed puns on the name in the sonnets. The argument was repeated in Edmund Malone's 1790 edition of the sonnets. The most famous exposition of the theory is in 's short story "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.", in which Wilde, or rather the story's narrator, describes the puns Shakespeare's sonnets 54

on "will" and "hues" in the sonnets, (notably Sonnet 20 among others), and argues that they were written to a seductive young actor named Willie Hughes who played female roles in Shakespeare's plays. There is no evidence for the existence of any such person.

Structure The sonnets are almost all constructed from three four-line stanzas (called quatrains) and a final couplet composed in iambic pentameter[17] (a meter used extensively in Shakespeare's plays) with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg (this form is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet). The only exceptions are Sonnets 99, 126, and 145. Number 99 has fifteen lines. Number 126 consists of six couplets, and two blank lines marked with italic brackets; 145 is in iambic tetrameters, not pentameters. Often, the beginning of the third quatrain marks the volta ("turn"), or the line in which the mood of the poem shifts, and the poet expresses a revelation or epiphany. There is another variation on the standard English structure, found for example in . The normal rhyme scheme is changed by repeating the b of quatrain one in quatrain three where the f should be. This leaves the sonnet distinct between both Shakespearean and Spenserian styles.

When in disgrace with fortune and menÅs eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, ÄAnd trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, FeaturÅd like him, like him with friends possessÅd, Desiring this manÅs art, and that manÅs scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee,Çand then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heavenÅs gate; For thy sweet love rememberÅd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.Å

Whether the author intended to step over the boundaries of the standard rhyme scheme will always be in question. Some, like Sir Denis Bray, find the repetition of the words and rhymes to be a "serious technical blemish",[18] while others, like Kenneth Muir, think "the double use of 'state' as a rhyme may be justified, in order to bring out the stark contrast between the Poet's apparently outcast state and the state of joy described in the third quatrain."[19] Given that this is the only sonnet in the collection that follows this pattern, its hard to say if it was purposely done. But most of the poets at the time were well educated; "schooled to be sensitive to variations in sounds and word order that strike us today as remarkably, perhaps even excessively, subtle." [20] Shakespeare must have been well aware of this subtle change to the firm structure of the English sonnets.

Characters Some scholars of the sonnets refer to these characters as the Fair Youth, the Rival Poet, and the Dark Lady, and claim that the speaker expresses admiration for the Fair Youth's beauty, and later has an affair with the Dark Lady. It is not known whether the poems and their characters are fiction or autobiographical. If they are autobiographical, the identities of the characters are open to debate. Various scholars, most notably A. L. Rowse, have attempted to identify the characters with historical individuals. Shakespeare's sonnets 55

Fair Youth

The 'Fair Youth' is an unnamed young man to whom sonnets 1-126 are addressed. The poet writes of the young man in romantic and loving language, a fact which has led several commentators to suggest a homosexual relationship between them, while others read it as platonic love, or even as the love of a father for his son. The earliest poems in the collection do not imply a close personal relationship; instead, they recommend the benefits of marriage and children. With the famous sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day") the tone changes dramatically towards romantic intimacy. Sonnet 20 explicitly laments that the young man is not a woman. Most of the subsequent sonnets describe the ups and downs of the relationship, culminating with an affair between the poet and the Dark Lady. The relationship seems to end when the Fair Youth succumbs to the Lady's charms.

There have been many attempts to identify the Friend. Shakespeare's one-time patron, the Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton is the most commonly suggested candidate, although Shakespeare's later Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton at patron, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, has recently become 21. Shakespeare's patron, and one candidate for popular [21]. Both claims have much to do with the dedication of the the "Fair Youth" of the sonnets. sonnets to 'Mr. W.H.', "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets": the initials could apply to either Earl. However, while Shakespeare's language often seems to imply that the 'friend' is of higher social status than himself, this may not be the case. The apparent references to the poet's inferiority may simply be part of the rhetoric of romantic submission. An alternative theory, most famously espoused by Oscar Wilde's short story 'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.' notes a series of puns that may suggest the sonnets are written to a boy actor called William Hughes; however, Wilde's story acknowledges that there is no evidence for such a person's existence. Samuel Butler believed that the friend was a seaman, and recently Joseph Pequigney ('Such Is My love') an unknown commoner.

The Dark Lady She is also described as dark-haired. was unimpressed by these sonnets. He wrote that: These sonnets, beginning at 127, to his Mistress, are worse than a puzzle-peg. They are abominably harsh, obscure & worthless. The others are for the most part much better, have many fine lines, very fine lines & passages. They are also in many places warm with passion. Their chief faults, and heavy ones they are, are sameness, tediousness, quaintness, & elaborate obscurity. Shakespeare's sonnets 56

The Rival Poet The Rival Poet's identity has always remained a mystery, though there is a general consensus that the two most likely candidates are Christopher Marlowe and . However, there is no hard evidence that the character had a real-life counterpart. The Poet sees the Rival as competition for fame and patronage. The sonnets most commonly identified as The Rival Poet group exist within the Fair Youth series in sonnets 78Ä86.[22]

Themes One interpretation is that Shakespeare's Sonnets are in part a pastiche or parody of the three centuries-long tradition of Petrarchan love sonnets; in them, Shakespeare consciously inverts conventional gender roles as delineated in Petrarchan sonnets to create a more complex and potentially troubling depiction of human love.[23] Shakespeare also violated many sonnet rules which had been strictly obeyed by his fellow poets: he plays with gender roles (20), he speaks on human evils that do not have to do with love (66), he comments on political events (124), he makes fun of love (128), he speaks openly about sex (129), he parodies beauty (130), and even introduces witty pornography (151).

Legacy Coming as they do at the end of conventional Petrarchan sonneteering, Shakespeare's sonnets can also be seen as a prototype, or even the beginning, of a new kind of 'modern' love poetry. During the eighteenth century, their reputation in England was relatively low; as late as 1805, The Critical Review could still credit Milton with the perfection of the English sonnet. As part of the renewed interest in Shakespeare's original work that accompanied Romanticism, the sonnets rose steadily in reputation during the nineteenth century.[24] The outstanding cross-cultural importance and influence of the sonnets is demonstrated by the large number of translations that have been made of them. To date in the German-speaking countries alone, there have been 70 complete translations since 1784. There is no major written language into which the sonnets have not been translated, including Latin,[25] Turkish, Japanese, Esperanto,[26] and even Klingon.[27] The sonnets are often referenced in popular culture. For example in a 2007 episode of , entitled , Shakespeare began a good-bye to in the form of Sonnet 18, referring to her as his dark lady. This is intended to indicate that Martha is the famed Dark Lady from these sonnets.

Modern editions Legally, the sonnets (like all of Shakespeare's work) are in the public domain. This has prompted them to be reprinted in many editions. Ç Martin Seymour-Smith (1963) Shakespeare's Sonnets (Oxford, Heinemann Educational) Ç Stephen Booth (1977) Shakespeare's Sonnets (Yale) Ç W G Ingram and Theodore Redpath (1978) Shakespeare's Sonnets, 2nd Edition Ç John Kerrigan (1986) The Sonnets and a Lover's Complaint (Penguin) Ç Katherine Duncan-Jones (1997) Shakespeare's Sonnets (Arden Edition, Third Series) Ç Helen Vendler (1997) The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Harvard University Press [28] Ç Colin Burrow (2002) The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford, Oxford University Press) Ç G. Blakemore Evans (1996) The Sonnets (Cambridge UP) Shakespeare's sonnets 57

International Translations Ç Manfred Pfister, JÅrgen Gutsch (ed) (2009) William Shakespeare's Sonnets - For the First Time Globally Reprinted - A Quatercentenary Anthology 1609-2009 (with a DVD) (Dozwil, Edition SIGNAThUR) This anthology brings together translations in languages from all over the world, including many of the major as well as minor languages. Around seventy-five contributors wrote pieces on the translations of Shakespeare's sonnets, and on the accompanying DVD one hears these translations read aloud. Manfred Pfister and JÅrgen Gutsch included translations to dialects and minor languages, e.g. Sign Language, Basque, Maori, Pennsylvania Dutch and Sorbian, and even some translations to artificial languages such as Klingon, but of course included translations to major languages such as Russian, German, French and Italian. Chapters were written by recognised scholars and/or translators in a particular language, e.g. the Afrikaans section was written by Hennie van Coller and Burgert Senekal, while the Yiddish section was written by Elvira Groezinger, making the anthology a credible academic resource.

See also Ç George Bernard Shaw's The Dark Lady of the Sonnets

Pop culture Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is referenced in the films Venus, , , Clueless, and the 2007 Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code" (in which Shakespeare addresses it to Martha Jones, calling her "my Dark Lady"). It also gave names to the band The Darling Buds and the books and television series The Darling Buds of May and Summer's Lease. Ngaio Marsh's book Death at the Dolphin features a playwright, Peregrine Jay, who portrays a sexual relationship between the Dark Lady and Shakespeare in his latest work. The Sonnet Lover, a novel by Carol Goodman, is constructed around the possibility that the Dark Lady was, in fact, a woman of Tuscany, and herself a creator of fine sonnets. Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 is read as voice-over in the episode "Siege" of the 1987 tv series Beauty and the Beast by Vincent, played by Ron Perlman, who have left the book of sonnets as a gift to Catherine, played by Linda Hamilton. Daryl Mitchell's character, Mr. Morgan, quotes the first four lines of Sonnet 141 in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. In 2009, Rufus Wainwright set twenty-five of Shakespeare's Sonnets to music (including 10, 20, 29, and 43) for a play from Robert Wilson and Berlin ensemble. Three of these will be released in his 2010 album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. Shakespeare's has been turned into a song by the singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant. Kate Winslet's character, Marianne Dashwood, quotes from part of Shakespeare's in the 1995 film, Sense and Sensibility.[29] The quote is first introduced to show the similarity between Marianne Dashwood's character and that of her first love, Mr. Willoughby. It is later used to point up Willoughby's inconstancy. Shakespeare's is taught in an episode of "My So-Called Life," and even the laconic Jordan Catalano gets involved in class, to acknowledge that, yes, the speaker is in love with the girl he is describing, even though she is imperfect. Shakespeare's Sonnet 94 is incorporated into the song "If There Was Love" written by Pet Shop Boys and recorded by Liza Minnelli for her 1989 album Results. Shakespeare's sonnets 58

External links Ç Historical background to Shakespeare's Sonnets [30] Ç The Sonnets [31] Ä Compare two sonnets side-by-side, see all of them together on one page, or view a range of sonnets (from Open Source Shakespeare) Ç The Sonnets [32] Ä Full text and commentary. Ç The Sonnets [33] Ä Plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg Ç Shakepeare's Sonnets [34] Overview of each in contemporary English Ç Free audiobook [35] from LibriVox [36] Ç Complete sonnets of William Shakespeare [37] Ä Listed by number and first line. Ç Gerald Massey - 'The Secret Drama of Shakspeare's Sonnets (1888 edition) [38] Ç Discussion of the identification of Emily Lanier as the Dark Lady [39] Ç Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up [40] "Remix" Shakespeare's sonnets Ç shakespeareintune.com [41] all the 154 Sonnets are here recited with a musical introduction. Ç Online, free, self-referential concordance to the Sonnets [42]

References [1] Stanley Wells and Michael Dobson, eds., The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 439. [2] Foster, Donald. "Master W.H., R.I.P." PMLA 102 (1987) 42Ä54, 42. [3] Burrow, Colin (2002). Complete Sonnets and Poems. Oxford University Press. p.Ä99. ISBNÄ019818431X. [4] Foster 1984, 43. [5] Vickers, Brian (2007). Shakespeare, A lover's complaint, and John Davies of Hereford. Cambridge University Press. p.Ä8. ISBNÄ0521859123. [6] Burrow 2002, 380. [7] Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). William Shakespeare, a compact documentary life (1 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp.Ä270Ä271. ISBNÄ01981257555. [8] Foster, 1987. [9] Bate, Jonathan. The Genius of Shakespeare (1998) 61-62. [10] Vickers, 2007,8 [11] Collins, John Churton. Ephemera Critica. Westminster, Constable and Co., 1902; p. 216. [12] Appleby, John C (January 2008). "Hervey, William, Baron Hervey of Kidbrooke and Baron Hervey of Ross (d. 1642)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. [13] Berryman, John (2001). Haffenden, John. ed. Berryman's Shakespeare: essays, letters and other writings. London: Tauris Parke. p.Äxxxvi. ISBNÄ9781860646430. [14] Neil, Samuel (27 April 1867). AthenÄum (London): 552. [15] Neil, Samuel (1863). Shakespere: a critical biography. London: Houlston and Wright. pp.Ä105Ä106. OCLCÄ77866350. [16] Colin Burrow, ed. The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford UP, 2002), p. 98; 102-3. [17] A metre in poetry with five iambic metrical feet, which stems from the Italian word endecasillabo, for a line composed of five beats with an anacrusis, an upbeat or unstressed syllable at the beginning of a line which is no part of the first foot. [18] Bray, Sir Denis. The Original Order of Shakespeare's Sonnets. (Brooklyn: Haskell House, 1977) p. 36 [19] Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare's Sonnets. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979) p. 57 [20] McGuire, Philip C. Shakespeare's Non-Shakespearean Sonnets. Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Autumn, 1987) p. 304-319; 306

[21] http:/ / books. guardian. co. uk/ departments/ classics/ story/ 0,,1645660,00. html

[22] OxfordJournals.org (http:/ / res. oxfordjournals. org/ cgi/ content/ abstract/ 56/ 224/ 224) [23] Stapleton, M. L. "Shakespeare's Man Right Fair as Sonnet Lady." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 46 (2004): 272

[24] Sanderlin, George (June 1939). "The Repute of Shakespeare's Sonnets in the Early Nineteenth Century" (http:/ / jstor. org/ stable/ 2910858). Modern Language Notes (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 54 (6): 462Ä466. doi:10.2307/2910858. .

[25] Shakespeare's Sonnets in Latin (http:/ / www. slu. edu/ colleges/ AS/ languages/ classical/ latin/ tchmat/ pedagogy/ latinitas/ dv/ dv. html), translated by Alfred Thomas Barton, newly edited by Ludwig Bernays, Edition Signathur, Dozwil/CH 2006

[26] Shakespeare: La sonetoj (sonnets in Esperanto), Translated by William Auld, Edistudio, Edistudio Homepage (http:/ / www. edistudio. it/

index_libri. php?Lang=en), verified 2008/02/03

[27] Selection of Shakespearean Sonnets (http:/ / services. tos. net/ text/ klingon/ kli-sonnets. txt), Translated by Nick Nicholas, verified 2005/02/27

[28] http:/ / www. hup. harvard. edu/ catalog/ VENART. html

[29] http:/ / www. imdb. com/ title/ tt0114388/ trivia

[30] http:/ / shakespeare. about. com/ od/ thesonnets/ a/ sonnet. htm Shakespeare's sonnets 59

[31] http:/ / www. opensourceshakespeare. org/ views/ sonnets/ sonnets. php

[32] http:/ / www. shakespeares-sonnets. com/

[33] http:/ / www. gutenberg. net/ etext/ 1041

[34] http:/ / www. nosweatshakespeare. com/ sonnets. htm

[35] http:/ / librivox. org/ sonnets-by-william-shakespeare/

[36] http:/ / librivox. org/

[37] http:/ / www. everypoet. com/ archive/ poetry/ William_Shakespeare/ william_shakespeare_contents. htm

[38] http:/ / www. gerald-massey. org. uk/ massey/ cpr_shakspeare_index. htm

[39] http:/ / peterbassano. com/ shakespeare

[40] http:/ / www. bookrags. com/ sonnet/

[41] http:/ / www. Shakespeareintune. com/

[42] http:/ / www. doc. ic. ac. uk/ ~rac101/ concord/ texts/ sonnets/ 60

Style

Shakespeare's style

William Shakespeare's style borrowed from the conventions of the day, while at the same time adapting them to his needs.

Overview

Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama.[1] The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetoricalÇwritten for actors to declaim rather than speak. For example, the grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action; meanwhile, the verse in Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described Detail from statue of Shakespeare in Leicester Square, London. as stilted.[2]

Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, RichardÅs vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays.[3] No single play marks a change from the traditional to the freer style. Shakespeare combined the two throughout his career, with Romeo and Juliet perhaps the best example of the mixing of the styles.[4] By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself.

Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony.[5] Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Pity by William Blake, 1795, Tate Britain, is an Caesar and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the illustration of two similes in Macbeth: "And pity, [6] turmoil in Hamlet's mind: like a naked new-born babe, / Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd / Upon the sightless Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting couriers of the air". That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. RashlyÄ And prais'd be rashness for itÄlet us know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well... Shakespeare's style 61

After Hamlet, Shakespeare varied his poetic style further, particularly in the more emotional passages of the late tragedies. The literary critic A. C. Bradley described this style as "more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical".[7] In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length.[8] In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35Ä38); "...pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air..." (1.7.21Ä25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense.[8] The late romances, with their shifts in time and surprising turns of plot, inspired a last poetic style in which long and short sentences are set against one another, clauses are piled up, subject and object are reversed, and words are omitted, creating an effect of spontaneity.[9] Shakespeare's poetic genius was allied with a practical sense of the theatre.[10] Like all playwrights of the time, Shakespeare dramatised stories from sources such as Petrarch and Holinshed.[11] He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama.[12] As ShakespeareÅs mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays, however. In his late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.[13]

Form Iambic pentameter. In some of his early works, he added punctuation at the end of the lines to strengthen the rhythm wrote with his pen. [14] He and other dramatists at the time used this form of blank verse for much of the dialogue between characters in order to elevate the poetry of drama.[15] To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet, thus creating suspense.[16] A typical example occurs in Macbeth: as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder Duncan (to the sound of a chiming clock), he says,[17]

Hear it not Duncan; for it is a knell ÄThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.Å

His plays make effective use of the soliloquy, in which a character makes a solitary speech, giving the audience insight to the character's motivations and inner conflict.[18] Among his most famous soliloquies are To be or not to be, All the world's a stage, and What a piece of work is a man[19] . The character either speaks to the audience directly (in the case of choruses, or characters that become epilogues), or more commonly, speaks to himself or herself in the fictional realm.[20] Shakespeare's writing features extensive wordplay of double entendres and clever rhetorical flourishes.[21] Humour is a key element in all of Shakespeare's plays. His works have been considered controversial through the centuries for his use of bawdy punning,[22] to the extent that "virtually every play is shot through with sexual puns."[23] Indeed, in the nineteenth century, popular censored versions of the plays were produced as The Family Shakespeare by Henrietta Bowdler (writing anonymously) and later by her brother Thomas Bowdler.[24] Comedy is not confined to Shakespeare's comedies, and is a core element of many of the tragedy and history plays. For example, comic scenes dominate over historical material in Henry IV, Part 1.[25] Shakespeare's style 62

Similarities to contemporaries Besides following the popular forms of his day, Shakespeare's general style is comparable to several of his contemporaries. His works have many similarities to the writing of Christopher Marlowe, and seem to reveal strong influences from the Queen's Men's performances, especially in his history plays. His style is also comparable to 's and John Fletcher's, other playwrights of the time.[26] Shakespeare often borrowed plots from other plays and stories. Hamlet, for example, is comparable to Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum. Romeo and Juliet is thought to be based on Arthur Brooke's narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.[27] King Lear is based on the story of King Leir in Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was retold in 1587 by Raphael Holinshed. Borrowing plots in this way was not uncommon at the time. After Shakespeare's death, playwrights quickly began borrowing from his works, a tradition that continues to this day.[26]

Differences from contemporaries Shakespeare's works express the complete range of human experience.[28] His characters were human beings[29] who commanded the sympathy of audiences when many other playwrights' characters were flat or archetypes.[30] [31] Macbeth, for example, commits six murders by the end of the fourth act, and is responsible for many deaths offstage, yet still commands an audience's sympathy until the very end[32] because he is seen as a flawed human being, not a monster.[33] Hamlet knows that he must avenge the death of his father, but he is too indecisive, too self-doubting, to carry this out until he has no choice.[34] His failings cause his downfall, and he exhibits some of the most basic human reactions and emotions. Shakespeare's characters were complex and human in nature. By making the protagonist's character development central to the plot, Shakespeare changed what could be accomplished with drama.[35]

References [1] Clemen, Wolfgang (2005). Shakespeare's Dramatic Art: Collected Essays, 150. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415352789. [2] Frye, 105, 177. Ü Clemen, Wolfgang (2005). Shakespeare's Imagery. London; New York: Routledge, 29. ISBN 0415352800. [3] Brooke, Nicholas, "Language and Speaker in Macbeth", 69; and Bradbrook, M.C., "Shakespeare's Recollection of Marlowe", 195: both in Shakespeare's Styles: Essays in Honour of Kenneth Muir. Edwards, Philip; Inga-Stina Ewbank, and G.K. Hunter (eds.) (2004 edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521616948. [4] Clemen, Shakespeare's Imagery, 63. [5] Frye, 185. [6] Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4Ä8. Wright, George T (2004). "The Play of Phrase and Line". In Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 1945Ç2000. Russ McDonald (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 868. ISBN 0631234888. [7] Bradley, 91. [8] McDonald, 42Ä6. [9] McDonald, 36, 39, 75. [10] Gibbons, 4. [11] Gibbons, 1Ä4. [12] Gibbons, 1Ä7, 15. [13] McDonald, 13. Ü Meagher, John C (2003). Pursuing Shakespeare's Dramaturgy: Some Contexts, Resources, and Strategies in his Playmaking. New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 358. ISBN 0838639933. [14] Introduction to Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Barron's Educational Series, 2002, 11.

[15] Elizabethan Period (1558Ç1603), from ProQuest Period Pages (http:/ / gateway. proquest. com/ openurl?url_ver=Z39. 88-2004&

res_id=xri:pqllit-US& rft_dat=xri:pqllit:reference:per015). ProQuest. 2005. [16] Miller, Carol (2001). Irresistible Shakespeare. New York: Scholastic Professional. pp.Äp18. ISBNÄ0-439-09844-0. [17] Macbeth Act 2, Scene 1 [18] Clemen, Wolfgang H. (1987) Shakespeare's Soliloquies, trans. Charity S. Stokes, Routledge, 11. [19] Barnet, Sylvan (1998). A Midsummer NightÑs Dream. London, England: Signet Classics. pp.Ävii - lxi. Shakespeare's style 63

[20] Maurer, Margaret (2005). "Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies". Shakespeare Quarterly 56 (4): 504. doi:10.1353/shq.2006.0027.

Retrieved through Proquest on June 6, 2007 here (http:/ / gateway. proquest. com/ openurl?url_ver=Z39. 88-2004& res_id=xri:pqllit-US& rft_dat=xri:pqllit:criticism:1009211531). [21] Mahood, Molly Maureen (1988). Shakespeare's Wordplay. Routledge. pp.Ä9. [22] Partridge, Eric (1947). Shakespeare's Bawdy. London: Routledge. pp.ÄPreface p.xi. ISBNÄ0-415-05076-6. [23] Wells,, Stanley (2004). Looking for Sex in Shakespeare. Cambridge University Press. pp.Ä1. ISBNÄ0-521-54039-9. [24] Wells, Stanley Looking for Sex in Shakespeare 19-20. [25] Kastan, David Scott (ed.) King Henry IV, Part 1 (The Arden Shakespeare:Third Series, Thomson, London 2002) Introduction, 14. [26] Holland, Peter. (Sept 2004) "Shakespeare, William (1564Ä1616)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press;

online ed, Jan 2007 http:/ / www. oxforddnb. com. erl. lib. byu. edu/ view/ article/ 25200, Retrieved 25 June 2007

[27] Arthur J. Roberts (Feb 1902). "The Sources of Romeo and Juliet" (http:/ / jstor. org/ stable/ 2917639). Modern Language Notes (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 17 (2): 41Ä44. doi:10.2307/2917639. . [28] Reich, John J., and Cunningham, Lawrence S. Culture And Values: A Survey of the Humanities Thomson Wadsworth, 2005, 354. [29] Webster, Margaret. Shakespeare Without Tears Courier Dover Publications, 2000, 194. [30] Bennett, J. A. W. , Gray, Douglas, et al. The Oxford history of : The Age of Shakespeare Oxford University Press, 1997, 503. [31] Leggatt, Alexander. "Arden of Faversham" from Shakespeare Survey by Stanley Wells (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2002, 121. [32] Dotterer, Ronald L. Shakespeare: Text, Subtext, and Context Susquehanna University Press, 1989, 91. [33] McCarthy, Mary. "General MacBeth" from The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Signet Classic, 1998, 162. [34] Berryman, John. Berryman's Shakespeare: Essays, Letters and Other Writings Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2001, pages 114-116. [35] Frye, Roland Mushat. (2005) Shakespeare:The Art of the Dramatist. Routledge, pg. 118. ISBN 0-415-35289-4 64

Influence

Shakespeare's influence

William Shakespeare

The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed (National Portrait Gallery, London, currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.).

Born baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Died 23 April 1616 Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Occupation Playwright, poet, actor

Signature

William Shakespeare's influence extends from theatre to literature to present day movies and to the English language itself. Widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language[1] and the world's pre-eminent dramatist,[2] [3] [4] Shakespeare transformed English theatre by expanding expectations about what could be accomplished through characterization, plot, language and genre.[5] [6] [7] Shakespeare's writings have also influenced a large number of notable novelists and poets over the years, including Herman Melville[8] and Charles Dickens.[9] Finally, Shakespeare is the second most quoted writer in the history of the English-speaking world[10] [11] after the various writers of the Bible, and many of his quotations and neologisms have passed into everyday usage in English and other languages. The use of English among scholars, lawyers, public officials and other authors of public written documents rose under the primary influence of the printing press. Until the end of the fifteenth century, most oral communication was conducted in English, whereas most written communication was done in Latin. The mass production and widespread distribution of books tipped the scales in favor of the vernacular. As more people began to read, writers Shakespeare's influence 65

noticed that English had become a practical means of reaching the public. A rise of nationalism also contributed to the rise of the vernacular. As England ascended as a force in European politics, first with Henry VIII and then with Elizabeth I, educators and writers began to associate the English language with English values and national pride. A need to change the structure and vocabulary of the language began to arise.

Changes in English at the time Early Modern English as a literary medium was unfixed in structure and vocabulary in comparison to Greek and Latin, and was in a constant state of flux. When William Shakespeare began writing his plays, the English language was rapidly absorbing words from other languages due to wars, exploration, diplomacy and colonization. By the age of Elizabeth, English had become widely used with the expansion of philosophy, theology and physical sciences, but many writers lacked the vocabulary to express such ideas. To accommodate, writers such as , Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare expressed new ideas and distinctions by inventing, borrowing or adopting a word or a phrase from another language, known as neologizing. Scholars estimate that, between the years 1500 and 1659, nouns, verbs and modifiers of Latin, Greek and modern Romance languages added 30,000 new words to the English language.

Influence on the English language The influence of Shakespeare on the English language, both spoken and written, has been debated and opinions have varied over the centuries. ShakespeareÅs contribution to the expansion of the English language was commented on as early as 1598, when commentator Francis Meres, applauding English literature in relation to the classics, placed Shakespeare among the writers who had dignified the language. Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, critics and scholars began to doubt whether Shakespeare had a significant effect on the expansion of English vocabulary. This is mainly based on the neoclassical image of him as a poor Latinist. In the early twentieth century, there was an overreaction to this, so that one critic credited William Shakespeare with having coined nearly 10,000 words, though some critics wonder how his audience could have understood his plays if they were full of words of which nobody had ever heard.

Influence on literature Shakespeare is cited as an influence on a large number of writers in the following centuries, including major novelists such as Herman Melville,[8] Charles Dickens,[9] Thomas Hardy[12] and William Faulkner.[13] Examples of this influence include the large number of Shakespearean quotations throughout Dickens' writings[14] and the fact that at least 25 of Dickens' titles are drawn from Shakespeare,[15] while Melville frequently used Shakespearean devices, including formal stage directions and extended soliloquies, in Moby-Dick.[16] In fact, Shakespeare so influenced Melville that the novel's main antagonist, Captain Ahab, is a classic Shakespearean tragic figure, "a great man brought down by his faults."[8] Shakespeare has also influenced a number of English poets, especially Romantic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge who were obsessed with self-consciousness, a modern theme Shakespeare anticipated in plays such as Hamlet.[17] Shakespeare's writings were so influential to English poetry of the 1800s that critic George Steiner has called all English poetic dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes."[17] Shakespeare's influence 66

Influence on the English language

Shakespeare's writings greatly influenced the entire English language. Prior to and during Shakespeare's time, the grammar and rules of English were not fixed.[18] But once Shakespeare's plays became popular in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, they helped contribute to the standardization of the English language, with many Shakespearean words and phrases becoming embedded in the English language, particularly through projects such as Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language which quoted Shakespeare more than any other writer.[19] He expanded the scope of English literature by introducing new words and phrases, experimenting with blank verse, and also introducing new poetic and grammatical structures.

Pre-Shakespearian English

Shakespeare wrote under the influence of poets such as Chaucer, Spenser and Sidney. It is also important to note the setting of Shakespeare's language. In 449 A.D., the Germanic tribes - the Angles, Saxons and Jutes - had moved to Britain to side with the Celts in order to help them defeat their northern neighbors. After their victory, however, the Germanic tribes gradually pushed the Celts into what became Wales and Cornwall. The tribes introduced Anglo-Saxon, more commonly known as Old English language (Mario Pei). Anglo-Saxon survived despite the Norman invasion of 1066 A.D., which introduced French to England and strengthened Latin's existing power. These events marked the beginning of the Middle English period. Around 1204 A.D., bilingualism developed amongst "Norman officials, supervisors, [and] bilingual children [resulting from] French and English marriages".[20] English was, however, still not in common use, at least in matters of the state and clergy. King John Lackland's death indicated the end of Norman rule. The decision of the Norman proprietors and Edward I's (Henry III's son) conquest of Wales all contributed to increased usage of the English language. French/Norman cultural supremacy in England waned. The increase in the use of English resulted in the "smoothing out of dialectal differences [and] beginning of standard English based on London dialect".[20] Nevertheless, French remained the official language until around the 14th century. It was not until 1509 A.D., however, that English was recognized as the official language of England.[20] Until 1583 A.D., the rhetoric of the English language was deeply indebted to Chaucer. Otherwise, given the relative lack of written records, "the innovation of the language was uncertain".[21] The late 15th and early 16th century marks the approximate shift from Middle English to Early Modern English, the language of the Renaissance. "Before the arrival of Shakespeare to London, there was little hope for the future of English but by 1613, when Shakespeare's last work was written, the literature of modern English was already rich in varied achievements, self confident and mature".[21] [21]

Vocabulary One of Shakespeare's biggest contributions to the English language is the introduction of vocabulary and phrases which enriched the language making it more colourful and expressive. Shakespeare used around 3,000 new words in his work, sometimes borrowing from the classical literature and foreign languages.[21] His exceptional experimentation with words "also resulted in formation of expressions and phrases". Many of his phrases like "All's well that ends well", "To be or not to be", etc. have become an integral part of the English language and have been used as quotes. The addition of these words gave his style distinctness. These phrases are major contributions to everyday conversation in the English language. Shakespeare introduced style and structure to an otherwise loose, spontaneous language. The Elizabethan era language was written as it was spoken. The naturalness gave force and freedom since there was no formalized Shakespeare's influence 67

prescriptive grammar binding the expression. Lack of prescribed grammar rules introduced vagueness in literature, but expressed feelings with vividness and emotion. It had "freedom of expression" and "vividness of presentment".[22] It was a language which expressed feelings explicitly. Shakespeare used the exuberance of the language and decasyllabic structure in prose and poetry of his plays to reach the masses and the result was "a constant two way exchange between learned and the popular, together producing the unique combination of racy tang and the majestic stateliness that informs the language of Shakespeare".[21] It was a two way process in which literary language gained force and freedom of popular speech whereas eloquence of the language reached the general masses. His contribution in making the language popular with the masses was immense. His plays played an important role here. Is Shakespeare's language conservative or innovative for his times? It is true that in Shakespeare's works generally occur all the English words and grammatical structures of his era. A prominent example is the usage of the personal pronouns thee, thy, thou etc. Nevertheless, it is obvious that his language is very innovative for his times, as he introduced new words, phrases and grammatical structures and also picked up words that were new and fashionable at the time. The Oxford English Dictionary records over 2000 entries that have a supporting quotation from Shakespeare's works and his quotation often is the earliest source available.[23]

Blank verse Shakespeare's first plays were experimental as he was still learning from his own mistakes. It was a long journey from Titus Andronicus and King Henry VI to The Tempest. Gradually his language followed the "natural process of artistic growth, to find its adequate projection in dramatic form".[21] As he continued experimenting, his style of writing found many manifestations in plays. The dialogues in his plays were written in verse form and followed a decasyllabic rule. In Titus Andronicus, decasyllables have been used throughout. "There is considerable pause; and though the inflexibility of the line sound is little affected by it, there is a certain running over of sense". His work is still experimental in Titus Andronicus. However, in Love's Labour's Lost and The Comedy of Errors, there is "perfect metre-abundance of rime [rhyme], plenty of prose, arrangement in stanza". After these two comedies, he kept experimenting until he reached a maturity of style. "Shakespeare's experimental use of trend and style, as well as the achieved development of his blank verses, are all evidences of his creative invention and influences". Through experimentation of tri-syllabic substitution and decasyllabic rule he developed the blank verse to perfection and introduced a new style. "Shakespeare's blank verse is one of the most important of all his influences on the way the English language was written". He used the blank verse throughout in his writing career experimenting and perfecting it. The free speech rhythm gave Shakespeare more freedom for experimentation. "Adaptation of free speech rhythm to the fixed blank-verse framework is an outstanding feature of Shakespeare's poetry".[21] The striking choice of words in common place blank verse influenced "the run of the verse itself, expanding into images which eventually seem to bear significant repetition, and to form, with the presentation of character and action correspondingly developed, a more subtle and suggestive unity".[21] Expressing emotions and situations in form of a verse gave a natural flow to language with an added sense of flexibility and spontaneity. Shakespeare's influence 68

Poetry He introduced in poetry two main factors - "verbal immediacy and the moulding of stress to the movement of living emotion".[21] Shakespeare's words reflected passage of time with "fresh, concrete vividness" giving the reader an idea of the time frame.[21] His remarkable capacity to analyze and express emotions in simple words was amazing: "When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies-" Ç(Sonnet CXXXVIII) In the sonnet above, he has expressed in very simple words "complex and even contradictory attitudes to a single emotion".[21] The sonnet form was limited structurally, in theme and in expressions. Liveliness of Shakespeare's language and strict discipline of the sonnets imparted economy and intensity to his writing style. "It encouraged the association of compression with depth of content and variety of emotional response to a degree unparalleled in English".[21] Complex human emotions found simple expressions in Shakespeare's language.

References [1] Reich, John J.; Cunningham, Lawrence S. (2005). Culture And Values: A Survey of the Humanities. Thomson Wadsworth. pp.Ä102.

[2] "William Shakespeare" (http:/ / www. britannica. com/ eb/ article-9109536). Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. . Retrieved 2007-06-14.

[3] "William Shakespeare" (http:/ / encarta. msn. com/ encyclopedia_761562101/ Shakespeare_William. html). MSN Encarta Online Encyclopedia. . Retrieved 2007-06-14.

[4] "William Shakespeare" (http:/ / columbia. thefreedictionary. com/ Shakespeare,+ William). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. . Retrieved 2007-06-14. [5] Miola, Robert S. (2000). Shakespeare's Reading. Oxford University Press. [6] Chambers, Edmund Kerchever (1944). Shakespearean Gleanings. Oxford University Press. pp.Ä35. [7] Mazzeno, Laurence W.; Frank Northen Magills and Dayton Kohler (1996) [1949]. Masterplots: 1,801 Plot Stories and Critical Evaluations of the World's Finest Literature. Salen Press. pp.Ä2837. [8] Hovde, Carl F. "Introduction" Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Spark Publishing, 2003, page xxvi. [9] Gager, Valerie L. (1996). Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence. Cambridge University Press. pp.Ä163.

[10] The Literary Encyclopedia entry on William Shakespeare (http:/ / www. litencyc. com/ php/ speople. php?rec=true& UID=5160) by Lois Potter, University of Delaware, accessed June 22, 2006

[11] The Columbia Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations (http:/ / cup. columbia. edu/ book/ 978-0-231-10434-0/ the-columbia-dictionary-of-shakespeare-quotations), edited by Mary Foakes and Reginald Foakes, June 1998. [12] Millgate, Michael and Wilson, Keith, Thomas Hardy Reappraised: Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate University of Toronto Press, 2006, 38. [13] Kolin, Philip C.. Shakespeare and Southern Writers: A Study in Influence. University Press of Mississippi. pp.Ä124. [14] Gager, Valerie L. (1996). Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence. Cambridge University Press. pp.Ä251. [15] Gager, Valerie L. (1996). Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence. Cambridge University Press. pp.Ä186. [16] Bryant, John. "Moby Dick as Revolution" The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville Robert Steven Levine (editor). Cambridge University Press, 1998, page 82. [17] Dotterer, Ronald L. (1989). Shakespeare: Text, Subtext, and Context. Susquehanna University Press. pp.Ä108. [18] Introduction to Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Barron's Educational Series, 2002, page 12. [19] Lynch, Jack. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English Language. Delray Beach, FL: Levenger Press (2002), page 12.

[20] Fidel Fajardo-Acosta (1997-10-29). "Middle English" (http:/ / mockingbird. creighton. edu/ english/ worldlit/ teaching/ upperdiv/ mideng. htm). Creighton University Department of English. . [21] Borris Ford, ed (1955). The Age of Shakespeare. Great Britain: Penguin Books. pp.Ä16,51,54,55,64,71,87,179,184,187,188,197. [22] A.W. Ward, A.R. Waller, W.P. Trent, J. Erskine, S.P. Sherman, and C. Van Doren, ed (1907Ä21/2000). "XX. The Language from Chaucer

to Shakespeare - 11. Elizabethan English as a literary medium" (http:/ / www. bartleby. com/ 213/ 2011. html). The Cambridge history of English and American literature: An encyclopedia in eighteen volumes. III. Renascence and Reformation. Cambridge, England: University Press. ISBN 1-58734-073-9. . [23] Jucker, Andreas H. History of English and English Historical Linguistics. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag (2000), page 51. 69

Critical reputation

Shakespeare's reputation

In his own time, William Shakespeare (1564 Ä 1616) was seen as merely one among many talented playwrights and poets, but ever since the late 17th century he has been considered the supreme playwright, and to a lesser extent, poet of the English language. No other dramatist has been performed even remotely as often on the British (and later the world) stage as Shakespeare. The plays have often been drastically adapted in performance; the version of King Lear used in performance between 1681 and 1838, for instance, had a happy ending, provided by a rewrite by the Irish poet Nahum Tate. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the era of the great acting stars, to be a star on the British stage became synonymous with being a great Shakespearean actor. The emphasis was then on the soliloquies as declamatory turns, at the expense of pace and action, and Shakespeare's plays threatened to disappear under music, scenery, thunder, lightning and wave machines.

Editors and critics of the plays, disdaining the The Chandos portrait, commonly assumed to depict William showiness and melodrama of Shakespearean stage Shakespeare, "the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul" (John Dryden, representation, began early to focus on Shakespeare as 1668), "our myriad-minded Shakespeare" (S. T. Coleridge, 1817). dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre. The rift between Shakespeare on the stage and Shakespeare on the page was at its widest in the early 19th century, at a time when both forms of Shakespeare were hitting peaks of fame and popularity: theatrical Shakespeare was successful spectacle and melodrama for the masses, while book or closet drama Shakespeare was being elevated by the reverential commentary of the Romantics into unique poetic genius, prophet, and bard. Before the Romantics, Shakespeare was simply the most admired of all dramatic poets, especially for his insight into human nature and his realism, but Romantic critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge refactored him into an object of almost religious adoration or "bardolatry" (from bard + ÅÇÉÑÖÜÇ, Greek for worshipÇa word coined by George Bernard Shaw), who towered above mere mortal writers, and whose plays were to be worshipped as not "merely great works of art" but as "phenomena of nature, like the sun and , the stars and the flowers" and "with entire submission of our own faculties" (Thomas de Quincey, 1823). To the later 19th century Shakespeare became in addition an emblem of national pride, the crown jewel of English culture, and a "rallying-sign", as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, for the whole British empire.

Beginning around the turn of the 20th century, the historic rift between poet and playwright has begun to heal. Shakespeare's reputation 70

17th century

It is impossible to calculate Shakespeare's reputation in his own lifetime and shortly after. England scarcely had a modern literature to speak of prior to the 1570s, and detailed critical commentaries on modern authors did not begin to appear until the reign of Charles I. The facts about his reputation must be surmised from fragmentary evidence. He was included in some contemporary lists of leading poets, but he seems to have lacked the stature of the aristocratic Philip Sidney, who became a cult figure due to his death in battle at a young age, or of Edmund Spenser. Shakespeare's poems were reprinted far more frequently than his plays; but Shakespeare's plays were written for performance by his own company, and because no law prevented rival companies from using the plays, Shakespeare's troupe took steps to prevent his plays from being printed. That many of his plays were pirated suggests his popularity in the book market,

and the regular patronage of his company by the court, A 1596 sketch of a performance in progress on the culminating in 1603 when James I turned it into the "King's platform or apron stage of the typical circular Men," suggests his popularity among higher stations of society. Elizabethan open-roof playhouse . Modern plays (as opposed to those in Latin and Greek) were considered ephemeral and even somewhat disreputable entertainments by some contemporaries; the new Bodleian Library explicitly refused to shelve plays. Some of Shakespeare's plays, particularly the history plays, were reprinted frequently in cheap quarto (essentially pamphlet) form; others, including many of his finest, took decades to reach a third edition.

After Ben Jonson pioneered the canonization of modern plays by printing his own works in folio (the luxury book format) in 1616, Shakespeare was the next playwright to be honored by a folio collection, in 1623. The fact that that folio went into another edition within nine years indicates that he was held in unusually high regard for a playwright. The dedicatory poems by Ben Jonson and in the were the first to suggest that Shakespeare was the supreme poet of his age. These expensive reading editions are the first visible sign of a rift between Shakespeare on the stage and Shakespeare for readers, a rift that was to widen over the next two centuries. In his 1630 work 'Timber' or 'Discoveries', Ben Jonson praised the speed and ease with which Shakespeare wrote his plays as well as his contemporary's honesty and gentleness towards others. During the Interregnum (1642Ä1660), all public stage performances were banned by the Puritan rulers. Though, while denied the use of the stage, costumes and scenery, actors still managed to ply their trade by performing "drolls" or short pieces of larger plays that usually ended with some type of jig. Shakespeare was among the many playwrights whose works were plundered for these scenes. Among the most common scenes were Bottom's scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream and the gravedigger's scene from Hamlet. When the theatres opened again in 1660 after this uniquely long and sharp break in British theatrical history, two newly licensed London theatre companies, the Duke's and the King's Company, started business with a scramble for performance rights to old plays. Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the Beaumont and Fletcher team were among the most valuable properties and remained popular after Restoration playwriting had gained momentum. Shakespeare's reputation 71

In the elaborate Restoration London playhouses, designed by Christopher Wren, Shakespeare's plays were staged with music, dancing, thunder, lightning, wave machines, and fireworks. The texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage, an undertaking which has seemed shockingly disrespectful to posterity. A notorious example is Nahum Tate's happy-ending King Lear (1681) (which held the stage until 1838), while The Tempest was turned into an opera replete with special effects by William Davenant. In fact, as the director of the Duke's Company, Davenant was legally obliged to reform and modernize Shakespeare's plays before performing them, an ad hoc ruling by the Lord Chamberlain in the battle for performance rights which "sheds an interesting light on the many twentieth-century denunciations of Davenant for his adaptations" (Hume, p. 20). The common modern view of the Restoration stage as the epitome of Shakespeare abuse and bad taste has been shown by Hume to be exaggerated, and both scenery and adaptation became more reckless in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Restoration playhouses had elaborate scenery. They retained a shortened version of the apron stage for The incomplete Restoration stage records suggest that actor/audience contact, although it is not visible in this Shakespeare, although always a major repertory author, was picture (the artist is standing on it). bested in the 1660Ä1700 period by the phenomenal popularity of Beaumont and Fletcher. "Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage", reported fellow playwright John Dryden in 1668, "two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's". In the early 18th century, however, Shakespeare took over the lead on the London stage from Beaumont and Fletcher, never to relinquish it again to anybody.

By contrast to the stage history, in literary criticism there was no lag time, no temporary preference for other dramatists: Shakespeare had a unique position at least from the Restoration in 1660 and onwards. While Shakespeare did not follow the unbending French neo-classical "rules" for the drama and the three classical unities of time, place, and action, those strict rules had never caught on in England, and their sole zealous proponent Thomas Rymer was hardly ever mentioned by influential writers except as an example of narrow dogmatism. Dryden, for example, argued in his influential Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668) Ç the same essay in which he noted that Shakespeare's plays were performed only half as often as those of Beaumont and Fletcher Ç for Shakespeare's artistic superiority. Though Shakespeare does not follow the dramatic conventions, Dryden wrote, Ben Jonson does, and as a result Jonson lands in a distant second place to "the incomparable Shakespeare", the follower of nature, the untaught genius, the great realist of human character.

18th century

Britain In the 18th century, Shakespeare dominated the London stage, while Shakespeare productions turned increasingly into the creation of star turns for star actors. After the Licensing Act of 1737, one fourth of the plays performed were by Shakespeare, and on at least two occasions rival London playhouses staged the very same Shakespeare play at the same time (Romeo and Juliet in 1755 and King Lear the next year) and still commanded audiences. This occasion was a striking example of the growing prominence of Shakespeare stars in the theatrical culture, the big attraction being the competition and rivalry between the male leads at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, Spranger Barry and David Garrick. Apparently no incongruity was perceived in having Barry and Garrick, in their late thirties, play Shakespeare's reputation 72

adolescent Romeo one season and geriatric King Lear the next: age appropriateness was nothing, the power to command and electrify audiences was all. As performance playscripts diverged more and more from their originals, the publication of texts intended for reading developed rapidly in the opposite direction, with the invention of textual criticism and an emphasis on fidelity to Shakespeare's original words. The texts that we read and perform today were largely settled in the 18th century. Nahum Tate and Nathaniel Lee had already prepared editions and performed scene divisions in the late 17th century, and Nicholas Rowe's edition of 1709 is considered the first truly scholarly text for the plays. It was followed by many good 18th-century editions, crowned by Edmund Malone's landmark Variorum Edition, which was published posthumously in 1821 and remains the basis of modern editions. These collected editions were meant for reading, not staging, and some of them were even convenient for a poetry lover to carry around; Rowe's 1709 edition was, compared to the old folios, a light pocketbook. Shakespeare criticism also increasingly spoke to readers, rather than to theatre audiences. David Garrick as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, 1770. The only aspects of Shakespeare's plays that were consistently disliked and singled out for criticism in the 18th century were the puns ("clenches") and the "low" (sexual) allusions. While a few editors, notably , attempted to gloss over or remove the puns and the double entendres, they were quickly reversed, and by mid-century the puns and sexual humor were (with only a few exceptions, see Thomas Bowdler) back in to stay. Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's matchless imagination and capacity for painting "nature" were echoed without a break in the 18th century by, for example, Joseph Addison ("Among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others"), Alexander Pope ("every single character in Shakespeare is as much an Individual as those in Life itself"), and Samuel Johnson (who scornfully dismissed Voltaire's and Rhymer's neoclassical Shakespeare criticism as "the petty cavils of petty minds"). The long-lived belief that the Romantics were the first generation to truly appreciate Shakespeare and to prefer him to Ben Jonson is contradicted by unstinting praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Ideas about Shakespeare that many people think of as typically post-Romantic were frequently expressed in the 18th and even in the 17th century: he was described as a genius who needed no learning, as deeply original, and as creating uniquely "real" and individual characters (see Timeline of Shakespeare criticism). To compare Shakespeare and his well-educated contemporary Ben Jonson was a popular exercise at this time, a comparison that was invariably complimentary to Shakespeare. It functioned to highlight the special qualities of both writers, and it especially powered the assertion that natural genius trumps rules, that "there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature" (Samuel Johnson).

Elsewhere in Europe Some of Shakespeare's work was performed in continental Europe during the 17th century, but it was not until the mid 18th century that it became widely known. In Germany Lessing compared Shakespeare to German folk literature. Goethe organised a Shakespeare jubilee in Frankfurt in 1771, stating that the dramatist had shown that the Aristotelian unities were "as oppressive as a prison" and were "burdensome fetters on our imagination". Herder likewise proclaimed that reading Shakespeare's work opens "leaves from the book of events, of providence, of the world, blowing in the sands of time." This claim that Shakespeare's work breaks through all creative boundaries to reveal a chaotic, teeming, contradictory world became characteristic of Romantic criticism, later being expressed by Victor Hugo in the preface to his play Cromwell, in which he lauded Shakespeare as an artist of the grotesque, a genre in which the tragic, absurd, trivial and serious were inseparably intertwined. Shakespeare's reputation 73

19th century

Shakespeare in performance

Theatres and theatrical scenery became ever more elaborate in the 19th century, and the acting editions used were progressively cut and restructured to emphasize more and more the soliloquies and the stars, at the expense of pace and action.[1] Performances were further slowed by the need for frequent pauses to change the scenery, creating a perceived need for even more cuts in order to keep performance length within tolerable limits; it became a generally accepted maxim that Shakespeare's plays were too long to be performed without substantial The Theatre Royal at Drury Lane in 1813. The platform stage is gone, and note the orchestra cutting off the actors from the audience. cuts. The platform, or apron, stage, on which actors of the 17th century would come forward for audience contact, was gone, and the actors stayed permanently behind the fourth wall or proscenium arch, further separated from the audience by the orchestra, see image right.

Through the 19th century, a roll call of legendary actors' names all but drown out the plays in which they appear: Sarah Siddons (1755Ç1831), John Philip Kemble (1757Ç1823), Henry Irving (1838Ç1905), and Ellen Terry (1847Ç1928). To be a star of the legitimate drama came to mean being first and foremost a "great Shakespeare actor", with a famous interpretation of, for men, Hamlet, and for women, Lady Macbeth, and especially with a striking delivery of the great soliloquies. The acme of spectacle, star, and soliloquy Shakespeare performance came with the reign of actor-manager Henry Irving at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London from 1878 to 1899. At the same time, a revolutionary return to the roots of Shakespeare's original texts, and to the platform stage, absence of scenery, and fluid scene changes of the Elizabethan theatre, was being effected by William Poel's Elizabethan Stage Society.

Shakespeare in criticism The belief in the unappreciated 18th-century Shakespeare was proposed at the beginning of the 19th century by the Romantics, in support of their view of 18th-century literary criticism as mean, formal, and rule-bound, which was contrasted with their own reverence for the poet as prophet and genius. Such ideas were most fully expressed by German critics such as Goethe and the Schlegel brothers. Romantic critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Hazlitt raised admiration for Shakespeare to worship or even "bardolatry" (a sarcastic coinage from bard + idolatry by George Bernard Shaw in 1901, meaning excessive or religious worship of Shakespeare). To compare him to other Renaissance playwrights at all, even for the purpose of finding him superior, began to seem irreverent. Shakespeare was rather to be studied without any involvement of the critical faculty, to be addressed or apostrophizedÇalmost prayed toÇby his worshippers, as in Thomas de Quincey's classic essay "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" (1823): "O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,Çlike frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own facultiesÖ". Shakespeare's reputation 74

As the concept of literary originality grew in importance, critics were horrified at the idea of adapting Shakespeare's tragedies for the stage by putting happy endings on them, or editing out the puns in Romeo and Juliet. In another way, what happened on the stage was seen as unimportant, as the Romantics, themselves writers of closet drama, considered Shakespeare altogether more suitable for reading than staging. Charles Lamb saw any form of stage representation as distracting from the true qualities of the text. This view, argued as a timeless truth, was also a natural consequence of the dominance of melodrama and spectacle on the early 19th-century stage. Shakespeare became an important emblem of national pride in the 19th century, which was the heyday of the British Empire and the acme of British power in the world. To Thomas Carlyle in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841), Shakespeare was one of the great poet-heroes of history, in the sense of being a "rallying-sign" for British cultural patriotism all over the world, including even the lost American colonies: "From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoeverÖ English men and women are, they will say to one another, 'Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him'" ("The Poet as Hero"). As the foremost of the great canonical writers, the jewel of English culture, and as Carlyle puts it, "merely as a real, marketable, tangibly useful possession", Shakespeare became in the 19th century a means of creating a common heritage for the motherland and all her colonies. Post-colonial literary critics have had much to say of this use of Shakespeare's plays in what they regard as a move to subordinate and deracinate the cultures of the colonies themselves.

20th century Shakespeare continued to be considered the greatest English writer of all time throughout the 20th century. Most Western educational systems required the textual study of two or more of Shakespeare's plays, and both amateur and professional stagings of Shakespeare were commonplace. It was the proliferation of high-quality, well-annotated texts and the unrivalled reputation of Shakespeare that allowed for stagings of Shakespeare's plays to remain textually faithful, but with an extraordinary variety in setting, stage direction, and costuming. Institutions such as the Folger Shakespeare Library in the United States worked to ensure constant, serious study of Shakespearean texts and the Royal Shakespeare Company in the United Kingdom worked to maintain a yearly staging of at least two plays. Shakespeare performances reflected the tensions of , and early in the century, Barry Jackson of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre began the staging of modern-dress productions, thus starting a new trend in Shakesperian production. Performances of the plays could be highly interpretive. Thus, play directors would emphasize Marxist, feminist, or, perhaps most popularly, Freudian psychoanalytical interpretations of the plays, even as they retained letter-perfect scripts. The number of analytical approaches became more diverse by the latter part of the century, as critics applied theories such as structuralism, New Historicism, African American studies, queer studies, and literary semiotics to Shakespeare's works.[2] [3]

In the Third Reich In 1934 the French government banned, in permanence, performances of Coriolanus because of its perceived unpatriotic qualities. In the international protests that followed came one from Germany, from none other than Joseph Goebbels. Although productions of Shakespeare's plays in Germany itself were subject to 'streamlining', he continued to be favoured as a great classical dramatist, especially so as almost every new German play since the late 1890s onwards was the work of left-wingers, of Jews or of 'degenerates' of one kind or another. Politically acceptable writers had simply been unable to fill the gap, or had only been able to do so with the worst kinds of agitprop. In 1935 Goebbels was to say "We can build autobahns, revive the economy, create a new army, but we... cannot manufacture new dramatists." With Schiller suspect for his radicalism, Lessing for his humanism and even the great Goethe for his lack of patriotism, the legacy of the 'Aryan' Shakespeare was reinterpreted for new purposes. Rodney Symington, Professor of Germanic and Russian Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada, deals with this question in The Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare: Cultural Politics in the Third Reich (Edwin Mellen Press, Shakespeare's reputation 75

2005). The scholar reports that Hamlet, for instance, was reconceived as a proto-German warrior rather than a man with a conscience. Of this play one critic wrote: "If the courtier is drawn to and the humanist Horatio seems more Roman than Danish, it is surely no accident that Hamlet's alma mater should be Wittenberg." A leading magazine declared that the crime which deprived Hamlet of his inheritance was a foreshadow of the Treaty of Versailles, and that the conduct of Gertrude was reminiscent of the spineless Weimar politicians. Weeks after Hitler took power in 1933 an official party publication appeared entitled Shakespeare - a Germanic Writer, a counter to those who wanted to ban all foreign influences. At the Propaganda Ministry, Rainer Schlosser, given charge of German theatre by Goebbels, mused that Shakespeare was more German than English. After the outbreak of the war the performance of Shakespeare was banned, though it was quickly lifted by Hitler in person, a favour extended to no other. Not only did the regime expropriate the Bard but it also expropriated Elizabethan England itself. To the Nazi leaders, it was a young, vigorous nation, much like the Third Reich itself, quite unlike the decadent British Empire of the present day. Clearly there were some exceptions to the official approval of Shakespeare, and the great patriotic plays, most notably Henry V were shelved. But interestingly the reception of the The Merchant of Venice was at best lukewarm (Marlowe's was suggested as a possible alternative) because it was too ambiguous and not nearly anti-semitic enough for Nazi taste. So Hamlet was by far the most popular play, along with Macbeth and Richard III.

Film That divergence between text and performance in Shakespeare continued into the new media of film. For instance, both Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet have been filmed in modern settings, sometimes with contemporary "updated" dialogue. Additionally, there were efforts (notably by the BBC) to ensure that there was a filmed or videotaped version of every Shakespeare play. The reasoning for this was educational, as many government educational initiatives recognized the need to get performative Shakespeare into the same classrooms as the read plays.

Poetry Many English-language Modernist poets drew on Shakespeare's works, interpreting in new ways. Ezra Pound, for instance, considered the Sonnets as a kind of apprentice work, with Shakespeare learning the art of poetry through writing them. He also declared the History plays to be the true English epic. Basil Bunting rewrote the sonnets as modernist poems by simply erasing all the words he considered unnecessary. Louis Zukofsky had read all of Shakespeare's works by the time he was eleven, and his Bottom: On Shakespeare (1947) is a book-length prose poem exploring the role of the eye in the plays. In its original printing, a second volume consisting of a setting of The Tempest by the poet's wife, Zukofsky was also included.

Critical quotations The growth of Shakespeare's reputation is illustrated by a timeline of Shakespeare criticism, from John Dryden's "when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too" (1668) to Thomas Carlyle's estimation of Shakespeare as the "strongest of rallying-signs" (1841) for an English identity.

References Ç Hawkes, Terence. (1992) Meaning by Shakespeare. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-07450-9. Ç Hume, Robert D. (1976). The Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-812063-X. Ç Lynch, Jack (2007). Becoming Shakespeare: The Strange Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright into the Bard. New York: Walker & Co. Shakespeare's reputation 76

Ç Marder, Louis. (1963). His Exits and His Entrances: The Story of Shakespeare's Reputation. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott. Ç Sorelius, Gunnar. (1965). "The Giant Race Before the Flood": Pre-Restoration Drama on the Stage and in the Criticism of the Restoration. Uppsala: Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia. Ç Speaight, Robert. (1954) William Poel and the Elizabethan revival. Published for The Society for Theatre Research. London: Heinemann.

External links

E-texts (chronological) Ç Ben Jonson on Shakespeare (1630) [4] Ç John Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy, (1668) [5] Ç Thomas Rhymer's notorious attack on Othello (1692) [6], which in the end did Shakespeare's reputation more good than harm, by firing up John Dryden, John Dennis and other influential critics into writing eloquent replies. Ç Joseph Addison, Spectator no. 419 (1712) [7] Ç Alexander Pope, Preface to his Works of Shakespear (1725) [8] Ç Samuel Johnson, Life of Shakespeare (1765) [9] at Representative Poetry Online Ç Thomas de Quincey, "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" (1823) [10] Ç Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) [11] Ç W. S. Gilbert, Unappreciated Shakespeare [12] (1882, revised 1890 for Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales)

Other resources Ç PeoplePlay UK Shakespeare performance timeline [13] Ç Shakespeare biography and online resources at NoSweatShakespeare [14] Ç The Shakespeare Resource Center [15] A directory of Web resources for online Shakespearean study. Includes a Shakespeare biography, works timeline, play synopses, and language resources.

References

[1] See, for example, the 19th century playwright W. S. Gilbert's essay, Unappreciated Shakespeare (http:/ / diamond. boisestate. edu/ gas/

other_gilbert/ short_stories/ shakespeare. htm), from Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales [2] Grady, Hugh (2001). "Modernity, Modernism and Postmodernism in the Twentieth Century's Shakespeare". in Bristol, Michael; McLuskie, Kathleen. Shakespeare and Modern Theatre: The Performance of Modernity. New York: Routledge. p.Ä29. ISBNÄ0415219841. [3] Drakakis, John (1985). Drakakis, John. ed. Alternative Shakespeares. New York: Meuthen. p.Ä16Ä17, 23Ä25. ISBNÄ0416368603.

[4] http:/ / ise. uvic. ca/ Library/ SLTnoframes/ drama/ jonson1. html#fn_more

[5] http:/ / andromeda. rutgers. edu/ ~jlynch/ Texts/ drampoet. html

[6] http:/ / www. angelfire. com/ oh5/ spycee/ rymer. html

[7] http:/ / www. mnstate. edu/ gracyk/ courses/ web%20publishing/ addison419. htm

[8] http:/ / andromeda. rutgers. edu/ ~jlynch/ Texts/ pope-shakespeare. html

[9] http:/ / rpo. library. utoronto. ca/ display/ displayprose. cfm?prosenum=9

[10] http:/ / www. 4literature. net/ Thomas_De_Quincey/ On_the_Knocking_at_the_Gate_in_Macbeth/

[11] http:/ / onlinebooks. library. upenn. edu/ webbin/ gutbook/ lookup?num=1091

[12] http:/ / diamond. boisestate. edu/ gas/ other_gilbert/ short_stories/ shakespeare. htm

[13] http:/ / www. peopleplayuk. org. uk/ timelines/ shakespeare. php

[14] http:/ / www. nosweatshakespeare. com

[15] http:/ / www. bardweb. net Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 77

Timeline of Shakespeare criticism

Timeline of Shakespeare criticism is an informal term that presents a chronological collection of critical quotations about William Shakespeare and his works, which illustrate the article Shakespeare's reputation. Shakespeare enjoyed recognition in his own time, but the 17th century poets and authors began to consider him as the supreme dramatist and poet of all times of the English language. In fact, even today, no other dramatist has been performed even remotely as often on the British (and later the world) stage as Shakespeare Since then, several editors and critics of theater began to focus on the dramatic text and the language of Shakespeare, creating a study that focused on extracting all the power of his literary texts, being used in studies on the printed page rather than in the theater. This attitude reached a high point with the Romantics, which saw his figure as a genius, prophet, and Bard Ä and continued important in the last Engraving of Shakespeare: the term "bardolatry" century, receiving analysis not only by poets and authors, but also by derives from Shaw's coinage "Bardolator", psychoanalysts, psychologists and philosophers. combining the words "bard" and "idolatry" by refers to the excessive adulation of [1] [2] Shakespeare. Contemporary: 16th century

Robert Greene, 1592: ...for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.

17th century

Ben Jonson, 1630: "I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, 'Would he had blotted a thousand,' which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. 'Sufflaminandus erat,' as said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him: 'Caesar, thou dost me Ben Jonson: "He was not of an age, but [3] wrong.' He replied: 'Caesar did never wrong but with just cause;' and such like, for all time." which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." "Timber" or "Discoveries" [4] Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 78

John Milton, 1632: "On Shakespeare" What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd Bones, The labour of an age in piled Stones, Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.

John Milton, 1632: "What need'st thou For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art, such weak witnes of thy name?" Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book, Those Delphick lines with deep impression took, Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving, Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving; And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie, That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die. "On Shakespeare" was Milton's first published poem & appeared (anonymously) in the 2nd folio of plays by Shakespeare (1632) as "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W.SHAKESPEARE". Samuel Pepys, diary entry for 29 September, 1662: "This day my oaths of drinking wine and going to plays are out, and so I do resolve to take a liberty to-day, and then to fall to them again. To the King's Theatre, where we saw "Midsummer's Night's Dream [sic]," which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure."

Samuel Pepys, 1662: "...it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life..." Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 79

John Dryden, 1668: "To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there." Essay of Dramatic Poesy [5]

Thomas Rymer (neo-classical "rules" and "classical unities" extremist), 1692: "The Moral, sure, of this Fable is very instructive. First, This may be a caution to all Maidens of Quality how, without their Parents consent, they run away John Dryden, 1668: "All the Images of with Blackamoors. Secondly, This may be a warning to all good Wives, that Nature were still present to him..." they look well to their Linnen. Thirdly, This may be a lesson to Husbands, that before their Jealousie be Tragical, the proofs may be Mathematical". (Rymer's notorious attack on Othello [6] ultimately did Shakespeare's reputation more good than harm, by firing up John Dryden, John Dennis and other influential critics into writing eloquent replies.)

Samuel Cobb (1675Ä1713), translator and master at Christ's Hospital: "Yet He with Plautus could instruct and please, And what requir'd long toil, perform with ease Tho' sometimes Rude, Unpolish'd, and Undress'd, His Sentence flows more careless than the rest. But when his Muse complying with his Will, Deigns with informing heat his Breast to fill, Then hear him Thunder in the pompous strain Of , or sooth in Ovid's Vein. Then in his Artless Tragedies I see, What Nature seldom gives, Propriety." From Poetica Brittanici (1700). Cobb provides an example of the diffusion of Jonson's concept of Shakespeare as the "child of nature."

18th century Bevill Higgons: Shakespeare: These scenes in their rough native dress were mine, But now improved with nobler lustre shine; The first rude sketches Shakespeare's pencil drew, But all the shining master strokes are new. This play, ye Critics, shall your fury stand, Adorned and rescued by a blameless hand. From the preface to the revision of The Merchant of Venice (1701) by George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne. Here, Shakespeare is made both to recognize his own lack of sophistication and to approve the neoclassical polish added by Granville. Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 80

Joseph Addison, 1712: "Among the English, Shakespeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch... his reader's imagination, and made him capable of succeeding, where he had nothing to support him besides the strength of his own genius." Spectator no. 419 [7] Alexander Pope, 1725: "His Characters are so much Nature her self that 'tis a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as Copies of her. Those of other Poets have a constant resemblance, which shews that they receiv'd them from one another and were but multiplyers of the same image: each picture like a mock-rainbow is but the reflexion of a reflexion. But every single character in Shakespeare is as much an Individual as those in Life itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or affinity in any respect Joseph Addison, 1712: "Among the appear most to be Twins will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct. English, Shakespeare has incomparably To this life and variety of Character we must add the wonderful Preservation excelled all others." of it; which is such throughout his plays that had all the Speeches been printed without the very names of the persons I believe one might have apply'd them with certainty to every speaker." Preface to Pope's edition of Shakespeare's works [8]

Samuel Johnson, 1765 The Plays of William Shakespeare: "[Shakespeare's] adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of criticks, who form their judgments upon narrower principles. Dennis and Rymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. ... These are the petty cavils of petty minds." "That it [mixing tragedy and comedy] is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature." "To the unities of time and place he has shewn no regard, and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they stand will diminish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they Samuel Johnson, 1775: "The form, the have very generally received by discovering that they have given more trouble characters, the language, and the shows to the poet, than pleasure to the auditor." of the English drama are his." "Perhaps it would not be easy to find any author, except Homer, who invented so much as Shakespeare, who so much advanced the studies which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the shows of the English drama are his." "The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished unto brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals." Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 81

Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 1795-1796 Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (book IV, chap. 3 and 13): " is suddenly facing the need for a great action imposed upon your soul that is unable to do it." / "He [the character] is a beautiful being that succumbs under the load he can't distance itself without it." J. W. Goethe, Writings on literature[6] : "Much has been said about Shakespeare that does not seem anything left to say, but the spirit has features to stimulate the spirit forever..." "Shakespeare make effect with vitality of the word, and this is what becomes apparent in reading aloud, when the listener is distracted, not by a flawed or right presentation. There is no pleasure greater and purer than, with closed eyes, accompanied a Shakespeare's play, not declaimed, but recited by a safe and natural voice. Follow up the wires with it simple plot developments. For the description of the characters we can to imagine certain pictures, but we Goethe: "There is no pleasure greater and purer than, with eyes closed, must, indeed, through a series of words and speeches, to experiment what is accompany a Shakespeare's play, not happening internally, and here all who are part of the story seem to have declaimed, but recited by a safe and [5] combined not leave anything obscure or in doubt." natural voice." "Shakespeare meets with the spirit of the world. He enters the world as it is spirit. For both, nothing is hidden; but as the work of the spirit of the world is to store mysteries before the action, or even after, the meaning of the poet is going to reveal the mystery, making us confident before the action, or just in run it." "Shakespeare stands out singularly, linking the old and new in a lush. Wish and duty trying to put itself in balance in his plays; both are faced with violence, but always so that the wish is at a disadvantage." "Perhaps no one has made so great as the first major link of wish and duty in the individual character as Shakespeare did."

19th century

Machado de Assis, undated: "One day, when there is no more Great Britain, when there is no more the United States, when there is no more the English language, will exist Shakespeare. We will speak Shakespeare."[7] Charles Lamb, 1811: "We talk of Shakespeare's admirable observation of life, when we should feel, that not from a petty inquisition into those cheap and every-day characters which surrounded him, as they surround us, but from his own mind, which was, to borrow a phrase of Ben Jonson's, the very 'sphere of humanity' he fetched those images of virtue and of knowledge, of which every one of us recognizing a part, think we comprehend in our natures the whole; and often mistake the powers which he positively creates in us, for nothing more than indigenous faculties of our own minds, which only waited the application of corresponding virtues in him to return a full and clear echo of Machado de Assis, undated: "when the same." On the Tragedies of Shakespeare there is no more the English language, will exist Shakespeare." Thomas de Quincey, 1823: "O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,Çlike frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inertÇbut that, the further we press in our Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 82

discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!" "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" [10]. Thomas Carlyle, 1841: "Nay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him merely as a real, marketable, tangibly useful possession. England, before long, this Island of ours, will hold but a small fraction of the English: in America, in New Holland, east and west to the very Antipodes, there will be a Saxondom covering great spaces of the Globe. And now, what is it that can keep all these together into virtually one Nation, so that they do not fall out and fight, but live at peace, in brotherlike intercourse, helping one another? This is justly regarded as the greatest practical problem, the thing all manner of sovereignties and governments are here to accomplish: what is it that will accomplish this? Acts of Parliament, administrative prime-ministers cannot. America is parted from us, so far as Parliament could part it. Call it not fantastic, for there is much reality in it: Here, I say, is an English King, whom Thomas Carlyle, 1841: "From no time or chance, Parliament or combination of Parliaments, can dethrone! Paramatta, from New York, This King Shakespeare, does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, wheresoeverÖ English men and as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying-signs; indestructible; really women are, they will say to one another: 'Yes, this Shakespeare is more valuable in that point of view than any other means or appliance ours'." whatsoever? We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of Parish-Constable soever, English men and women are, they will say to one another: 'Yes, this Shakespeare is ours; we produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him.'" On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History [11]

Victor Hugo, 1859: "Two exiles, father and son, are on a desert island serving a long sentence. In a morning, sitting in front of the house, the young man asks: 'What do you think of this exile?' 'It will be long... ", replied the father. 'And how occupy it?', continues the young son. The old serene man reply: 'I will look the ocean, and you?' It is a long silence before the son's answer: 'I will translate Shakespeare.' Shekespeare: the ocean." [8] Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 83

Twentieth century

Leo Tolstoi, 1906: "I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium... Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," "The Tempest", "Cymbeline", and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings,Çthis time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers Leo Tolstoi, 1906: "I expected to of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but non-existent merits,Çthereby distorting their esthetic and ethical having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best, not only did I feel understanding,Çis a great evil, as is every untruth." Tolstoy on Shakespeare. no delight." Sigmund Freud, 1930: "Incidentally, in this meantime, I stopped to believe that the author of Shakespeare's works was the man of Stratford." (Freud supported the theory that the works attributed to Shakespeare were written by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford,[9] and that this discovery help in better interpretation of his sonnets) (Outline of Psychoanalysis, 1940/1987: 220). Note added in his Interpretation of Dreams (1900) Ä Freud, 1900/1987: 260 Freud, 1939: "It is well known that the genius is incomprehensible and irresponsible; so we should bring it to the dance as a full explanation to what the other solution has failed. The same consideration applies also to the remarkable case of William Shakespeare of Stratford." Moses and Monotheism, 1939/1987: 83 W. H. Auden, 1947: "There is a continual process of simplification in Shakespeare's plays. What is he up to? He is holding the mirror up to nature. In the early minor sonnets he talks about his works outlasting time. But increasingly he suggests, as does in A Midsummer Night's Dream, that "The best in this kind are but shadows" (V.i.214), that art is rather a bore. . . . I find Shakespeare particularly appealing in his attitude towards his work. There's something a little irritating in the determination of the very greatest artists, like Dante, Joyce, Milton, to create masterpieces and to think Sigmund Freud, 1930: "I stopped to themselves important. To be able to devote one's life to art without forgetting believe that the author of Shakespeare's that art is frivolous is a tremendous achievement of personal character. works was the man of Stratford." Shakespeare never takes himself too seriously." Lectures on Shakespeare (ed. by Arthur Kirsch) Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 84

T. S. Eliot: "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third." T. S. Eliot, 1922 : "We must simply admit that here Shakespeare tackled a problem which proved too much for him. Why he attempted it at all is an insoluble puzzle; under compulsion of what experience he attempted to express the inexpressibly horrible, we cannot ever know. We need a great many facts in his biography; and we should like to know whether, and when, and after or at the same time as what personal experience, he read Montaigne, II. xii., Apologie de Raimond Sebond. We should have, finally, to know something which is by hypothesis unknowable, for we assume it to be an experience which, in the manner indicated, exceeded the facts. We should have to understand things which Shakespeare did not understand himself." [10], in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism.

Otto Carpeaux: "The greatest poet of modern times and - unless the T. S. Eliot, 1922: "We should have to limitations of our critical - of all time."[11] understand things which Shakespeare did not understand himself."

Allan Bloom, 1964: "Shakespeare devotes great care to establishing the political setting in almost all his plays, and his greatest heroes are rulers who exercise capacities which can only be exercised within civil society. To neglect this is simply to be blinded by the brilliance of one's own prejudices. As soon as one sees this, one cannot help asking what Shakespeare thought about a good regime and a good ruler." on his Shakespeare's Politics (with Harry V. Jaffa). Allan Bloom, 1964: "His greatest heroes are Kenneth Burke: "Shakespeare found many ingenious ways to make it rulers who exercise capacities which can only seem that his greatest plays unfolded of themselves, like a destiny rather be exercised within civil society." than by a technical expertÅs scheming. . . . He spontaneously knew how to translate some typical tension or conflict of his society into terms of variously interrelated personalitiesÇand his function as a dramatist was to let that whole complexity act itself out, by endowing each personality with the appropriate ideas, images, attitudes, actions, situations, relationships, and fatality. The true essence of his àbeliefsâ was thus embodied in the vision of that complexity itself. . . . Perhaps in this sense Shakespeare never wrote the ideal Shakespearean play; but again and again he came close to it. . . . he was the sort of craftsman who, if we believed such-and-such, could make a great play out of such beliefs, and could as easily have made a great play out of the opposite beliefs, if those others were what moved us. For what he believed in above all was the glory of his trade itself, which is to say, the great humaneness of the word . . . so masterfully embodied in ShakespeareÅs blithe dramaturgic schemings." Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare [12]

Stephen Booth, 1994: "A good metaphor for Ö the action of casual, incidental relationships among words and ideas in Shakespeare is patina. Networks of nonsensical relationship act upon speeches and plays the way a patina does upon artwork in metal. They smooth across seams and deny them without obliterating them. Grosser examples of the effect have been noted in literature ever since people started analyzing double plots and noticing echoing situations and spotting thematic common denominators and sustained patterns of imagery." Close Reading Without Readings , 1994: "...Shakespeare is the Canon. He sets the standard and the limits of literature." The Timeline of Shakespeare criticism 85

Twenty-first century Jean-Claude CarriÄre, 2006: "They ["the greatest authors"] taught me that I probably already knew: a character can touch us and others when we find him this 'essency of glass' that Shakespeares says and that we call 'vulnerability'." Introduction of his book Fragility ISBN 2-7381-1788-0.

References

[1] "bardolatry - definition of bardolatry" (http:/ / www. thefreedictionary. com/ bardolatry). thefreedictionary.com. . Retrieved 2007-12-22. [2] Tallent Lenker, Lagretta (2001-04-30). Fathers and Daughters in Shakespeare and Shaw (Contributions in Drama & Theatre Studies). Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p.Ä5. ISBNÄ0313317542. [3] Jonson, Ben (1996), "To the memory of my beloued, The AVTHOR MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: AND what he hath left vs", in Shakespeare, William; Hinman, Peter W. (ed.); Blayney, The First Folio of Shakespeare (2nd ed.), New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0393039854 .

[4] http:/ / www. bartleby. com/ 27/ 2. html [5] Goethe, Writings on literature, p.36

[6] Available in Portuguese on http:/ / books. google. com. br/ books?id=6sAlko7_tNMC& printsec=frontcover& source=gbs_summary_s& cad=0

[7] (Portuguese) Programa Provocaäães (http:/ / www. tvcultura. com. br/ provocacoes/ index. asp). TV Cultura: " Texts and poetry (http:/ /

www. tvcultura. com. br/ provocacoes/ poesia. asp?poesiaid=473)". Visited on November 23rd, 2008. [8] Hamlet, translated to Portuguese by PÜricles Eugánio da Silva Ramos, 1976. Abril Cultural, Teatro Vivo, 3rd Edition. [9] Outline of Psychoanalysis, page 75

[10] http:/ / www1. bartleby. com/ 200/ sw9. html

[11] (Portuguese) Histåria - Cultura e Pensamento (http:/ / educaterra. terra. com. br/ voltaire/ cultura/ shakespeare_epoca4. htm).

[12] http:/ / www. parlorpress. com/ shakespeare. html 86

Speculation about Shakespeare

Shakespeare authorship question

Note: This article is undergoing a major overhaul. Discussions are being held at Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox. To make sandbox edits to the new article draft, please use this page: Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox draft. An alternate draft is located at Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox draft2.

For the purposes of this article the term ÖShakespeareÜ is taken to mean the poet and playwright who wrote the plays and poems in question; and the term ÖShakespeare of StratfordÜ is taken to mean the William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon to whom authorship is credited. The Shakespeare authorship question is the controversy about whether the works traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually composed by another writer or group of writers.[1] The public debate dates back to the mid-19th century. It has attracted public attention and a thriving following, including some prominent public figures, but is dismissed by the great majority of academic Shakespeare scholars.[a][2] Those who question the attribution believe that "William Shakespeare" was a pen name used by the true author (or authors) to keep the writer's identity secret.[3] Of the numerous proposed candidates,[4] major nominees include Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who currently attracts the most widespread support,[5] statesman Francis Bacon, dramatist Christopher Marlowe, Collage of the 4 major alternative candidates for the authorship and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, whoÇalong with of Shakespeare's works, surrounding the Folio engraving of Shakespeare of Stratford. Clockwise from top left: Edward de Oxford and BaconÇis often associated with various Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Francis Bacon, William Stanley, 6th "group" theories. Supporters of the four main theories are Earl of Derby and Christopher Marlowe. called Oxfordians, Baconians, Marlovians, or Derbyites, respectively.[6]

Authorship doubters believe that mainstream Shakespeare biographers routinely violate orthodox methods and criteria,[7] [8] and include inadmissible evidence in their histories of him.[9] They also claim that some mainstream scholars have ignored the subject in order to protect the economic gains that the Shakespeare publishing world has provided them.[10] Authorship doubters assert that the actor and businessman baptised as "Shakspere" of Stratford did not have the background necessary to create the body of work attributed to him, and that the personal attributes inferred from Shakespeare's poems and plays don't fit the known biography of him.[11] Anti-stratfordians also note the lack of any concrete evidence that Shakespeare of Stratford had the extensive education doubters claim is evident in Shakespeare's works. They question whether a commoner from a small 16th-century country town, with no

recorded education or personal library, could become so highly expert in foreign languages, knowledge of courtly pastimes and politics, Greek and Latin mythology, law, and the latest discoveries in science, medicine and Shakespeare authorship question 87

astronomy of the time. Doubters also focus on the relationship between internal evidence (the content of the plays and poems) and external evidence (biographical or historical data derived from other sources).[12] The majority of academics specializing in Shakespearean studies, called "Stratfordians" by skeptics, generally ignore or dismiss these alternative theories, arguing they fail to comply with standard research methodology and lack supportive evidence from documents contemporary with Shakespeare. Mainstream scholars reject anti-Stratfordian arguments and say that authorship doubters discard the most direct testimony in favor of their own theories,[13] overstate Shakespeare's erudition,[14] and anachronistically mistake the times he lived in,[15] thereby rendering their method of identifying the author from the works unscholarly and unreliable. Consequently, they have been slow to acknowledge the popular interest in the subject.[16] Support for William Shakespeare as author rests on two main pillars of evidence: testimony by his fellow actors, and by his fellow playwright Ben Jonson in the First Folio, and the inscription on Shakespeare's grave monument in Stratford.[17] Title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official recordsÇthe type of evidence used by literary historians that Stratfordians believe is lacking for any other alternative candidateÇare also cited to support the mainstream view.[a][18] Despite this, interest in the authorship debate continues to grow, particularly among independent scholars, theatre professionals and a small minority of academics.[19]

Overview

Authorship doubters

An important principle for many of those who question ShakespeareÅs authorship is the premise that most authors reveal themselves in their work, and that knowing some facts about the author's life helps readers to understand his writings.[20] With this principle in mind, authorship doubters find parallels in the fictional characters or events in the Shakespearean works and in the life experiences of their preferred candidate. The disjunction that skeptics perceive between the sparse facts known about Shakespeare of Stratford and the content of Shakespeare's works has raised doubts about whether the author and the Stratford Shakespeare are the same person.[21] Authorship doubters question the identity of the playwright William Shakespeare. This perceived dissonance, first expressed in the first half of the 19th century, has led authorship doubters to look for alternative explanations. This discordance between the bare biography traditionally provided and the evidence of superior education and travel in Shakespeare's work has been the major reason for doubts among such intellectuals as , Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Charlie Chaplin, , Tyrone Guthrie, and Supreme Court Justices Harry A. Blackmun, , and Sandra Day O'Conner, and the prominent Shakespearean actors and [22] to publicly announce their doubts. In September 2007, the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition sponsored a "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt" to encourage new research into the question of Shakespeare's authorship, which has been signed by more than 1,700 people, including 295 academics.[23]

Although historically the academic community has accepted the traditional attribution, the authorship question has achieved some degree of acceptance as a legitimate research topic. Brunel University of London now offers a one-year MA program on the Shakespeare authorship question.[24] In 2007, surveyed 265 Shakespeare professors on the topic. To the question "Do you think there is good reason to question whether William Shakespeare of Stratford is the principal author of the plays and poems in the canon?", 6% answered "yes" and an additional 11% responded "possible". When asked their opinion of the Shakespeare authorship question, 61% answered that it was a "A theory without convincing evidence" and 32% called the issue "A waste of time and classroom distraction", but when asked if they "mention the Shakespeare authorship question in your Shakespeare Shakespeare authorship question 88

classes?", 72% answered "yes".[25]

Mainstream view In contrast to the methods used by anti-Stratfordians to identify the poet and playwright William Shakespeare, orthodox scholars employ the same type of evidence used to identify other writers of the period: the historical record,[26] and maintain that the methods commonly used by anti-Stratfordians to identify alternate candidatesÇreading the work as autobiography, finding coded messages and cryptograms embedded in the works, and concocting conspiracy theories to explain the lack of evidence for anyone but ShakespeareÇare unreliable and unscholarly, and explain why so many candidates, calculated as high as 56, have been nominated as the àtrueâ author.[27] [28] They say that the idea that Shakespeare revealed himself in his work is a Romantic notion of the 18th and 19th centuries and anachronistic to Elizabethan and Jacobean writers.[29] When William Wordsworth wrote that áShakespeare unlocked his heartÅ in the sonnets, replied, áIf so, the less Shakespeare he!Å[30] The mainstream view, overwhelmingly supported by academic Shakespeareans, is that the author known as "Shakespeare" was the same William Shakespeare who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, moved to London and became an actor and sharer (part-owner) of the Lord Chamberlain's Men acting company (later the King's Men) that owned the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre in London and owned exclusive rights to produce Shakespeare's plays from 1594 on,[31] and who became entitled to use the honourific of gentleman when his father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. John Shakespeare's house, believed to be Shakespeare's It states that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace, in Stratford-upon-Avon. Gentleman, is identified with the writer in London by at least four pieces of contemporary evidence that firmly link the two. (a) His will registers bequests to fellow actors and theatrical entrepreneurs, two of whom edited his works, namely (Heminges, Burbage, and Condell). (b) His village church monument bears an inscription linking him with Virgil and Socrates, and mentions he was a writer.[32] (c) Ben Jonson linked this 'Star of poets' with his home territory, in calling him the 'Swan of Avon', and (d) Leonard Digges, in verses prefixed to the First Folio, speaks of his 'Stratford Monument'.[33] [34] [35] Lastly, both the authorship doubter Paul H. Altrocchi and the mainstream biographer of de Vere, Alan Nelson, have uncovered, identified and interpreted an annotation in a book owned by a learned Warwickshire contemporary of Shakespeare's which for them proves that 'our William Shakespear' of Stratford was an important actor on the public stage.[b][36] [37]

Although little biographical information exists about Shakespeare compared to later authors, mainstream scholars assert that more is known about him than about most other playwrights and actors of the period.[38] This lack of information is unsurprising, they say, given that in Elizabethan/Jacobean England the lives of commoners were not as well documented as those of the gentry and nobility, and that manyÇindeed the overwhelming majorityÇof Renaissance documents that existed have not survived until the present day.[39] . It has long been argued that anyone with a polished formal university education would never have made the many glaring mistakes, often of an elementary kind, which recur in Shakespeare's references to the classical world.[40] Shakespeare authorship question 89

Criticism of mainstream view

Lack of Literary paper trail Some doubters, such as , Jr., have asserted there is no direct evidence clearly identifying Shakespeare of Stratford as a playwright,[41] and that the majority of references to "William Shakespeare" by contemporaries refer to the author, but not necessarily the Stratford businessman.[42] Ogburn further stated his disbelief that Shakespeare of Stratford and the author shared the exact same name, noting that not one of Shakespeare of Stratford's six known signatures was actually spelled àShakespeareâ (i.e., Shaksp, Shakspe, Shaksper, Shakspere, Shakspere and Shakspeare).[43] Independent researcher Price, in Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography, notes that for a professional author, Shakespeare of Stratford seems to have been entirely uninterested in protecting his work. Price explains that while he had a well-documented habit of going to court over relatively small sums, he never sued any of the publishers pirating his plays and sonnets, or took any legal action regarding their practice of attaching his name to the inferior output of others. Price also notes there is no evidence Shakespeare of Stratford was ever paid for writing, and his detailed will failed to mention any of Shakespeare's unpublished plays or poems or any of the source books Shakespeare was known to have read.[44] [45] Anti-stratfordians also note that the only theatrical reference in Shakespeare of Stratford's will (gifts to fellow actors) were interlinedÇi.e., inserted between previously written linesÇand thus are subject to doubt. Anti-stratfordian Robert Brazil, in Shakespeare: The Authorship Controversy, notes that Shakespeare of Stratford's relatives and neighbors never mentioned that he was famous or a writer, nor are there any indications his heirs demanded or received payments for his supposed investments in the theatre or for any of the more than 16 masterwork plays unpublished at the time of his death.[46] Mark Twain, commenting on the subject, said, "Many poets die poor, but this is the only one in history that has died THIS poor; the others all left literary remains behind. Also a book. Maybe two."[47]

Ogburn, who examined the known evidence for and against the major nominees, notes that we know much more about the lives of other candidates (Bacon, Marlowe, Derby, Oxford) than we do about the life of the presumed traditional author William Shakespeare.[48] Regarding the lack of evidence surrounding Shakespeare, Professor Hugh Anti-Stratfordian Mark Twain, wrote "Is Trevor-Roper noted à[d]uring his lifetime nobody claimed to know him. Shakespeare Dead?" shortly before his death in 1910. Not a single tribute was paid to him at his death. As far as the records go, he was uneducated, had no literary friends, possessed at his death no books, and could not write.â[49]

Alternate interpretations

Referring to the metaphor of the swan in "Swan of Avon", traditionally taken to be an epithet of great poets,[50] the de Vere Society claims that "the distinguishing characteristic of the swan, apart from its lifelong fidelity, was its silence - hence the name 'Mute Swan' for the commonest variety of this bird" and asserts that "William of Stratford was a mute participant in all this, it seems."[51] Also, Charles Wisner Barrell published extensive findings showing numerous ties between the Earl of Oxford, the river Avon, and the Avon Valley, where Oxford once owned an estate.[52]

Mark Anderson has suggested that "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit" could imply Shakespeare of Stratford was being given credit for the work of other writers, and that Davies' mention of "our English Terence" is a mixed reference, Shakespeare authorship question 90

given that Roger Ascham, an Elizabethan scholar, knew that two of Terence's six plays were said to have been written by members of the Roman nobility.[53]

Public reaction to death Doubters also question why, when Shakespeare of Stratford died, he was not publicly mourned.[54] As Mark Twain wrote, in Is Shakespeare Dead?, "When Shakespeare died in Stratford it was not an event. It made no more stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theater-actor would have made. Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting poems, no eulogies, no national tears Ç there was merely silence, and nothing more. A striking contrast with what happened when Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh, and the other literary folk of ShakespeareÅs time passed from life! No praiseful voice was lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years before he lifted his."[47]

History of authorship doubts

Early doubts

During the life of William Shakespeare of Stratford and for more than 200 years after his death, no documentary evidence exists that anyone questioned the traditional attribution of the Shakespearean canon.[55] However, Anti-Stratfordian writers claim that several 16th and 17th century Elizabethan works hint that the Shakespearean canon was written by someone else. Independent researcher Diana Price speculates that an authorship debate existed in Elizabethan times, arguing that "all literary allusions [to Shakespeare] with some hint of personal information are ambiguous or cryptic,"[56] and maintains that these literary records contain veiled references to that debate, even if those doubts were not explicitly stated. Moreover, the first attempt to write a biography of Shakespeare did not appear until 1709, when Nicholas Rowe published a collection of Shakespeare's works and supplied a life which, according to the Encyclopçdia Britannica, "although mostly composed of dubious tradition, remained the basis of Joseph Hall ((1574Ä1656)). Did he doubt accounts of Shakespeare until the early 19th Century." [57] Shakespeare's authorship? Like Diana Price, Charles Wisner Barrell, , Brenda James, and W. D. Rubinstein all interpret Thomas Edward's L'Envoy to Narcissus (1595), in which Edwards uses allegorical nicknames in praising several Elizabethan poets. Following a verse about àAdon,â which they take to be an allusion to the mythical Adonis in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, Edwards's next verse is read as alluding to a real poet dressed "in purple robes", àwhose power floweth far.â As purple is, among other things, a symbol of aristocracy, these researchers believe that Edwards is saying that Shakespeare was an aristocrat, Sir Henry Neville according to one view, the Earl of Oxford according to another.[58] Also, Walter Begley and Berthram G. Theobald claimed that Elizabethan satirists Joseph Hall and John Marston alluded to Francis Bacon as the true author of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece by using the sobriquet "Labeo" in a series of poems published in 1598.[59]

The first possible explicit allusions to doubts about Shakespearean authorship arose in certain 18th century satirical and allegorical works. In a passage in An Essay Against Too Much Reading (1728) by a "Captain" Golding, Shakespeare is described as "no Scholar, no Grammarian, no Historian, and in all probability cou'd not write English" and someone who uses an historian "when he wanted anything in his Way". The book also says that "instead of Reading, he [Shakespeare] stuck close to Writing and Study without Book".[60] Again, in The Life and Adventures of Common Sense: An Historical Allegory [61] (1769) by Herbert Lawrence, the narrator, Common Shakespeare authorship question 91

Sense, portrays Shakespeare, as a "Person belonging to the Play-House", a "Profligate in his Youth" who stole a commonplace book outlining the rules of dramatic writing from his father, Wit; a glass to penetrate into men's souls belonging to his crony, Genius; and a "Mask of curious Workmanship" that had the power of making spoken dialogue extremely pleasant and entertaining, belonging to his half-brother, Humour. Shakespeare is portrayed as using all of these to write his plays.[62] Thirdly, The Story of the Learned Pig, By an officer of the Royal Navy (1786) is a tale of a soul that has successively migrated from the body of Romulus into various animals, and is residing in a performing pig on exhibition. He recalls his history in other humans, one a chap called "Pimping Billy", who worked at the playhouse with Shakespeare and was the real author of the works.[63] In 1932 Allardyce Nicoll published the discovery of a manuscript that appeared to establish that was the earliest proponent of Baconian theory.[64] The manuscript, "Some reflections on the life of William Shakespeare", was found among papers from the library of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence (1837Ä1914), a leading supporter of Bacon's candidacy, that had been donated to London University by his widow in 1929. Said to have been written up as a report to the "Ipswich Philosophic Society" in 1805 by one James Corton Crowell, it narrated Wilmot's supposed unsuccessful search for records relating to Shakespeare in Stratford on Avon and the surrounding area in 1780, which reportedly led him to conclude that Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's works. The later development of the Baconian theory during the 19th century owed nothing to Wilmot, but the authenticity of the manuscript was accepted after NichollÅs publication. It has since been challenged by John Rollett and Daniel Wright, who could find no records for Cowell or the Ipswich Philosophic Society at that date. Wright says that the manuscript might have been forged to rejuvenate BaconÅs fading support and thereby to deflect the rise of OxfordÅs proposed candidacy as the true author.[65]

The rise of bardolatry in the 17th and 18th centuries Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II reopened the theatres, and two patent companiesÇthe King's Company and the Duke's CompanyÇwere established. The profession of playwright had disappeared after 18 years of closed theatres, and so the existing theatrical repertoireÇthe works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and FletcherÇwhich had been preserved by folio publication, were divided between the two companies and revived for the stage.[66] Sir William Davenant, head of the DukeÅs Company and reputedly ShakespeareÅs godson, was given the exclusive rights to perform 10 Shakespeare plays. As the director of the Duke's Company, Davenant was obliged to reform and modernize Shakespeare's plays before producing them, and the texts were "reformed" and "improved" for the stage. During the 1660Ä1700 period, stage records suggest that Shakespeare, although always a major repertory author, was not as popular on the stage as were the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, although in literary criticism he was acknowledged as an untaught genius even though did not follow the French neo-classical "rules" for the drama and the three classical unities of time, place, and action. John Dryden argued in his influential Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668) for Shakespeare's artistic superiority to Ben Jonson, who does follow the classical unities, and as a result Jonson lands in a distant second place to "the incomparable Shakespeare", the follower of nature and the great realist of human character. In the 18th century, Shakespeare dominated the London stage, and after the Licensing Act of 1737, one fourth of the plays performed were by Shakespeare. The plays continued to be heavily cut and adapted, becoming vehicles for star actors such as Spranger Barry and David Garrick, a key figure in Shakespeare's theatrical renaissance, whose Drury Lane theatre was the centre of the Shakespeare mania which swept the nation and promoted Shakespeare as the national playwright.[67] At Garrick's spectacular 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon, he unveiled a statue of Shakespeare and read out a poem culminating with the words "'tis he, 'tis he, / The God of our idolatry".[68] In contrast to playscripts, which diverged more and more from their originals, the publication of texts developed in the opposite direction. With the invention of textual criticism and an emphasis on fidelity to Shakespeare's original words, Shakespeare criticism and the publication of texts increasingly spoke to readers, rather than to theatre Shakespeare authorship question 92

audiences, and Shakespeare's status as a "great writer" shifted. Two strands of Shakespearean print culture emerged: bourgeois popular editions and scholarly critical editions.[69] Nahum Tate and Nathaniel Lee prepared editions and introduced modern scene divisions in the late 17th century, and Nicholas Rowe's edition of 1709 is considered the first scholarly edition of the plays. It was followed by many good 18th-century editions, crowned by Edmund Malone's landmark Variorum Edition, which was published posthumously in 1821. Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's matchless genius were echoed without a break by unstinting praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Shakespeare was described as a genius who needed no learning, was deeply original, and unique in creating realistic and individual characters (see Timeline of Shakespeare criticism). The phenomenon continued during the Romantic era, when Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, William Hazlitt, and others all described Shakespeare as a transcendent genius. By the beginning of the 19th century Bardolatry was in full swing and Shakespeare was universally celebrated as an unschooled supreme genius and had been raised to the status of a secular god and many Victorian writers treated Shakespeare's works as a secular equivalent to the Bible.[70] "That King Shakespeare," the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible".[71]

Debate in the 19th century

Uneasiness about the difference between Shakespeare's godlike reputation and the humdrum facts of his biography, earlier expressed in allegorical or satirical works, began to emerge in the 19th century. In 1811 Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed his amazement that "works of such character should have proceeded from a man whose life was like that attributed to Shakespeare." In 1850, Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed the underlying question in the air about Shakespeare with his confession, "The Egyptian [i.e. mysterious] verdict of the Shakspeare Societies comes to mind; that he was a jovial actor and manager. I can not marry this fact to his verse."[73] [74] That the perceived dissonance between the man and his works was a consequence of the deification of Shakespeare was theorized by J.M. Robertson, who speculated that "It is very doubtful whether the Baconian theory would ever have been framed had not the idolatrous Shakespeareans set up a visionary figure [75] Poet Walt Whitman believed the true author was of the Master." "one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the [72] plays themselves". At the same time scholars were increasingly becoming aware that many plays were products of several authors' work, and that now-lost plays may have served as models for Shakespeare's published work, such as, for example, the ur-Hamlet, an earlier version of Shakespeare's play of that name.[c][76] In Benjamin Disraeli's novel Venetia (1837) the character Lord Cadurcis, modelled on Byron[77] , suggests that Shakespeare may not have written "half of the plays attributed to him", or even one "whole play" but rather that he was "an inspired adaptor for the theatres".[78] A similar view was expressed by an American lawyer and writer, Col. Joseph C. Hart, who in 1848 published The Romance of Yachting, which for the first time stated explicitly and unequivocally in print that Shakespeare did not write the works bearing his name. Hart claimed that Shakespeare was a "mere factotum of the theatre", a "vulgar and unlettered man" hired to add obscene jokes to the plays of other writers.[79] Hart does not suggest that there was any conspiracy, merely that evidence of the real authors's identities had been lost when the plays were published. Hart asserts that Shakespeare had been "dead for one hundred years and utterly forgotten" when old playscripts formerly owned by him were discovered and published under his name by Nicholas Rowe and Thomas Betterton. He speculates that only The Merry Wives of

Windsor was Shakespeare's own work and that Ben Jonson probably wrote Hamlet.[76] In 1852 an essay by Dr. R. W. Jamieson, published anonymously in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal also suggested that Shakespeare owned the Shakespeare authorship question 93

playscripts, but had employed an unknown poor poet to write them.[80] In 1853, with help from Emerson, , an American teacher and writer, travelled to Britain to research her belief that Shakespeare's works were written to communicate the advanced political and philosophical ideas of Francis Bacon (no relation). She discussed her theories with British scholars and writers. In 1856 she wrote an article in Putnam's Monthly in which she insisted that Shakespeare of Stratford would not have been capable of writing such plays, and that they must have expressed the ideas of an unspecified great thinker. Later in 1856 William Henry Smith, in a privately-circulated letter, expressed his view that Francis Bacon himself had written the works, and the following year he published the letter as a booklet. Smith claimed to have been unaware of Delia Bacon's essay and to have held his opinion for nearly 20 years.[81] In 1857 Bacon expanded her ideas in her book, The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded [82].[83] She argued that Shakespeare's plays were written by a secretive group of playwrights led by Sir Walter Raleigh and inspired by the philosophical genius of Sir Francis Bacon. Both writers gained immediate and wide public attention, including the first attempt at refutation by the publication of George Henry Townsend's William Shakespeare Not an Impostor [84] (1857) in England, and the public Shakespeare authorship controversy was born.[85] Later writers such as Ignatius Donnelly portrayed Francis Bacon as the sole author. The Baconian movement attracted much attention and caught the public imagination for many years, mostly in America.[86] [87] Ignatius Donnelly's claim to have discovered ciphers in the works of Shakespeare revealing Bacon as a "concealed poet" were later discredited by William and Elizabeth Friedman, expert code-breakers, in their book The Shakespeareen Ciphers Examined.[88] The American poet Walt Whitman declared himself agnostic on the issue and refrained from endorsing an alternative candidacy. Voicing his skepticism to Horace Traubel, Whitman remarked, "I go with you fellows when you say no to Shaksper: that's about as far as I have got. As to Bacon, well, we'll see, we'll see."[89]

20th century candidates Starting in 1908, Sir engaged in a series of well-publicised debates with Shakespearean biographer Sir Sidney Lee and author J. M. Robertson. Throughout his numerous books on the authorship question, Greenwood limited himself to arguing against the traditional attribution, without supporting any alternative candidate.[90] In 1918, Professor , a renowned authority on French and English literature, after a 35-year study of Shakespeare, published the first volume of Sous le masque de "William Shakespeare". Based on biographical evidence found in the plays and poems, he put forward William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby as the author.[91] Many scholars were impressed by Lefranc's arguments, and a large international body of literature resulted.[92] In 1920, an English school-teacher, John Thomas Looney, published Shakespeare Identified, proposing a new candidate for the authorship in Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. This theory gained many notable advocates, including Sigmund Freud. In 1922, Looney joined Greenwood in founding The , an international organization dedicated to promote discussion and debate on the authorship question. By the early 20th century, the public had tired of cryptogram-hunting, and the Bacon movement faded. The result was increased interest in Stanley and Oxford as alternative candidates.[93] In 1923, Archie Webster wrote the first serious essay [94] on the candidacy of playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was first suggested by Wilbur E. Ziegler in the foreword to his 1895 novel, It Was Marlowe: A Story of the Secret of Three Centuries.[95] Marlowe continues to attract supporters, and in 2001, the Australian documentary film maker Michael Rubbo released the TV film Much Ado About Something, which explores the theory in some detail. It has played a significant part in bringing the Marlovian theory to the attention of the greater public. Since the publication of Charlton Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare: the Myth and the Reality in 1984, the Oxfordian theory, boosted in part by the advocacy of several Supreme Court justices and high-profile theatre Shakespeare authorship question 94

professionals, has become the most popular alternative authorship theory.[96]

Pseudonymous or secret authorship in Renaissance England Archer Taylor and Frederic J. Mosher identified the 16th and 17th centuries as the "golden age" of pseudonymous authorship and maintain that during this period àalmost every writer used a pseudonym at some time during his career.â[97] Anti-Stratfordians have argued that the authorship question is a manifestation of early modern censorship, which caused many authors to hide their identities in one way or another.[98] The connection between the authorship question and the history of censorship, while implied in much earlier scholarship, is made explicit in an article published in the Oxfordian journal, Brief Chronicles, which argues that the need for a pseudonym can readily be explained on the basis of a prevailing "stigma of print."[99] At least two of the proposed candidates for authorship, the Earls of Oxford [100] and Derby[101] were known to be playwrights, even though no extant work survives under their own name. Diana Price has analyzed several examples of Elizabethan commentary on anonymous or pseudonymous publication by persons of high social status. According to her, "there are two historical prototypes for this type of authorship fraud, that is, attributing a written work to a real person who was not the real author". Both are Roman in origin: Ç Bathyllus took credit for verses written by Virgil, and then accepted a reward for them. In 1591, a pamphleteer (Robert Greene) described an Elizabethan Batillus, who put his name to verses written by certain poets who, because of "their calling and gravity" did not want to publish under their own names. This Batillus was accused of "under-hand brokery." [102] Ç A second prototype is the classical comedian Terence, whom the Elizabethan pedagogue and classicist Roger Ascham noted was credited with having written two plays that some Latin sources thought were written by a member of the Roman nobility and a plebian.[103] . An example of Elizabethan authorities raising the issue is provided by the case of Sir John Hayward: Ç In 1599 he published The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie IV dedicated to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Queen Elizabeth and her advisers disliked the tone of the book and its dedication, and on July 11, Hayward was interrogated before the Privy Council, which was seeking "proof positive of the Earl's [sc. Essex's] long-standing design against the government" in writing a preface to Hayward's work.[104] The Queen "argued that Hayward was pretending to be the author in order to shield 'some more mischievous' person, and that he should be racked so that he might disclose the truth".[105] Shakespeare authorship question 95

"Shake-Speare" as a pseudonym

Anti-Stratfordians have alleged a variety of reasons for supposing that the name "Shakespeare" would have made a symbolically apt pseudonym. According to Anderson, among others, the name alludes to the patron goddess of art, literature and statecraft, Pallas Athena, who sprang from the forehead of Zeus, shaking a spear.[106] Both Ogburn and Anderson have argued that the hyphen which often appeared in the name "Shake-speare" indicated the use of a pseudonym.[107] Examples of oft-hyphenated names include Tom Tell-truth, Martin Mar-prelate (who pamphleteered against church "prelates"),[108] and Cuthbert Curry-knave, who "curried" his "knavish" enemies.[109]

Ogburn noted that of the "32 editions of Shakespeare's plays published before the First Folio of 1623 in which the author was named at all, the name was hyphenated in fifteen Ä almost half." Further, it was hyphenated by John Davies in the famous poem which references the poet as "Our English Terence," by fellow playwright , and by the epigrammatist of The hyphenated "SHAKE-SPEARE" as 1639 who wrote, "Shake-speare, we must be silent in thy praiseÖ." Ogburn it appears on the cover of the Sonnets in 1609. noted that the hyphen was only used by other writers or publishers, and not by the poet himself (he did not use it in his personal dedications of his two long narrative poems), and concludes that the hyphenation was not by chance, but instead followed a pattern.[107] Another recent article in the Oxfordian online journal Brief Chronicles applies numerical analysis of Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia ("The Servant of Pallas Athena") to argue that although on the surface he seems to be attributing a dozen plays to Shakespeare of Stratford, he may be read as esoterically identifying Oxford as the real author.[110]

Irvin Matus responds that the claim of hyphenation as a marker of a pseudonym is unknown outside of anti-Stratfordian literature, and that no scholar of or punctuation has written about hyphens as such.[111] In addition, of the 15 examples of Shakespeare's name being hyphenated in the works, 13 of those were from different editions of only three plays (Richard II, Richard III, and 1 Henry IV) all published by the same printer, , and the man who took over Wise's business in 1603, Matthew Law. Orthodox scholars also point out that it was common for proper names of real people to be hyphenated in print in Elizabethan times. Matus notes that Elizabethan poet and clergyman Charles FitzgeoffreyÅs name often appeared in print as "Charles Fitz-Geffry;" Protestant martyr , as àOld-castle;â London Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Campbell, àCamp-bell;â printer , àAll-de;â and printer Robert Waldegrave, àWalde-grave.â[112]

"Shakspere" vs. "Shakespeare" Anti-Stratfordians conventionally refer to the man from Stratford as "Shakspere" (the name recorded at his baptism) or "Shaksper" to distinguish him from the author "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare" (the spellings that appear most often on the publications). Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a noted Oxfordian, has stated that most references to the man from Stratford in legal documents usually spell the first syllable of his name with only four letters, "Shak-" or sometimes "Shag-" or "Shax-", whereas the dramatist's name is more consistently printed as "Shake".[113] Stratfordians reject this convention, pointing out that there was no standardised spelling in Elizabethan England, and Shakespeare of Stratford's name was spelled in many different ways, including "Shakspere", "Shaxper", "Shagspere" and "Shakespeare";[114] that examples anti-Stratfordians give for Shakespeare of Stratford's name are all handwritten and not printed; that anti-Stratfordians are factually incorrect in that most of those examples were spelled either Shakespeare, Shakespere, or Shakespear;[115] and that handwritten examples of the author's name exhibit the same Shakespeare authorship question 96

amount of variation.[116] Stratfordian David Kathman also argues that the anti-Stratfordian characterization of the nameÇ"Shakspere" or "Shakspur"Çincorrectly characterizes the contemporary spelling of Shakespeare's name and introduces prejudicial negative implications of the Stratford man in the minds of modern readers.[117]

Debate points used by anti-Stratfordians

Doubts about Shakespeare of Stratford

Literary paper trails Diana PriceÅs ShakespeareÑs Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem approaches the authorship question by going back to the historical documents and testimony that underpin ShakespeareÅs biography. Price believes that centuries of biographers have suspended their standards and criteria to weave inadmissible evidence into their narratives. She offers new analyses of the evidence and then reconstructs Shakespeare of StratfordÅs professional life. Literary biographies, i.e., lives of writers, are based on evidence left behind during the writerÅs lifetime, such as manuscripts, letters, diaries, personal papers, receipts, etc. Price calls these "literary paper trails" - the documents that allow biographers to reconstruct the life of their subject as a writer. Price acknowledges that Shakespeare of Stratford did leave behind a considerable amount of evidence, but asserts that none of it traces his alleged career as a playwright and poet. In his case, the first document in the historical record that àprovesâ he was a writer was created after he died.[118] Price notes that historians routinely distinguish between contemporaneous and posthumous evidence, and they donÅt give posthumous evidence equal weight - but ShakespeareÅs biographers do. The central chapter on Literary Paper Trails, and an associated appendix chart, compare the evidence of two dozen other writers with that of Shakespeare of StratfordÅs.[119] The criteria are simple and routinely employed by historians and biographers of other subjects. Evidence that is personal, contemporaneous, and supports one statement, àhe was a writer by vocation or profession,â qualifies for inclusion in the comparative chart.[120] Price sorted the evidence into numerous categories, which were then collapsed into 9 categories, with a 10th one created to serve as an all-purpose catch-all to ensure that no qualifying paper trail was excluded. Each of these two dozen Elizabethan and Jacobean writers left behind a variety of records shedding light on their writing activities. For example, historians know how much some of them got paid for writing a poem or a play, or how much a patron rewarded them for their literary effort. Some left behind letters referring to their plays or poems. A few of them left behind handwritten manuscripts or books with handwritten annotations. Shakespeare of Stratford left behind over seventy historical records, and over half of these records shed light on his professional activities. Price notes, however, that every one of these documents concerns non-literary careers Ä those of theatrical shareholder, actor, real estate investor, grain trader, money-lender, and entrepreneur. But he left behind not one literary paper trail that proves he wrote for a living. In the genre of literary biography for Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, Price concludes that this deficiency of evidence is unique.

Shakespeare's education Authorship doubters believe that the author of Shakespeare's works manifest a higher education, displaying knowledge of contemporary science, medicine, astronomy, rhetoric, music, and foreign languages. They further assert that there is no evidence that Shakespeare of Stratford ever attained such an education. In addition, the writer of the Shakespeare canon exhibited a very extensive vocabulary, variously calculated, according to different criteria, as ranging between 17,500 to 29,066 words.[121] "The plays of Shakespeare," said Henry Stratford Caldecott in an 1895 Johannesburg lecture, "are so stupendous a monument of learning and genius that, as time passes and they are probed and searched and analysed by successive generations of scholars and critics of all nations, they seem to loom higher and grander, and their hidden beauties and treasured wisdom to be more and Shakespeare authorship question 97

more inexhaustible; and so people have come to ask themselves not only, 'Is it humanly possible for William Shakespeare, the country lad from Stratford-on-Avon, to have written them?', but whether it was possible for any one man, whoever he may have been, to have done so."[122] As for the role of genius in acquiring knowledge, 18th century critic Samuel Johnson said "Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by study and experience, can only assist in combining or applying them. Shakespeare, however [he may have been] favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned." [123] The Stratfordian position maintains that Shakespeare of Stratford would have received the kind of education available to the son of a Stratford alderman at the local grammar school and at the parish church, including a comfortable mastery of the Bible, Latin, grammar and rhetoric. The former was run by a number of Oxford graduates, Simon Hunt, Thomas Jenkins and John Cottom, and the latter by Henry Heicroft, a fellow at St John's College, Cambridge.[124] Though there is no evidence that he attended a university, a degree was not a prerequisite for a Renaissance dramatist, and mainstream scholars have long assumed Shakespeare of Stratford to be largely self-educated, with such authorities as Jonathan Bate devoting much space in biographies to the issue.[125] A commonly cited parallel is his fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, a man whose origins were humbler than those of the Stratford Dramatist Ben Jonson is often cited by both man, and who rose to become court poet. Like Shakespeare of Stratford, sides of the authorship debate. Jonson never completed and perhaps never attended university, and yet he became a man of great learning (later being granted an honorary degree from both Oxford and Cambridge).

Authorship doubters note that as the records of the school's pupils have not survived, Shakespeare of Stratford's attendance cannot be proven,[126] and that no one who ever taught or attended The King's School ever claimed to have been his teacher or classmate, and the school or schools Shakespeare of Stratford might have attended are a matter of speculation as there are no existing admission records for him at any grammar school, university or college. Doubters also point out that there is clearer evidence for Jonson's formal education and self-education than for Shakespeare of Stratford's. Several hundred books owned by Ben Jonson have been found signed and annotated by him[127] but no book has ever been found which proved to have been owned or borrowed by Shakespeare of Stratford. It is known, moreover, that Jonson had access to a substantial library with which to supplement his education.[128] Charlton Ogburn Jr., reports that Ben Jonson's stepfather, a master bricklayer, "provided his stepson with the foundations of a good education." Young Ben went first to a private school in St. Martin's Lane and later at Westminster studied under one of the foremost Elizabethan scholars, William Camden, of whom he wrote: "Camden, most revered head, to whom I owe/ All that I am in arts, all that I know." [129] Ogburn devotes several pages to discussing the poor quality of education at English grammar schools [130] Ogburn specifically rejects Professor T. M. Baldwin's Small Latin and Lesse Greeke for, first of all, misreading the Jonson quotation (leaving out the qualifying "Though thou hadst" and Jonson's subsequent comparison of Shakespeare to the greatest of Classical authors)[131] and secondly, for citing a speculation as if it were fact: "William Shakspere should have learned from someone, at present unguessable, to read English, and about the age of seven, in the course of 1571, have entered the grammar school." [132] .

Possible evidence of Shakespeare of Stratford's self-education includes the fact that certain sources for his plays were sold at the shop of the printer Richard Field, a fellow Stratford native.[133] Some contemporary references have been interpreted to say that Shakespeare's works have not always been considered to require an unusual amount of education: Ben Jonson's tribute to Shakespeare in the 1623 First Folio (arguably) states that his plays were great despite his having only "small Latin and less Greek".[134] And it has been argued by Dr Richard Farmer, that a great Shakespeare authorship question 98

deal of the classical learning he displays is derived from one text, Ovid's Metamorphoses, which was a set text in many schools at the time.[135] Anti-Stratfordians such as , however, believe this explanation does not counter the argument that the author also required a knowledge of foreign languages, modern sciences, warfare, law, statesmanship, hunting, natural philosophy, history, and aristocratic sports such as tennis and falconry.[136]

Shakespeare's life experience Anti-Stratfordians believe that a provincial glovemaker's son who resided in Stratford until early adulthood would be unlikely to have written plays that deal so personally with the activities, travel and lives of the nobility. The view is summarised by Charles Chaplin: "In the work of greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare. . . . Whoever wrote them (the plays) had an aristocratic attitude."[137] Orthodox scholars respond that the glamorous world of the aristocracy was a popular setting for plays in this period. They add that numerous English Renaissance playwrights, including Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, Ben Jonson, and others wrote about the nobility despite their own humble origins. Authorship doubters stress that the plays show a detailed understanding of politics, the law and foreign languages that would have been impossible to attain without an aristocratic or university upbringing. Orthodox scholars respond that Shakespeare was an upwardly mobile man: his company regularly performed at court and he thus had ample opportunity to observe courtly life. In The Genius of Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate argues that the class argument is reversible: the plays contain details of lower-class life about which aristocrats might have little knowledge. Many of Shakespeare's most vivid characters are lower class or associate with this milieu, such as Falstaff, , Autolycus, , etc.[138] Anti-Stratfordians have responded that while the author's depiction of nobility was highly personal and multi-faceted, his treatment of commoners was quite different. Tom Bethell, in Atlantic Monthly, commented "The author displays little sympathy for the class of upwardly mobile strivers of which Shakspere (of Stratford) was a preeminent member. Shakespeare celebrates the faithful servant, but regards commoners as either humorous when seen individually or alarming in mobs".[139] It has also been noted that in the 17th century, Shakespeare was not thought of as an expert on the court, but as a "child of nature" who "Warble[d] his native wood-notes wild" as John Milton put it in his poem L'Allegro. Contemporary playwright Francis Beaumont thought this not a disadvantage. He wrote to Jonson: "I would let slip ... scholarship and from all learning keep these lines as clear as Shakespeare's best are ... to show how far a mortal man may go by the dim light of Nature".[140] John Dryden wrote in 1668 that playwrights Beaumont and Fletcher "understood and imitated the conversation of Gentlemen much better" than Shakespeare, and in 1673 wrote of Elizabethan playwrights in general that "I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Jonson." Anti-Stratfordians note that it took 12 years for Ben Jonson (whose lower-class background was similar to that of the Stratfordian Shakespeare) to obtain noble patronage from Prince Henry for his commentary The Masque of Queens (1609). They thus express doubt that the true author could have quickly obtained the Earl of Southampton's patronage for one of his first published works, the long poem Venus and Adonis (1593).

Shakespeare's literacy Anti-Stratfordians such as Charleton Ogburn question the degree of literacy of Shakespeare of Stratford. No letter written by Shakespeare is known to exist, and they maintain it would only be logical for a man of Shakespeare's writing ability to compose numerous letters, and given the man's supposed fame they find it unbelievable that not one letter, or record of a letter, exists.[141] Doubters point out that many dramatists of the time wrote a fluent hand, (dramatists such as Jonson, Marlowe, and Lyly), and that no equivalent samples of playscripts are available as Shakespeare authorship question 99

evidence for the literacy of Shakespeare of Stratford. Ogburn also notes that his known signatures offer no proof of writing abilities.[142] Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has stated that "the evidence of Shakespeare's handwriting that we do have ... consists of six signatures on legal documents, each suggesting that merely writing his name was a difficult task and, remarkably, that his name was Shaksper rather than Shakespeare."[113] While àmany dramatists of the time wrote a fluent handâ, many didn't, and when compared to some other dramatists of the era, the alleged wretchedness of Shakespeare's hand wasn't unique. The hand of , one of the most prolific playwrights of the era, is described as àabominableâ and àthe least legibleâ of all extant dramatistsÅ hands of the era.[143] Other notable writers of the era who had what today would be considered illegible hands include , described as àawkward and untidyâ,[144] Sir Thomas Overbury, àbarely decipherable scratchesâ,[145] , àuntidy and loosely writtenâ,[146] Thomas Dekker, àscratchyâ,[147] Thomas Nashe, àscrappiness . . . numerous blots . . . generally legible . . .ill-definedâ,[148] and Robert Southwell, àfairly legibleâ.[149]

Mainstream scholars who specialize in studying handwriting of the past, known as palaeographers, say that the handwriting of Shakespeare's time is difficult for modern readers.[150] Shakespeare's signatures are written in secretary hand, a style of The six known signatures of Shakespeare handwriting that vanished by 1700,[151] and which can be àconfusing and often downright misleadingâ to those unfamiliar with it.[152] Sir , who studied and wrote extensively about ShakespeareÅs handwriting, said that àthe style of the poet's hand, as shown by his signatures, was that of the ordinary scrivener or copyist of the time (that is, in the native English script) â, and that "there can be no question of the dramatist's ability to write a fluent hand".[153]

Despite ThompsonÅs opinion and his use of the signatures to identify ShakespeareÅs co-authorship in the anonymous play Sir Thomas More, even some Stratfordians disagree with his assessment because of the appearance of ShakespeareÅs surviving signatures, as Irvin Matus admits.[154] British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper notes that "It is true, six of his signatures have been found, all spelt differently; but they are so ill-formed that some graphologists suppose the hand to have been guided.â[141] And Jane Cox, of the Public Record Office (now The National Archives [155]), suggests that clerks wrote the signatures instead of Shakespeare,[156] a position Matus outlines as a possibility but stops short of endorsing.[157] Other arguments against Shakespeare of Stratford's literacy are the apparent illiteracy of his parents and family. According to authorship researcher Diana Price, Shakespeare of Stratford's wife Anne and daughter Judith appear to have been illiterate, suggesting he did not teach them to write. Mainstream scholars have responded that most middle-class women in the 17th century were illiterate, and statistical evidence compiled by David Cressy indicates that a large percentage (as high as 90%) of these women may not have had enough education to sign their own names.[158] Shakespeare authorship question 100

Shakespeare's will Anti-stratfordians note that Shakespeare of Stratford's will is long and explicit, bequeathing the possessions of a successful middle class businessman but making no mention of personal papers or books (which were expensive items at the time) of any kind, nor any mention of poems or of the 18 plays that remained unpublished at the time of his death, nor any reference to the valuable shares in the Globe Theatre that the Stratford man reportedly owned. This contrasts with Sir Francis Bacon, whose two wills refer to work that he wished to be published posthumously.[159] Anti-Stratfordians find it unusual that the Stratford man did not wish his family to profit from his unpublished work or was unconcerned about leaving them to posterity, and find it improbable that he would have submitted all the manuscripts to the King's Men, the playing company of which he was a shareholder, prior to his death. Stratfordians point out that the complete inventory of Shakespeare's possessions, mentioned at the bottom as being attached (Inventarium exhibitum), has been lost, and that is where any books or manuscripts would have been mentioned. In addition, not one of Shakespeare's contemporary playwrights mentioned play manuscripts in their wills,[160] and for good reason: plays were owned by the playing companies, who sold the publishing rights at their discretion, so all of Shakespeare's plays were not his to dispose of, being owned by the King's Men.[161] It is not known whether William Shakespeare still owned the shares in the Globe Theatre at his death, but three other major share holders besides Shakespeare who were positively known to hold shares when they diedÇRichard Burbage, , and Henry CondellÇalso didn't mention Globe shares in their wills.[162]

Shakespeare's funerary monument

Shakespeare's Stratford Bust, from Dugdale's Warwickshire (1656). Doubters note what appears to be a woolsack and the absence of pen and paper suggests the figure more likely represents Shakespeare, the merchant-businessman.

Shakespeare's Stratford Bust, as published by Nicholas Rowe in 1709, with similar woolsack and absence of pen and paper. Shakespeare authorship question 101

Shakespeare's "Stratford monument", with pen in hand, engraved in 1723 by .[] The Stratford Bust, as it was represented in print between 1656 and 1723. Mainstream critics maintain the first two illustrators were simply inaccurate as to details. Shakespeare's grave monument in Stratford, built within a decade of his death, currently features an effigy of him with a pen in hand, suggestive of a writer, with an attached inscribed plaque praising his abilities as a writer. But anti-Stratfordians assert that the monument was clearly altered after its installation, as the earliest printed image of the monument in Sir William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, published in 1656, merely portrays a man holding a grain sack.[163] The monument is portrayed similarly in Nicholas RoweÅs 1709 edition of ShakespeareÅs works. The earliest record of the pen (which evidently broke from the hand in the late eighteenth century and is now represented by a real goose quill) dates from an engraving of the memorial made by George Vertue in 1723 and published in Alexander Pope's 1725 edition of Shakespeare's plays.[] Dugdale drew heraldic arms and monuments competently, but not figures and faces, his biographers say.[164] Dugdale identified Shakespeare as a poet on his drawing and published the monument inscription praising Shakespeare's literary abilities. Anti-Stratfordian researcher Diana Price examined Dugdale's original sketch drawn in 1634 and determined that Dugdale initially drew a flatter cushion in pencil, later inking the drawing, probably off-site. The engraver, , freely improvised the engraving more than 20 years later, adding bulges suggesting a sack. She concluded that the monument had not been altered and that all subsequent similar images were derived from Hollar, not from the monument itself.[165] When the effigy and cushion, made of a solid piece of Cotswold limestone, was removed from its niche in 1973, Sam Schoenbaum examined it and rendered an opinion that the monument was substantially as it was when first erected, with the hands resting on paper and writing-cushion, saying that "no amount of restoration can have transformed the monument of Dugdale's engraving into the effigy in Stratford church."[166] Oxfordian Richard Kennedy has proposed that the monument was originally built to honour John Shakespeare, WilliamÅs father, who was described by Rowe as a àconsiderableâ (although illegal) wool dealer, and that the effigy was later changed to fit the writer.[167] KennedyÅs theory gained the support of orthodox scholars Sir Brian Vickers and Peter Beal.[168] According to Vickers, "[W]ell-documented records of recurrent decay and the need for extensive repair work . . . make it impossible that the present bust is the same as the one that was in place in the 1620s."[169] Marlovian Peter Farey contends that he has found a riddle embedded in the monumentÅs inscription, which when combined with a cryptic reference on the tombstone, identifies Marlowe as the true author.[170] Shakespeare authorship question 102

Comments by contemporaries Comments on Shakespeare by Elizabethan literary figures have been read by anti-Stratfordians as expressions of doubt about his authorship: Ben Jonson had a contradictory relationship with Shakespeare. He regarded him as a friend Ä saying "I loved the man"[171] Ä and wrote tributes to him in the First Folio. However, Jonson also wrote that Shakespeare was too wordy: Commenting on the Players' commendation of Shakespeare for never blotting out a line, Jonson wrote "would he had blotted a thousand" and that "he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped."[171] In the same work, he scoffs at a line Shakespeare wrote "in the person of Caesar": "Caesar never did wrong but with just cause", which Jonson calls "ridiculous,"[172] and indeed the text as preserved in the First Folio carries a different line: "Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause / Will he be satisfied" (3.1). Jonson ridiculed the line again in his play The Staple of News, without directly referring to Shakespeare. Some anti-Stratfordians interpret these comments as expressions of doubt about Shakespeare's ability to have written the plays.[173] In Robert Greene's posthumous publication Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592; published, and possibly written, by fellow dramatist ) a dramatist labeled "Shake-scene" is vilified as "an upstart Crowe beautified with our feathers", along with a quotation from Henry VI, Part 3. The orthodox view is that Greene is criticizing the relatively unsophisticated Shakespeare of Stratford for invading the domain of the university-educated playwright Greene.[174] Some anti-Stratfordians claim that Greene is in fact doubting Shakespeare's authorship.[175] In Greene's earlier work Mirror of Modesty (1584), the dedication mentions "Ezops Crowe, which deckt hir selfe with others feathers" referring to Aesop's fable (The Crow, , and the Feathers) satirizing people who boast they have something they do not actually have. In John Marston's satirical poem The Scourge of Villainy (1598), Marston rails against the upper classes being "polluted" by sexual interactions with the lower classes. Seasoning his piece with sexual metaphors, he then asks: Shall broking pandars sucke Nobilitie? Soyling fayre stems with foule impuritie? Nay, shall a trencher slaue extenuate, Some Lucrece rape? And straight magnificate Lewd Jovian Lust? Whilst my satyrick vaine Shall muzzled be, not daring out to straine His tearing paw? No gloomy Juvenall, Though to thy fortunes I disastrous fall. There is a tradition that the satirist Juvenal became "gloomy" after being exiled by for having lampooned an actor that the emperor was in love with.[176] Anti-stratfordians believe Marston's piece can be interpreted as being directed at an actor, and questioning whether such a lower class "trencher slave" is extenuating (making light of) "some Lucrece rape" (The Rape of Lucrece), with Shakespeare depicted as a "broking pandar" (procurer), implicitly questioning his credentials to "sucke Nobilitie", (attract the Earl of Southampton's patronage of him). Shakespeare authorship question 103

Publications

The First Folio

The First Folio (1623), the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, has generated considerable debate among authorship doubters, who have raised questions about the various dedications to "Shake-speare", as well as the famous Folio frontispiece. The engraving itself is usually attributed to Martin Droeshout the Younger. Born in 1601, Droeshout was only 10 years old when Shakespeare of Stratford retired, and only 14 years old when he died. Seven additional years passed before the Folio's publication. These circumstances, authorship doubters believe, make it unlikely that Droeshout actually knew the playwright personally. Because of this, authorship researchers have questioned the circumstances behind the work, including Jonson's assertion that the engraving was "true to life".

Charlton Ogburn, author of The Mysterious William Shakespeare (1984), also noted that the curved line running from the ear to the chin makes the face appear more of a "mask" than a true representation of an The First Folio (1623), and its frontispiece, have [177] generated considerable debate. actual person, though art historians see nothing unusual in these features.[178] Stratfordians respond to the claim that Droeshout was too young to have known Shakespeare by noting that the assumption has long been that he worked from a sketch, which was normal practice for engravers.

Geographical knowledge in the plays Most anti-Stratfordians believe that a well-travelled man wrote the plays, as many of them are set in European countries and show great attention to local details. Orthodox scholars respond that numerous plays of this period by other playwrights are set in foreign locations and Shakespeare is thus entirely conventional in this regard. In addition, in many cases Shakespeare did not invent the setting, but borrowed it from the source he was using for the plot. Even outside of the authorship question, there has been debate about the extent of geographical knowledge displayed by Shakespeare. Some scholars argue that there is very little topographical information in the texts (nowhere in Othello or the Merchant of Venice are the many canals of Venice mentioned). They also note apparent mistakes: for example, Shakespeare refers to Bohemia as having a coastline in The Winter's Tale (the region is landlocked), refers to Verona and Milan as seaports in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (the cities are inland), in All's Well That Ends Well he suggests that a journey from Paris to Northern Spain would pass through Italy, and in Timon of Athens he believes that there are substantial tides in the Mediterranean Sea, and that they take place once instead of twice a day.[179] Answers to these objections have been made by other scholars (both orthodox and anti-Stratfordian). One explanation given for Bohemia having a coastline is that the same geographical mistake was already present in Shakespeare's source, Robert Greene's , and the play merely reproduced it.[180] Another is the author's awareness that the kingdom of Bohemia in the 13th century under Ottokar II stretched to the Adriatic and that in Shakespeare's time (since 1558) the King of Bohemia also was Holy Roman Emperor and ruled over the Adriatic coast neighboring the Venetian Republic.[181] It has been noted that The Merchant of Venice demonstrates detailed knowledge of the city, including the obscure facts that the Duke held two votes in the City Council, and that a dish of baked doves was a time-honoured gift in northern Italy.[106] Shakespeare also used the local word, "traghetto", for the Venetian mode of transport (printed as Shakespeare authorship question 104

'traject' in the published texts[182] ). Anti-Stratfordians suggest that the above information would most likely be obtained from first-hand experience of the regions under discussion and conclude that the author of the plays could have been a diplomat, aristocrat or politician. Mainstream scholars assert that Shakespeare's plays contain several colloquial names for flora and fauna that are unique to Warwickshire, where Stratford-upon-Avon is located, for example 'love in idleness' in A Midsummer Night's Dream.[183] These names may suggest that a Warwickshire native might have written the plays. Warwickshire characters from the villages of Burtonheath and Wincot, both near Stratford, are identifiable in The Taming of the Shrew.[184] Oxfordian researchers respond that the Earl of Oxford owned a manor house in Bilton, Warwickshire which, records show, he leased out in 1574 and sold in 1581.[185]

The poems as evidence Ever since their recovery in 1709 after being out of print for over half a century, the Shakespearean Sonnets have provided a major stimulus promoting inquiry into the author's biography and giving rise in critical ways to the authorship question itself. What manÇor what kind of a manÇwrote these extraordinary poems? Many scholars interpret the sonnets as personal expressions of emotions and experiences: the English romantic poet Wordsworth, for example, said that with the sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart."[186] Others, such as Sidney Lee and Samuel Schoenbaum, have argued that they are academic exercises having no biographical significance, or dramatizations presented in the voice of a persona who is no more real than the characters "Shylock and Hamlet".[187] [188] Those who consider the sonnets a key to the author's personality have attempted to identify the "Fair Youth," the "Dark Lady," and the "Rival Poet." Although there is no consensus about how these characters fit into the life of Shakespeare of Stratford,[189] by far the most popular view among traditional scholars is that the Fair Youth is Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573Ä1624), to whom Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece had previously been dedicated. Most Anti-Stratfordians read the sonnets as expressions of genuine biographical significance, and argue that these "mystery characters" can be identified as figures in the lives of their proposed candidates, although they do not always agree on the identities of the implicated persons.[190] [191] Since Looney's Shakespeare Identified was published in 1920, Oxfordians generally concur with the identification of the Fair Youth as Wriothesley and, indeed, regard the identification as a major point in favor of their theory. They point out that Wriothesley, during the early 1590s when the seventeen "procreation" sonnets were written, was being urged by his guardian, Lord Burghley, to marry Lady Elizabeth Vere, the eldest daughter of Edward de Vere.[192] However, Charlton Ogburn points out that the "procreation" sonnets do not advocate any particular woman for the youth to marry. They simply exhort him to marry, beget a son, and thus perpetuate the beauty of his own youth through reproduction.[193] Oxfordians such as Charlton Ogburn also cite Sonnet 76 (among others) as evidence of the author's implication that the plays and poems were written under a pseudonym ("noted weed" in this sonnet means a "well-recognized garment," as in "widows' weeds"): Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? The poet complains in Sonnet 76 of "art made tongue-tied by authority"; this suggests his frustration over censorship of some kind. And in Sonnet 111, Shakespeare laments that "my name receives a brand/ and almost thence my nature is subdue'd/ by what it works in, like the dyer's hand." Shakespeare authorship question 105

Date of playwright's death

Shake-speare's Sonnets

Oxfordian supporters believe they can identify evidence that the actual playwright was dead by 1609, the year Shake-speare's Sonnets, appeared with "our ever-living Poet"[194] on the dedication page, words typically used[195] to eulogize someone who has died, yet has become immortal.[196] Shakespeare himself used the phrase in this context in Henry VI, part 1 describing the dead Henry V as "[t]hat ever living man of memory" (4.3.51). And in 1665, Richard Brathwait used the exact same terminology referring to the deceased poet Jeffrey Chaucer, "A comment upon the two tales of our ancient, renovvned, and ever-living poet Sr. Jeffray Chavcer, Knight."[197]

Joseph Sobran, in Alias Shakespeare (1997), says that the finality of the title, Shake-speares Sonnets, suggests a complete body of work, with no more sonnets expected from the author, and notes that "the standard explanation is that the Sonnets were printed without (Shakespeare's) Dedication from SHAKE-SPEARE'S SONNETS permission or cooperation".[198] In fact, there is no record that (1609). Shakespeare of Stratford, who was not beyond suing his neighbors over paltry sums, ever objected or sought recompense for the publication.[199] In addition, it is argued that some sonnets may be taken to suggest their author was older than the Stratford Shakespeare (#16, #30, #31, #62, #65, #73, #107, #138),[200] and possibly approaching death.[201]

The academic mainstream responds that the term àever-livingâ does not necessarily imply that the person being described was dead. Anti-Stratfordian researcher, John Rollett, found an example of the epithet being applied to Queen Elizabeth, some eight years before her death,[202] and Donald Foster has pointed out that the phrase àever-livingâ appears most frequently in Renaissance texts as a conventional epithet for eternal God.[203] Foster also asserts that the term "begetterâ was frequently used to mean "author" in Renaissance book dedications.[204] Thus, Jonathan Bate, leaving out the initials, translates the largely formulaic dedication in modern English as àThomas Thorpe, the well-wishing publisher of the following sonnets, takes the opportunity upon publishing them to wish their only author all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever living poet.â[205] Fosters claim, and the Bate translation, however, do not represent the mainstream belief, espoused by noted Shakespearean scholar Sydney Lee, that "In Elizabethan English there was no irregularity in the use of 'begetter' in its primary sense of 'getter' or 'procurer'". Lee compiled numerous examples of the word used in this way and notes that doubt of this definition is "barely justifiable".[206] Some modern Shakespearen specialists, such as Katherine Duncan-Jones, believe the sonnets were published with ShakespeareÅs full authorization,[207] this assertion, however, stands in contrast to the more general believe noted by Lee, that "The corrupt state of the text Thorpe's edition of 1609 fully confirms that the enterprise lacked authority,...the character of the numerous misreadings leaves little doubt that Thorpe had no means of access to the authors MS."[208] Shakespeare authorship question 106

1604-1616 period

Oxfordian researchers believe certain documents imply the actual playwright had stopped writing, or was dead by 1604, the year continuous publication of new Shakespeare plays "mysteriously stopped",[209] and various writers and scholars have asserted that The Winter's Tale,[210] The Tempest, Henry VIII,[211] and Antony and Cleopatra,[212] so-called "later plays", were composed no later than 1604.[213] Also, since Shakespeare of Stratford lived until 1616, anti-Stratfordians question why, if he were the author, he did not eulogize Queen Elizabeth at her death The two states of the title page of The Passionate Pilgrim (3rd ed., 1612) in 1603 or Henry, Prince of Wales, at his in 1612.[214] Nor did Shakespeare memorialize the coronation of James I in 1604, the marriage of Princess Elizabeth in 1612, and the investiture of Prince Charles as the new Prince of Wales in 1613.[215]

Orthodox scholars note that as well as being a dramatist, Shakespeare was a narrative poet and a sonneteer, not an occasional poet, and that his neglect of Queen ElizabethÅs death was hardly unique. In one of the few such eulogies, Englandes Mourning Garment, Henry Chettle reproaches Shakespeare as well as other contemporary poets for their neglect of the queenÅs death, including Chapman, Jonson, Drayton, Dekker, and Marston, all of whom were alive at the time.[216] An edition of The Passionate Pilgrim expanded with an additional nine poems written by Thomas Heywood with ShakespeareÅs name on the title-page was published by in 1612. Heywood protested this piracy in his Apology for Actors (1612), adding that the author was "much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." That Heywood stated with certainty that the author was unaware of the deception, and that Jaggard removed ShakespeareÅs name from unsold copies even though Heywood didn't explicitly name him, indicates that Shakespeare was the offended author who was very much alive at the time.[217] Shakespeare authorship question 107

Candidates and their champions

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

The most popular present-day candidate is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.[218] [219] [220] [221] The Oxfordian theory was first proposed by J. Thomas Looney in 1920, whose work persuaded, among others, Sigmund Freud[222] , Orson Welles and Marjorie Bowen. Oxford rapidly overtook Bacon as the most widely accepted candidate among anti-Stratfordians and by the late 1930s had achieved prominent public visibility as the most popular alternative candidate.[223]

Oxfordians point to the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries regarding his talent as a poet and a playwright, his reputation as a concealed poet, and his personal connections to London theatre and the contemporary playwrights of Shakespeare's day. They also note his long term relationships with Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Southampton, his knowledge of Court life, his extensive education, his academic and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford is the leading alternative candidate for the author cultural achievements, and his wide-ranging travels through France and behind the alleged pseudonym, Shake-Speare Italy to what would later become the locations of many of Shakespeare's plays.

The case for Oxford's authorship is also based on perceived similarities between Oxford's biography and events in Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and longer poems; parallels of language, idiom, and thought between Oxford's personal letters and the Shakespearean canon;[224] and underlined passages in Oxford's personal bible, which Oxfordians believe correspond to quotations in Shakespeare's plays.[225] Confronting the issue of Oxford's death in 1604, Oxfordian researchers cite examples they say imply the writer known as "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare" died before 1609, and point to 1604 as the year regular publication of "new" or "augmented" Shakespeare plays stopped.

Sir Francis Bacon

In 1856, William Henry Smith put forth the claim that the author of Shakespeare's plays was Sir Francis Bacon, a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618). Smith was followed by Delia Bacon in her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded [82](1857), in which she maintained that Shakespeare's work was in fact written by a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, who collaborated for the purpose of anonymously inculcating a philosophic system that she professed to discover beneath the superficial text of the plays.

Supporters of Bacon draw attention to similarities between a great Sir Francis Bacon is often cited as a possible number of specific phrases and aphorisms from the plays and those author of Shakespeare's plays written down by Bacon in his wastebook, the Promus,[226] . In a letter Bacon refers to "concealed poets"[227] , which his supporters take as a confession. They also point to Bacon's comment that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue,"[228] and say that since he outlined both a scientific and moral philosophy in his Advancement Shakespeare authorship question 108

of Learning, but only his scientific philosophy was known to have been published during his lifetime (Novum Organum 1620), that he left his moral philosophy to posterity in the Shakespeare plays (e.g. the nature of good government exemplified by in Henry IV, Part 2).

Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke

Several recent works by independent scholars have argued for as the primary author of the Shakespeare plays. According to Robin P. Williams, author of Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?,[229] Mary Sidney had the scholarship, ability, motive, means and opportunity to write the plays. Williams outlines the extensive connection between Sidney and original source materials used for most of the plays. Williams also argues that Sidney, as an aristocratic woman had more impelling motivation to write under a pen name than the male candidates. Fred Faulkes, in his book, The Tiger Heart Chronicles [230] provides a comprehensive study of all the English literature at the time of Shakespeare and shows that Mary Sidney was at the center of the culture creating that literature. He concludes that she was Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke in the best position to have written the plays. A further argument in favor of Mary Sidney, put forth on the website of independent scholar Jonathan Star,[231] is largely based upon an analysis of Ben Jonson's eulogy to the Author, which appears in the prefatory material of the First Folio, published in 1623. Star shows that virtually every reference in the eulogy can be linked to Mary Sidney, while few, if any, of the references in the eulogy can be linked to William Shakspere of Stratford, or to the Earl of Oxford, or to any of the other candidates. Jonson's integral involvement in the editing and preparation of the First Folio, and his personal reference to the Author as "my beloved," suggest that he positively knew the author's true identity. Star argues that the measure for any authorship candidate is, therefore, how closely that candidate can be linked to Jonson's eulogy.

Sidney's link to the Shakespeare plays also comes through her two sons, William and Philip, who were the patrons of the First Folio (i.e.,the ones to whom the First Folio was dedicated, and the ones who paid the massive publication costs). In addition, Mary Sidney died in 1621 (the Earl of Oxford in 1604, Shakspere of Stratford in 1616, and Sir Francis Bacon in 1626). The date of her death, when compared to the other authorship candidates, most closely fits the 1623 publication date of the First Folio and JonsonÅs eulogy. Shakespeare authorship question 109

Christopher Marlowe

A case for the gifted young playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe was made as early as 1895 in Wilbur Gleason Zeigler's foreword to his novel, It Was Marlowe: A Story of the Secret of Three Centuries.[232] Although only two months older than Shakespeare, Marlowe is recognized by scholars as the primary influence on Shakespeare's work, the "master" to Shakespeare's "apprentice". Unlike any other authorship candidate, Marlowe is believed to have been a brilliant poet and dramatist, the true originator of "Shakespearean" blank verse drama, and the only candidate to have actually demonstrated the potential to achieve the literary heights that Shakespeare did,[233] had he not been killed at the age of 29, as the historical record shows.

Those who subscribe to this theory, called "Marlovians", claim that he Christopher Marlowe has been cited as a didn't really die in 1593, however, and that his biographers approach his possible author for Shakespeare's works alleged death in the wrong way by trying only to discover why he was really killed, as this has resulted in considerable disagreement amongst them.[234] Marlovians argue that a better approach is to seek the most logical explanation for those particular peopleÇgiven their backgroundsÇto have met at that particular time and place. They conclude that it was to fake MarloweÅs death so he could escape what would have been almost certain execution after being tried on charges of subversive atheism.

If he did actually survive, they cite as evidence for his authorship of Shakespeare's works how much of an influence Marlowe was on Shakespeare, how indistinguishable their works were to start with (surprisingly so, given the differences in their levels of education and in their social and 'working' backgrounds) and how seamless was the transition from Marlowe's works to Shakespeare's immediately following the apparent death. In fact, a central plank in the Marlovian theory is that the first clear association of William Shakespeare with the works bearing his nameÇVenus and Adonis, the "first heir" of Shakespeare's "invention"Çwas registered with the Stationers' Company on 18 April 1593 with no named author, but was printed with William Shakespeare's name signed to the dedication, and on sale just 13 days after Marlowe's supposed death, when the first copy is known to have been bought.[235] Marlovians use very few of the standard anti-Stratfordian argumentsÇas given in the main article aboveÇto support their theory, believing many of them to be misguided, misleading or unnecessary. Shakespeare authorship question 110

William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby

One of the chief arguments in support of Derby's candidacy is a pair of 1599 letters by the Jesuit spy George Fenner in which it is reported that Derby is "busy penning plays for the common players." Professor Abel Lefranc (1918) claimed his 1578 visit to the Court of Navarre is reflected in Love's Labour's Lost. His older brother Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby formed a group of players which evolved into the King's Men, one of the companies most associated with Shakespeare. It has been theorized that the first production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed at his wedding banquet.

Born in 1561, Stanley's parents were Henry, Lord Strange, and Margaret Clifford, great granddaughter of Henry VII, whose family line made Stanley an heir to the throne. At the age of eleven, he went to St. John's College, Oxford. He later studied at both London law schools, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. He married Elizabeth de Vere, daughter of [236] William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby was reported Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Cecil. Elizabeth's to be writing plays for the "common players". maternal grandfather was William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, the oft-acknowledged prototype of the character of in Hamlet. Derby was also closely associated with William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke and his brother Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery and later 4th Earl of Pembroke, the two dedicatees of the 1623 Shakespearean folio. Around 1628 to 1629, when Derby released his estates to his son James, who became the 7th Earl, the named trustees were Pembroke and Montgomery.

Asserting a similarity with the name "William Shakespeare", supporters of the Stanley candidacy note that Stanley's first name was William, his initials were W. S., and he was known to sign himself, "Will". They also cite biographical parallels between his life and incidents in the plays.[92] In 1599 he is was reported as financing one of London's two children's drama companies, the Paul's Boys and, his playing company, Derby's Men, known for playing at the "Boar's Head". In addition the company played multiple times at court in 1600 and 1601.[237] Stanley is often mentioned as a leader or participant in the "group theory" of Shakespearean authorship.[236]

Florio Crollalanza During the 20s of the last century, in Sicily was discovered "I secondi frutti", a collection of proverbs. It was noticed that many of those proverbs were present in some Shakespeare's plays; the author of the book was Michelangelo (Michel Agnolo) Florio Crollalanza. Further, in was found another play, whose title is, in messinese dialect, "Troppu trafficu pi nenti" literally "Too much ado for nothing". This play is about 50 years older than 'Much ado for nothing', so who wrote the latter, should know about the first. Since then, some like Santi Paladino started to investigate about the relationship between Shakespeare and Florio Crollalanza, trying to understand if they met each other, or maybe Shakespeare met at least somebody else of the family of Michelangelo, maybe his cousin John Florio, or even if they were the same person. The coincidences starts from the names of the two men. Since his father was from Jewish origin, Michelangelo used also the surname of his mother, Guglielma Crollalanza. Now, the English for Guglielma/o is William, so one could think that the name was just translated. According to another hypothesis, William has been chosen because it was the name of a dead cousin. But more interesting is the surname, Crollalanza, that could be the perfect translation of Shakespeare: crolla lanza means 'shakes speare' (in modern Italian: scrolla lancia). Michelangelo had to escape from Sicily, and later from Italy, because he was Calvinist, and on that period started a persecution for the adherents of Shakespeare authorship question 111

this and other religions, considered heretical. So a pseudonym could protect him from an easier identification. One of the supporters of the hypothesis that Shakespeare was Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza has been Professor Martino Iuvara,[238] whose ideas became famous after an interview published on The Times on 2000.[239] Iuvara wrote Elizabeth II and to Tony Blair asking access to some archives in England, but he did not have a permission for that[240] . He declared in another interview: [Michelangelo Crollalanza] Studied Latin, Greek and history [...]. But at the age of 15 he had to escape with his family in Veneto, because of his Calvinist ideas [...]. Michelangelo lived in the palace of Othello, a gentleman from Venice who killed his own wife because of jealousy, some years before. [...] in Milan he felt in love with a countess, Giulietta, who was kidnapped by the Spanish Governor [...]. Giulietta committed suicide, then Michelangelo went to England [...] So I suspect that nobody, in England, had the courage to give access to his library [...]. This would reveal his real identity. I understand the reaction of English people. It would be like somebody would tell us, unexpectedly, that Dante was, as an example, Spanish. ÇProfessor Martino Iuvara. The complete interview [241], in Italian Other hypothesis support that Shakespeare was a cousin of Michelangelo, John Florio, as for example Lamberto Tassinari, professor of literature in the University of .[242] [243] As the British historian Frances Yates hypothesizes, it is also possible that Shakespeare just met with some member of the Florio Crollalanza family (John Florio), and collaborated with him for his many plays set in Italy, so that he could describe precisely the places, culture and laws of this country, while the name is just a coincidence.[244]

Group theory In the 1960s, the most popular general theory was that Shakespeare's plays and poems were the work of a group rather than one individual. A group consisting of De Vere, Bacon, William Stanley, Mary Sidney, and others, has been put forward, for example.[245] This theory has been often noted, most recently by renowned actor Derek Jacobi, who told the British press "I subscribe to the group theory. I don't think anybody could do it on their own. I think the leading light was probably de Vere, as I agree that an author writes about his own experiences, his own life and personalities."[246] [247]

Other candidates At least fifty other candidates have also been proposed, including Queen Elizabeth. This argument was first proposed by George Elliott Sweet in 1956,[248] and in 1995 Lillian Schwartz suggested that the engraving of Shakespeare that appears in the First Folio was based on a portrait of the queen.[249] A less well known candidate, William Nugent, was first put forward in Ireland by the distinguished Meath historian Elizabeth Hickey[250] and was expanded upon by Brian Nugent in his 2008 publication, Shakespeare was Irish!. William Nugent (1550Ä1625) was a nobleman from Delvin in County Westmeath who was imprisoned by the state for opposing the cess in Ireland in the 1570s, and he rebelled in 1581 losing a number of supporters to the hangman's noose and causing him to flee into exile, first into Scotland, then France and Italy.[251] During his exile he met with most of the great European leaders, such as the Pope, the King's of Spain, France and Scotland, and the Duke of Guise, and was involved in European-wide planning for an invasion of England.[252] He was known for his great literary talents, as described by Irish historian John Lynch: "he learnt the more difficult niceties of the Italian language and carried his proficiency to that point that he could write Italian poetry with elegance. Before that however he had been very successful in writing poetry in Latin, English and Irish and would yield to none in the precision and excellence of his verses in each of these languages. His poems which speak for themselves are still extant."[253] As early as 1577 he was known as a composer of "divers sonnets" in English, to quote his friend writing in Chapter 7 of Holinshed's Chronicles. Shakespeare authorship question 112

In 2007, The Master of Shakespeare by A. W. L. Saunders proposed a "new" candidate Ç Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554Ä1628). Greville was an aristocrat, courtier, statesman, sailor, soldier, spymaster, literary patron, dramatist, historian and poet. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, where he met his lifelong friend Sir Philip Sidney, and Jesus College, Cambridge. He was Clerk to the Council of Wales and the Marches, Treasurer of the Navy, and from 1614 to 1621, Chancellor of the Exchequer. After the death of his father in 1606, Fulke became Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon and he held that post until his own death in 1628. In The Truth Will Out, published in 2005, Brenda James, a part-time lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, and Professor William Rubinstein, professor of history at Aberystwyth University, argue that Henry Neville, a contemporary Elizabethan English diplomat and distant relative of Shakespeare, is possibly the true author of the plays. Neville's career placed him in the locations of some of the plays at approximately the dates of their authorship. In a March 2007 lecture at the Smithsonian Institution, John Hudson proposed a new authorship candidate, the poet Lanier (1569Ä1645), one of the first women in England to publish a book of poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611). A. L. Rowse had already linked Lanier to Shakespeare in 1973, proposing Lanier as the "dark lady" of the Sonnets.[254] Lanier was born in London, into a family possibly of Italian Jewish extraction, who worked as musicians. They came from Venice and were of Moorish ancestry. Hudson posited that Lanier fits many aspects of the biographical profile implied by the plays.[255] She was also the longterm mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the man in charge of the English theatre and the patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men.[256] Hudson proposed that Lanier lived as a hidden Jew despite her nominal Christianity; this explained what he considered to be Hebrew and Jewish religious allegories in the plays. Also, unlike Shakespeare, she died poor, depised, lacking honour and proud titles, as described in Sonnets numbers 37, 29, 81, 111 and 25. Francis Carr proposed that Francis Bacon was both Shakespeare and the author of Don Quixote.[257] A 2007 film called Miguel and William, written and directed by InÜs Parés, explores the parallels and alleged collaboration between Cervantes and Shakespeare.[258] Other candidates proposed include Sir Edward Dyer; or Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland (sometimes with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney.[259] X argued that Shakespeare was actually King James I.[260]

Notes Ç a. ÄOn age 29, H. N. Gibson writes, "Although it is not properly my business, I feel that in the interests of fairness I ought to point out that most of the sins of omission and commission I have just laid to the charge of the theorists can also be found among the orthodox Stratfordians when they write a panegyric of their hero. They even have a group - the Bardolators - who are almost as wild and woolly as the Bacon Cryptologists." On page 30, Gibson continues, "Most of the great Shakespearean scholars are to be found in the Stratfordian camp; but too much must not be made of this fact, for many of them display comparatively little interest in the controversy with which we are dealing. Their chief concerns are textual criticism, interpretation, and the internal problems of the plays, and they accept the orthodox view mainly because it is orthodox. The Stratfordians can, however, legitimately claim that almost all the great Elizabethan scholars who have interested themselves in the controversy have been on their side.[261] Ç b. ÄDr. Atrocchi notes the following: "Since there is no evidence that Shaksper of Stratford was a famous actor and little or no valid evidence that he was an actor at all, this reference to àRosciusâ raises an interesting question. Just what did the annotator know about Shaksper of Stratford? He believes Shaksper is famous enough to be mentioned as an important foster son of Stratford, but in what capacity? If the annotator knew the works of Shakespeare, why not call him àOur honey-tongued Ovidâ or àOur mellifluous Virgilian wordsmith?â In the vast majority of cases, àRosciusâ has been used to refer to great actors, including ShakespeareÅs two usages in 3 Henry VI and Hamlet. Calling Shaksper àRosciusâ would seem to indicate that, despite the lack of evidence, there were some who thought he was an actor and that acting was how he àmade itâ in London. .The annotation, likely Shakespeare authorship question 113

written so soon after Shaksper of StratfordÅs death in 1616, does confirm the remarkable early success of what Oxfordians view as William CecilÅs clever but monstrous connivance: forcing the genius Edward de Vere into pseudonymity and promoting the illiterate grain merchant and real estate speculator, William Shaksper of Stratford, into hoaxian prominence as the great poet and playwright, William Shakespeare.'[36] Ç c. Ä Mainstream Shakespeare scholar A.S Cairncross believes there was no "Ur-Hamlet",[262] and opined that Shakespeare merely wrote the play earlier than is traditionally believed..

References [1] McMichael, George, and Edgar M. Glenn. Shakespeare and His Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy (1962), 56. [2] Kathman, 621; Niederkorn, William S. William S.Niederkorn, The Shakespeare Code, and Other Fanciful Ideas From the Traditional Camp,

(http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2005/ 08/ 30/ books/ 30shak. html?_r=1), New York Times, 30 August 2005. Niederkorn writes, "The traditional theory that Shakespeare was Shakespeare has the passive to active acceptance of the vast majority of English professors and scholars, but it also has had its skeptics, including major authors, independent scholars, lawyers, Supreme Court justices, academics and even prominent Shakespearean actors. Those who see a likelihood that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems attributed to him have grown from a handful to a thriving community with its own publications, organizations, lively online discussion groups and annual

conferences."; Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare (http:/ / doubtaboutwill. org/ declaration); Did He

or DidnÅt He? That Is the Question (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 04/ 22/ education/ edlife/ 22shakespeare-survey. html?_r=1),New York

Times; Matus, Irvin. Doubts About Shakespeare's Authorship Or About Oxfordian Scholarship? (http:/ / willyshakes. com/ doubts. htm); McCrea, Scott. The Case for Shakespeare (2005), 13: àIt was not until 1848 that the Authorship Question emerged from the obscurity of private speculation into the daylight of public debate.â [3] Charleton Ogburn,The Mysterious William Shakespeare: the Myth and the Reality (1984); Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare, pg 69. [4] James, Oscar, and Ed Campbell.The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare (1966), 115. [5] Gibson, H. N. The Shakespeare Claimants: A Critical Survey of the Four Principal Theories Concerning the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays (2005) 48, 72, 124; Kathman, David. "The Question of Authorship" in Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, Stanley Wells, ed. (2003), 620-632, 620, 625Ä626; Love, Harold. Attributing Authorship: An Introduction (2002), 194Ä209; Samuel Schoenbaum. Shakespeare's Lives, 2nd ed. (1991) 430Ä40. [6] N.H. Gibson, The Shakespeare Claimants, (Barnes and Noble 1962), Routledge reprint 2005 p.10 [7] Price, Diana, Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem, pgs 5-6, 11-12, Greenwood Press, 2001 [8] Ogburn, Dorothy and Charlton, This Star of England, pgs x, 1234, 1241-42, Coward-McCann, In., 1952 [9] Price 5-6, 11-12; Ogburn 1241-42; Michell, John, Who Wrote Shakespeare, pgs 42-44, and also quoting authorship doubter Mark Twain, pg 42, Thames and Hudson, 1996

[10] http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wgbh/ pages/ frontline/ shows/ muchado/ forum/ [11] Mark Twain "Is Shakespeare Dead?"

[12] http:/ / wsu. edu/ ~delahoyd/ shakespeare/ vere. html [13] Kathman (2003), 624. [14] Matus, 270-77. [15] Bate, 82.

[16] Matus, Irvin. àReflections on the Authorship Controversy (15 Years On).â Available at http:/ / willyshakes. com/ reflections. htm. àHis [Richmond Crinkley, a former Director of Programs at the Folger (1969-73)] comment appropriate to the public battle is, áOrthodoxy has suffered ... from its denunciatory response to anti-Stratfordianism.... it has missed the opportunity to fight for its position in the public media.Å It is missing in action still, with only a handful of Shakespeareans actively involved in the controversy; only a few are from academe. LetÅs be frank, áweÅ have barely joined in the battle. Most appear to be quite content with losing it.â [17] McCrea, 1-23; Kathman (2003), 622, 624. [18] Kathman (2003), 621-22; 626; Love, 198-200, 303-207; Bate, 68-73.

[19] Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare (http:/ / doubtaboutwill. org/ declaration); Did He or DidnÅt

He? That Is the Question (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 04/ 22/ education/ edlife/ 22shakespeare-survey. html?_r=1), New York Times;

(http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2005/ 08/ 30/ books/ 30shak. html?pagewanted=2& _r=2) [20] Schoenbaum, Sam, ShakespeareÑs Lives, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991), 405, 411, 437; Looney, J. Thomas, "Shakespeare" Identified (NY: Frederick A. Stokes, 1920), 79-84. [21] Derek Jacobi,"Introduction" in Mark Anderson, Shakespeare by Another Name Gotham Books, 2005, page xxiv; Twain, "Is Shakespeare Dead?"; Looney, Shakespeare Identified

[22] http:/ / www. doubtaboutwill. org/ declaration

[23] http:/ / doubtaboutwill. org/ signatories/ field

[24] (http:/ / www. brunel. ac. uk/ courses/ pg/ cdata/ s/ shakespeareauthorshipstudiesma)

[25] Did He or DidnÅt He? That Is the Question (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 04/ 22/ education/ edlife/ 22shakespeare-survey. html?_r=1), New York Times [26] McCrea, Scott. The Case for Shakespeare (2005), xii-xiii, 10. Shakespeare authorship question 114

[27] Love, 200; McCrea, 14. [28] Gibson, N.H. The Shakespeare Claimants, (1962, 2005), 10. [29] Bate, Jonathan. The Genius of Shakespeare, (1998), 36-37

[30] Bate, 37. áScorn not the sonnetÅ, line 3, http:/ / www. byzant. com/ Mystical/ Poetry/ Wordsworth. aspx. áHouseÅ, line 40, http:/ / www. uvm.

edu/ ~sgutman/ Browning_poem_House. html. [31] Bate, 20. [32] funerary monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, refers to Shakespeare as a writer (comparing him to Virgil and calling his writing a "living art"), and records by visitors to Stratford from as far back as the 1630s described it as such. See McMichael, George and Edgar M. Glenn. Shakespeare and his Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy (1962), 41. [33] Stanley Wells, Shakespeare: The Poet & His Plays, Methuen, 1997 pp.10f., writing specifically with regard to doubters: 'Those who doubt that Shakespeare wrote the works often claim that there is nothing to connect William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon with the writer, but this is not true.' p.10 [34] Chambers, E. K. (1930), William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, Vol. 2: 207-211, 228-230; vol.1:377,463; vol.2 218,220,221 [35] For a full account of the documents relating to Shakespeare's life, see Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (1987)

[36] Paul H. Altrocchi, 'Sleuthing an Enigmatic Latin Annotation,' (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ Newsletter/ Latin_annotation. pdf) in Shakespeare matters, Summer 2003, pp.16-19

[37] Alan Nelson, 'William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon: "our Roscius"' (http:/ / socrates. berkeley. edu/ ~ahnelson/ Roscius. html), 14 August 2003 [38] Bate, 4 [39] Petti, Anthony G. English Literary Hands from Chaucer to Dryden (1977), 1-4. [40] A.Lang argued that he gets the scansion of classical names wrong, in scansions any Elizabethan child, even at Stratford Free School, would be whipped for. In Troilus and Cressida he has Greeks and Trojans citing Plato and Aristotle a thousand years before they were born, whereas no scholar would permit himself such a áfreakÅ. In The WinterÅs Tale, he gives áDelphosÅ for Delphi, and confuses it with Delos, an error no scholar would make. Andrew Lang, Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown, (1912) BiblioBazaar, LLC, reprint 2007 pp.36-7 [41] Ogburn, pp. 92-93 [42] Ogburn, p.11, pp. 95-98, p. 110 [43] Ogburn (1984) p. 119

[44] Price, Diana. Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of An Authorship Problem (http:/ / www. amazon. com/ dp/

0313312028) Author's website: Diana Price: About Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography (http:/ / www. shakespeare-authorship. com/ About/

About. asp) Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 2001. pp. 130-131.

[45] Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time. (http:/ / www. amazon. com/ dp/ 0684826585) Free Press, 1997, pp. 25, 146.

[46] Brazil, Robert. "The Shakespeare Problem." (http:/ / www. elizabethanauthors. com/ problem. htm) Shakespeare: The Authorship Controversy.ElizabethanAuthors.com: 1998.

[47] Twain, Mark. Shakespeare Dead? (http:/ / www. shakespeare-oxford. com/ ?p=119''Is) 1909. [48] Ogburn,The Mysterious William Shakespeare, 133-150

[49] Hugh Trevor-Roper, 'What's in a Name?,' (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/ history/ trevor-roper. htm) in Ráalitás, (English Edition), November 1962, pages 41-43, p.41 [50] Ian Donaldson (ed.)Ben Jonson: Poems, Oxford University Press, 1975 p.310 note on line 71. Homer was the swan of Meander, Pindar of the Dircaean fountains, and Virgil of Mantua,

[51] http:/ / www. deveresociety. co. uk/ OxfordStratford. html

[52] http:/ / www. sourcetext. com/ sourcebook/ library/ barrell/ 06avon. htm [53] Anderson, Mark. "Shakespeare" by Another Name. : Gotham Books. xxx. ISBNÄ1592402151. [54] Ogburn (1984), pp. 112, 759. [55] àNo one in ShakespeareÅs lifetime or the first two hundred years after his death expressed the slightest doubt about his authorship.â Bate, p. 73; ". . . no suspicions regarding Shakespeare's authorship (except for a few mainly humorous comments) were expressed until the middle of the nineteenth century (in Hart's The Romance of Yachting, 1848). For over two hundred years no one had any serious doubts," p. 486. Hastings, William T. "Shakspere Was Shakespeare" in The American Scholar (28) 1959, pp. 479-88: Kathman, 622; Martin, 3-4; Wadsworth, Frank W. The Poacher from Stratford (1958), 8-16; "It was not until 1848 that the Authorship Question emerged from the obscurity of private speculation into the daylight of public debate.â McCrea, 13 [56] Price, Diana. Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography (2001), 224-26. [57] Fifteenth edition [1991] Vol. 10, p. 213

[58] Barrell, Charles Wisner. àOxford vs. Other áClaimantsÅ of the Edwards Shakespearean Honors, 1593â (http:/ / www. sourcetext. com/

sourcebook/ library/ barrell/ 21-40/ 39claiments. htm); The Shakespeare Fellowship Quarterly (Summer 1948); Brenda James, Brenda, and W. D. Rubinstein, The truth will out: unmasking the real Shakespeare (2006), 337; Stritmatter, Roger. àTilting Under Frieriesâ: Narcissus (1595) and the Affair at Blackfriars,â Cahiers àlisabáthains, Fall 2006 (70), 37-39 Shakespeare authorship question 115

[59] Gibson, H.N. The Shakespeare Claimants, New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962, 59-65; Michell, John, Who Wrote Shakespeare, London: Thames and Hudson, 1996, 126-29 [60] Friedman, William F. and Elizebeth S. The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined (1957), pp. 1-4, quoted in Shakespeare and His Rivals, George McMichael, Edward M. Glenn, eds. (1962) pg. 56; Wadsworth, 10.

[61] http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=wL08AAAAYAAJ& printsec [62] Wadsworth, 11 [63] Wadsworth, 14-15. [64] Nicoll, Allardyce. "The First Baconian", Times Literary Supplement, February 25, 1932, p. 128. Reply by William Jaggard, March 3, p. 155; response from Nicoll, March 10, p. 17. [65] Baca, Nathan. 'Wilmot did not'. Shakespeare Matters, 2 (Summer 2003), pp. 1, 7, 33. [66] Marsden, Jean I. 2002. àImproving Shakespeare: from the Restoration to Garrickâ in Wells, Stanley and Sarah Stanton, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage (2002), 21Ä36. [67] Boase, 92; Bruntjen, 72; Taylor, 116ff. [68] Dobson, Michael. The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660-1769 (1992), p.6. [69] Dobson, 100Ä30; Taylor, Gary. Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History, from the Restoration to the Present (1989) 62. [70] Sawyer, Robert (2003). Victorian Appropriations of Shakespeare. New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 113. ISBN 0838639704. [71] Carlyle, Thomas (1840). "On Heroes, Hero Worship & the Heroic in History". Quoted in Smith, Emma (2004). Shakespeare's Tragedies. Oxford: Blackwell, 37. ISBN 0631220100. [72] Nelson, Paul A. "Walt Whitman on Shakespeare. Reprinted from The Shakespeare Oxford Society Newsletter, Fall 1992: Volume 28, 4A. [73] Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'Shakspeare; or, the Poetè in Joel Porte (ed.) Essays & lectures By Ralph Waldo Emerson,Library of America, 1983 p.725 [74] Wadsworth, 19. [75] McCrea, 220. [76] Joseph C. Hart,The romance of yachting: voyage the first, Harper, New York, 1848, "the ancient lethe", unpaginated. [77] Jane Ridley, The young Disraeli, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995, p.189 [78] Benjamin Disraeli, Venetia, BiblioBazaar (reprint), LLC, 2009, p.257. [79] Wadsworth, 20-23. [80] "Who Wrote Shakespeare", Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, August, 1852; Wadsworth, 23; Schoenbaum (1991), 401. [81] William Henry Smith, An Enquiry Touching Players, Playhouses, and Play-Writers in the Days of Elizabeth, London, John Russell Smith, 1857, p.2.

[82] http:/ / www. gutenberg. org/ etext/ 8207 [83] Wadsworth, 27-29.

[84] http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=Bq4NAAAAYAAJ [85] "But in 1856 there appeared on the scene two writers whose published views on the question provoked immediate, angry, and frequent response, a reception noticeably different from the lack of interest shown to HartÅs earlier announcement. This response seems to justify the assertion that the controversy over the authorship of the Shakespearean plays actually began with the writersÅ appearance in print." Wadsworth, 23; Schoenbaum (1991), 403. [86] Schoenbaum (1991), 408-09. [87] 'By far the greatest number of contributions, on both sides of the question, come from Americans; in an 1884 bibliography containing 255 titles, almost two-thirds were written by Americans. In 1895 the Danish critic Georg Brandes fulminated against the "troop of half-educated people" who believed that Shakespeare did not write the plays, and bemoaned the fate of the profession. "Literary criticism," which "must be handled carefully and only by those who had a vocation for it," had clearly fallen into the hand of "raw Americans and fanaticial women".' Marjorie B. Garber, Profiling Shakespeare, Routledge 2008 p.10 [88] Friedman, The Shakespearean Ciphers ExaminedCambridge: University Press, 1957. [89] Traubel, H.: With Walt Whitman in Camden, qtd. in Anon, 'Walt Whitman on Shakespeare'. The Shakespeare Fellowship. (Oxfordian

website). Retrieved April 16, 2006. (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/ whitman. htm) [90] Schoenbaum (1991), 427. [91] Michell, 191. [92] Michell, 197. [93] Schoenbaum (1991), 431

[94] http:/ / www2. prestel. co. uk/ rey/ webster. htm [95] Schoenbaum (1991) 446. [96] Gibson, 48, 72, 124; Kathman, David (2003), 620; Schoenbaum, Lives, 430Ä40. [97] Taylor and Mosher, Bibliographical History of Anonyma and Pseudonyma. Chicago: The University Press, 1951, 85. [98] Stritmatter, Roger, "Shakespeare's Censored Personality," The Elizabethan Review, 3:1 (1995), 56-62. [99] Winifred L. Frazer, "Censorship in the Case of William Shakespeare: A Body for the Canon" Brief Chronicles I (2009), 9-33 [100] Oxford: Francis Meres, 1598: "the best for comedy amongst us be Edward Earl of Oxford, Doctor Gager of Oxford.... (etc.), par 36 "A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets" in Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury London: 1598. For Shakespeare authorship question 116

an online edition of the "Comparative Discourse," see the text provided by Elizabethan Authors (http:/ / www. elizabethanauthors. com/

palladis. htm). [101] The Jesuit spy George Fenner in a 1599 letter reports that Derby is "busy penning plays for the common players." See Calendar of State Papers, Dom. 271.35, 34 as cited in Ward, 17th Earl of Oxford, 321. [102] Shakespeare's authorship and questions of evidence Skeptic, Wntr, 2005 by Diana Price, page 6 [103] 'it is well known by good record of learning, and that by 's own witness, that some Comedies bearing Terence['] name were written by worthy Scipio and wise Laelius'. Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster, edited by Edward Arber, Westminster: A. Constable & Co., 1903, p. 143. For further discussion on this point, see Price, pp. 63-64 [104] Zaller, Robert (2007). The discourse of legitimacy in early modern England. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. pp.Ä41Ä42. ISBNÄ0-8047-5504-3. "Much turned on the authorship of the critical preface...which Hayward insisted was his own although many had attributed it to Essex." [105] Sohmer, Steve. "12 June 1599: Opening Day at Shakespeare's Globe." Early Modern Literary Studies 3.1 (1997): 1.1-46 [106] Anderson, intro [107] Charlton Ogburn, The Mystery of William Shakespeare, 1983, pgs 87Ä88

[108] http:/ / www. anglicanlibrary. org/ marprelate/ tract6m. htm [109] Anderson, Shakespeare by Another Name, 2005, intro [110] Robert Detobel and K.C. Ligon, "Francis Meres and the Earl of Oxford, Brief Chronicles I (2009), 123-37 [111] Partridge, A. C. Orthography in Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama (1964); Taylor, Archer, and Fredric J. Mosher. The Bibliographical History of Anonyma and Pseudonyma (1951, 1993); Matus, 28-30 [112] Matus 28-30 [113] Justice John Paul Stevens "The Shakespeare Canon of Statutory Construction" UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW (v.140: no. 4, April 1992) [114] John Mitchell, Who Wrote Shakespeare? London, Thames and Hudson, 1996, page 14

[115] Kathman, David. "The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name", http:/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ name1. html#2 [116] Matus, 24-26; [117] Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, David Kathman, Editors Wells/Orlin, Oxford University Press, 2003, page 624 [118] Diana Price, ShakespeareÅs Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 153-194. See also Price, àEvidence for a Literary Biography," The University of Tennessee Law Review (fall 2004):143-146 for additional analyses of the posthumous evidence.

[119] Price, ShakespeareÅs Unorthodox Biography, 111-150, 301-313. Errata and additions on PriceÅs website at http:/ / www.

shakespeare-authorship. com/ Resources/ Errata. ASP. For an expansion on this section, see Price àEvidence for a Literary Biography, 111-147. [120] For a comparable analysis of personal literary paper trails for two candidates for the authorship of The Arte of English Poesie, see Gladys D. Willcock & Alice Walker, eds. The Arte of English Poesie (Cambridge Univ. Press 1936) xvii-xviii, xxiii. For a discussion of criteria, see Robert C. Williams, The HistorianÅs Toolbox: A StudentÅs Guide to the Theory and Craft of History (M.E. Sharpe 2003), who defines a àprimary source [as] a document, image, or artifact that provides evidence about the past. It is an original document created contemporaneously with the event under discussionâ [emphasis added], 58. See also Paul M. Kendall, The Art of Biography (1965. Reprint, W.W. Norton 1985), xiii. [121] Terttu Nevalainen áEarly Modern English Lexis and SemanticsÅ, in Roger Lass (ed.)The Cambridge History of the English Language, vol.3, 1476-1776, Cambridge University Press 1999 pp.332-458, p.336. The low figure is that of Manfred Scheler. The upper figure is that of Marvin Spevack. [122] Caldecott: Our English Homer, p. 10. [123] cited in Ogburn, p. 282 [124] Park Honan, Shakespeare: A Life, Oxford University Press, 1999, ch,4. esp.pp.49-51 [125] Bate, Jonathan (2008). "Stratford Grammar; After Palingenius; Continuing Education: the Art of Translation; The School of ; Shakespeare's Small Library". Soul of the Age; the life, mind and world of William Shakespeare. London: Viking. pp.Ä79Ä157. ISBNÄ978-0-670-91482-1. [126] Germaine Greer Past Masters: Shakespeare (Oxford University Press 1986, ISBN 0-19-287538-8) pp1Ä2 [127] Ridell, James, and Stewart, Stanley, The Ben Jonson Journal, Vol. 1 (1994), p.183; article refers to an inventory of Ben Jonson's private library [128] Riggs, David, Ben Jonson: A Life (Harvard University Press: 1989), p.58. [129] Ogburn, p. 280 [130] Ogburn, p. 275-279 [131] Ogburn, p. 277 [132] Ogburn p. 277-278 [133] A. L. Rowse: "Shakespeare's supposed 'lost' years". Contemporary Review, February 1994. [134] It was the French essayist Paul Stapfer who proved this incorrect, showing that Shakespeare's knowledge of Latin was profound and his understanding of Greek estimable. See his Shakespeare et l'antiquitá (1883). [135] Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare and Ovid (Clarendon Press, 1994). Shakespeare authorship question 117

[136] Anderson, Mark. "Shakespeare" by Another Name. New York City: Gotham Books. ISBNÄ1592402151. [137] Chaplin, Charles. My Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), 364. [138] Bate, Jonathan, The Genius of Shakespeare (London, Picador, 1997)

[139] http:/ / www. theatlantic. com/ unbound/ flashbks/ shakes/ beth. htm [140] quoted in Schoenbaum, Lives, 2008, p 27 [141] Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth & the Reality. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984. p. 70. [142] Ogburn, p. 70. [143] Petti, 111 [144] Petti, 113 [145] Petti, 105 [146] Petti, 95 [147] Petti, 91 [148] Petti, 83 [149] Petti, 79 [150] Tannenbaum, Samuel A. The Handwriting of the Renaissance (1931), 23; Minby, Lionel, et al. Reading Tudor and Stuart Handwriting (1988, 2002), pp. 4-7. [151] Dawson, Giles E., and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton. Elizabethan Handwriting 1500-1650: A Manual (1966), p. 9. [152] Minby 6 [153] Thompson, Sir Edward Maunde. ShakespeareÑs Handwriting (1916), pp. 38, 26 [154] Matus, 42

[155] http:/ / www. nationalarchives. gov. uk/ [156] Thomas, David, and Jane Cox. Shakespeare in the Public Records (1985), 34-35. [157] Matus, 43 [158] Thompson, Craig R. Schools in Tudor England. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1958; see Friedman, Alice T. "The Influence of Humanism on the Education of Girls and Boys in Tudor England." History of Education Quarterly 24 (1985):57 [159] Spedding, James, The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon (1872), Vol.7, p.228-30 ("And in particular, I wish the Elogium I wrote in felicem memoriam Reginae Elizabethae may be published")

[160] Kathman, David. 'Shakespeare's Will', http:/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ shaxwill. html [161] G. E. Bentley, The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare's Time: 1590Ç1642 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971) [162] Honigmann, E. A. J. and Susan Brock's 'Playhouse Wills, 1558-1642, (1993). [163] Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth & the Reality (1984), 210-214. [164] Roberts, Marion. Dugdale and Hollar (2002), 23 [165] Price, Diana. 'Reconsidering Shakespeare's Monument'. Review of English Studies 48 (May 1997), 168-82. [166] Schoenbaum (1987), 306Ä13

[167] http:/ / webpages. charter. net/ stairway/ WOOLPACKMAN. htm

[168] áShakespeareÅs True FaceÅ, Times Literary Supplement, 30 June and 14 July 2006, http:/ / entertainment. timesonline. co. uk/ tol/

arts_and_entertainment/ the_tls/ article2342666. ece.

[169] Vickers, Brian. "The face of the Bard?", Times Literary Supplement, Aug. 18 & 25, 16-17; quoted at http:/ / www. accessmylibrary. com/

article-1G1-190794065/ brian-vickers-stratford-monument. html

[170] Farey, Peter. áThe Stratford Monument: A Riddle and Its SolutionÅ. http:/ / www2. prestel. co. uk/ rey/ epitaph. htm. [171] Jonson, Discoveries 1641, ed. G. B. Harrison (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), p. 28. [172] Jonson's Discoveries 1641, ed. G. B. Harrison (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966), p. 29. [173] Dawkins, Peter, The Shakespeare Enigma (Polair: 2004), p.44 [174] McMichael, pgs26-27 [175] Dawkins, Peter, The Shakespeare Enigma (Polair: 2004), p.47 [176] Davenport, Arnold, (Ed.), The Scourge of Villanie 1599, Satire III, in The Poems of John Marston (Liverpool University Press: 1961), pp.117, 300Ä1 [177] C. Ogburn, The Mysterious William Shakespeare, 1984, p173 [178] National Portrait Gallery, Searching for Shakespeare, NPG Publications, 2006

[179] George Orwell As I Please December 1944 http:/ / ghostwolf. dyndns. org/ words/ authors/ O/ OrwellGeorge/ essay/ tribune/

AsIPlease19441201. html [180] Wylie, Laura J., ed (1912). The Winter's Tale. New York: Macmillan. p.Ä147. OCLCÄ2365500. "Shakespeare follows Greene in giving Bohemia a seacoast, an error that has provoked the discussion of critics from Ben Jonson on." [181] See J.H. Pafford, ed. The Winter's Tale, Arden Edition, 1962, p. 66 [182] See John Russell Brown, ed. The Merchant of Venice, Arden Edition, 1961, note to Act 3, Sc.4, p.96

[183] A Modern Herbal: Heartsease (http:/ / www. botanical. com/ botanical/ mgmh/ h/ hearts10. html); Warwickshire dialect is also discussed in Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare OUP, 1998; and in Wood, M., In Search of Shakespeare, BBC Books, 2003, pp. 17Ä18. [184] Bate (2008: 305) "The Boy from the Greenwood" [185] Irvin Leigh Matus,Shakespeare in Fact (1994) Shakespeare authorship question 118

[186] Katherine Duncan-Jones, Shakespeare's Sonnets: The Arden Shakespeare. London: Thompson Learning Co., 1997, p. 77, ISBN 1-903436-57-5 [187] Lee, Sidney (1898). "Preface". A Life of William Shakespeare (4 ed.). London: Smith, Elder. p.Ävii. OCLCÄ457853174. [188] Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). William Shakespeare: a compact documentary life. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. p.Ä180. ISBNÄ0198125755. [189] Duncan-Jones, pages 15-102

[190] Roper, David L., The Shakespeare Story (http:/ / www. dlroper. shakespearians. com) [191] Ogburn, Charleton, The Mysterious William Shakespeare, pages 614-616. [192] Ogburn, pp.333-334 [193] Ogburn, p. 334 [194] These researchers note that the words "ever-living" rarely, if ever, refer to someone who is actually alive. Miller, amended Shakespeare Identified, Volume 2, pgs 211Ä214 [195] Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition, 1989 [196] Bate, Jonathan, The Genius of Shakespeare, pg 63

[197] http:/ / faculty. goucher. edu/ eng330/ renaissance_and_c17_chaucer_eds_comm_& _trans. htm [198] Sobran, p. 145 [199] David Thomas, Shakespeare in the Public Records, preface,1985. ISBN 011440192 [200] Ogburn, 291-292 [201] In the PBS documentary, The Shakespeare Mystery, the transcript notes that "Several sonnets speak of old age and imminent death. De

Vere was nearing death at the time the sonnets were written. Shakespeare was still in his thirties." http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wgbh/ pages/

frontline/ shakespeare/ tapes/ shakespearescript. html

[202] Rollett, John M. àMaster F. W. D., R. I. P.â Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter (Fall 1997), available online at http:/ / www.

shakespeare-oxford. com/ ?p=78 [203] Notably in William Covell's Polimanteia (1595), reprinted in Alexander B. GrosartÅs Elizabethan England in Gentle and Simple Life, p. 34,

available at http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=HhODWyNC_k4C& dq; Foster, Donald. "Master W. H., R. I. P." PMLA 102 (1987) 42-54, 46-48. [204] Foster, 44-46; Bate, 61. [205] Bate, 61. [206] Shakespeares Venus and Adonis: being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition, 1593, from the unique copy in the Malone collection in the Bodleian library, pgs 38. [207] Duncan-Jones, àWas the 1609 Shakes-Speares Sonnets Really Unauthorized?â [208] Lee, pg 40. [209] Anderson, Shakespeare by Another Name, 2005, pgs 400Ä405

[210] Charles Wisner Barrell - A Literary Pirate's Attempt to Publish The Winter's Tale in 1594 (http:/ / www. sourcetext. com/ sourcebook/

library/ barrell/ 21-40/ 31pirate. htm) [211] Karl Elze, Essays on Shakespeare, 1874, pgs 1Ä29, 151Ä192 [212] Pelican/Viking editions of Shakespeare 1969/1977, preface. [213] Alfred Harbage, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, 1969, page number required

[214] Wright, Daniel. "The Funeral Elegy Scandal." (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/ DLWrightFuneralElegy. htm) The Shakespeare Fellowship. [215] Miller, Ruth Loyd, in Shakespeare Identified vol. 2, by J. Thomas Looney and ed. by Miller (1975), pp. 290-294. [216] Greg, W.W. Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (1906), 115. [217] McCrea, 191; Montague, W. K. The Man of StratfordÄThe Real Shakespeare (1963), 97; Lee, Sir Sidney, ed. The passionate pilgrim:

being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=tq-I5KrrJB0C& printsec), (1905), 46-48. [218] Bryson, Bill (2008). Shakespeare. London: Harper Perennial. pp.Ä86. ISBNÄ9780007197903.

[219] "Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford" (http:/ / concise. britannica. com/ ebc/ article-9374297/ Edward-de-Vere-17th-earl-of-Oxford). Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2007. . Retrieved 2007-08-31.

[220] Satchell, Michael (2000-07-24). "Hunting for good Will: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?" (http:/ / www. usnews. com/ usnews/

doubleissue/ mysteries/ shakespeare. htm). U.S. News. . Retrieved 2007-08-31. [221] McMichael, George and Edgar M. Glenn. Shakespeare and his Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. Odyssey Press, 1962. p. 159. [222] Peter Gay, Freud: A Life For Our Time,, JM Dent & Sons, London 1988 p.643. [223] Wadsworth, 121.

[224] Fowler, William Plumer. Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters. (http:/ / ruthmiller. com/ revealed. htm) Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall, 1986. [225] Stritmatter, Roger A. "The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and Historical

Consequence" (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/ bibledissabsetc. htm) (PhD diss., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2001). Partial reprint at The Shakespeare Fellowship. [226] MS Harley 7017; transcription in Durning-Lawrence, Edward, Bacon is Shakespeare (1910) Shakespeare authorship question 119

[227] Lambeth MS 976, folio 4 [228] Bacon, Francis, Advancement of Learning 1640, Book 2, xiii [229] Robin P. Williams - Sweet Swan of Avon: did a woman write Shakespeare? Wilton Press, 2006. Illustrated by John Tollett. ISBN 978-0321426406 [230] Tiger's Heart in Woman's Hide: Volume 1, Victoria: Trafford. ISBN 1-4251-0739-7

[231] http:/ / www. shakespeareauthorship. weebly. com

[232] Wilbur Gleason Zeigler. It Was Marlowe: A Story of the Secret of Three Centuries (http:/ / books. google. com/

books?id=k6sSAAAAYAAJ& source=gbs_navlinks_s) (1895), Donohue, Henneberry & Co, v-xi.

[233] See http:/ / www. marloweshakespeare. org/ MarloweScholarship. html for selection of relevant quotations.

[234] A range of responses is given in Peter Farey's Marlowe's Sudden and Fearful End (http:/ / www2. prestel. co. uk/ rey/ sudden. htm), 2001. [235] Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life, (1976), p.131.

[236] http:/ / www. isle-of-man. com/ manxnotebook/ people/ lords/ william6. htm [237] Gurr, Andrew. The Shakesperian Playing Companies. "My Lord Darby hath put up the playes of the children in Pawles to his great paines and charge." Gurr's source is: Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the manuscripts of Lord de L'Isle and Dudley ed. C. L. Kingsford [238] Shakespeare era italiano (Shakespeare was Italian), Martino Iuvara, Ispica 2002

[239] http:/ / www. endex. com/ gf/ shkspr/ shlt040800. htm

[240] http:/ / www. lacompagniadellibro. tv2000. it/ articolo. php?id=205

[241] http:/ / www. granmirci. it/ shakespeare. htm

[242] http:/ / www. johnflorio-is-shakespeare. com/ florio1. html

[243] Interview with Lameberto Tassinari (http:/ / www. bibliosofia. net/ Michael_Mirolla__Interview_with-Intervista_a_Lamberto_Tassinari. pdf) [244] Frances Yates, John Florio: The Life of an Italian in Shakespeare's England, Cambridge University Press, 1934 [245] McMichael, pg 154

[246] http:/ / www. thisislondon. co. uk/ standard/ article-23679831-shakespeare-did-not-write-his-own-plays-claims-sir-derek-jacobi. do

[247] http:/ / www. authorshipstudies. org/ articles/ jacobi. cfm Concord University Authorship Conference website [248] Sweet, George Elliot, Shake-Speare, the Mystery, Princeton University Press, 1956 [249] Schwartz, Lillian, "The Art Historian's Computer", Scientific American, April 1995, pp. 106-11 [250] In her book Basil Iske, The Green Cockatrice (Tara, 1978).

[251] Brian Nugent, Shakespeare was Irish! (Co. Meath, 2008), p.33-37. ISBN 978-0-9556812-1-9 http:/ / books. google. ie/ books?id=LT4VjQzUX40C [252] Ibid p.125-126. [253] Fr John Lynch, Supplementum Alithinologiae (St Omer, 1667). [254] A.L.Rowse The Poems of Shakespeare's Dark Lady, 1973 [255] Daniela Amini 'Kosher Bard', New Jersey Jewish News, February 2008 [256] Susanne Woods Lanyer; A Renaissance Woman Poet 1999

[257] Who Wrote Don Quixote? Cervantes, England and Don Quixote, by Francis Carr (http:/ / www. sirbacon. org/ links/ carrquixote. html)

[258] http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ uk/ 2007/ jul/ 01/ theatrenews. film Were these the Two Gentlemen of Madrid? [259] Ilya Gililov, Evelina Melenevskaia, Gennady Bashkov, Galina Kozlova, The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix, Algora Publishing, 2003 [260] X, Malcom; Alex Haley (1965). The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grove Press. [261] Gibson, H.N. The Shakespeare Claimants (1962, 2005) pp. 29-30 [262] Cairncross,The Problem of Hamlet: A Solution, Macmillan, 1936, p.69

Further reading

Orthodox

Ç H. N. Gibson, The Shakespeare Claimants (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=W7HEMEsGiVUC) (London, 1962). (An overview written from an orthodox perspective). Ç E.A.J. Honigman: The Lost Years, 1985. Ç Frederick A. Keller Spearing the Wild Blue Boar: Shakespeare vs Oxford - The Authorship Question. (iUniverse, June 30, 2009). ISBN 978-1440121401 (Orthodox response to the Oxford theory). Ç Irvin Leigh Matus, Shakespeare, in Fact (London: Continuum, 1999). ISBN 0-8264-0928-8. (Orthodox response to the Oxford theory). Ç Scott McCrea: "The Case for Shakespeare", (Westport CT: Praeger, 2005). ISBN 0-275-98527-X. Shakespeare authorship question 120

Ç Ian Wilson: Shakespeare - The Evidence, (Headline Book Publishing, 1993). ISBN 0-312-20005-6 (Mainstream argument)

Anti-Stratfordian Ç Bertram Fields, Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare (2005) ISBN 0-060-77559-9.

Ç George Greenwood The Shakespeare Problem Restated (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=LOAUm_lzB5gC) (London: John Lane, 1908). Ç George Greenwood Shakespeare's Law and Latin. (London: Watts & Co., 1916). ISBN 1-402-14020-7 Ç George Greenwood Is There a Shakespeare Problem? (London: John Lane, 1916). Ç George Greenwood Shakespeare's Law. (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920). Ç Warren Hope and Kim Holston, The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Claimants to Authorship and Their Champions and Detractors. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1992. 2nd edition, 2009). (Thorough study of the history of the controversy from an Oxfordian perspective). Ç John Michell, Who Wrote Shakespeare? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999). ISBN 0-500-28113-0. (An overview from a neutral perspective). Ç Diana Price, Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem (Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 2001). ISBN 0-313-31202-8 Author's website: Diana Price: About Shakespeare's Unorthodox

Biography (http:/ / www. shakespeare-authorship. com/ about/ about. asp#AboutBook) (Introduction to the evidentiary problems of the orthodox tradition).

Ç Mark Twain Is Shakespeare Dead?: From My Autobiography (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=fK4NAAAAYAAJ), (Harper & Brothers, 1909). (General anti-Stratfordian)

Oxfordian Ç Mark Anderson, "Shakespeare" by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare (Gotham Press, 2005). ISBN 1-592-40215-1 Ç Al Austin and Judy Woodruff The Shakespeare Mystery, 1989 Frontline documentary. "The Shakespeare

Mystery" (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wgbh/ pages/ frontline/ shakespeare/ ). (Documentary film about the Oxford case.) Ç Jonathan Bond "The De Vere Code: Proof of the True Author of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS" (Real Press, 2009) ISBN 0-956-41279-9 Ç William Farina De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon (McFarland & Company, 2005) ISBN 0-786-42383-8 Ç William Plumer Fowler Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters. (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 1986). ISBN 0-914-33912-5 Ç J. Thomas Looney Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. (London: Cecil

Palmer, 1920). 446 pages "'Shakespeare' Identified" (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ etexts/ si/ 00. htm). ISBN 0-804-61877-1 (The first book to promote the Oxford theory.) Ç Richard Malim (Ed.) Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604. (London: Parapress, 2004). ISBN 1-898-59479-1 Ç Bernard Mordaunt Ward The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550Ç1604) From Contemporary Documents (London: John Murray, 1928). Ç Charlton Ogburn The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Mask. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984). ISBN 0-939-00967-6 (Influential book that criticises orthodox scholarship and promotes the Oxford theory). Ç Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997). ISBN 0-684-82658-5 Shakespeare authorship question 121

Ç Roger A. Stritmatter The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary

Reasoning, and Historical Consequence. 2001 University of Massachusetts PhD dissertation. Abstract (http:/ /

www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/ bibledissabsetc. htm) Ç Richard Whalen Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. (Westport, Ct.: Praeger, 1994). ISBN 0-313-36050-2

Ç David L. Roper Proving Shakespeare in Ben Jonson's Own Words (http:/ / www. dlroper. shakespearians. com/

Book contents. htm). (Orvid Books, 2008). ISBN 978-0-557-01261-9 Ç Albert W. Burgstahler "Encrypted Testimony of Ben Jonson and His Contemporaries for Who 'William

Shakespeare' Really Was" (http:/ / kuscholarworks. ku. edu/ dspace/ bitstream/ 1808/ 5891/ 3/

BurgstahlerCentennial ENCRYPTED TESTIMONY. pdf), paper presented at Beijing Normal University, China, in 2007.

Baconian Ç N. B. Cockburn, The Bacon Shakespeare Question - the Baconian theory made sane, 740 pages, private

publication, 1998 (Contents) (http:/ / www. sirbacon. org/ cockburn. htm)

Ç Barry R. Clarke, The Shakespeare Puzzle - A non-esoteric Baconian theory (http:/ / barryispuzzled. com/

shakpuzz. pdf) Ç Peter Dawkins: The Shakespeare Enigma, Polair Publ., London 2004, ISBN 0-9545389-4-3 (engl.)

Ç Amelie Deventer von Kunow, Francis Bacon: Last of the Tudors, trans. Willard Parker (http:/ / www. sirbacon.

org/ vonkunow. html) (1924)

Ç Penn Leary, Bacon Is Shakespeare (http:/ / www. baconscipher. com/ ), Cryptographic Shakespeare (http:/ /

www. baconscipher. com/ ) (n.d.)

Ç Fellows, Virginia M., The Shakespeare Code (http:/ / www. ShakespeareCode. com) (2006) ISBN 978-1-932890-02-5.

Marlovian Ç Samuel Blumenfeld The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection: A New Study of the Authorship Question (McFarland,

2008) "The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection" (http:/ / www. marlowe-shakespeare. blogspot. com) ISBN 978-0786439027 Ç , The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare (Julian Messner, 1955); also published as The Man who was Shakespeare (London: Max Parrish & Co. Ltd., 1955). Ç William Honey, The Life, Loves and Achievements of Christopher Marlowe, alias Shakespeare (1982). ISBN 0-950-93950-1

Ç Archie Webster, Was Marlowe the Man? (http:/ / www2. prestel. co. uk/ rey/ webster. htm), The National Review (1923) Vol. 82 pp.Ä81Ä86. Ç David Rhys Williams, Shakespeare, Marlowe (Philosophical Library, 1966). ISBN 0-806-53015-4 Ç A.D. Wraight, The Story that the Sonnets Tell (Adam Hart Publishers, 1994). ISBN 1-897-76301-8 Ç A.D. Wraight, Shakespeare: New Evidence (Adam Hart Publishers, 1996). ISBN 1-897-76309-3 Ç Daryl Pinksen, Marlowe's Ghost: The Blacklisting of the Man Who Was Shakespeare (Universe, 2008) ISBN 0-595-47514-0

Ç Wilbur Gleason Ziegler, It was Marlowe: a story of the secret of three centuries (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=k6sSAAAAYAAJ) (Chicago: Donahue, Henneberry & Co., 1895). (Fiction, but with a foreword first proposing the idea) Shakespeare authorship question 122

Rutlandian Ç Karl Bleibtreu: Der Wahre Shakespeare, 1907, G. Mueller Ç Lewis Frederick Bostelmann: Rutland, New York 1911, Rutland publishing company Ç Celestin Demblon: Lord Rutland est Shakespeare, Paris 1912, Charles Carrington Ç Brian Dutton: Let Shakspere Die: Long Live the Merry Madcap Lord Roger Manner, 5th Earl of Rutland the Real "Shakespeare", c.2007, RoseDog Books Ç Ilya Gililov: The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix, New York : Algora Pub., c2003., ISBN 0-87586-182-2, 0875861814 (pbk.) Ç Pierre S. Porohovshikov (Porokhovshchikov): Shakespeare Unmasked, New York 1940, Savoy book publishers

Academic authorship debates Ç Jonathan Hope, The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays: A Socio-Linguistic Study (Cambridge University Press, 1994). (Concerned with the 'academic authorship debate' surrounding Shakespeare's collaborations and apocrypha, not with the various identity theories).

External links

General non-Stratfordian

Ç The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (http:/ / www. doubtaboutwill. org/ ), home of the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identify of William Shakespeare" -- a concise, definitive explanation of the reasons to doubt the case for the Stratford man. Doubters can read, and sign, the Declaration online.

Ç The Shakespeare Authorship Trust (http:/ / www. shakespeareanauthorshiptrust. org. uk/ ), survey of all the authorship candidates, a site patronised by the actor Mark Rylance and Dr William Leahy of Brunel University, UK

Ç Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable (http:/ / www. shakespeareauthorship. org/ ), an examination of the authorship debate, overview of the major and minor candidates for authorship of the canon, literary collaboration and the group theory, bibliography and forum.

Mainstream

Ç David Kathman and Terry Ross, The Shakespeare Authorship Page (table of contents) (http:/ /

shakespeareauthorship. com/ ) Ç Tom Reedy and David Kathman, "How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Facts"

(http:/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ howdowe. html)

Ç Irvin Leigh Matus's Shakespeare Site (http:/ / willyshakes. com/ allshakes. htm) (includes several articles defending the orthodox position)

Ç Irvin Leigh Matus, "The Case for Shakespeare" (http:/ / willyshakes. com/ atlantic. htm), from Atlantic Monthly, 1991

Ç Truth vs. Theory (http:/ / www. city-journal. org/ html/ 15_4_oh_to_be. html) Shakespeare As Autodidact

Ç T.L. Hubeart, Jr. "The Shakespeare Authorship Question" (http:/ / members. aol. com/ basfawlty/ shaksumm. htm) Brief overview of the rise of anti-Stratfordianism.

Ç The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: "Shakespeare's authorship" (http:/ / www. shakespeare. org. uk/ content/ view/

15/ 15/ ) Brief overview.

Ç Alan H. Nelson's Shakespeare Authorship Pages (http:/ / socrates. berkeley. edu/ ~ahnelson/ authorsh. html) - created by a biographer of Oxford who does not believe he wrote Shakespeare Shakespeare authorship question 123

Oxfordian

Ç The Shakespeare Fellowship (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ ) current research on the Oxfordian theory

Ç The Shakespeare Authorship Sourcebook (http:/ / www. sourcetext. com/ sourcebook/ index. htm/ ). Archive of materials on the authorship question, especially from an Oxfordian perspective.

Ç Articles by and Roger Stritmatter (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/

stateofdebate/ LovesLaboursLost. htm), challenging the methods and conclusions of Stratfordian David Kathman

Ç Joseph Sobran's response to David Kathman's "historical record" articles (http:/ / 72. 14. 253. 104/

search?q=cache:_vmFy4IbUuEJ:www. sobran. com/ replykathman. shtml+ david+ kathman& hl=en& ct=clnk&

cd=3& gl=us& client=safari)

Ç State of the Debate - Oxfordian vs. Stratfordian (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/

stateofdebate/ LovesLaboursLost. htm)

Ç Shakespeare Oxford Society (http:/ / www. shakespeare-oxford. com/ )

Ç The Shakespeare Mystery (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wgbh/ pages/ frontline/ shakespeare/ ) (Website for a PBS documentary; includes several articles)

Ç Joseph Sobran, The Shakespeare Library (http:/ / sobran. com/ oxfordlibrary. shtml) (collection of Joseph Sobran's Oxfordian columns. Sobran's Alias Shakespeare is mentioned here, also.)

Ç The Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference (http:/ / www. authorshipstudies. org/ ) A yearly academic conference at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon on Oxfordian theory

Ç The De Vere Society of Great Britain (http:/ / www. deveresociety. co. uk/ )

Ç Brief Chronicles (http:/ / www. briefchronicles. com/ ): An Interdisciplinary Journal of Authorship Studies. A peer-reviewed interdisciplinary publication, Brief Chronicles is overseen by an Editorial Board of academicians with terminal degrees and distinguished records of scholarship and teaching. The journal publishes research-based notes, articles, and monographs, as well as essays and reviews of books, theater productions, and movies based on the drama and literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Baconian

Ç N. Cockburn, The BaconÄShakespeare Question, private publication 1998 (Contents) (http:/ / www. sirbacon.

org/ cockburn. htm)

Ç http:/ / www. baconsocietyinc. org - the first official champions of the Baconian cause. Since 1886 the Francis Bacon Society has engaged with the authorship question and publishes the journal Baconiana "Baconiana" (http:/

/ www. baconsocietyinc. org/ baconianagate. htm)

Ç http:/ / www. fbrt. org. uk - The Francis Bacon Research Trust, furthering research and understanding into the life, works and contemporaries of Francis Bacon, the Shakespeare plays and the Western Wisdom Traditions.

Ç Baconian Evidence For Shakespeare Evidence (http:/ / www. sirbacon. org/ links/ evidence. htm)

Ç Cryptographic Shakespeare (http:/ / www. baconscipher. com/ )

Marlovian

Ç Peter Farey's Marlowe Page (http:/ / www2. prestel. co. uk/ rey/ index. htm)

Ç The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection (http:/ / marlowe-shakespeare. blogspot. com/ ) (a Marlovian website/blog started in May 2008, with regular contributions from the world's leading Marlovians)

Ç The International Marlowe-Shakespeare Society (http:/ / www. marloweshakespeare. org). ("Our Belief is that Christopher Marlowe - in his day England's greatest playwright - did not die in 1593 but survived to write most of what is now assumed to be the work of William Shakespeare.")

Ç Frontline: Much Ado About Something (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wgbh/ pages/ frontline/ shows/ muchado/ )(website for a TV documentary) Shakespeare authorship question 124

Ç Marlowe Lives! (http:/ / www. marlovian. com/ ) (collection of articles, documents and links) Ç Jeffrey Gantz, review of Hamlet, by William Shakespear and Christopher Marlowe: 400th Anniversary Edition

(http:/ / www. bostonphoenix. com/ boston/ arts/ books/ documents/ 04759254. asp) (a sceptical review of a Marlovian book)

Ç Peter Bull, Shakespeare's Sonnets Written by Kit Marlowe (http:/ / www. masoncode. com/ Marlowe wrote

Shakespeare's Sonnets. htm)

Ç German Marlowe-Shakespeare Authorship Webpage (http:/ / cuda. at/ joomla/ )

Other candidates

Ç Cervantes y Shakespeare eran la misma persona (in Spanish) (http:/ / rafaminu. blogspot. com/ 2007/ 01/

cervantes-y-shakespeare-eran-la-misma. html) Shakespeare was in fact a disguised Cervantes

Ç The Master of Shakespeare, A.W.L. Saunders, 2007 (http:/ / www. masterofshakespeare. com/ ) Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. Website for the book The Master of Shakespeare, 2007

Ç Chichester Festival Theatre (http:/ / www. cft. org. uk/ ) I Am Shakespeare Webcam Daytime Chat-Room Show by Mark Rylance. A new production by former Artistic Director of The Globe Theatre on the Shakespeare authorship debate.

Ç Mary Sidney (http:/ / www. marysidney. com/ ) - Website for a book by Robin P. Williams on Mary Sidney's authorship

Ç I. Gililov, The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix (http:/ / www. lib. ru/ SHAKESPEARE/

a_gililov2. txt) (original Russian text)

Ç HenryNeville.com (http:/ / www. henryneville. com/ ) - Website for a book on Sir Henry Neville's authorship

Ç LeylandandGoding.com (http:/ / www. leylandandgoding. com/ ) - Animated decryption of the Dedication to the Sonnets and 4 other prefaces to Shakespeare's works that reveal the name Sir Henry Neville

Ç The URL of Derby (http:/ / www. rahul. net/ raithel/ Derby/ ) (promotes the Earl of Derby)

Ç Terry Ross, "The Droeshout Engraving of Shakespeare: Why It's NOT Queen Elizabeth". (http:/ /

shakespeareauthorship. com/ elizwill. html)

Ç Brian Nugent, Shakespeare was Irish! (Co. Meath, 2008), ISBN 978-0-9556812-1-9. (http:/ / books. google. ie/ books?id=LT4VjQzUX40C) Shakespeare's religion 125

Shakespeare's religion

Knowledge of William Shakespeare's religion is important in understanding the man and his works because of the wealth of biblical and liturgical allusions, both Protestant and Catholic, in his writings and the hidden references to contemporary religious tensions that are claimed to be found in the plays.[1] The topic is the subject of intense scholarly debate. There is no direct evidence of William Shakespeare's religious affiliation, however over the years there have been many speculations about the personal religious beliefs that he may have held. These speculations are based on circumstantial evidence from historical records and on analysis of his published work. Some evidence suggests that Shakespeare's family had Catholic sympathies and that he himself was a secret Catholic; although there is disagreement over whether he in fact was so, many scholars maintain the former consensus position that he was a member of the established Anglican Church.[2] [3] [4] [5] William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery), in the Due to the paucity of direct evidence, general agreement on the famous Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity matter has not yet been reached. As one analysis of the subject unconfirmed. puts it, "One cannot quite speak of a consensus among Shakespeare scholars on this point, though the reluctance of some to admit the possibility of Catholicism in Shakespeare's family is becoming harder to maintain."[6]

Shakespeare's family In 1559, five years before Shakespeare's birth, the Elizabethan Religious Settlement finally severed the from the Papacy in Rome. In the ensuing years, extreme pressure was placed on England's Catholics to accept the reforms of the Church of England, and laws made illegal not only the Roman Catholic Mass, but also any service which is not found in the Book of Common Prayer.[7] In Shakespeare's lifetime there was a substantial and widespread quiet resistance to the newly imposed reforms.[8] Some scholars, using both historical and literary evidence, have argued that Shakespeare was one of these recusants.[9] Some scholars claim that there is evidence that members of Shakespeare's family were recusant Catholics. The strongest evidence is a tract professing secret Catholicism signed by John Shakespeare, father of the poet. The tract was found in the 18th century in the rafters of a house which had once been John Shakespeare's, and was seen and described by the reputable scholar Edmond Malone. Malone later changed his mind and declared that he thought the tract was a forgery.[10] Although the tract document itself has been lost, 20th century evidence has linked Malone's reported wording of the tract definitively to a testament written by and circulated in England by , copies of which still exist in Italian and English.[11] John Shakespeare was also listed as one who did not attend church services, but this was "for feare of processe for Debtte", according to the commissioners, not because he was a recusant.[12] Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was a member of a conspicuous and determinedly Catholic family in Warwickshire.[13] In 1606, his daughter Susanna was listed as one of the residents of Stratford who failed to take Holy Communion at Easter, which may suggest Catholic sympathies.[14] It may, however, also be a sign of Puritan sympathies; Susannah's sister Judith was, according to some statements, of a Puritanical bent.[15] Shakespeare's religion 126

Shakespeare's schooling Four of the six schoolmasters at the grammar school during Shakespeare's youth, KingÅs New School in Stratford, were Catholic sympathisers,[16] and Simon Hunt, who was likely to have been one of ShakespeareÅs teachers, later became a Jesuit.[17] Thomas Jenkins, who succeeded Hunt as teacher in the grammar school, was a student of Edmund Campion at St. John's College, Oxford. Jenkins's successor at the grammar school in 1579, John Cottam, was the brother of Jesuit priest Thomas Cottam. A fellow grammar school pupil with Shakespeare, Robert Debdale, joined the Jesuits at Douai and was later executed in England for Catholic proselytising along with Thomas Cottam.[16]

Lost years John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster,[18] a tale augmented in the 20th century with the theory that his employer might have been Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire,[19] a prominent Catholic landowner who left money in his will to a certain "William Shakeshafte", referencing theatrical costumes and paraphernalia.[20] Shakespeare's grandfather Richard had also once used the name Shakeshafte. Peter Ackroyd adds that study of the marginal notes in the Hoghton family copy of Edward Hall's Chronicles, an important source for Shakespeare's early histories, shows that they were in "probability" in Shakespeare's writing.[21]

Possible Catholic wedding The writer's marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582 may have been officiated, amongst other candidates, by John Frith in the town of Temple Grafton a few miles from Stratford.[22] In 1586 the crown named Frith, who maintained the appearance of Protestantism, as a Catholic priest.[23] Some surmise Shakespeare wed in Temple Grafton rather than the Protestant Church in Stratford in order for his wedding to be performed as a Catholic sacrament. He was thought to have rushed his marriage ceremony, as Anne was three months pregnant.[23]

Catholic sympathies

Historical sources Archdeacon Richard Davies, a 17th century Anglican cleric wrote of Shakespeare: "He dyed a Papyst". The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) states that "Davies, an Anglican clergyman, could have had no conceivable motive for misrepresenting the matter in these private notes and as he lived in the neighbouring county of Gloucestershire he may be echoing a local tradition" but concludes that whilst Davies comment "is by no means incredible but it would obviously be foolish to build too much upon an unverifiable tradition of this kind".[24] In addition to Davies, the historian John Speed asserted Shakespeare's links with Catholicism in 1611, while the Bard was still alive, lambasting him and lumping him together with Jesuit Robert Persons ("the Papist and his poet") for their attacks on the lollard John Oldcastle, perceived as a Protestant martyr.[25] [26] [27] Joseph Pearce, however, in The Quest for Shakespeare, distinguishes Speed's "astonishing attack" on Shakespeare as a manifestation of the general suspicion in which the Puritans, of whom Speed was one, held playmakers. He explains that Speed is attacking Persons for demolishing the notion in Foxe's Book of Martyrs that Oldcastle was a Protestant hero, and he condemns Shakespeare further, for "falsifyingÖ the history of England", in Henry IV, Part 1.[28] Pearce maintains that one of the most compelling pieces of evidence is Shakespeare's purchase of Blackfriars Gatehouse, a place that had remained in Catholic hands since the time of the Reformation, was notorious for Jesuit conspiracy, passageways and priest holes to hide priests, and for covert Catholic activity in London.[29] [30] [31] Shakespeare ensured that the tenant John Robinson remained in the house, and its use continued. The same year that Robinson was named as Shakespeare's tenant, Robinson's brother entered the seminary at the English College in Rome.[29] [30] Schoenbaum, however, assigns a purely fiscal motive to the purchase: after examining the complex Shakespeare's religion 127

financial arrangements surrounding the transaction he concludes, "an investment, pure and simple".[32]

Textual evidence The literary scholar and Catholic priest Peter Milward and the writer Clare Asquith are among those who have claimed that such sympathies are detectable in his writing.[33] [34] Asquith claims that Shakespeare uses terms such as "high" when referring to Catholic characters and "low" when referring to Protestants (the terms refer to their altars) and "light" or "fair" to refer to Catholic and "dark" to refer to Protestant, a reference to certain clerical garbs. Asquith also detects in Shakespeare's work the use of a simple code used by the Jesuit underground in England which took the form of a mercantile terminology wherein priests were 'merchants' and souls were 'jewels', those pursuing them were 'creditors', and the Tyburn gallows where the members of the underground died was called 'the place of much trading'.[35] The Jesuit underground used this code so their correspondences looked like innocuous commercial letters, and Asquith claims that Shakespeare also used this code.[35] However, these particular claims have met with some criticism.[36] [37] An increasing number of scholars look to matters biographical and evidence from ShakespeareÅs work such as the placement of young Hamlet as a student at Wittenberg while old HamletÅs ghost is in purgatory,[38] the sympathetic view of religious life ("thrice blessed"), scholastic theology in The Phoenix and the Turtle, sympathetic allusions to English Jesuit St. Edmund Campion that are claimed to exist in Twelfth Night[39] and many other matters as suggestive of a Catholic worldview. More recently it has been suggested that Shakespeare was simply playing upon an English Catholic tradition, rather than actually being Catholic, and was utilizing the symbolic nature of Catholic ceremony to embellish his own theatre.[40] Schoenbaum suspects Catholic sympathies of some kind or another in Shakespeare and his family, but considers the writer himself to be a less than pious person with essentially worldly motives:"...the artist takes precedence over the votary".[41] Greenblatt acknowledges the convention that the "equivocator" arriving at the gate of hell in the Porter's speech in Macbeth is probably a reference to the Jesuit Father Henry Garnet who had been executed in 1606.[42] He argues, however, that Shakespeare probably included the allusion for the sake of topicality, trusting that his audience would have heard of Garnet's pamphlet on equivocation rather than any hidden sympathy for the man or his cause Ç indeed the portrait is not a sympathetic one. Shakespeare may have also been aware of the "equivocation" concept which appeared as the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor Lord Burghley, and the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martin Azpilcueta that was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s.[43] The Shakespeare editor and historian A. L. Rowse is firm in his assertion that Shakespeare was not a Catholic: "He was an orthodox, confirming member of the Church into which he had been baptised, was brought up and married, in which his children were reared and in whose arms he at length was buried".[44] He identifies anti-Catholic sentiment in Sonnet 124, taking "the fools of time" in the last lines of this sonnet "To this I witness call the fools of time, which die for goodness who have lived for crime." to refer to the many Jesuits who were executed for treason in the years 1594-5.[45] Other writers, also identifying "the fools of time" as the executed Jesuits, contend however that the poet sympathises with them.[46] John Klause maintains that the sonnet (as well as Titus Andronicus) was influenced by later executed Jesuit Robert Southwell's Supplication to Her Majestie and Epistle of Comfort.[46] [47]

Revision of older plays Although Shakespeare commonly adapted existing tales, typically myths or works in another language, Joseph Pearce notes that King John, King Lear and Hamlet were all works that had been done recently and in English with an anti-Catholic bias, and that Shakespeare's version appear to be a refutation of the source plays.[48] [49] Pearce believes otherwise he would not have "reinvented the wheel", revisiting recent English plays.[29] [49] Peter Milward is among those who hold the view that Shakespeare engaged in rebuttal of recent English "anti-Papist" works.[49] On the other hand, Jonathan Bate describes the process of Leir's transformation into Lear as replacing the "external Shakespeare's religion 128

trappings of Christianity" with a pagan setting.[50] He adds that the devils plaguing "Poor Tom" in Shakespeare's version have the same names as the evil spirits in a book by Samuel Harsnett, later Archbishop of York, that denounces the "fake" Catholic practice of exorcism.[51]

Inscriptions at the Venerable English College The names àArthurus Stratfordus Wigomniensisâ and àGulielmus Clerkue Stratfordiensisâ are found within ancient inscriptions at the Venerable English College, a seminary in Rome which has long trained Catholic clergy serving in Britain. Scholars have speculated that these names might be related to Shakespeare, who is alleged to have visited the city of Rome at one point during his life.[52] [53]

Atheism The fact of ShakespeareÅs Christianity is in itself not universally accepted. William Birch of Oxford University was, in 1848, probably the first to air the notion of atheism, based solely on his interpretation of sentiments expressed in the works, but the theory was dismissed as a "rare tissue of perverted ingenuity" by a contemporary, the textual editor H. H. Furness.[54] [55] The 1914 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia questioned not only Shakespeare's Catholicism, but whether "[he] was not infected with the atheism, which...was rampant in the more cultured society of the Elizabethan age."[24] Some evidence in support of Shakespeare's supposed atheism, and then only in the form of "evidence of absence", exists in the discovery by , a notorious forger of historical documents, who examined the records of St Saviour's, Southwark, and found that Shakespeare, alone among his fellow Globe actors, was not shown as a churchgoer. The obvious conclusion here is that of recusancy, but instead it is sometimes cited as evidence of atheism.[56]

See also Ç The Quest for Shakespeare television series about the evidence of Shakespeare's Catholicism.

External links Ç The Quest for Shakespeare [57] EWTN's page for the thirteen episode TV series on the evidence for Shakespeare's Catholicism

References [1] Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). William Shakespeare : a compact documentary life (1987 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p.Ä61. ISBNÄ0-19-505161-0.

[2] Kathleen Doherty Fenty "Shakespeare and the Catholic Question" http:/ / www. americamagazine. org/ content/ culture. cfm?cultureid=51 [3] Sams, Eric, The Real Shakespeare, pp.Ä11-13, Yale University Press, 1998 [4] Pearce, Joseph (2008). The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome. Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press. pp.Ä30Ä38. ISBNÄ978-1-58617-224-4. [5] Miola, Robert S., Early modern Catholicism, p.Ä352, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 0199259852, 9780199259854 [6] Alison Shell in Kozuka, Takashi and J. R. Mulryne, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, p.Ä86, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006 ISBN 0754654427, 9780754654421 [7] Greenblatt, Stephen (2004). Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. London: Jonathan Cape. p.Ä100. ISBN 0-224-06276X. [8] The Shakespeares and Éthe Old FaithÑ (1946) by John Henry de Groot; Die Verborgene Existenz Des William Shakespeare: Dichter Und Rebell Im Katholischen Untergrund (2001) by Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel; Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare (2005) by Clare Asquith. [9] Wilson, Richard (19 December 1997). "Shakespeare and the Jesuits: New connections supporting the theory of the lost Catholic years in

Lancashire" (http:/ / www. fh-augsburg. de/ ~harsch/ anglica/ Chronology/ 16thC/ Shakespeare/ sha_jesu. html). Times Literary Supplement: 11Ä3. . Retrieved 1 July 2009. [10] Quoted in Schoenbaum (1977: 49) "In my conjecture concerning the writer of that paper I certainly was mistaken".

[11] (http:/ / www. hbgusa. com/ books/ 64/ 0316518492/ chapter_excerpt10046. html) Holden, Anthony, William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius, Little, Brown, 2000 Shakespeare's religion 129

[12] Mutschmann, H. and Wentersdorf, K., Shakespeare and Catholicism, Sheed and Ward: New York, 1952, p.Ä401. [13] Ackroyd, Peter (2005). Shakespeare the Biography. London: Chatto and Windus. p.Ä29. ISBNÄ1-856-19726-3. [14] Ackroyd (2005: 451)

[15] Catholic Encyclopedia, http:/ / www. newadvent. org/ cathen/ 13748c. htm [16] Ackroyd (2005: 63-64) [17] Hammerschmidt-Hummel, H., "The most important subject that can possibly be": A Reply to E. A. J. Honigmann, Connotations, 2002-3

(http:/ / www. uni-tuebingen. de/ uni/ nec/ ham-hu1223. htm) [18] Schoenbaum (1977: 110Ä11)

[19] (http:/ / www. firstthings. com/ article. php3?id_article=3249) Edward T. Oakes, "ShakespeareÅs Millennium," First Things, December, 1999 [20] Honigmann E. A. J. (1999). Shakespeare: The Lost Years. Revised Edition. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1. ISBN 0719054257; Wells, Oxford Shakespeare, xvii. [21] Ackroyd (2005: 76) [22] Schoenbaum (1977: 87)

[23] William marries Anne Hathaway (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ shakespeare/ events/ event92. html) In Search of Shakespeare, PBS. (MayaVision International 2003)

[24] The Religion of Shakespeare (http:/ / www. newadvent. org/ cathen/ 13748c. htm) Catholic Encyclopedia on CD-ROM. (Accessed Dec. 23, 2005.)

[25] Young, Robert V. (22 January 2007). "Decoding Shakespeare: The Bard as Poet or Politician" (http:/ / www. johnlocke. org/ acrobat/

articles/ rvyoung. pdf). Raleigh, NC: Faculty Affiliate Network, University of North Carolina. . Retrieved 13 November 2009. "At the very least such references suggest that the poet had a reputation as a Catholic, and that the charge was not wholly implausible" [26] Taylor, Gary (2003). "The fortunes of Oldcastle". in Alexander, Catherine M. The Cambridge Shakespeare Library. 1. Stanley Wells. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp.Ä320Ä321. ISBNÄ9780521824330. "Shakespeare...got into trouble for his caricature of a famous proto-Protestant. John Speed (in 1611) and Richard Davies (c. 1660) both alleged or assumed that Shakespeare was a 'papist'...Such evidence does not prove that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic, but it does demonstrate his willingness to exploit a point of view which many of his contemporaries would have regarded as 'papist'" [27] Dutton, Richard (2006). "The dating and contexts of Henry V". in Kewes, Paulina. The uses of history in early modern England. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p.Ä172. ISBNÄ9780873282192. "John Speed, for example, was quite certain that Shakespeare was acting as a Catholic apologist in travestying the historical Sir John Oldcastle as Falstaff" [28] Pearce (2008: 155Ä156) [29] Booknotes, Interview of Joseph Pearce by Doug Keck on EWTN [30] Pearce (2008: 158-163; 165; 167)) [31] Wilson, Richard, Secret Shakespeare, p.Ä5, Manchester University Press, 2004 [32] Schoenbaum (1977: 272) [33] Peter Milward, The Catholicism of Shakespeare's Plays. Tokyo: Renaissance Institute, Sophia University, 1997; reprinted Southampton: Saint Austin Press, 1997. ISBN 1901157105. [34] Peter Milward, Shakespeare the Papist. Ann Arbor, MI: Sapientia Press, 2005. ISBN 193258921X. [35] Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare (2005) by Clare Asquith. [36] Knapp, Jeffrey (2001). "The religion of players". in Holland, Peter. Shakespeare and Religions. Shakespeare Survey. 54. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p.Ä61. ISBNÄ9780521803410. "Some scholars...(Peter Milward)... have had little influence on recent Shakespeare scholarship, in large part because they tend to allegorize the plays crudely" [37] Hackett, Helen (2009). Shakespeare and Elizabeth: The Meeting of Two Myths. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p.Ä236. ISBNÄ9780691128061. "Asquith's book received damning reviews from eminent academics...her assertion of a hidden code in his plays is highly dubious."

[38] (http:/ / www. firstthings. com/ article. php3?id_article=345) Edward T. Oakes, "The Age of Shakespeare, Shakespeare The Trial of Man," First Things, June/July, 2004

[39] "Allusions to Edmund Campion in Twelfth Night" (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ virtualclassroom/ 12thnightdesper. htm) by C. Richard Desper, Elizabethan Review, Spring/Summer 1995. [40] Groves, Beatrice (2007). Texts and Traditions: Religion in Shakespeare, 1592-1604. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp.Ä4Ä6. ISBNÄ0199208980. [41] Schoenbaum (1977: 60Ä61): [42] Greenblatt (2004: 388) [43] Mark Anderson, Shakespeare By Another Name, 2005, pp.Ä402-403 [44] Rowse, A. L. (1963). William Shakespeare: a biography. London: Macmillan. p.Ä43. ISBNÄ006013710X. [45] A. L. Rowse, Shakespeare's Sonnets, (London: Macmillan, 1964) p 256 [46] Schiffer, James (1998). Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays. London: Routledge. p.Ä55. ISBNÄ0815323654. [47] Klause, John (1998). "Politics, Heresy, and Martyrdom in Shakespeare's Sonnet 124 and Titus Andronics". in Schiffer, James. Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays. London: Routledge. pp.Ä219Ä228. ISBNÄ0815323654. [48] Booknotes, Interview of Joseph Pearce by Doug Keck on EWTN [49] Pearce (2008: 181-182) Shakespeare's religion 130

[50] Bate, Jonathan (2008). Soul of the Age: the Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare. London: Penguin. p.Ä394. ISBNÄ978-0-670-91482-1. [51] From Harsnett, Samuel (1603). A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, quoted in Bate (2008: 154)

[52] Cryptic signatures that áprove Shakespeare was a secret CatholicÅ (http:/ / www. timesonline. co. uk/ tol/ news/ uk/ article6964480. ece)

[53] The most important subject that can possibly be (http:/ / www. uni-tuebingen. de/ uni/ nec/ ham-hu1223. htm) [54] Birch, William John (1848). An Inquiry Into the Philosophy and Religion of Shakspere. London: C Mitchell. [55] In Furness's commentary to King Lear of 1880, page 135, J. P. Lippincot, Philadelphia. [56] Pearce(2008: 126)

[57] http:/ / www. ewtn. com/ series/ 2009/ Shakespeare. htm

Sexuality of William Shakespeare

The sexuality of William Shakespeare has been the subject of recurring debate. It is known that he married Anne Hathaway and they had three children. In addition there has been speculation that he had affairs with other women, or may have had an erotic interest in men. However, no reliable direct evidence exists to support the view that he was interested in men; all theories along these lines rely on circumstantial evidence and inference from an analysis of his sonnets. The suggestion that Shakespeare had multiple female lovers has been given a good deal of scholarly and public interest, while the possibility of a non-heterosexual Shakespeare has historically been controversial given his iconic status.

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. Two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds the next day as surety that there were no impediments to [1] the marriage. The couple may have arranged the William Shakespeare (National Portrait Gallery), in the famous ceremony in some haste, since the Worcester Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times.[2] [3] [4] Hathaway's pregnancy could have been the reason for this. Six months after the marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Susanna.[5] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later.[6]

Shakespeare probably initially loved Hathaway, speculation supported by an early addition to one of his sonnets (Sonnet 145), where he played off Anne Hathaway's name and said she saved his life (writing 'I hate from hate away she threw/And saved my life, saying "not you."').[7] However, after only three years of marriage Shakespeare left his family and moved to London, possibly because he felt trapped by Hathaway.[8] Other evidence to support this belief is that he and Anne were buried in separate (but adjoining) graves and, as has often been noted, Shakespeare's will makes no specific bequeath to his wife aside from 'the second best bed with the furniture'. This may seem like a slight, but many historians contend that the second best bed was typically the marital bed, while the best bed was reserved for guests.[9] The poem 'Anne Hathaway' by endorses this view, describing how, for

Shakespeare and his wife, the second best bed was 'a spinning world of forests, ', whilst 'In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose'. A bed missing from an inventory of Anne's brother's possessions Sexuality of William Shakespeare 131

(removed in contravention of their father's will) allows the explanation that the item was an heirloom from the Hathaway family, that had to be returned.[10] The law at the time also stated that of a man was automatically entitled to a third of his estate, so Shakespeare did not need to mention specific bequests in the will.[10]

Possible affairs with women While in London, Shakespeare may have had affairs with different women. One anecdote along these lines is provided by a lawyer named John Manningham, who wrote in his diary that Shakespeare had a brief affair with a woman during a performance of Richard III.[11] Upon a time when Burbage played Richard the Third there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard the Third. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was entertained and at his game ere Burbage came. Then, message being brought that Richard the Third was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.[12] The Burbage referred to is Richard Burbage, the star of Shakespeare's company, who is known to have played the title role in Richard III. While this is one of the few surviving contemporary anecdotes about Shakespeare, some scholars are sceptical of its validity.[13] Still, the anecdote suggests that at least one of Shakespeare's contemporaries (Manningham) believed that Shakespeare was heterosexual, even if he was not 'averse to an occasional infidelity to his marriage vows'.[14] Indeed, its significance has been developed to affording Shakespeare a preference for "promiscuous women of little beauty and no breeding" in his honest acknowledgement that well-born women are beyond his reach.[12] Possible evidence of other affairs are that twenty-six of Shakespeare's Sonnets are love poems addressed to a married woman (the so-called 'Dark Lady'). Sexuality of William Shakespeare 132

Possible homoeroticism

Shakespeare's sonnets are cited as evidence of his possible bisexuality. The poems were initially published, perhaps without his approval, in 1609.[15] One hundred and twenty-six of them appear to be love poems addressed to a young man known as the 'Fair Lord' or 'Fair Youth'; this is often assumed to be the same person as the 'Mr W.H.' to whom the sonnets are dedicated.[16] The identity of this figure (if he is indeed based on a real person) is unclear; the most popular candidates are Shakespeare's patrons, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, both of whom were considered handsome in their youth.[17]

The only explicit references to sexual acts or physical lust occur in the Dark Lady sonnets, which unambiguously state that the poet and the Lady are lovers. Nevertheless, there are numerous passages in the sonnets addressed to the Fair Lord that have been read as expressing desire for a younger man.[18] In Sonnet 13, he is called 'dear my love', and Sonnet 15 announces that the poet is at 'war with Time for love of you.' Sonnet 18 asks 'Shall I compare thee to a summerÅs day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate', and in Sonnet 20 the narrator calls the young man the 'master-mistress of my Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton passion'. The poems refer to sleepless nights, anguish and jealousy caused by the youth. In addition, there is considerable emphasis on the young man's beauty: in Sonnet 20, the narrator theorizes that the youth was originally a woman whom Mother Nature had fallen in love with and, to resolve the dilemma of lesbianism, added a penis ('pricked thee out for women's pleasure'), an addition the narrator describes as 'to my purpose nothing', which Samuel Schoenbaum interprets as: 'worse luck for [the] heterosexual celebrant'.[16] In some sonnets addressed to the youth, such as Sonnet 52, the erotic punning is particularly intense: 'So is the time that keeps you as my chest, Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, To make some special instant special blest, By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.' In Sonnet 20: the narrator tells the youth to sleep with women, but to love only him: 'mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure'.

However, others have countered that these passages could be referring to intense platonic friendship, rather than sexual love. In the preface to his 1961 Pelican edition, Douglas Bush writes, Since modern readers are unused to such ardor in masculine friendship and are likely to leap at the notion of homosexuality (a notion sufficiently refuted by the sonnets themselves), we may remember that such an ideal, often exalted above the love of women, could exist in real life, from Montaigne to Sir Thomas Browne, and was conspicuous in Renaissance literature.'[19] Bush cites Montaigne, who distinguished male friendships from 'that other, licentious Greek love' [20] , as evidence for a platonic interpretation of the sonnets. Another explanation is that the poems are not autobiographical but fiction, another of Shakespeare's "dramatic characterization[s]", so that the narrator of the sonnets should not be presumed to be Shakespeare himself.[] [21] In 1640, published a second edition of the sonnets in which he changed most of the pronouns from masculine to feminine so that readers would believe nearly all of the sonnets were addressed to the Dark Lady. BensonÅs modified version soon became the best-known text, and it was not until 1780 that Edmund Malone Sexuality of William Shakespeare 133

re-published the sonnets in their original forms.[22] The question of the sexual orientation of the sonnets' author was openly articulated in 1780, when , upon reading Shakespeare's description of a young man as his 'master-mistress' remarked, 'it is impossible to read this fulsome panegyrick, addressed to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation'. [23] Other English scholars, dismayed at the possibility that their national hero might have been a 'sodomite', concurred with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's comment, around 1800, that ShakespeareÅs love was 'pure' and in his sonnets there is 'not even an allusion to that very worst of all possible vices'. [24] Robert Browning, writing of Wordsworth's assertion that 'with this key [the Sonnets] Shakespeare unlocked his heart', famously replied in his poem House, 'If so, the less Shakespeare he!'[25] The controversy continued in the 20th Century. By 1944, the Variorum edition of the sonnets contained an appendix with the conflicting views of nearly forty commentators.

See also Ç Shakespeare's life Ç Shakespeare's reputation Ç Shakespeare's plays Ç Shakespeare's sonnets Ç Shakespeare's late romances

Additional reading Ç The Chiastic Shakespeare [26] Ç Last Will and Testament of William Shakespeare [27] [sic] Ç The Cobbe oil painting of William Shakespeare [28] Ç Third Earl of Southampton Ä Shakespeare's patron, the 'fair youth', pdf article [29] Ç Keevak, Michael. Sexual Shakespeare: Forgery, Authorship, Portraiture (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 2001) Ç Alexander, Catherine M.S., and Stanley Wells, editors. Shakespeare and Sexuality (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001) Ç Hammond, Paul. Figuring Sex Between Men from Shakespeare to Rochester (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002) Ç Smith, Bruce R. Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England: A Cultural Poetics (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991; reissued with a new preface, 1994) Ç Pequigney, Joseph. Such Is My Love: A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1985) [the most sustained case for homoeroticism in Shakespeare's sonnets]

References [1] Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). William Shakespeare : a compact documentary life. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. pp.Ä77Ä78. ISBNÄ0198125755. [2] Wood, Michael (2003). In Search of Shakespeare. London: BBC Worldwide. pp.Ä84. ISBNÄ0-563-53477-X. [3] Schoenbaum (1977:78Ä79) [4] Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pages 120-121. [5] Schoenbaum (1977:93) [6] Schoenbaum (1977:94) [7] Greenblatt (2004: 143) [8] Greenblatt (2004:143) [9] Ackroyd, Peter (2005). Shakespeare the Biography. London: Chatto and Windus. pp.Ä484. ISBNÄ1-856-19726-3. [10] Wood (2003:338) [11] Diary of John Manningham, of the Middle Temple, and of Bradbourne, Kent, barrister-at-law, 1602-1603 by John Manningham, Westminster, Printed by J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1868. Sexuality of William Shakespeare 134

[12] Duncan-Jones, Katherine (2001). Ungentle Shakespeare: Scenes from his life. London: Arden Shakespeare. pp.Ä132Ä133. ISBNÄ1-903436-26-5. [13] Berryman's Shakespeare by John Berryman, Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2001, page 109.

[14] Shakespeare, William, 'Shakespeare the man, Life, Sexuality' (http:/ / search. eb. com/ shakespeare/ article-252446) Encyclopçdia Britannica's Guide to Shakespeare, accessed April 4, 2007. [15] Bate, Jonathan (2008). "The perplexities of love". Soul of the Age. London: Viking. pp.Ä220Ä221. ISBNÄ978-0-670-91482-1. [16] Schoenbaum (1977: 179Ä181) [17] Recent summaries of the debate over Mr W.H.'s identity include Colin Burrows, ed. The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford UP, 2002), pp. 98-103; Katherine Duncan Jones, ed. Shakespeare's Sonnets (Arden Shakespeare, 1997), pp. 52-69. For Wilde's story, see 'The Portrait of Mr W.H.' (1889)

[18] Enter Willie Hughes as Juliet Or, Shakespeare's Sonnets Revisited (http:/ / www. infopt. demon. co. uk/ shakespe. htm) by Rictor Norton, accessed Jan. 23, 2007. [19] Pequigney, p.64 [20] Montaigne, p. 138 [21] Bate (2008: 214) [22] Crompton, Louis, Homosexuality and Civilization, pp. 379 [23] Rollins 1:55 [24] Rollins 2:232-233 [25] James Schiffer, Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays, Routledge, 1999, p.28

[26] http:/ / www. chiasmus. com/ mastersofchiasmus/ shakespeare. shtml

[27] http:/ / fly. hiwaay. net/ ~paul/ shakspere/ shakwill. html

[28] http:/ / www. time. com/ time/ arts/ article/ 0,8599,1883770,00. html

[29] http:/ / image. guardian. co. uk/ sys-files/ Observer/ documents/ 2002/ 04/ 20/ obs. ore. 020421. 005. pdf

Portraits of Shakespeare

Within four decades of its foundation in 1856, upwards of 60 portraits were offered for sale to the National Portrait Gallery purporting to be of Shakespeare[1] , but there are only two commonly accepted as portraying him, both of which are posthumous. One is the engraving that appears on the cover of the First Folio (1623) and the other is the sculpture that adorns his memorial in Stratford upon Avon, which dates from before 1623. However, several from the period have also been argued to represent him. The (1610), The Chandos Portrait There is no concrete evidence that Shakespeare ever commissioned a (early 1600s) and the (1622); portrait, and there is no written description of his physical appearance. three of the most prominent of the reputed portraits of William Shakespeare. However, it is thought that portraits of him did circulate during his lifetime because of a reference to one in the anonymous play Return from Parnassus (c. 1601), in which a character says "O sweet Mr Shakespeare! I'll have his picture in my study at the court."[2]

After his death, as Shakespeare's reputation grew, artists created portraits and narrative paintings depicting him, most of which were based on earlier images, but some of which were purely imaginative. He was also increasingly commemorated in Shakespeare memorial sculptures, initially in Britain, and later elsewhere around the world. At the same time, the clamour for authentic portraits fed a market for fakes and misidentifications. Portraits of Shakespeare 135

Portraits clearly identified as Shakespeare

There are two representations of Shakespeare that are unambiguously identified as him, although both may be posthumous. Ç Droeshout print. An engraving by Martin Droeshout as frontispiece to the collected works of Shakespeare (the First Folio), printed in 1622 and published in 1623. An introductory poem in the First Folio, by Ben Jonson, implies that it is a very good likeness.[3] Ç The bust in Shakespeare's funerary monument, in the choir of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon. This half-length statue on his memorial must have been erected within six years after ShakespeareÅs death in 1616. It is believed to have been commissioned by the poetÅs son-in-law, Dr John Hall, and must have been seen by Shakespeare's widow Anne. It is believed that the bust was made by the Flemish artist Gerard Johnson.

Possible portraits

There are several portraits dated to the 17th century that have been The Droeshout Portrait of William Shakespeare, claimed to represent Shakespeare, although in each the sitter is either from the First Folio unidentified or the identification with Shakespeare is debatable.

Probably made during Shakespeare's lifetime Ç The Chandos portrait. This portrait is attributed to , and dated to about 1610. In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery, published a report saying it is the only painting with any real claim to have been done from the life. This report did not consider the Cobbe portrait as it had not yet been discovered. The name arose as it was once in the possession of the Duke of Chandos.[4] Ç The Chess Players attributed to Karel van Mander. This was identified in 1916 as an image of Ben Jonson and Shakespeare playing chess.[5] Most scholars consider this to be pure speculation, but the claim was revived in 2004 by Jeffrey Netto, who argued that the chess game symbolises "the well known professional rivalry between these figures in terms of a battle of wits".[6] Ç The Cobbe portrait: In 2009, Stanley Wells and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust announced that they believe this painting, which has been in the possession of the Cobbe family since the early 18th century, is a portrait of Shakespeare drawn from life. The portrait is thought to have belonged initially to Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, and to have been copied by another artist who created the painting known as the Janssen portrait, which had already been claimed to depict Shakespeare.[7] [8] [9] [10] Tarnya Cooper, the 17th century art specialist at the National Portrait Gallery, argues that both paintings depict Thomas Overbury.[11] Ç The Grafton Portrait by an unknown artist of a man whose age, like Shakespeare's, was 24 in 1588. Otherwise there is no reason to believe it is Shakespeare except for a certain compatibility with the faces of other leading contenders. It belongs to the John Rylands University Library Manchester.[12] Ç A Man Clasping a Hand from a Cloud, by dated 1588. This was identified as Shakespeare by Leslie Hotson in his book Shakespeare by Hilliard (1977). Skeptical scholars believe this is unlikely. suggested that it is Lord Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk. (National Portrait Gallery, London)[13] Ç The Sanders portrait. This has a label attached identifying it as Shakespeare and stating that it was painted in 1603. New scientific tests on the label and the oak panel suggest that it dates to Shakespeare's lifetime,[14] which, Portraits of Shakespeare 136

if true, would make this a likely authentic image of Shakespeare. It is attributed by a family tradition to one John Sanders or possibly his brother Thomas.[15] The identification has been queried on the grounds that the subject appears to be too young for the 39 year old Shakespeare in 1603 and that the 23rd April birth date on the label reflects the conventional date adopted in the 18th century, which is not certain to be accurate.[7] The inscription on the label "This likeness taken" has been criticised as not a contemporary formulation.[16] Ç The Zuccari portrait. A life-size oval portrait painted on a wooden panel. This was owned by Richard Cosway, who attributed it to Federico Zuccari, an artist who was contemporary with Shakespeare. It is no longer attributed to him, nor is there any evidence to identify it as Shakespeare, however it was probably painted during his lifetime and may depict a poet.[7]

Gallery: portraits claimed to be of Shakespeare painted from life

The Chandos portrait The Cobbe portrait The Janssen portrait The Janssen portrait as it appeared before restoration in 1988

Nicholas Hilliard: Man The Grafton portrait The Sanders portrait The Soest portrait (painted at Clasping Hand from a Cloud least 20 years after Shakespeare's death) Portraits of Shakespeare 137

The The Chess Players a print after the The Stratford Portrait. (known to be a 19th Zuccari portrait. century forgery)

Probably made within living memory of Shakespeare

In the decades after Shakespeare's death a number of portraits were made based on existing images or living memory. The most important of these are: Ç The Soest Portrait, probably painted by Gerard Soest. The painting was first described by George Vertue, who attributed it to and stated that it was painted from a man who was said to look like Shakespeare.[7] It was owned by Thomas Wright of Covent Garden in 1725 when it was engraved by and attributed to Soest. It was probably painted in the late 1660s, after the Restoration permitted the reopening of the London theatres.[7]

Ç The Chesterfield portrait, dated 1660-1670, possibly painted by the Dutch painter Pieter Borsseler, who worked in England in the [17] The Chesterfield portrait, attributed to Borsseler, second half of the 17th century. Its title derives from the fact that and the earliest known aggrandized image of it was owned by the Earl of Chesterfield. It is generally assumed to Shakespeare. be based on the Chandos portrait, which is evidence that the Chandos was accepted as a depiction of Shakespeare within living memory of the writer.[7]

Ç The Marshall portrait. John Benson's 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems included an engraving of Shakespeare by William Marshall. This is a stylised and reversed version of the Droeshout portrait.

Later works, misidentifications, and fakes A number of other copies or adaptations of the Chandos and Droeshout images were made in the later 17th and early 18th century, such as William Faithorne's frontispiece of the 1655 edition of The Rape of Lucrece, and Louis Francois Roubiliac's copy of the Chandos, made as preparation for his sculpture of Shakespeare. These increased in number by the later eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, including an adaptation of Droeshout by William Blake (c1800)[18] and prints by John Goldar, Richard Austin Artlett and others. The Stratford portrait was also probably made at this time. The picture is so called as it is in Stratford upon Avon. The picture was owned by a Mr Hunt, who was a town-clerk of Stratford. It was at one time considered to be the model for the Stratford memorial sculpture, which it closely resembles, but is now thought to have been created in the 18th century, based on the sculpture. The first known commercial use of Shakespeare's portrait in a public context was the 18th-century English bookseller Jacob Tonson's shop sign which depicted him. It is not known which image it was based on, but it may have been one of the surviving paintings based on the Chandos.[19] Portraits of Shakespeare 138

By the mid eighteenth century the demand for portraits of Shakespeare led to several claims regarding surviving 17th century paintings, some of which were altered to make them conform more closely to Shakespeare's features. The Janssen portrait was overpainted, receding the hairline and adding an inscription with an age and date to fit Shakespeare's life.[7] This was done before 1770, making it the "earliest proven example of a genuine portrait altered to look like Shakespeare."[20]

A painting called the Ashbourne portrait was identified as a portrayal of Shakespeare in 1847, and it currently hangs in the Folger Shakespeare Library. The painting was reproduced as Shakespeare in the mid 19th century as a mezzotint by G.F. Storm.[21] In 1940 Charles Wisner Barrell examined the portrait using X-ray and infra-red photography, as well as rubbings of the concealed paint on the sitter's thumb ring, and concluded that the painting was a retouched portrait of The Ashbourne portrait was reproduced in the 19th century as Shakespeare, but has been since Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, painted by Cornelius Ketel.[22] identified as Hugh Hamersley In 1979, the painting was restored, and a coat of arms uncovered which identified the sitter as Hugh Hamersley. The restoration revealed that the portrait had been retouched to have the hairline recede, while the inscribed age had been altered by one year and Hamersley's coat of arms had been painted over.[23] Nevertheless, some Oxfordians continue to support the de Vere identification, claiming that the fashions worn by the sitter date the painting to about 1580 when Hamersley would have been only 15.[24]

Another example is the Flower portrait, named for its owner, Sir Desmond Flower, who donated it to the Shakespeare Museum in 1911. This was once thought to be the earliest painting depicting Shakespeare, and the model for the Droeshout engraving. It was shown in a 2005 National Portrait Gallery investigation to be a nineteenth century fake adapted from the engraving. The image of Shakespeare was painted over an authentic 16th century painting of a Madonna and child.[25] In 1849 a death mask was made public by a German librarian, Ludwig Becker, who linked it to a painting which, he claimed, depicted Shakespeare and resembled the mask. The mask, known as the "Kesselstadt death mask" was given publicity when it was declared authentic by the scientist Richard Owen, who also claimed that the Stratford memorial was based on it.[26] The artist Henry Wallis painted a picture depicting the sculptor working on the monument while looking at the mask. The sculptor Lord Ronald Gower also believed in the authenticity of the mask. When he created the large public Shakespeare statue in Stratford in 1888, he based the facial features on it. He also attempted to buy it for the nation. The mask is now generally believed to be a fake, though its authenticity claim was revived in 1998.[27]

A detail of Henry Wallis's 1857 painting depicting Gerard Johnson carving the Stratford monument, while Ben Jonson shows him the Kesselstadt death mask Portraits of Shakespeare 139

Other artists created new portraits designed to portray Shakespeare as an intellectual hero. Angelica Kauffmann's Ideal Portrait of Shakespeare was based on Vertue's frontispiece to Alexander Pope's edition of Shakespeare's works. Below the portrait is a symbolic figure of Fame adorning Shakespeare's tomb.[19] In 1849 Ford Madox Brown adapted various images, including the Ashbourne Hamersley, to create a synthetic portrayal which he believed was as authentic a depiction as possible. It showed Shakespeare as a commanding figure in a richly decorated room. On his desk are books representing Shakespeare's sources, including the works of Boccaccio and Chaucer.[28] In a similar vein, John Faed depicted Shakespeare at the centre of a gathering of scholars and writers in his painting Shakespeare and his Friends at the Mermaid Tavern (1850).[19]

Kauffmann's Ideal Portrait of Shakespeare

Narrative and allegorical works

From the mid 18th century a number of paintings and sculptures were made which depicted Shakespeare as part of narrative or allegorical scenario symbolising his genius.

Allegories

In addition to her Ideal Portrait Angelica Kauffmann created the allegorical The Birth of Shakespeare (c. 1770), which depicted the baby Shakespeare with the personification of Fantasy and the muses of Tragedy and Comedy. At the bottom of the composition are a scepter, a crown, and the mask of tragedy, portending the child's brilliant future. painted a similar picture of a baby Shakespeare surrounded by symbolic figures entitled The Infant Shakespeare attended by Nature and the Passions. According to the description, "Nature is represented with her face unveiled to her favourite Child, who is placed between Joy and Sorrow. On the right of Nature are Engraving of Thomas Bank's sculpture. Love, Hatred & Jealousy; on her left hand, Anger, Envy, & Fear." Romney also painted a simpler version of the scene entitled Shakespeare nursed by Tragedy and Comedy.

Another allegory is present in Thomas Banks' Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry, in which the poet is glorified by symbolic figures lauding his creative genius. Portraits of Shakespeare 140

Narratives In the same period artists began to depict real or imagined scenes from Shakespeare's life, which were sometimes popularised as prints. The popularity of such scenes was especially high in the Victorian era. Most popular was the apocryphal story of the young Shakespeare being brought before Sir on the charge of poaching, which was depicted by several artists.[29] The more respectable and patriotic scene of Shakespeare reading his work to Queen Elizabeth I was also painted by several artists, such as John James Chalon.

Modern works

By the end of the nineteenth century portraits and statues of Shakespeare were appearing in numerous contexts, and his stereotyped features were being used in advertisements, cartoons, shops, pub signs and buildings. Such images proliferated in the twentieth century. In Britain Shakespeare's Head and The Shakespeare Arms became popular names for pubs. Between 1970 and 1993, an image of the Westminster abbey statue of Shakespeare appeared on the reverse of British â20 notes.

The ubiquity of these stereotyped features have led to adaptations of Shakespeare portraits by several modern artists. In 1964, for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, Pablo Picasso created numerous variations on the theme of Shakespeare's face reduced to minimal form in a few simple lines. Louis Aragon wrote an essay to accompany the A stylised version of the Droeshout portrait in the [30] brickwork of a house in Stratford Road, Heaton, drawings. Andy Warhol also created a Shakespeare portrait (1962), repeating the Droeshout image in several colours in silkscreen and acrylic.

More recently graphic designers have played with the conventional motifs in Shakespeare's features. These include Rafaê Olbiëski's Shakespeare in Central Park, Festival poster (1994), an exhibition poster used by the Victoria and Albert Museum [31] and Mirko Ilií's Shakespeare illustration in the New York Times (1996). Milton Glaser also created 25 Shakespeare Faces, a theater poster in 2003.[32] In 2000 IstvÑn Orosz created a double Anamorphic portrait for the Swan Theatre.[33] [34]

External links Ç Website Comparing the Three most prominent Shakespeare Portraits [35] Ç The 42 images in the NPG [36] Ç A computer morph combining the Chandos and Cobbe portraits [37]

References [1] Sir Sidney Lee, 'A Life of William Shakespeare,Smith, Elder and Co.,1899 p.382 n.291c. [2] David Piper" O Sweet Mr. Shakespeare I'll Have His Picture: The Changing Image of Shakespeare's Person, 1600Ç1800, National Portrait Gallery, Pergamon Press, 1980.

[3] http:/ / headlesschicken. ca/ eng204/ texts/ Shakespeare1stFolio. pdf

[4] Chandos portrait, NPG (http:/ / www. npg. org. uk/ live/ search/ portrait. asp?search=ss& sText=shakespeare& LinkID=mp04051& rNo=0& role=sit) [5] "Shakespeare Portrait from Life Now Here?; Dramatist Actually Sat for Picture of Him by Dutch Artist Now Owned by New York Family, Declares an Expert", New York Times, March 12, 1916. [6] Jeffrey Netto, "Intertextuality and the Chess Motif: Shakespeare, Middleton, Greenaway" in Michele Marrapodi, Shakespeare, Italy and Intertextuality, Manchester University Press, 2004, P.218 Portraits of Shakespeare 141

[7] Tarnya Cooper (ed), Searching for Shakespeare, National Portrait Gallery and Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 68; 70

[8] "Katz, Gregory. The Bard? Portrait said to be Shakespeare unveiled (http:/ / www. google. com/ hostednews/ ap/ article/ ALeqM5i3FdaszTd0lfsYydo2DfACGMsFsgD96QJ8QG0)." Associated Press, 9 March 2009.

[9] "Lifetime Portrait of Shakespeare Discovered" (http:/ / www. shakespeare. org. uk/ content/ view/ 909/ 426/ ). . Retrieved 2009-03-09.

[10] Khan, Urmee (2009-03-09). "William Shakespeare painting unveiled" (http:/ / www. telegraph. co. uk/ culture/ culturenews/ 4962365/

Painting-thought-to-be-the-first-portrait-of-William-Shakespeare-done-in-his-lifetime. html). The Daily Telegraph (London). . Retrieved 2009-03-09.

[11] Higgins, Charlotte (2009-03-11). "To find the mind's construction in the face: The great Shakespeare debate" (http:/ / www. guardian. co.

uk/ stage/ 2009/ mar/ 11/ shakespeare-cobbe-portrait). (London). . Retrieved 2010-05-22.

[12] NPG (http:/ / www. npg. org. uk/ live/ prelgrafton. asp) and Image (http:/ / images. google. co. uk/ imgres?imgurl=http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/

nol/ shared/ spl/ hi/ pop_ups/ 06/ entertainment_searching_for_shakespeare/ img/ 2. jpg& imgrefurl=http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ shared/ spl/

hi/ pop_ups/ 06/ entertainment_searching_for_shakespeare/ html/ 2. stm& h=300& w=300& sz=12& hl=en& start=1& um=1&

tbnid=C0uoh3Ekkn9BlM:& tbnh=116& tbnw=116& prev=/ images?q=grafton+ portrait& svnum=10& um=1& hl=en&

rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-32,GGLG:en& sa=N)

[13] (http:/ / hollowaypages. com/ images/ hilliard. JPG) : Nicholas Hilliard: Man Clasping Hand from a Cloud

[14] Corbeil, Marie-Claude (2008-12-23). "The Scientific Examination of the Sanders Portrait of William Shakespeare" (http:/ / www. cci-icc.

gc. ca/ crc/ articles/ sanders/ index-eng. aspx). Canadian Conservation Institute. . Retrieved 2010-03-16.

[15] Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare project (http:/ / www. canadianshakespeares. ca/ multimedia/ imagegallery/ m_i_13. cfm) [16] Jonathan Bate in Shakespeare's Face, by Stephanie Nolen, London: Piatkus, 2003, ISBN 0749923911, p. 307. [17] Stanley Wells, A Dictionary of Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 2005, p.28.

[18] Blake: Shakespeare (http:/ / www. english. emory. edu/ classes/ Shakespeare_Illustrated/ Blake. Shakespeare. html) [19] Jane Martineau and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Shakespeare in Art, Merrell, 2003, p.72; p212

[20] Folger Shakespeare library (http:/ / www. folger. edu/ template. cfm?cid=3179)

[21] Storm's mezzotint of the [[Ashbourne portrait (http:/ / www. npg. org. uk/ collections/ search/ portrait. php?search=sa& sText=storm&

LinkID=mp52097& rNo=1& role=art)]] [22] Barrell, Charles Wisner. "Identifying Shakespeare." Scientific American. 162:1 (January 1940), pp. 4-8. 43-45. [23] Pressly, William L. "The Ashbourne Portrait of Shakespeare: Through the Looking Glass." Shakespeare Quarterly. 1993: pp. 54-72.

[24] Niederkorn, William S. (2002-02-10). "A Historic Whodunit: If Shakespeare Didn't, Who Did?" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2002/ 02/ 10/

arts/ theater/ 10NIED. html?pagewanted=4. pdf). The New York Times. . Retrieved 2010-05-22.

[25] Searching for Shakespeare, The Guardian (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ gall/ 0,,1721587,00. html) [26] Sidney Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare: With Portraits and Facsimiles, LLC, 2008 reprint, p.229

[27] Andrew Buncombe, "Is this mask the real face of Shakespeare?", The Independent, Monday, 16 March 1998. (http:/ / www. independent. co.

uk/ news/ is-this-mask-the-real-face-of-shakespeare-1150638. html)

[28] Manchester City Art Gallery (http:/ / www. manchestergalleries. org/ the-collections/ search-the-collection/ display.

php?EMUSESSID=06104c72ce7b180464d75a2989a46b79& irn=227) [29] Hilary Guise, Great Victorian engravings, 1980, Astragal Books, London, p.152 [30] Picasso - Aragon Shakespeare New York: Harry N. Abrams 1964, 124 pages, 13 gravure illustrations.

[31] V&A Museum poster (http:/ / www. szinhaz. hu/ orosz/ html/ va. html)

[32] Milton Glaser: Shakespeare, theatre poster (http:/ / images. businessweek. com/ ss/ 06/ 01/ milton_glaser/ source/ 8. htm)

[33] Anamorphosis with double meanings: viewed in the traditional way (http:/ / www. gallery-diabolus. com/ gallery/ upload/ utisz/ Shakespeare

anamorf d. jpg) the Swan Theatre...

[34] ...and the same picture viewed from a narrow angle (http:/ / www. gallery-diabolus. com/ gallery/ upload/ utisz/ Shakespeare anamorf a d. jpg) : the portrait of Shakespeare

[35] http:/ / shakespeareportrait. freehosting. net/ index. html

[36] http:/ / www. npg. org. uk/ live/ search/ person. asp?search=ss& sText=shakespeare& LinkID=mp04051

[37] http:/ / www. rightreading. com/ blog/ 2010/ 03/ 08/ new-shakespeare-potrait/ 142

List of works

List of Shakespeare's works

William Shakespeare (1564Ä1616)[1] was an English poet and playwright. He wrote approximately[2] 38 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems.

Plays

Tragedies

Shakespeare's plays

Title Year written First Performances Authorship notes publications

Antony and 1601Ä1608 First published Believed to have been between 1606 and 1608. Cleopatra in the First Folio

Summary In a setting soon after Julius Caesar, Marc Antony is in love with Cleopatra, an Egyptian queen. What used to be a friendship between Emperor Octavius and Antony develops into a hatred as Antony rejects the Emperor's sister, his wife, in favor of Cleopatra. Antony attempts to take the throne from Octavius and fails, while Cleopatra commits suicide.

Coriolanus First published No recorded performances prior to the Restoration; the in the First Folio first recorded performance involved Nahum Tate's bloody 1682 adaptation at Drury Lane.

Summary The Roman military leader Caius Martius, after leading Rome to several victories against the Volscans, returns home as a war hero with a new last name, Coriolanus, given for the city of Corioles which he conquered. However, after an attempt at political office turns sour, he is banished from Rome as a traitor. Hungry for revenge, Coriolanus becomes leader of the Volscan army and marches to the gates of Rome. His mother, his wife, and his son, however, beg him to stop his attack. He agrees and makes peace between Romans and Volscans, but is assassinated by enemy Volscans.

Hamlet Likely early 1600s Earliest recorded performance of Hamlet was in June First published Some scholars, such as Peter 1602, with Richard Burbage in the title role. in the so-called Alexander and , believe "bad" First that the oft-attributed source work Quarto, 1603 known as the Ur-Hamlet was actually a first draft of the play, written by Shakespeare himself [3] sometime prior to 1589.

Summary Prince Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost and ordered to avenge his father's murder by killing , his uncle. After struggling with several questions, including whether what the ghost said is true and whether it is right for him to take revenge, Hamlet, along with almost all the other major characters, is killed. List of Shakespeare's works 143

[4] Julius 1599 First published Thomas Patter, a Swiss traveller, saw a tragedy about Caesar in the First Folio Julius Caesar at a theatre on September 21, 1599. This was most likely Shakespeare's play. There is no immediately obvious alternative candidate. (While the story of Julius Caesar was dramatized repeatedly in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period, none of the other plays known are as good a match with Patter's description as [5] Shakespeare's play.)

Summary Cassius persuades his friend Brutus to join a conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar, whose power seems to be growing too great for Rome's good. After killing Caesar, however, Brutus fails to convince the people that his cause was just. He and Cassius eventually commit suicide as their hope for Rome becomes a lost cause.

[6] [7] King Lear 1603Ä1606 First recorded performance: December 26, 1606

Summary An aged king divides his kingdom among two of his daughters, and , and casts the youngest, Cordelia, out of his Kingdom for disloyalty. Eventually he comes to understand that it is Regan and Goneril who are disloyal, but he has already given them the kingdom. He wanders the countryside as a poor man until Cordelia comes with her husband, the King of France, to reclaim her father's lands. Regan and Goneril are defeated, but only after Cordelia has been captured and murdered. King Lear then dies of grief.

Macbeth [8] First published [9] 1603Ä1606 There are "fairly clear allusions to the play in 1607." The text of Macbeth which in the First Folio The earliest account of a performance of the play is survives has plainly been altered April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing it at by later hands. Most notable is the [10] the Globe Theatre. inclusion of two songs from Thomas Middleton's play The [11] Witch (1615)

Summary Macbeth, a Scottish noble, is urged by his wife to kill in order to take the throne for himself. He covers the king's guards in blood to frame them for the deed, and is appointed King of Scotland. However, people suspect his sudden power, and he finds it necessary to commit more and more murders to maintain power, believing himself invincible so long as he is bloody. Finally, the old king's son Malcolm besieges Macbeth's castle, and slays Macbeth in armed combat.

Othello Summary Othello, a Moor and military general living in Venice, elopes with Desdemona, the daughter of a senator. Later, on Cyprus, he is persuaded by his servant Iago that his wife (Desdemona) is having an affair with , his lieutenant. Iago's story, however, is a lie. Desdemona and Cassio try to convince Othello of their honesty but are rejected. Pursuing a plan suggested by Iago, Othello sends assassins to attack Cassio, who is wounded, while Othello himself smothers Desdomona in her bed. Iago's plot is revealed too late, and Othello commits suicide.

Romeo and 1595Ä1596, with First published First performed sometime between 1591 and March [15] Juliet a possible early in 1597 in 1597 [14] draft written in Q1 [12] [13] 1591

Summary In Verona, Italy, two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, are in the midst of a bloody feud. Romeo, a Montague, and Juliet, a Capulet, fall in love and struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of familial hatred. After Romeo kills Juliet's cousin in a fit of passion, things fall apart. Both lovers eventually commit suicide within minutes of each other, and the feuding families make peace over their recent grief.

Timon of Brian Vickers and others argue that Athens Timon of Athens was co-written with Thomas Middleton, though [16] some commentators disagree.

Summary Timon of Athens is an apparently wealthy man in his community who freely gives of his abundance to those around him. Eventually, it becomes apparent that he is living on credit, when all of his creditors ask for payment on the same day. Timon asks for his friends to help, but is refused. Angry at mankind's double nature, he leaves the city for the wilderness, and lives in a cave. Despite the efforts of several men to cheer his spirits, he dies full of hatred for humanity. List of Shakespeare's works 144

Titus Brian Vickers argues that Titus Andronicus Andronicus was co-written with George Peele, though Jonathan Bate, the play's most recent editor for the Arden Shakespeare, believes it to be wholly the work of [17] Shakespeare.

Summary Roman war hero Titus Andronicus returns victorious in his wars against the Goths. He kills one of the sons of the Queens of the Goths in a revenge ritual, despite her pleadings. When the queen becomes the Empress of Rome, she takes revenge on the house of Andronici for her son's blood. She has her sons rape and mutilate Titus' daughter, Lavinia, over her husband's murdered corpse, then frames Titus' own sons for the murder. Lavinia, however, manages to communicate to her father who the true murderers were, and Andronicus takes revenge, killing the queen and her two sons, but being killed in the act.

Troilus and Summary The Trojans are under siege by the Grecian army of . Troilus, a Trojan, falls in love with Cressida, a Cressida Greek captive. When Cressida is given back to the Greeks as part of a prisoner exchange, Troilus fears that she will fall in love with one of them. His fears prove to be true when he crosses enemy lines during a truce and sees her and a Greek man together.

Comedies

Shakespeare's plays

Title Year written First publications Performances Authorship notes

All's Well 1601Ä1608 First published in the First Believed to have been between No recorded performances before The That Ends Folio 1606 and 1608. Restoration. The earliest recorded Well performance was in 1741 at Goodman's Fields, with another the following year at Drury Lane.

Summary Helena, a ward of the Countess of Rousillion, falls in love with the Countess's son, Bertram. Daughter of a famous doctor, and a skilled physician in her own right, Helena cures the King of France - who feared he was dying - and he grants her Bertram's hand as a reward. Bertram, however, offended by the inequality of the marriage, sets off for war, swearing he will not live with his wife until she can present him with a son, and with his own ring - two tasks which he believes impossible. However with the aid of a , Helena fulfils his tasks, Bertram realises the error of his ways, and they are reconciled.

As You Like 1599Ä1600 First published in the First No recorded performances No recorded performances before The It Folio prior to the Restoration; the Restoration, though there was a possible first recorded performance performance at Wilton House in involved Nahum Tate's bloody Wiltshire; the King's Men were paid â30 1682 adaptation at Drury Lane. to come to Wilton House and perform for the King and Court (remaining there due to an outburst of the bubonic plague) on December 2, 1603. A Herbert family tradition states the play was As You Like [18] It. The King's Company was assigned the play by royal warrant in 1669, and it was acted at Drury Lane in 1723 in an adapted form called Love in a [19] Forest.

Summary It's a dramatic comedy, known for its confusing yet tantalising storyline that intrigues yet is one of the hardest by Shakespeare to understand. Like most others of its genre and age, it relies heavily on mistaken identity and desperate romance to induce humour between the artful weaving of the 16th century language. List of Shakespeare's works 145

The Comedy 1592Ä1594 First published in the First The first recorded performance of Errors Folio was by "a company of base and common fellows," mentioned in the Gesta Grayorum ("The Deeds of Gray") as having occurred in Gray's Inn Hall on Dec. 28, 1594. The second also took place on "Innocents' Day" but ten years later - in 1604, at [20] Court.

Summary Egeon, about to be executed for unlawfully entering Ephesus, tells the sad tale of his search for his twin sons and wife. The Duke agrees to spare him if his family is found. Meanwhile, his twin sons, both of whom are named Antipholus, are actually in Ephesus, each unaware that he even has a twin. After a series of hilarious events involving mistaken identity almost ending in catastrophe, the twins are reunited with their mother and father, and realize their relation to each other.

[23] Cymbeline This play is hard to date, First published in the First Only one early performance is Possible collaboration [22] though a relationship Folio recorded with certainty, with a tragicomedy that which occurred on Wednesday Beaumont and Fletcher night of Jan. 1, 1634, at Court. wrote ca. 1609-10 tends to support this dating around 1609; though it is not clear which play [21] preceded the other.

Summary The princess Imogen loves the commoner Posthumus, and marries him, but her father, king Cymbeline, disapproves of the match and exiles Posthumus. In exile, he meets the rogue Jachimo - who, to win a wager, persuades Posthumus, wrongly, that he (Jachimo) has slept with Imogen. Enraged, Posthumus orders a servant, Pisanio, to murder Imogen, but he cannot go through with his orders, and instead she finds herself befriended by the wild-living Polydore and Cadwal - who turn out to be her own brothers: Cymbeline's princes who had been stolen from his palace in their infancy. The repentant Posthumus fights alongside Polydore and Cadwal in a battle against the Romans, and following the intervention of the god Jupiter, the various truths are revealed, and everyone is reconciled.

Love's Labour's Summary Lost

Measure for Measure Summary

Merchant of Summary Antonio borrows money from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, in order to lend money to his friend Venice Bassanio. Bassanio uses the money to successfully woo Portia, a wealthy and intelligent woman with a large inheritance. Unfortunately, a tragic accident makes Antonio unable to repay his debt to Shylock, and he must be punished as agreed by giving a pound of his flesh to the moneylender. Portia travels in disguise to the court and saves Antonio by pointing out that Shylock may only take flesh, and not any blood. Shylock is foiled, Portia reveals her identity, and Antonio's wealth is restored.

Merry Wives of Windsor Summary List of Shakespeare's works 146

A Approximately 1595 Registered in the 1600 quarto The title page assures it was Midsummer by Thomas Fisher on "sundry times publicly acted [24] Night's October 8, 1600 by the Right Honorable Lord Chamberlain and his Servants" prior to 1600 publication.

Summary In Athens, is in love with Lysander, defying her father's command to marry Demetrius; the couple flee to the woods to avoid the law sentencing her to death or a nunnery. Demetrius pursues them, and is in turn pursued by Helena, who is in unrequited love with him. Meanwhile a group of low-class workers decides to stage a play for the wedding of the King and Queen of Athens; they rehearse in the woods. Fairy king Oberon is quarreling with his queen Titania; he magically causes her to fall in love with one of the actors, Bottom, whom he has transformed to have the head of an ass. He also attempts to resolve the Athenian youths' love triangle, but his servant Puck accidentally causes both Lysander and Demetrius to fall in love with Helena instead of Hermia. In the end, Oberon has Puck restore Lysander to loving Hermia, allows Demetrius to stay in love with Helena, and returns Titania to her senses and Bottom to his shape. They return to Athens, where Lysander and Hermia are pardoned and they all watch the workers (badly) perform their play.

Much Ado about Summary Nothing

[25] Pericles, Either 1607Ä1608, or 1609 quarto The Venetian ambassador to Shakespeare is thought to be responsible Prince of written at an earlier date England, Zorzi Giustinian, saw for the main portion of the play after Tyre [27] [28] [29] [30] and revised at that a play titled Pericles during his scene 9. The first two [25] time time in London, which ran acts were likely written by a relatively from Jan. 5, 1606 to Nov. 23, untalented reviser or collaborator, [31] 1608. As far as is known, there possibly George Wilkins. was no other play with the same title that was acted in this era; the logical assumption is that this must have been [26] Shakespeare's play.

Summary This episodic story, covering many years, charts the history of Pericles, who believes he has lost both his daughter and his wife, but is ultimately reunited with both. His daughter Marina, sold into prostitution, proves to be a paragon of virtue; and his wife Thaisa, recovered by a skilled doctor having been buried at sea, becomes a priestess of the goddess Diana.

The Taming of the Shrew Summary

The Tempest Summary Prospero, overthrown and exiled Duke of Milan, lives on a small island with his daughter Miranda. By chance, his usurping brother Antonio, along with Alonso, King of Naples (who helped him) and his retinue, have passed near the island on a ship; Prospero, aided by his fairy servant , has magically called up a tempest to shipwreck them. Prospero toys with them but ultimately forgives Alonso (who has been betrayed in turn by Antonio) and permits Alonso's son to marry Miranda. Before returning to reclaim his throne, Prospero renounces magic.

[32] Twelfth 1600Ä1601 First Folio Earliest known performance 2 [33] Night February 1602

Summary finds herself shipwrecked in and, assuming that her brother Sebastian has died in the wreck, disguises herself as a man in order to gain a position in Duke 's court. Orsino sends Viola (whom he knows as Cesario) to deliver a message to his love, . Olivia, however, dislikes the Duke. She falls in love with Viola, who she thinks is a man. Eventually, Viola's brother Sebastian, who in fact was unharmed in the wreck, reappears. At a critical moment, Viola's true identity is revealed when members of the court notice the similarities between her and Sebastian. Olivia quickly falls in love with Sebastian, and Viola confesses her love for the Duke. List of Shakespeare's works 147

The Two Summary Two close fiends, and Valentine, are divided when Valentine is sent to the Duke's court in Milan. Gentlemen Proteus later follows, leaving behind his loyal beloved, Julia, and he and Valentine both fall in love with of Verona the Duke's daughter, Silvia. Valentine proves himself brave and honourable, while Proteus is underhand and deceitful - and eventually attempts to rape Silvia. Julia follows her betrothed to Milan, disguised as a boy, Sebastian, who becomes Proteus' page. Eventually Proteus sees the error of his ways and returns to Julia, while Valentine marries Silvia.

[34] The Two 1613Ä1614 Published as a quarto in Thought to be a collaboration with John [34] Noble 1635 Fletcher. Shakespeare is thought to have Kinsmen written the following parts of this play: Act I, scenes 1-3; Act II, scene 1; Act III, scene 1; Act V, scene 1, lines 34-173, [35] and scenes 3 and 4.

Summary Two close friends, Palamon and Arcite, are divided by their love of the same woman: Duke Theseus' sister-in-law Emelia. They are eventually forced to compete publicly for her hand, but once the bout is over, the victor dies tragically and the other marries their love.

The Winter's Estimates vary widely, First published in the First [36] Tale from 1594Ä1611 Folio.

Summary In Sicilia, King becomes convinced that his wife, , is having an affair with his friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia. He has her imprisoned and sends delegates to ask an oracle if his suspicions are true. While in prison, Hermione gives birth to a girl and Leontes has it sent to Bohemia to be placed alone in the wild. When the delegates return and state that the oracle has exonerated Hermione, Leontes remains stubborn and his wife and son die. Sixteen years later, a repentant Leontes is reunited with his daughter, who is in love with the Prince of Bohemia. His wife is also later reunited with him by extraordinary means.

Histories

Shakespearean histories

Title Year First publications Performances Authorship notes written

Henry Likely early First published in a 1598 Though 1 Henry IV was almost certainly in performance IV, Part - mid 1590s quarto by Andrew Wise by 1597, the earliest recorded performance was on 1 March 6, 1600, when it was acted at Court before the Flemish Ambassador. Other Court performances followed in 1612 and 1625.

Henry 1597Ä1599 First published in a quarto The quarto's title-page states that the play had been IV, Part in 1600 by Valentine Simms "sundry times publicly acted" before publication. Extant II records suggest that both parts of Henry IV were acted at Court in 1612Çthe records rather cryptically refer to the plays as Sir and Hotspur.

Henry V 1599 Published in a "bad A tradition, impossible to verify, holds that Henry V was [37] quarto" in 1600 by the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre in the Thomas Millington and spring of 1599; the Globe would have been the "wooden John Busby; reprinted in O" mentioned in the Prologue. In 1600 the first printed "bad" form in 1603 and text states that the play had been performed "sundry 1619, it was published fully times", though the first recorded performance was on for the first time in the First January 7, 1605, at Court. Folio. List of Shakespeare's works 148

Henry 1588Ä1592 First published in the First 's diary records a performance of a There is stylistic evidence that VI, Part Folio Henry VI on March 3, 1592, by the Lord Strange's Men. Part 1 is not by Shakespeare I Thomas Nashe refers in 1592 to a popular play about alone, but co-written by a team Lord Talbot, seen by "ten thousand spectators at least" at with three or more unknown [38] [39] separate times. playwrights (though Thomas [40] Nashe is a possibility ).

Henry 1590Ä1591 A version was published in See notes for Henry VI, Part I above. Parts I and III of VI, Part 1594, and again in 1600 Henry VI are known to have been playing in 1592, and it II (Q2) and 1619 (Q3); the last is assumed (but not reliably known) part 2 was presented as part of William Jaggrd's at the same times. False Folio.

Henry 1590Ä1591 A version was published in Performed before 1592, when Robert Greene parodied VI, Part 1594, and again in 1600 one of the play's lines in his pamphlet A Groatsworth of III (Q2) and 1619 (Q3); the last Wit. See notes for Part II and I above. as part of William Jaggrd's False Folio.

Henry A fire destroyed the Globe Theatre during a performance Thought to be a collaboration VIII of this play on June 29, 1613, as recorded in several between Shakespeare and John [41] contemporary documents. While some modern Fletcher, due to the style of the scholars believe the play was relatively new (one verse. Shakespeare is thought to contemporary report states that it "had been acted not have written Act I, scenes i and [42] passing 2 or 3 times before"), the value of this has ii; II,ii and iv; III,ii, lines 1-203 been questioned, since London diarist Samuel Pepys also (to exit of King); V,i. referred to Henry VIII as "new" in 1663, when the play [43] was at least 50 years old.

King John

Richard II

Richard III

Poems

Shakespeare's poems

Title Year First publications Performances Authorship notes written

A Lover's Complaint

Shakespeare's Sonnets

The Phoenix and the Turtle

[44] The Rape of Lucrece 1594

The Passionate Pilgrim

[44] Venus and Adonis 1593

A Funeral Elegy Attributed to Shakespeare

To the Queen Attributed to Shakespeare List of Shakespeare's works 149

Apocrypha

Shakespeare Apocrypha

Title Year written First publications Performances Authorship notes

Edward III 1592 or 1593 , quarto Generally considered a collaboration, but no editions in 1596 and 1599 agreement upon the collaborators.

Sir Thomas The passages ascribed to Hand D "are now generally More accepted as the work of Shakespeare." However, the identification remains debatable.

Cardenio (lost) Cardenio was apparently co-written with John [45] Fletcher.

[46] Love's Labour's Before 1598 Won (lost)

The Birth of Merlin

Locrine Unknown, estimates range 1595 Quarto issued by the from the early 1580s to bookseller Thomas [47] [48] [47] 1594. Creede

The London Prodigal

The Second Maiden's Tragedy

The Puritan

Sir John Oldcastle

Thomas Lord Cromwell

A Yorkshire Tragedy

References [1] Schoenbaum, Samuel (1975). William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life. Oxford University Press. pp.Ä24Ä26 and 296. ISBNÄ0195051610. [2] The exact figures cannot be known. See Shakespearean authorship, Shakespeare's collaborations and Shakespeare Apocrypha for further details. [3] * Bloom, Harold,Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York, 1998. [4] F. E. Halliday, Shakespeare Companion, pp. 159, 260, 524, 533. [5] Richard Edes's Latin play Caesar Interfectus (1582?) would not qualify. The Admiral's Men had an anonymous in their repertory in 1594Ä5, and another play, Caesar's Fall, or the Two Shapes, written by Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Thomas Middleton, , and John Webster, in 1601-2, too late for Patter's reference. Neither play has survived. The anonymous Caesar's Revenge dates to 1606, while George Chapman's Caesar and Pompey dates from ca. 1613. E. K. Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2, p. 179; Vol. 3, pp. 259, 309; Vol. 4, p. 4. [6] Frank Kermode, 'King Lear', The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 1249. [7] R.A. Foakes, ed. King Lear. London: Arden, 1997), 89-90. [8] A.R. Braunmuller, ed. Macbeth (CUP, 1997), 5-8. [9] Kermode, Riverside Shakespeare, p. 1308. [10] If, that is, the Forman document is genuine; see the entry on Simon Forman for the question of the authenticity of the Book of Plays. [11] Brooke, Nicholas, (ed.) (1998). The Tragedy of Macbeth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 57. ISBN 0192834177. List of Shakespeare's works 150

[12] Draper, John W. "The Date of Romeo and Juliet." The Review of English Studies (Jan 1949) 25.97 pgs. 55-57 [13] Gibbons, pgs. 26-31 [14] Halio, Jay. Romeo and Juliet. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. pg. 1 ISBN 0-313-30089-5 [15] Gibbons, Brian. Romeo and Juliet. London: Methuen, 1980. pg. 26. ISBN 0-416-17850-2 [16] Vickers, 8; Dominik, 16; Farley-Hills, David (1990). Shakespeare and the Rival Playwrights, 1600-06. Routledge, 171Ä172. ISBN 0415040507. [17] Vickers, Brian (2002). Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays. Oxford University Press. 8. ISBN 0199256535; Dillon, Janette (2007). The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Tragedies. Cambridge University Press, 25. ISBN 0521858178. [18] F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564Ç1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 531. [19] Halliday, Shakespeare Companion, p. 40. [20] The identical dates may not be coincidental; the Pauline and Ephesian aspect of the play, noted under Sources, may have had the effect of linking The Comedy of Errors to the holiday seasonÇmuch like Twelfth Night, another play secular on its surface but linked to the Christmas holidays. [21] Halliday, p. 366. [22] There is a performance mentioned in the Book of Plays of Simon Forman; even if it is genuine (not all commentators think it is), the Book of Plays reference is undated and lacks specific information. [23] The Yale Shakespeare edition suggests this was a collaborative work; some scenes (Act III scene 7 and Act V scene 2) may seem less characteristic of Shakespeare than the rest of the play. [24] McDonald, Russ (2000). A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Pelican Shakespeare). Penguin Books. p.Äl. ISBNÄ0140714553. [25] Edwards, Philip. "An Approach to the Problem of Pericles." Shakespeare Studies 5 (1952): 26. [26] F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564Ä1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 188 [27] DelVecchio, Dorothy and Anthony Hammond, editors. Pericles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: 9 [28] Gossett, Suzanne, editor, Pericles. London: Metheun. Arden Shakespeare, 3rd series, 2004: 47-54 [29] Warren, Roger; editor, Pericles, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004: 4-6 [30] Werstine, Paul; editor, Pericles, New York: Pelican, 2005: lii [31] Brian Vickers, Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays (OUP 2004), pp. 291-332 [32] Halliday, F. E., A Shakespeare Companion 1564Ç1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964 [33] Smith, Bruce R., Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedford St Martin's, 2001 [34] Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564Ç1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964. [35] Hallet Smith, in The Riverside Shakespeare, p. 1640. [36] F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564Ç1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; p. 532. [37] A "" was a version of a play that was not the official version from the playwright themselves; often these versions were written down during a performance and printed later, leading to great inaccuracies in the text. [38] F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564Ç1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 216-17, 369. [39] Since Henry VI, part 3 was also acted in 1592 Ç Robert Greene parodied one of its lines in his 1592 pamphlet A Groatsworth of Wit Ç the implication is that all three parts of the were being acted in 1592. [40] Edward Burns: The Arden Shakespeare "King Henry VI Part 1" introduction p.75. [41] Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923; Vol. 3, pp. 472. [42] Gordon McMullan, ed. Henry VIII (London: Thomson, 2000), pp. 57-60. [43] Samuel Pepys' entry of Dec. 26, 1663. [44] Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage 1574Ç1642. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992: 76. [45] Bradford, Gamaliel Jr. "The History of Cardenio by Mr. Fletcher and Shakespeare." Modern Language Notes (February 1910) 25.2, 51-56; Freehafer, John. "'Cardenio', by Shakespeare and Fletcher." PMLA. (May 1969) 84.3, 501-513. [46] Baldwin, T.W. Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Won: New Evidence from the Account Books of an Elizabethan Bookseller. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957. [47] Chambers, . K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923. [48] Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Predecessors of Shakespeare: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1973. Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 151

Chronology of Shakespeare's plays

This article presents a possible chronological listing of the plays of William Shakespeare.

Difficulty of creating a precise chronology There is no such thing as a precise or definitive chronology of Shakespeare's plays, as with the currently available evidence, it is impossible to determine exactly when many of them were written. This is especially pronounced in relation to the earlier plays. No authoritative chronological record survives from his lifetime, and dates of performance are often of limited use, as oftentimes it is impossible to determine if a given performance is the first performance. Dates of first publication are also relatively useless in determining a chronology, as about half of the plays were unpublished until the First Folio in 1623 (seven years after Shakespeare's death). Performance dates and publication dates are also problematic insofar as many of the plays were performed several years before they were published (for example, Titus Andronicus was performed in 1592, but not published until 1594; Henry VI, Part 3 was performed in 1592 but not published until 1595). Another problem with publication dates is that many of the plays published prior to 1623 were pirated, unauthorised versions. These 'bad quartos' are often hypothesised to be memorially reconstructed from performances and then sold as if they were the actual play. In many cases however, scholars are unsure of the exact relationship between the play as it appeared in the 1623 First Folio and the original publication. The Taming of the Shrew is a good example; scholars continue to debate whether the 1594 quarto play A Pleasant Conceited Historie called the taming of a Shrew is an early draft of the 1623 play (from which it differs in many details), a bad quarto (ie a reported text), a source, an adaptation or simply another play based on a story now lost upon which Shakespeare also based his own play. Similarly, scholars continue to debate whether the 1594 quarto play The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster is an early draft of Henry VI, Part 2, a reconstruction from a performance, or both. Added to this, a number of orthodox scholars, as well as many anti-Stratfordian researchers (so called because they argue that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the author of what we call the Shakespearean canon), disagree with the conventional dating system entirely.[a] E.A.J. Honigmann for example, although not an anti-Stratfordian, does dissent from the more common dating of the plays. In 1982, he developed what he refers to as the 'early start theory'. Most 20th century chronologies tend to be based on the work of E.K. Chambers in 1930, which posits that Shakespeare only began composing plays when he arrived in London sometime between 1588 and 1591.[1] Honigmann, however, suggests he began writing plays sooner, and believes the chronology begins with Titus Andronicus, which he estimates was written in 1586, and continues with The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which he places in 1587. Honigmann's theory does have the value of explaining how Shakespeare was able to write so many plays in such a short period of time upon arriving in London (at least six in the first two or three years), however, the majority of critics reject it.[2] However, Dean Keith Simonton, a researcher into the factors of musical and literary creativity, especially ShakespeareÅs, has conducted several studies concluding "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that the traditional play chronology is roughly in the correct order, and that Shakespeare's works exhibit stylistic development over the course of his career, just as is found for other artistic geniuses.[3] Other research into the nature of creativity concludes that artistic creativity is responsive to its environment, and especially to conspicuous political events,[4] and Simonton conducted a study examining the correlation between the thematic content of ShakespeareÅs plays and the political context in which they would have been written according to traditional and Oxfordian datings. When lagged two years, the Stratfordian chronologies yielded substantially meaningful associations between thematic and political context, while the Oxfordian chronologies yielded no relationships, no matter how they were lagged.[5] Simonton, who declared his Oxfordian sympathies in the article and had expected the results to support OxfordÅs authorship, concluded that "that expectation was proven wrong" and that the results supported what has become the Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 152

traditional chronology and dating.[6] Shakespearean scholars, beginning with Edmond Malone in 1790, have attempted to reconstruct the plays' relative chronology by various means, including contemporary allusions and records of performance, entries in the Stationers' Register, dates of publication, visceral impressions and studies of the development of the playwright's style and diction over time.

Chronology There are five main scholarly editions of the Complete Works of Shakespeare: The Riverside Shakespeare (G. Blakemore Evans, 1974; 2nd edn., 1996), The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works (Stanley Wells, , John Jowett and William Montgomery, 1986; 2nd edn., 2005), The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition (Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard and Katharine Eisaman Haus, 1997; 2nd edn., 2008), The Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works (Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan, 1998; 2nd edn. 2002) and The RSC Shakespeare: William Shakespeare: Complete Works (Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, 2007). Arden presents the plays alphabetically without any attempt to construct an overall chronology. Oxford, Riverside, Norton and RSC all present chronologies which differ from one another, and no one edition has any real authority over any of the others. Dates in the following lists are estimates. (Dates in parentheses indicate the date of first publication.)

Shakespeare's plays Ç 1590 (1623) Henry VI, Part I (Honigmann, 1589) Stationers' Register on 25 February 1598. Ç 1590 (1594) Henry VI, Part II (Honigmann 1590) Ç 1590 (1595) Henry VI, Part III (Honigmann 1591) Parodied by Robert Greene in 1592. Ç 1592 (1602) Richard III (Honigmann, 1591) In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1592 (1623) The Comedy of Errors (Honigmann 1590) If this is the same as the play titled "The Night of Errors", it was performed on 28 December 1594. Probably the "errors" in Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1593 (1594) Titus Andronicus (Honigmann,1587) Act 1, and scenes 2.1:2.2:4.1 were probably written by George Peele.[7] According to the first published edition it was performed by a company that folded in early 1593. In 1594 Philip Henslowe referred to it as a "new" play. In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1593 (1594) Taming of the Shrew (Honigmann,1589) Ç 1594 (1623) The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Honigmann 1588) In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. The work may have been based on Bartholomew Yong's translation of Jorge de Montemayor's Diana, which was done in 1583 but not published until 1598. Ç 1594 (1598) Love's Labour's Lost (Honigmann 1593) In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1594-95 (1597) Romeo and Juliet (Honigmann,1592) In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1595 (1597) Richard II In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 153

Ç 1595 (1600) A Midsummer Night's Dream In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1596 (1622) King John (Honigmann 1592) In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1596 (1596) Edward III (play) (probably written in collaboration with Thomas Kyd). Ç 1596 (1600) The Merchant of Venice Recorded at Stationers' Register on 22 July 1598. In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1597 Henry IV, Part I In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. Ç 1594-1597 (1603?) Love's Labour's Won In Francis Meres' 1598 list of Shakespeare plays. In Christopher Hunt's August 1603 booklist. A lost play, though some scholars think it might simply be an alternative name for another of the plays, such as As You Like It, Much Ado, or All's Well That Ends Well.[8] Ç 1598 (1600) Henry IV, Part II Ç 1599 (1600) Henry V Chorus expresses hope for the Earl of Essex's Irish expedition of 1599. Ç 1599 (1623) Julius Caesar Mentioned by Thomas Platter the Younger in 1599. Ç 1599 (1600) Much Ado About Nothing Ç 1599 (1623) As You Like It Stationers' Register in August 1600 Ç 1597-1600 (1602) The Merry Wives of Windsor Ç 1599-1600 (1603) Hamlet Stationers' Register in July 1602 describes it as àlately acted.â A lost version of the play by Shakespeare might conceivably date back at least to 1589.[9] Ç 1602 (1623) Twelfth Night Ç 1602 (1609) Troilus and Cressida Stationers' Register in February 1603. Ç 1603 (1623) All's Well That Ends Well No contemporary reference. Ç 1603 (1622) Othello Performed November 1604. Ç 1603-06 (1608) King Lear Stationers' Register in November 1607. Ç 1603-06 (1623) Macbeth Ç 1603 (1623) Measure For Measure Court records show it was performed December 1604. Ç 1606 (1623) Antony and Cleopatra Stationers' Register in May 1608. Ç 1607 (1623) Coriolanus Ç 1607 (1623) Timon of Athens (probably written in collaboration with Thomas Middleton) Ç 1608 (1609) Pericles, Prince of Tyre (probably written in collaboration with George Wilkins) Stationers' Register in May 1608. Ç 1609 (1623) Cymbeline Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 154

Ç 1609-10 (1623) The Winter's Tale Ç 1611 (1623) The Tempest Ç 1612 (1623) Henry VIII (probably written in collaboration with John Fletcher) Was performed on 29 June 1613, when the Globe Theatre burnt down. Ç 1612 (1634) The Two Noble Kinsmen (written in collaboration with John Fletcher).

Apocrypha Ç 1592-1595 (1844) Sir Thomas More Originally written by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, and heavily revised perhaps ten years later by Thomas Heywood, Thomas Dekker and (perhaps) William Shakespeare, whose writing has been tentatively identified as "Hand D" in the manuscript. Ç 1600 (1600) Sir John Oldcastle Philip Henslowe's diary records it was actually written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye and Robert Wilson in collaboration. Ç 1604 (1605) The London Prodigal Acted by Shakespeare's company and published under his name, but the style is not his. Ç 1605 (1608) A Yorkshire Tragedy Acted by Shakespeare's company and published under his name, but the style is not his. More probably by Thomas Middleton. Ç 1612 (1728) Cardenio (written in collaboration with John Fletcher) Was performed in 1613. Published only in an adaptation by Lewis Theobald entitled Double Falshood; essentially a lost play.

Notes Ç a. Ä In particular, the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship relies on an alternate chronology[10] [11] in which the plays are dated significantly earlier than traditionally proposed.

External links Ç Narrative and Dramatic Sources of all Shakespeare's works [38] Ç How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Evidence [12] Ç Shakespeare Internet Editions Resource Site [13] Ç The Collected Works of William Shakespeare Arranged Chronologically [14] Ç The Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays [15] Ç Shakespeare's Works: A Timeline [16] Chronology of Shakespeare's plays 155

References [1] See E.A.J. Honigmann, Shakespeare's Impact on his Contemporaries (1982) [2] See, for example, Eric Sims, The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early Years (Yale: Yale University Press, 1997), Park Honan, Shakespeare: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), or Brenda James and William D. Rubinstein, Unmasking the Real Shakespeare: The Truth Will Out (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2006) [3] Simonton, Dean Keith (2004), "Thematic Content and Political Context in Shakespeare's Dramatic Output, with Implications for Authorship and Chronology Controversies", Empirical Studies of the Arts (Baywood Publishing) 22 (2): 201Ä213; p. 203. [4] Simonton p. 204. [5] Simonton p. 210: "If the Earl of Oxford wrote these plays, then he not only displayed minimal stylistic development over the course of his career (Elliot & Valenza, 2000), but he also wrote in monastic isolation from the key events of his day. These events would include such dramatic occasions [as] the external threat of the 1588 Spanish Armada invasion and the internal threat of the 1586 plot against Queen Elizabeth that eventually resulted in the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots." [6] Simonton n210. [7] Brian Vickers, Shakespeare, Co-Author: A Historical Study of Five Collaborative Plays,Oxford University Press, 2002, ch.3. pp.148-243.

[8] The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works (http:/ / palgrave. typepad. com/ rsc/ 2007/ 04/ index. html) [9] Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (eds.) Hamlet,, Arden ed. 2006 p.47,59

[10] http:/ / willyshakes. com/ valiant. htm paragraphs 10-13 [11] Matus, Irvin; Shakespeare, In Fact; 1994, pp 219-263

[12] http:/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ howdowe. html#1

[13] http:/ / internetshakespeare. uvic. ca/ index. html

[14] http:/ / www. dlhoffman. com/ publiclibrary/ Shakespeare/ by-year. html

[15] http:/ / www. shakespeare-online. com/ keydates/ playchron. html

[16] http:/ / www. bardweb. net/ plays/ timeline. html

Shakespearean comedy

In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. "Comedy", in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. Patterns in the comedies include movement to a "green world",[1] both internal and external conflicts, and a tension between Apollonian and Dionysian values. Shakespearean comedies tend to also include: Ç A greater emphasis on situations than characters (this numbs the audience's connection to the characters, so that when characters experience misfortune, the audience still finds it laughable) Ç A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders Ç Separation and re-unification Ç Deception among characters (especially mistaken identity) Ç A clever servant Ç Tension between characters, often within a family Ç Multiple, intertwining plots Ç Use of all styles of comedy (slapstick, puns, dry humor, earthy humor, witty banter, practical jokes) Ç Pastoral element (courtly people living an idealized, rural life), originally an element of Pastoral Romance, exploited by Shakespeare for his comic plots and often parodied therein for humorous effects Ç Happy Ending, though this is a given, since by definition, anything without a happy ending can't be a comedy Several of Shakespeare's comedies, such as Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well, have an unusual tone with a difficult mix of humour and tragedy which has led them to be classified as problem plays. It is not clear whether the uneven nature of these dramas is due to an imperfect understanding of Elizabethan humour and society, a fault on Shakespeare's part, or a deliberate attempt by him to blend styles and subvert the audience's expectations. By the end of Shakespeare's life, he had written 17 comedies. Shakespearean comedy 156

References

[1] Regan, Richard. " Shakespearean comedy (http:/ / www. faculty. fairfield. edu/ rjregan/ rrScom. htm)". Retrieved on 11 January 2007.

Shakespearean history

In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. This categorisation has become established, although some critics have argued for a fourth category, the romance. The histories were those plays based on the lives of English kings. Therefore they can be more accurately called the "English history plays," a less common designation. The plays that depict older historical figures such as Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Julius Caesar, and the legendary King Lear were not included in that classification. Macbeth, which is based on a Scottish king, was also classed as a tragedy, not a history.

Sources The source for most of the history plays is the well known Raphael Holinshed's Chronicle of English history. Shakespeare's history plays focus on only a small part of the characters' lives, and also frequently omit significant events for dramatic purposes.

Politics Shakespeare was living under the reign of Elizabeth I, the last monarch of the , and his history plays are often regarded as Tudor propaganda because they show the dangers of civil war and celebrate the founders of the Tudor dynasty. In particular, Richard III depicts the last member of the rival as an evil monster ("that bottled spider, that foul bunchback'd toad"), a depiction disputed by many modern historians, while portraying his usurper, Henry VII in glowing terms. Political bias is also clear in Henry VIII, which ends with an effusive celebration of the birth of Elizabeth. However, Shakespeare's celebration of Tudor order is less important in these plays than the spectacular decline of the medieval world. Moreover, some of Shakespeare's historiesÇand notably Richard IIIÇpoint out that this medieval world came to its end when opportunism and machiavelism infiltrated its politics. By nostalgically evoking the late Middle Ages, these plays described the political and social evolution that had led to the actual methods of Tudor rule, so that it is possible to consider history plays as a biased criticism of their own country.

List of Shakespeare's histories The plays are listed here according to chronological order of setting, King John being historically the earliest king on the list to be treated, and Henry VIII being the nearest to Shakespeare's age. This list does not reflect the order of the plays' composition. For the purpose of clarity this list omits the full or proper titles of the plays. Ç King John Ç Edward III (attributed) Ç Richard II Ç Henry IV, Part 1 Ç Henry IV, Part 2 Ç Henry V Ç Henry VI, Part 1 Ç Henry VI, Part 2 Ç Henry VI, Part 3 Ç Richard III Shakespearean history 157

Ç Henry VIII

The "" cycle

"The War(s) of the Roses" is a phrase used to describe the civil wars in England between the Lancastrian and Yorkist dynasties. Some of the events of these wars were dramatized by Shakespeare in the history plays Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V; Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; and Richard III. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there have been numerous stage performances including:

1. The first tetralogy (Henry VI parts 1 to 3 and Richard III) as a cycle; Henry VI (Jeffrey T. Heyer) and a young Richmond (Ashley Rose 2. The second tetralogy (Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 Miller) in the West Coast premiere of The Plantaganents: The Rise and 2 and Henry V) as a cycle (which has also been of Edward IV, staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre in 1993. referred to as the ); and 3. The entire eight plays in historical order (the second tetralogy followed by the first tetralogy) as a cycle. Where this full cycle is performed, as by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1964, the name The War[s] of the Roses has often been used for the cycle as a whole. 4. A 10-play history cycle, which began with the newly attributed Edward III, the anonymous Thomas of Woodstock, and then the eight plays from Richard II to Richard III, was performed by Pacific Repertory Theatre under the title Royal Blood, a phrase used throughout the works. The entire series, staged over four consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2004, was directed by PacRep founder and Artistic Director . The cycle has been filmed four times: 1. for the 1960 UK miniseries "An Age of Kings" directed by Michael Hayes 2. for the 1965 UK miniseries "The Wars of the Roses", based on the RSC's 1964 staging, directed by and ; and 3. for a straight-to-video filming, directly from the stage, of the English Shakespeare Company's "The Wars of the Roses" directed by and . 4. for the BBC Television Shakespeare in 1983 directed by The second tetralogy is also the basis for the film (also known as Falstaff) directed by and starring Orson Welles. In The West Wing episode "Posse Comitatus," President Josiah Bartlet attends a play entiled "The Wars of the Roses", including scenes from Henry VI, parts 1 and 3. "Posse Comitatus" West Wing, Season 3. Shakespearean tragedy 158

Shakespearean tragedy

Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career. One of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, which he followed a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. However, his most admired tragedies were written in a seven-year period between 1601 and 1608. These include his four major tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, along with Antony & Cleopatra, Coriolanus and the lesser-known Timon of Athens and Troilus and Cressida.

Tragedies Many have linked these plays to Aristotle's precept about tragedy: that the protagonist must be an admirable but flawed character, with the audience able to understand nothing and sympathize with the character. Certainly, all of Shakespeare's tragic protagonists are capable of both good and evil. As one of the most influential Shakespearean critics of the 19th century, A. C. Bradley argues," the playwright always insists on the operation of the doctrine of free will; the (anti)hero is always able to back out, to redeem himself. But, the author dictates, they must move unheedingly to their doom." Some, including drama historian Brian Arkins in his "Heavy Seneca: his Influence on Shakespeare's Tragedies," have also pointed out their Senecan nature, as differentiated from Aristotle's principles and . In one of a few exceptions to the rule that Black Roman literature was essentially superficial imitation of Greek works, the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote several closet-drama tragedies in exile, never meant for live performance. Rather, they were didactic, meant to teach the reader the virtues of Stoicism. Shakespeare was either unaware of or indifferent to this, and adopted, then adapted some of their features, including the five act structure and the aforementioned train of bad decisions, culminating in an eventual 'stoic calm' of the protagonist, in which the character virtuously accepts the consequences of their error(s) - "Lay on, Macduff," in "Macbeth". Two of his later tragedies, "King Lear" and "The Tempest", are seen as exemplifying the final two stages of grief, "Depression," with an alternately disappointed, wrathful and mournful king, and "Acceptance," with a life-long wizard who has mastered every art, finally breaking his wand, often seen as Shakespeare metaphorically breaking his pen, for he wrote little more, and no complete works, after "The Tempest".

List of tragedies by William Shakespeare Ç Romeo and Juliet Ç Julius Caesar Ç King Lear Ç Hamlet Ç Macbeth Ç Othello Ç Antony and Cleopatra Ç Coriolanus Ç The History of Troilus and Cressida Ç The Life of Timon of Athens Ç Titus Andronicus Ç Cymbeline was listed in the First Folio as a tragedy although most modern readers regard it as a romance. In addition to these, Shakespeare also wrote a number of Historical plays, such as Richard II (play) which can be considered a tragedy, as the hero of the play exhibits many of Aristotle's definitions of what is required to obtain "tragic" status. Shakespearean tragedy 159

Shakespeare Apocrypha

The Shakespeare Apocrypha is a group of plays that have sometimes been attributed to William Shakespeare, but whose attribution is questionable for various reasons. The issue is separate from the debate on Shakespearean authorship, which addresses the authorship of the works traditionally attributed to Shakespeare.

Background In his own lifetime, Shakespeare saw only about half of his plays enter print. Some individual plays were published in quarto, a small, cheap format. Then, in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell compiled a Folio collection of his complete plays, now known as the First Folio. Heminges and Condell were in a position to do this because they, like Shakespeare, worked for the King's Men, the London playing company that produced all of Shakespeare's plays (in Elizabethan England, plays belonged to the company that performed them, not to the dramatist who had written them). In theory, it ought to be clear what Shakespeare wrote, and what he did not: the plays that were included in the First Folio must be by Shakespeare, and those that were excluded must not, since, Heminges and Condell were in a better position to know what Shakespeare wrote than subsequent scholars or other sources. However, there are a number of complications that have created the concept of the Shakespeare Apocrypha. The Apocrypha can be categorized under the following headings.

Plays attributed to Shakespeare during the 17th century, but not included in the First Folio Several plays published in quarto during the seventeenth century bear Shakespeare's name on the title page or in other documents, but do not appear in the First Folio. Some of these plays (such as Pericles) are believed by most scholars of Shakespeare to have been written by him (at least in part). Others, such as Thomas Lord Cromwell are so atypically written that it is difficult to believe they really are by Shakespeare. Scholars have suggested various reasons for the existence of these plays. In some cases, the title page attributions may be lies told by fraudulent printers trading on Shakespeare's reputation. In other cases, Shakespeare may have had an editorial role in the plays' creation, rather than actually writing them, or they may simply be based on a plot outline by Shakespeare. Some may be collaborations between Shakespeare and other dramatists (yet it must be remembered that the First Folio includes plays such as Henry VIII, Henry VI, part 1 and Timon of Athens that are believed to be collaborative, according to modern stylistic analysis). Another explanation for the origins of any or all of the plays is that they were not written for the King's Men, were perhaps from early in Shakespeare's career, and thus were inaccessible to Heminges and Condell when they compiled the First Folio. Tucker-Brooke, pp. ix-xi, lists forty-two plays conceivably attributed to Shakespeare, many in his own lifetime, but dismisses the majority on their face, leaving only most of those listed below, with some additions. Ç was published in 1662 as the work of Shakespeare and . This attribution is demonstrably fraudulent, or mistaken, as there is unambiguous evidence that the play was written in 1622, six years after Shakespeare's death. It is unlikely that Shakespeare and Rowley would have written together, as they were both chief dramatists for rival playing companies. The play has been called "funny, colorful, and fast-paced"[1] but critical consensus follows Henry Tyrrel's conclusion that the play "does not contain it even one single trace of the genius of the bard of Avon",[2] supplemented by C. F. Tucker-Brooke's suggestion that Rowley was consciously imitating Shakespeare's style.[3] Shakespeare Apocrypha 160

Ç Sir John Oldcastle was originally published in 1600, attributed on the title page to "William Shakespeare" (STC 18796). In 1619, a second edition also attributed it to Shakespeare. In fact, the diary of Philip Henslowe records that it was written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, and Robert Wilson. Ç A Yorkshire Tragedy was published in 1608 as the work of Shakespeare. Although a minority of readers support this claim, the weight of stylistic evidence supports Thomas Middleton. Ç Pericles, Prince of Tyre was published under Shakespeare's name. Its uneven writing suggests that the first two acts are by another playwright. In 1868, Nicolaus Delius proposed George Wilkins as this unknown collaborator; a century later, F. D. Hoeneger proposed . In general, critics have accepted that the last three-fifths are mostly Shakespeare's, following Gary Taylor's claim that by the middle of the Jacobean decade, "Shakespeare's poetic style had become so remarkably idiosyncratic that it stands out--even in a corrupt text--from that of his contemporaries."[4] Ç The Two Noble Kinsmen was published in quarto in 1634 as a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher, the young playwright who took over Shakespeare's job as chief playwright of the King's Men. Mainstream scholarship agrees with this attribution, and the play is widely accepted as a worthy member of the Shakespeare canon, despite its collaborative origins. It is included in its entirety in the Oxford Shakespeare (1986), and in the Riverside Shakespeare (1996). Ç Edward III was published anonymously in 1596. It was first attributed to Shakespeare in a bookseller's catalogue published in 1656.[5] Various scholars have suggested Shakespeare's possible authorship, since a number of passages appear to bear his stamp, among other sections that are remarkably uninspired. In 1996, Yale University Press became the first major publisher to produce an edition of the play under Shakespeare's name, and shortly afterward, the Royal Shakespeare Company performed the play (to mixed reviews). In 2001, the American professional premiere was staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre, which received positive reviews for the endeavor. A consensus is emerging that the play was written by a team of dramatists including Shakespeare early in his career Ç but exactly who wrote what is still open to debate. The play is included in the Second Edition of the Complete Oxford Shakespeare (2005), where it is attributed to "William Shakespeare and Others," and in the Riverside Shakespeare. Ç The London Prodigal was printed in 1605 under Shakespeare's name. As it is a King's Men play, Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation, but according to Tucker Brooke, "Shakespeare's catholicity and psychological insight are conspicuously absent."[6] Fleay hypothesized that Shakespeare wrote a rough outline or plot and left another playwright to the actual writing. Ç The Second Maiden's Tragedy survives only in manuscript. Three crossed-out attributions in seventeenth century hands attribute it to Thomas Goffe, Shakespeare, and George Chapman. However, stylistic analysis indicates very strongly that the true author was Middleton. Professional handwriting expert Charles Hamilton has claimed that this play is in fact Shakespeare's manuscript of the lost Cardenio. Ç The "Charles II Library" plays: in Charles II's library, an unknown seventeenth century person has bound together three quartos of anonymous plays and labelled them "Shakespeare, vol. 1". As a seventeenth century attribution, this decision warrants some consideration. The three plays are: Ç , the Miller's Daughter of Manchester was written c. 1590. Another candidate for its authorship is Robert Wilson. Ç was an incredibly popular play; it was first printed in 1598 and went through several editions despite the text's manifestly corrupt nature. As it is a King's Men play, Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation or revision, but its true author remains a mystery; Robert Greene is sometimes suggested. Ç The Merry Devil of Edmonton was first published in 1608. As it is a King's Men play, Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation, but the play's style bears no resemblance to Shakespeare. Shakespeare Apocrypha 161

Plays attributed to "W.S." during the 17th century, and not included in the First Folio Some plays were attributed to "W.S." in the seventeenth century. These initials could refer to Shakespeare, but could also refer to , an obscure dramatist.[7] Ç Locrine was published in 1595 as "Newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W.S." Ç Thomas Lord Cromwell was published in 1602 and attributed to "W.S." Except for a few scholars, such as Ludwig Tieck and August Wilhelm Schlegel, "hardly anyone has thought that Shakespeare was even in the slightest way involved in the production of these plays."[8] Ç The Puritan was published in 1607 and attributed to "W.S." This play is now generally believed to be by Middleton or Smith.

Plays attributed to Shakespeare after the 17th century A number of anonymous plays have been attributed to Shakespeare by more recent readers and scholars. Many of these claims are supported only by debatable ideas about what constitutes "Shakespeare's style". Nonetheless, some of them have been cautiously accepted by mainstream scholarship. Ç Arden of Faversham is an anonymous play printed in 1592 that has occasionally been claimed for Shakespeare. Its style and subject matter are very different from Shakespeare's other plays. Full attribution is not supported by mainstream scholarship, though stylistic analysis has revealed that Shakespeare likely had a hand in at least scene VIII (the play is not divided into acts). Thomas Kyd is often considered to be the author of much of Faversham, but still other writers have been proposed. Ç Edmund Ironside is an anonymous manuscript play. Eric Sams has argued that it was written by Shakespeare, but has convinced few, if any, Shakespearean scholars. Ç Sir Thomas More survives only in manuscript. It is a play that was written in the 1590s and then revised, possibly as many as ten years later. The play is included in the Second Edition of the Complete Oxford Shakespeare (2005), which attributes the original play to Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, with later revisions and additions by Thomas Dekker, Shakespeare and Thomas Heywood. A few pages are written by an author ("Hand D") whom many believe to be Shakespeare, as the handwriting and spellings, as well as the style, seem a good match. The attribution is not accepted by everyone, however, especially since six signatures on legal documents are the only verified authentic examples of Shakespeare's handwriting. Ç Thomas of Woodstock, sometimes also called Richard II, Part I, is an anonymous late-sixteenth century play which depicts the events leading up to the murder of Thomas of Woodstock, and which occur immediately prior to opening scenes of Shakespeare's history play Richard II. Thomas of Woodstock survives only as an anonymous and untitled manuscript, lacking its final page (or pages), and is now stored in the Egerton Manuscript Collection, in the British Library. Some scholars, noting how closely the play describes the events immediately prior to those set forth in Richard II, and how it offers explanations for the behaviour of many of his characters such as and Edmund of Langley, have attributed authorship of the play to Shakespeare. The work has frequently been conceded to at least have been an influence upon Shakespeare's own play. Historically, though, few of Thomas of Woodstock's editors supported the position of Shakespeare as its author. The Malone Society editor makes no reference to the Shakespeare theory.[9] A.P. Rossiter states "There is not the smallest chance that he was Shakespeare", citing the drabness of the verse, while acknowledging that the play's aspirations indicate that "There is something of a simplified Shakespeare" in the author.[10] MacDonald P. Jackson argued that was the play's author.[11] However, more recently some critics have reconsidered that position, and have conceded Shakespeare may have had a hand in its creation. Corbin and Sedge concede that the style and talent of the play is consistent with Shakespeare's skill as reflected in the early works Henry VI Part I, Henry VI Part II, and Henry VI Part III, though they stop short of attributing him as author.[12] Louis Ule and John Baker have performed stylometric studies to analyze the entire play, and claim it bears a close relationship to the works of Shakespeare Apocrypha 162

Marlowe and Shakespeare as opposed to the only known work of Rowley. Most recently, yet another editor of the manuscript Thomas of Woodstock, Michael Egan, has made a case for authorship of the work by Shakespeare, and against Rowley.[13] Ian Robinson also supports the attribution to Shakespeare.

Lost plays Ç Love's Labour's Won. A late sixteenth-century writer, Francis Meres, and a scrap of paper (apparently from a bookseller), both list this title among Shakespeare's then-recent works, but no play of this title has survived. It may have become lost, or it may represent an alternative title of an existing play, such as Much Ado About Nothing, All's Well That Ends Well, or The Taming of the Shrew. Ç Cardenio. This late play by Shakespeare and Fletcher, referred to in several documents, has not survived. It was probably an adaptation of a tale in Cervantes' Don Quixote. In 1727, Lewis Theobald produced a play he called Double Falshood [sic], which he claimed to have adapted from three manuscripts of a lost play by Shakespeare that he did not name. Counter to that, a professional handwriting expert, Charles Hamilton, has claimed in a recent book that The Second Maiden's Tragedy play is actually Shakespeare's manuscript of the lost play Cardenio. On the rare occasions when The Second Maiden's Tragedy has been revived on the stage, it is sometimes performed under the title Cardenio, as in the 2002 production directed by James Kerwin at the 2100Äsquare feet (200Äm2) Theater in Los Angeles, as well as a production at the Burton Taylor Theatre in 2004. In March 2010, the Arden Shakespeare imprint published an edition of Double Falsehood calling it a play by Shakespeare and Fletcher, adapted by Theobold, thus including it officially in Shakespeare's canon for the first time. Ç The lost play called the Ur-Hamlet is believed by a few scholars to be an early work by Shakespeare himself. The theory was first postulated by the academic Peter Alexander and is supported by Harold Bloom and Peter Ackroyd, although mainstream Shakespearean scholarship believes it to have been by Thomas Kyd. Bloom's hypothesis is that this early version of Hamlet was one of Shakespeare's first plays, that the theme of the Prince of Denmark was one to which he returned constantly throughout his career and that he continued to revise it even after the canonical Hamlet of 1601.

Hoaxes The dream of discovering a new Shakespeare play has also resulted in the creation of at least one hoax. In 1796 claimed to have found a lost play of Shakespeare entitled and Rowena. Ireland had previously released other documents he claimed were by Shakespeare, but Vortigern was the first play he attempted. (He later produced another pseudo-Shakespearean play, Henry II.) The play was initially accepted by the literary community Ç albeit not on sight Ç as genuine. The play was eventually presented at Drury Lane on 2 April 1796, to immediate ridicule, and Ireland eventually admitted to the hoax.

An apocryphal poem: A Funeral Elegy In 1989, using stylometric computer analysis, scholar and forensic linguist Donald Foster attributed A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter,[14] previously ascribed only to "W.S.", to William Shakespeare, based on an analysis of its grammatical patterns and idiosyncratic word usage.[15] [16] The attribution received tremendous press attention from The New York Times and other newspapers. However, later analyses by scholars Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers showed Foster's attribution to be premature, and that the true author may well have been . Foster conceded to Monsarrat in an e-mail message to the SHAKSPER e-mail list in 2002.[17] [18] Shakespeare Apocrypha 163

References Ç C.F. Tucker-Brooke, ed. The Shakespeare Apocrypha. Oxford University Press, 1908. Ç Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor, John Jowett and William Montgomery. William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford University Press, 1986.

External links Ç Spurious and doubtful works of William Shakespeare eTexts [19] at Project Gutenberg

References [1] Dominick, Mark. Shakespeare and the Birth of Merlin New York: Philosophical Library, 1991, 7 [2] Tyrell, Henry. Doubtful Plays. London: Tallis, 1853, 411 [3] Tucker Brooke,C.F. The Shakespeare Apocrypha. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918, xlvi [4] Warren, Roger, ed. Pericles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 59 [5] W. W. Greg, A List of Masques, Pageants, &c. Supplementary to "A List of English Plays", Appendix II, lxiv (1902) [6] Tucker Brooke, xxx [7] Chambers, E. K.. Shakespeare: A Survey of Facts and Problems. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930, 1.536. [8] Hoeniger, F. D. "Review of Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha." Shakespeare Quarterly 8 (1957), 236 [9] Frijlinck, First Part. [10] Rossiter, Woodstock, p. 73

[11] ""Brick Vickers Counterfeiting Review"" (http:/ / www. shakespearefellowship. org/ Reviews/ jimenez. woodstock. htm). . [12] Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge, Thomas of Woodstock: or, Richard II, Part One (Manchester University Press, 2002).

[13] Egan, Michael (2006), The Tragedy of Richard II: A Newly Authenticated Play by William Shakespeare (http:/ / www.

shakespearefellowship. org/ Reviews/ jimenez. woodstock. htm), Edwin Mellen Press, ISBNÄ0773460829,

[14] Text of A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter (http:/ / shakespeareauthorship. com/ elegy. html)

[15] Donald W. Foster (1989), Elegy by W.S.: A Study in Attribution (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=pbdlAAAAMAAJ), University of Delaware Press, ISBNÄ9780874133356,

[16] Don Foster (2000), Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=vX2jHgAACAAJ), Henry Holt and

Company, ISBNÄ9780805063578, Chapter 1 available online (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ books/ first/ f/ foster-author. html).

[17] e-mail message from Foster to the SHAKSPER e-mail list in 2002 (http:/ / www. shaksper. net/ archives/ 2002/ 1484. html).

[18] William S. Niederkorn, A Scholar Recants on His 'Shakespeare' Discovery (http:/ / query. nytimes. com/ gst/ fullpage. html?res=9903E5DD143FF933A15755C0A9649C8B63), The New York Times, June 20, 2002.

[19] http:/ / www. gutenberg. net/ author/ Shakespeare+ Spurious Article Sources and Contributors 164

Article Sources and Contributors

Introduction ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=365604519 ÄContributors: RichardF, X!

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Shakespeare's life ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=376633108 ÄContributors: 25or6to4, 2D Backfire Master, ABF, Academic Challenger, Acroterion, Adam McMaster, Adambro, Adashiel, Adrian, Aff123a, Ahoerstemeier, Aitias, Alansohn, Ale jrb, Alex Bloomingdale, AndyJones, Animum, Anonymous Dissident, Antandrus, Antonio Lopez, Argentium, Artiste-extraordinaire, Ashton1983, Asterion, Atropos, BPK2, Badgernet, Bastin, Biruitorul, Bobclay, Bobo192, Bonesiii, Bongwarrior, Boofiegoof, Buchanan-Hermit, C+C, C628, CIreland, CJLL Wright, Calderlt01, Caltas, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Capricorn42, Carbonix, Carog, Carre, Catfacts3192, Celarnor, Cenedi, Chasingsol, Clarityfiend, Clash15, Closedmouth, Cocytus, Cometstyles, Computerjoe, Condem, Coolguy588, Cowardly Lion, Crazycomputers, Crazysane, Cremepuff222, Croganhore, Cyfal, Dadude3320, DarknessX, Darth Panda, Dave6, Dead dumb, Deb, Deor, DerHexer, Deville, Dgroseth, DirectEdge, Discospinster, Doc Strange, DoctorWho42, Dragnslay3rz, Dreadstar, Dysepsion, EdoDodo, Enviroboy, Escape Orbit, Everyking, Excirial, Extransit, Exzakin, FF2010, Fagstein, Favonian, Feiffor, Feinoha, Fifa0099, FinalRapture, Fritz28408, G.W., GSTQ, Geneb1955, Gimmetrow, Giovanni33, Goldom, Griffinofwales, Guitarplayer001, Gurch, Gurchzilla, Gurubrahma, HappyInGeneral, Hardyplants, Harvested Sorrow, Hgooch, Huntrex, Hut 8.5, Hybermonkey, Ianblair23, Igoldste, Immunize, Isaacbean, J.delanoy, JASpencer, JFreeman, JLaTondre, JYi, JackofOz, Jackol, Jallero, Jaysweet, Jeanwhowenttocurlcurl, Jeffrey Mall, Jeremy Bolwell, JesterCountess, Jlittlet, John, John254, Jtharsan, Julle, Jusdafax, Justin Eiler, Jwhitcombe, Kaiba, Kartano, Kbh3rd, Keegan5291, Keilana, Kerotan, Kingpin13, Kitfox.it, Kjlewis, Knowzilla, Kukini, Kuru, Lectonar, Lights, Ligulem, Lilac Soul, Lizzie Harrison, Logical Gentleman, Loopey luke, LovesMacs, Lradrama, Luigi III, Luk, MC10, Mais oui!, Man vyi, Matthew Graham, Maxim, Mbest1, Meegs, MeltBanana, Memeily300, Merlinsorca, Michiyo x, Midnightblueowl, Mike Rosoft, Mike6271, Milesmc123, Modest Mike, Mr Adequate, Mr Stephen, Mr. Wheely Guy, Nagy, Navy.enthusiast, NawlinWiki, NewEnglandYankee, Nihiltres, Nikeyboy101, Nivix, Nsaa, Nsevs, Nunh-huh, Old Moonraker, Onebravemonkey, Oxymoron83, PBP, PGWG, POW12345, Pak21, Paul Barlow, PenguinInBondage, Philip Trueman, Pill, Pinball22, Pit-yacker, Poindexter Propellerhead, Postmortemjapan, Profdomat, Prolog, Purplehippo377, Qscott86, Quintote, Quuxplusone, Qwfp, Qxz, Rachella92, Radon210, Red Sunset, Rich Farmbrough, Rjd0060, Rjhatl, Rjwilmsi, RobertG, Rock Rose, Rory2310, RoyBoy, Rrburke, Runewiki777, Ryoutou, Rys7, SEWilco, Sarranduin, Sbp, Sceptre, Scott Burley, Scottmsg, Scoutersig, Sean09876, Shadowjams, Shanes, Sharkface217, Shoeofdeath, SilkTork, Skyliz, Smatprt, Smokizzy, Snigbrook, Snowmanradio, Snowolf, SouthernNights, SpaceFlight89, Spartan112, Spellmaster, Steifer, Stratford490, Stwalkerster, Sue Wallace, Suffusion of Yellow, TadDavis, Tanthalas39, Tbone55, Thatguyflint, The Evil Spartan, The News Hound, The Singing Badger, The Thing That Should Not Be, TheGrimReaper NS, Thebbc, Thepindrop, Thingg, Tholomyes, Thonil, Tide rolls, Tmwerty, Tom, Tom Reedy, Tombo 156, Tommy2010, TonySt, Tresiden, Trevor MacInnis, Triwbe, TwilligToves, Twoey, Ulric1313, Uncle Milty, Unionredskin88, Useight, Utcursch, Versus22, VolatileChemical, Vox Rationis, Vreuter, Walton One, Weijiya, Wereon, West Brom 4ever, Wexcan, Wiki alf, Wikieditor06, William Avery, Willking1979, Wisdom89, Wperdue, Wrad, Xeno, Xover, Yamamoto Ichiro, Yossarian, Yun-Yuuzhan (lost password), ZenCopian, Zharradan.angelfire, Zoe2109, 998 anonymous edits

Shakespeare's plays ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=378186147 ÄContributors: 88888, ACM2, Adashiel, Addshore, Aetasiric, Aitias, Akhilleus, Alansohn, Aldaron, Alexbrewer, Amazon10x, AmbExThErMaL, Amorymeltzer, Andy Dingley, AndyJones, Antandrus, Antonio Lopez, Ari rulz411, Arienh4, Ashton1983, Astral, Banmypenor, Bdesham, Bebestbe, BesselDekker, Blah fanny, BlastOButter42, Bluerasberry, Brad Polard, Brandon, Brian1979, Brianga, Butwhatdoiknow, Caltas, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Catgut, Chase10mc, Chekaz, Chenzw, Chris G, Clara Lipfert, Coffee, Courcelles, Cowardly Lion, Crazyviolinist, Cremepuff222, Curps, DB, DSRH, DVD R W, Daniel Case, Danielbros, Darkxsun, DeadEyeArrow, DeathNomad, Deltaranger7, DennyColt, DerHexer, Dfrg.msc, Discospinster, DoctorWho42, Dreadstar, DreamGuy, Dureo, Dust Filter, EatMyShortz, Edivorce, Egmontaz, Elipongo, Ensign beedrill, Epbr123, Etzoc, Excirial, FF2010, Falconus, Fat&Happy, Feiffor, Frecklefoot, Frongle, GamblinMonkey, GeorgeMoney, Gordie, Green Tentacle, Gridge, Gsmgm, Harland1, Hiddenfromview, Highfields, Hoshq, Huadpe, Hydrogen Iodide, Immunize, In Defense of the Artist, Instinct, InvisibleK, JForget, JamesC95, Jason Palpatine, Jimbonator, Jlittlet, Jmcgloth, Josephs1, Jtyne, Jvbishop, KJS77, Katalaveno, Katr67, Kbdank71, Kbh3rd, Keilana, Kneale, KnowledgeOfSelf, LAAFan, Ladb2000, Leobinus, Ligulem, Loonymonkey, Lord of the Pit, Loren.wilton, Lyer, MC10, MER-C, Mandarax, Marek69, MarvintheParanoidAndroid, McSly, Mephistophelian, Michiyo x, MilkShakeMilkyTits, Mr. Lefty, Mtmelendez, NawlinWiki, Neverquick, Nezzadar, Nikofeelan, Nishidani, Nlu, Nneonneo, Noosentaal, Nunh-huh, Oconnell usa, Old Moonraker, Otisjimmy1, Oxymoron83, Patriarch, Phantomsteve, PhilKnight, Philip Trueman, PiMaster3, Pistinkkr, Pmaguire, Pr1nce0fDarkn3ss, Qxz, R'n'B, Recurring dreams, RexNL, Rick Norwood, Rob, Ronhjones, RoyBoy, Rrburke, Sam Korn, SamuelTheGhost, Sapphic, Scarian, Scottandrewhutchins, Sdurrant, Shell Kinney, Sidonuke, Signinstranger, Skraz, Smalljim, Smatprt, SouthernNights, SpaceFlight89, Spinackle, StaticGull, Steel, Stefanomione, Steven Zhang, Stradkid27, Stratford490, Suffusion of Yellow, Susan118, Tectar, Tevildo, ThatBajoranGuy, The Evil Spartan, The Singing Badger, The Thing That Should Not Be, Tom Reedy, Triwbe, Twirling, Unagi the one with, Verbal, Versus22, Vicenarian, Vipinhari, Virgil Valmont, VolatileChemical, WeeAddy31, Weregerbil, William Avery, Wrad, Wtmitchell, Wçng, Xover, Zafiroblue05, Zagalejo, Zahid Abdassabur, Zillopfoen, Zsinj, 644 anonymous edits

Shakespeare in performance ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=344659335 ÄContributors: A. Parrot, AndyJones, Awadewit, Bannannanna, Biruitorul, Brian1979, Cg2p0B0u8m, Chking2, Colonies Chris, CommonsDelinker, Cowardly Lion, Dale Arnett, DionysosProteus, Downstage right, Elipongo, Frongle, Hpfreak26, Izzycat, Jlittlet, Leujohn, Mmxx, NancePG, Qwerty786, Sdurrant, ShelfSkewed, Softlavender, SouthernNights, Ssilvers, Stratford490, Tevildo, The Drama Llama, Xover, YUL89YYZ, ZodKneelsFirst, ZooFari, 20 anonymous edits

Shakespeare's sonnets ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=376151641 ÄContributors: Adambiswanger1, Adambro, Adashiel, AdjustShift, Ahoerstemeier, Aitias, Akeefe98, Alan Nicoll, Alansohn, Alexander Domanda, Alextking, Algyjaft, Alpinu, Amerika, Anclation, Andy85719, AndyJones, AndySimpson, Andycjp, Antandrus, Arcadian, ArielGold, Arouck, Ash, Ashton1983, Bbrus39134, Belovedfreak, BlastOButter42, Bobnorwal, Bobo192, Bonadea, Brianga, BrynAlyn, Bucephalus, CCzar, Caltas, Capricorn42, CardinalDan, Carolinaboy2450, Casnoopy, Catgut, Cedders, Chasingsol, Chinasaur, Chocolateboy, Chuq, CirceSmith, Clmckelvie, Cmichael, Conor Kennedy, Corpx, Cowardly Lion, Crazysane, Crosbiesmith, Curtangel, Daniel Case, Dave L, DavidAugust, Davidjbailey, Dbachmann, Declan Clam, Dept of Alchemy, DerHexer, Dfrg.msc, DirectEdge, Discospinster, DixitAgna, Dr Aaij, Dragonsofchaos2005, Dreadstar, Duke, Dysepsion, Dysprosia, E23, EamonnPKeane, Easyer, Ecelan, EdBever, Edward321, Egmontaz, Either way, Elimyg, Elmer Clark, Epbr123, Esalen, Everyking, Extransit, Face, Faithlessthewonderboy, Fidelia, Foochar, Fram, Frankenpuppy, FranzJacobs, Furrykef, GLaDOS, Galileo01, Gimboid13, GordonSleuth, Goregore, GracieLizzie, GraemeL, Graham87, Greavill, Grend3l, Grstain, Gurch, Haiduc, Hajor, Hans404, Hauntlander, HedgeFundBob, Hendrical, HereToHelp, Hipcheck84, Histrion, HonoreDB, Iammad666, Ibis3, Indium, Insanity Incarnate, Iridescent, J.delanoy, JamesBWatson, Jamonka, Jayden54, Jebba, JeremyDimmick, Jfire, Jimmyjohnjames, Jlittlet, Jmundo, John Baker, Ph.D. (abd), JohnnyB256, Jossi, Jovianeye, JulietDG, JuneGloom07, Junglecat, KF, Karenjc, Kbdank71, Kbh3rd, Keilana, Ktlynch, Kungming2, Kyoko, La Pianista, Lappado, Laybay, Leedonghwy, Leobinus, Liz Evers, Luke85uk, Mandel, Marek69, Massimo74, Matthew Desjardins, Mau db, Mcg3o, Mellery, Michael Ross, Michael Snow, Midnightdreary, Mild Bill Hiccup, Minhtung91, Monk127, Mozzerati, Ms2ger, Mschel, Mylifeiscrap, Nakon, Neddyseagoon, Neparis, NewEnglandYankee, Nicapicella, Ninly, Nishidani, Noah Salzman, Nsaa, Nunh-huh, Oda Mari, Olaf Davis, Old Moonraker, Oliveitup, Oliverkroll, Olly0390, OwenX, Oxymoron83, Palfrey, Patstuart, Paul A, Paul August, Paul Barlow, Paulwjr, PeeJay2K3, Peripitus, Peruvianllama, Phated, Philip Trueman, Philippe, Phoe, Pian0playa714, Pill, Pjoef, Princetonian, Proofreader77, Psyche825, Quentin X, RHaworth, Rafey2, RainbowOfLight, Ralphroysterdoyster, Raul654, Reconsideration, Red Dragon, Red dwarf, Redlentil, Retired username, Rmackenzie, Rmallott1, RobertG, Roger Davies, Rorykinnear, Rrburke, Ryan Anderson, Samosa Poderosa, Sandstein, SarahR2008, Satori Son, Sbp, Sct72, Shadowjams, Shakespeareintune, Shinpah1, Shizhao, Shoessss, SimonP, Sir Bradfordshire, Smatprt, Smitty927, Snowmanradio, Softlavender, SouthernNights, Stbalbach, Stefanomione, Stevenwoods, Stratford490, Stratman07, Suffusion of Yellow, Suman babai, Sverdrup, Sylarmyantidrug, Tamfang, The 888th Avatar, The Singing Badger, The Thing That Should Not Be, TheAznSensation, Article Sources and Contributors 166

TheGrza, TheNewPhobia, TheRanger, Theonemacduff, Thingg, Tide rolls, Tom Reedy, Tom harrison, Tothebarricades.tk, Trevor MacInnis, Trixi72, Truedude10111, TylerJarHead, Tyrangiel, Ugajin, UnitedStatesian, Uriel8, User2004, Veronique50, Versus22, Vickychandler, Visualerror, Wassermann, Where, WhyBeNormal, Wikirib, Wisp558, Wknight94, WoodElf, Wrad, Xover, Xp54321, Ycdkwm, Yossarian, ZINLAW, ZephyrAnycon, 691 anonymous edits

Shakespeare's style ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=366404994 ÄContributors: Art LaPella, Ashton1983, AurÜola, Baa, DerHexer, Drumex, Edo123, Immunize, Jlittlet, Malcolma, Nsk92, Pgagge, Phoe, TysK, WikipedianMarlith, Wrad, 29 anonymous edits

Shakespeare's influence ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=374976829 ÄContributors: Alansohn, Amorymeltzer, AndyJones, Anna Frodesiak, Antandrus, Arakunem, Ashton1983, Ben Ben, Bento00, Big Bird, BigDunc, Brilantastelo, Brunton, Chong1347, Cipitten, Courcelles, Cowardly Lion, Craig Butz, DJ Clayworth, Daniela Wecker, DeadEyeArrow, Debresser, DionysosProteus, Doniago, Eeekster, Ender3989, Evlekis, Excirial, Fahadsadah, Fourth ventricle, Gamecubeg4, Gazimoff, Gggh, Hekerui, Hydrogen Iodide, Ideal gas equation, J.delanoy, JamesBWatson, Jeanenawhitney, Jim Henry, Jogloran, Jojhutton, Ka Faraq Gatri, Karenjc, Kier07, Kingpin13, Kyle1278, Lradrama, MBisanz, Martin451, MaryJones, Meredyth, Miblo, NawlinWiki, Nbarth, Optigan13, Ottava Rima, Oxymoron83, Peter Delmonte, Pharaoh of the Wizards, Philip Trueman, Phnom Penh Punks, Pinethicket, Pip2andahalf, Radagast83, RicardoFachada, Rich Farmbrough, Romanempire, Rpyle731, Rrburke, SE7, Saberleo456, Sam2865, Scarian, Sesu Prime, Sketchmoose, Slithytove2, Someguy1221, SouthernNights, Spangineer, Stratford490, Tempodivalse, Tevildo, The Random Editor, The Thing That Should Not Be, Tide rolls, Tom Reedy, Tommy2010, Twas Now, TysK, VernoWhitney, Versus22, William Avery, Wimt, Wordwright, Wrad, Xover, Yworo, Zharradan.angelfire, ßõü•ù ®•©, 241 anonymous edits

Shakespeare's reputation ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=359639239 ÄContributors: 6afraidof7, Aaronbrick, Adam Rusling, AlbertSM, AndrewHowse, AndyJones, Ashton1983, Avon4, Barbara Shack, Bishonen, BlckKnght, Bookgrrl, BryanG, Bunchofgrapes, CLW, CanisRufus, Chocolateboy, Crazycomputers, DionysosProteus, Download, Durova, Feiffor, Filiocht, Ganymead, Geogre, Ghirlandajo, Gil Gamesh, Graham87, Henry Flower, J.delanoy, JRM, Jaberwocky6669, JeremyA, Jimbonator, Jlynch00, JoeSmack, John K, Johnor, Jwy, Luxdormiens, Magister Mathematicae, Maher-shalal-hashbaz, Mattbr, Mcferran, Mickey436, Mike Dillon, Moncrief, Netkinetic, Old Moonraker, Owst, PRiis, Paul Barlow, Pharos, Philip Baird Shearer, Philip Trueman, Pinball22, Psychonaut, Ross Rhodes, RoyBoy, Satanael, Semperf, Sophysduckling, Ssilvers, Stradkid27, Superslum, Tassedethe, The Singing Badger, The bellman, Thesteve, Vanished user, Visualerror, VolatileChemical, WRK, Wrad, Xnuala, Xover, Yohan euan o4, Yossarian, Zafiroblue05, 76 anonymous edits

Timeline of Shakespeare criticism ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=376015047 ÄContributors: AndrewHowse, AndyJones, Andycjp, Art LaPella, AurÜola, Bishonen, BombaMolotov, Chris the speller, Cocytus, Cowardly Lion, Cvanhasselt, EamonnPKeane, FeanorStar7, Gilliam, Gunnar Gu™var™arson, JLaTondre, Jlittlet, Jwrosenzweig, LilHelpa, LiniShu, Louis Do Nothing, Luna Santin, Mandel, Michael Devore, Palmleaf, Pegship, PoccilScript, Prufrock65, Ryan Roos, Sarranduin, Smatprt, Tom Reedy, Tony1, Viriditas, Woohookitty, Xover, 55 anonymous edits

Shakespeare authorship question ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=378081307 ÄContributors: 0x6D667061, 20coconuts, A. Colin Wright, ABF, Adambiswanger1, Afasmit, Agopnik, Alai, Alansohn, AlbertSM, Ale jrb, Alexpope, Algae, Amoratado, Andrewpmk, AndyJones, Angusmclellan, AnnaGram, Antandrus, Appraiser, Ashton1983, AurÜola, BD2412, BHC, BPK2, BTLizard, Badger75, Badinfinity, Barek, Barney Jenkins, Barryispuzzled, Bascon, Beleary, BenJonson, Benson85, Berolina, Beyond My Ken, BeyondTheBlue1, BigHaz, BilCat, Billdup, Bishonen, Blahaccountblah, Blathnaid, Blaxthos, Bodleyman, Bonadea, Boxjam, Bpell, Brighterorange, Brion VIBBER, BrokenSegue, Bruske, Buchraeumer, C628, C6541, Calmypal, Canyouhearmenow, CaptBassett, Captain-tucker, Caracaskid, Cassowary, Cattius, Cdg1072, Cecropia, Chancemichaels, Charles Matthews, Chasingsol, Chocolateboy, Chris Roy, Clarityfiend, Clarknova, Closedmouth, Codohu, Colonies Chris, Comet Tuttle, Cool Hand Luke, Count Spockula, Cowardly Lion, Crackthewhip775, Credema, Crusio, Cstraut, Ctdi, Cuchullain, CyberGhostface, D6, Dale Arnett, Damian Yerrick, DanMS, DanielEng, DarbyKathleenMitchell, David Gerard, DavidL (usurped), Dcoetzee, Debresser, DennyColt, Dhodges, Discospinster, Dizzleissilly, Dobermanji, Docether, Dpbsmith, Dpinksen, Dpodoll68, DreamGuy, Drilnoth, , Dysepsion, EWS23, EamonnPKeane, Eastcote, Eclecticology, EdJohnston, Elmer Clark, EmmaZStar, EoGuy, Epbr123, Erik the Red 2, EscapingLife, Esrever, Faithlessthewonderboy, Faradayplank, FeanorStar7, Felsommerfeld, Fielding99, Filceolaire, Flewis, Florentino floro, Flyer22, Fotoguzzi, Francescost, Frecklefoot, Fuhghettaboutit, G-Man, GRYE, Gaius Cornelius, GameKeeper, Gawaxay, Geracudd, Giraffedata, GoldenMeadows, GordonSleuth, Gptr22, GrowingPlantlife, Gsmyr, GuillaumeTell, Gångora, Hadal, Hairy Dude, Hangemhigh, Harryboyles, Haunti, Havardk, He'sacrickettoo, Henry Flower, HexaChord, Hillock65, Hutchk26, I-do-do-you?, Ihcoyc, Imran, Iridescent, Islandia(at)Home, Isnotwen, Iwpoe, J.delanoy, JLaTondre, Jack Upland, JackofOz, Jadeddissonance, Jajafe, Jakub VrÑna, Jason Carreiro, JasonAQuest, Jdkag, Jeremy Bolwell, Jerome Charles Potts, JimVC3, Jlittlet, Jlpspinto, John Chamberlain, John K, JohnHudson9, JohnOwens, JonHarder, JoseBlanco, Josiah Rowe, Jschwa1, JustAGal, Kawakawakawa, Kcordina, Keircutler, Kessinger03, KgKris, Koveras, Krapp, Kubigula, Kurai, Ladb2000, Lcaa9, Lee Daniel Crocker, Lesnail, Liftarn, Ligulem, Little Mountain 5, Llywrch, Logologist, Lord Of Demise, Loren Rosen, Lucian Sunday, Luk, LukeSurl, Lumos3, Mackensen, Madhero88, Magioladitis, Makemi, Mandel, Marvin Khan, Maury Markowitz, Mav, Maximz2005, McGrupp10799, Mentifisto, Mervyn, Metropolitan90, Michael Daly, Michael Essmeyer, Michael L. Kaufman, Mike Rubbo, Millstoner, Mintguy, MisterWinterbourne, Mmxx, MondaytoFriday, Montrealais, Morwen, Mosjames, Mpolo, Mr.123, MrRadioGuy, Mrees1997, Myasuda, Nat Krause, NawlinWiki, Nemilar, Nemo Neem, Newportm, Nickybutt, Nightkey, Nishidani, Noelene Smith, Nomadicworld, North27, Nyarpy, OWiseWun, Oakster, Old Moonraker, Optim, Opus33, P Ingerson, PKM, PKtm, PMDrive1061, Pasta Salad, PatGallacher, Patriarch, Paul Barlow, Pauli133, Paxsimius, Peregrinoerick, Petchboo, Peter Farey, Peter cohen, Peter morrell, Pfhyde, Phaedrus7, PhilKnight, Pigman, Plus Ultra, Poor , Preslethe, Pricejb, ProsperoY, Proteus, Qfwfq, R'n'B, RTW0501, Red Sunset, Reedy, RegHiside, Rick 2.0, Ricky81682, Rjwilmsi, Rmhermen, Rmj12345, Robert K S, Robertson-Glasgow, Robox Miller, Rothorpe, RoyBoy, Royalguard11, Rustl, Ruthfulbarbarity, Ruzulo, Ryanmcdaniel, Sam Hocevar, Schoenbaum, Scolairebocht, SeanWillard, Searchme, SelfStudyBuddy, Septemberfourth476, Sertorius, Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable, Shtove, Shunpiker, SimonP, Siroxo, Skinmeister, Slp1, Smatprt, Snappy, Snookerfran, Softlavender, Solipsist, Someone else, Sourishaas, SouthernNights, Spaceboy492, Spearshakered, Spiritia, Ssilvers, StanIsWell, Stefanomencarelli, Stephen Gilbert, Stewartadcock, Stone, Suckpipette, Sukiari, Susurrus, Sverdrup, Swarm, Sycorax14, Tainter, TeaDrinker, Tesseran, The Anome, The Singing Badger, The bellman, TheDJ, Theswillman, Thingg, Thiseye, Thorne, Timjob, Timneu22, Timsiscool, Tinntinnabulation, Titanium Dragon, Titoxd, Tjmayerinsf, Tmpafford, Tokomak1689, Tom Reedy, Torricelli01, Tpbradbury, TribeCalledQuest, TrimB, Trimtabbing, TripOnMyShip, Tristanpaterson, Tsaitgaist, Tsunamimome, Turlo Lomon, Ugajin, Unclekirk, Unknown, Valeriesn, Verbal, VeryVerily, Vicki Rosenzweig, Villefort1790, Wally Tharg, Washingtonissaquah, WellStanley, Welsh, Wereon, Whittbrantley, WikHead, Wikiwiserick, WildCowboy, WillHeStan, William Avery, William M. Connolley, Williamnilly, WilyD, Wingspeed, Wisemane05, Woohookitty, Wrad, Wtmitchell, Ww, Wwoods, Xover, YUL89YYZ, Yossarian, Yoyoman704, Zafiroblue05, Zntrip, ´jå™ålfr, 1080 anonymous edits

Shakespeare's religion ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=366829195 ÄContributors: ADM, Abrech, Ajschorschiii, AndyJones, Andycjp, Baa, Biruitorul, Bkell, Bobbrown99, Bongwarrior, Cuchullain, DKqwerty, David0811, EJF, Eagle Owl, Eoghan.sum56, Funnyhat, Good Olfactory, J.delanoy, Ja 62, Joseph Solis in Australia, Juansidious, Keilana, Lankiveil, Mamalujo, Mcolpitts, Merlion444, Nai999, Old Moonraker, Oxymoron83, Paularblaster, Pharos, Phoe, Pingveno, Rich Farmbrough, Rjwilmsi, Sbp, Shappy, SouthernNights, StaticGull, Storm Rider, Taam, TheLetterM, Theopoetica, TysK, Woland37, Xover, Xxanthippe, Yellville, Zach82, ZooFari, 86 anonymous edits

Sexuality of William Shakespeare ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=376030906 ÄContributors: 15lsoucy, ABF, AdjustShift, Aitias, Alansohn, AndyJones, Animum, AnotherSolipsist, Anville, Applehead77, Arion 3x3, Ashleyy osaurus, Ashton1983, AtheWeatherman, Back ache, Barney Jenkins, Bekkiboo, Ben davison, Betacommand, Bkwillwm, BlackScooby, Blurpeace, Bobak, Bobo192, Boxjam, Boyceeinblue, Brandon, Brian Olsen, Bridpa05, Bubba hotep, CRuben, Calmer Waters, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Capricorn42, Captain subtext, Catgut, Charles Matthews, Ched Davis, Claycoconut95, Cometstyles, Connormah, Cowardly Lion, Crazyone75, Crazytales, Crotalus horridus, Cuchullain, D947, DMacks, Dark haillz, Davnor, DeadEyeArrow, Delahaye9999, DirectEdge, Dirkbb, DixitAgna, Doczilla, DonQuixote, Donald Duck, Doops, Dr.coolnat, Dragana666, DreamGuy, Dysepsion, ESkog, Eagle Owl, Eaglizard, Embree16, Engleham, Epbr123, Everyking, Father McKenzie, Fergiewasneverhitbyatruck, Furrykef, G9rocks64, GeckoRoamin, Geneb1955, GeorgeBeaumont, Geraldfird, Gilliam, Gurch, Haiduc, HalfShadow, Hamtechperson, Hifrommike65, Hobartimus, Hut 8.5, Ixfd64, J-stan, J.delanoy, JFreeman, Jamjar77, JasonAQuest, Jasonjason123456789, JoanneB, Johan123, John076, John1987, Jonoikobangali, Kaldari, Katanada, Kbh3rd, King Pickle, Kingpin13, Ks0stm, Kungfuadam, Kuru, Kwsn, LadyofShalott, LazyLizaJane, Leandrod, Leon math, LibLord, Lights, Ligulem, Lilac Soul, Lilpep4ever, Lindmere, MER-C, Markwiki, Math Champion, Mattarbour777, Matthewpeeler8, Mattman10796, Mazca, McSly, Me123qwerty, Michaelritchie200, Milloy999, Moncrief, Monk666, Ms2ger, NawlinWiki, NellieBly, Nepenthes, NewEnglandYankee, Niall Guinan, Nielsen123456, Nietzsche 2, Nivix, Old Moonraker, Onewiththepen, Onorem, Owen, POW12345, Palomide, ParisianBlade, Paul Barlow, Pechapeeq, Pharos, Philip Trueman, Phoenix2, Piano non troppo, Playalp, Prashanthns, Quuxplusone, RHB, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), Ridindirty1026, Rolf-Peter Wille, Rrburke, RxS, Scoobiedoobiedu!, Sgtcook, Shadow1, Shaheenjim, Shirt58, Shrubbery, Silverhorse, Simoes, SouthernNights, SpaceFlight89, Spammy666, Stavros1, Stratford490, Suffusion of Yellow, Swaq, TShilo12, Tangotango, Thatguyflint, The Singing Badger, The Utahraptor, The dark lord trombonator, TheEditrix2, TheSmuel, Thomasjbond, Threeafterthree, Titoxd, Tony Sidaway, Trinity266, TysK, Umalee, Uncleclarke, UnknownForEver, Voyagerfan5761, WRK, Waterspyder, Wikipelli, Wikiscient, WoodElf, Wrad, Xover, Yuriybrisk, Zafiroblue05, Zundark, 404 anonymous edits

Portraits of Shakespeare ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=369483957 ÄContributors: 12dstring, Ash, Attilios, Billinghurst, BriceStratford, Carafe, Cfortunato, CommonsDelinker, Cyfal, Dbachmann, Dcoetzee, Downstage right, Ghmyrtle, GoingBatty, JoKing, Johnbod, Kaldari, Kbdank71, Leandrod, Mandarax, Mvuijlst, Nishidani, Old Moonraker, Paul Barlow, Pazsit Ulla, Qp10qp, Ronnotel, Rowanmilesashe, Rydium100, Salliesatt, Sandstein, SimonP, Slp1, Smatprt, Softlavender, Stefanomione, Tide rolls, Txensen, Vitriden, WikHead, Wrad, Xover, Ylee, Zafiroblue05, 29 anonymous edits

List of Shakespeare's works ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=366509480 ÄContributors: AndyJones, Bachrach44, CIreland, Causa sui, Chain27, Charles Matthews, ChrisCork, Editor at Large, Firsfron, Fred Bradstadt, Fvasconcellos, Galileo01, Gary King, J04n, JLaTondre, JNW, Jack Merridew, Jackol, Johnfos, Kbdank71, Kyoko, Malcolma, Marcus Brute, Martin451, Midnightblueowl, Morogoso, Nowah Balloon, NuclearWarfare, Phoe, Quiddity, Rjwilmsi, Runewiki777, Scottandrewhutchins, Smatprt, Stefanomione, Tevildo, The Man in Question, Wrad, YUL89YYZ, 36 anonymous edits

Chronology of Shakespeare's plays ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=377058440 ÄContributors: A. Parrot, AndyJones, Angusmclellan, Anville, Art LaPella, BPK2, Bertaut, Bettia, Charles Matthews, ChicXulub, Chris Roy, Cowardly Lion, DJ Clayworth, DaveGorman, DavidRF, DeadEyeArrow, Dsp13, E. A. Green, Elmer Clark, Feiffor, Feitclub, George33232, Gi¨Gi¨, Goregore, Imran, J.delanoy, JLaTondre, John Welles, Kate, Ketiltrout, Kingpin13, Korath, Little Mountain 5, Martin451, McZoom, Michiyo x, Mukerjee, Nishidani, Pablo X, Quuxplusone, Rbrwr, Rich Farmbrough, Shanes, Smatprt, Softlavender, Ssilvers, Stratford490, Sverdrup, ThaddeusFrye, The Singing Badger, The Thing That Should Not Be, Theodore141, Tom Article Sources and Contributors 167

Reedy, Tony1, TutterMouse, Ugajin, Wendell, Wetman, WhisperToMe, Willking1979, Wrad, Xover, YUL89YYZ, Zanaq, 90 anonymous edits

Shakespearean comedy ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=368641342 ÄContributors: 02hurnella, AKGhetto, Aaronw, Abeg92, Adambiswanger1, Alex S, Andrij Kursetsky, AndyJones, ArchonMagnus, Ashton1983, Ayavaron, Calair, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Ceoil, Chill doubt, Curtangel, D6, DJ Clayworth, DO'Neil, DeadEyeArrow, Djitv, DoctorWho42, Dommkopf, Dsass, Egmontaz, ErikNY, Farosdaughter, Fendue, GQsm, GUllman, Gwernol, HexaChord, IstvanWolf, J.delanoy, Keilana, Mamyles, MeltBanana, Oda Mari, Pablo X, PhilKnight, Phnom Penh Punks, Pnkrockr, Postcard Cathy, Puchiko, SamuelTheGhost, Schlumpff, Shsilver, Sietse Snel, Siroxo, Snowolf, SomeGuy11112, Someguy1221, Stratford490, Sverdrup, Talu42, The Singing Badger, The Thing That Should Not Be, The Wonky Gnome, TheDoctor10, Tide rolls, Twinxor, Willking1979, Wrad, Xover, Zetawoof, 149 anonymous edits

Shakespearean history ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=369005379 ÄContributors: Adambiswanger1, Alex S, AndrewHowse, AndyJones, Angusmclellan, Anne-theater, Asdcaszx, Ashton1983, Benw, Bertaut, Black Regent, Bobo192, Brandon Christopher, Calair, CaptainCanada, Chris the speller, D6, D64, DAJF, Dave6, Discospinster, DoctorWho42, Download, GSlicer, HexaChord, Ian.thomson, Irena opacak, IronGargoyle, John Thaxter, Keegan, LittleOldMe, Llywrch, Maelnuneb, MeltBanana, Michael Patrick Wilson, Mitrius, Mrhyperbole, Neddyseagoon, OverlordQ, Pepper, PhilKnight, Philip Trueman, Plantron, Pyroclastic, Robert K S, SamuelTheGhost, Satanael, Shanes, Siroxo, Smatprt, Someguy1221, Stratford490, Sverdrup, The Singing Badger, Tide rolls, Tresiden, VolatileChemical, William Avery, Wizkid0607, Wrad, Xover, 101 anonymous edits

Shakespearean tragedy ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=367996432 ÄContributors: Adambiswanger1, Agreatnotion, Anaxial, AndyJones, Attilios, Bgpaulus, Bobo192, Bravado01, Bryan Derksen, Calair, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Chalktwo, Ck lostsword, Corvus cornix, Cowardly Lion, CrazyChemGuy, Curtangel, D, Discospinster, DyLaN3229, Dysepsion, Epbr123, Erroneous01, Fang Aili, Fieldday-sunday, GHe, Glane23, Gonzometro, Grantisthumper08, J.delanoy, JForget, Jake Wartenberg, Jeff G., Jonoikobangali, Keilana, Kensplanet, Kyle1278, Law, Leuqarte, Lightmouse, Manway, Max3.14159, Mcfly85, MightyJordan, Moo23234, Mrwojo, Mschel, Oliver202, Pascal666, Philip Trueman, Phoenix Hacker, PinchasC, PizzaofDoom, PokeYourHeadOff, Prolog, Psyche825, RickK, Rjd0060, Rreagan007, SamaRAWR, Sanfranman59, Satori Son, Siroxo, Stratford490, Sverdrup, Taifarious1, Tamaal, Tellyaddict, The Singing Badger, Tohd8BohaithuGh1, Vary, WhyBeNormal, Wiki alf, Wikidea, William Avery, Wrad, Xover, Yamamoto Ichiro, Zerzig, 264 anonymous edits

Shakespeare Apocrypha ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=377924258 ÄContributors: A. Parrot, Action Jackson IV, Agent Cooper, AndyJones, Anville, Ashley Pomeroy, BPK2, Badger Drink, Chemica, Chris Roy, Cobi, Cuchullain, DaveGorman, Dcoetzee, Doradus, Downstage right, Edward321, Estiv, Eupolis, Furrykef, Fuzzibloke, Granpuff, Gwern, Ham, J.delanoy, JLaTondre, James086, Jdelanoy, Jlittlet, Jocke Pirat, Jonrock, Leandrod, Lee M, Lightmouse, Llywrch, Marek69, Mauricio VM, Mervyn, Michael Snow, MonteC01, Montrealais, Nice poa, Proteus71, Qmwne235, Rmhermen, Robert K S, SamuelTheGhost, Scottandrewhutchins, Shreevatsa, Siroxo, Smatprt, Sorrywrongnumber, Spellcast, Sverdrup, The Singing Badger, Torkmusik, Twas Now, Wcp07, Wellesradio, Wrad, Xmacd, Xover, YUL89YYZ, Ylee, ZephyrAnycon, 81 anonymous edits Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 168

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

file:Shakespeare.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Shakespeare.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: It may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers' Company. UNIQ-ref-2-a6db176217752c56-QINU file:William Shakepeare Signature.svg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:William_Shakepeare_Signature.svg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: User:Connormah Image:William Shakespeares birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon 26l2007.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:William_Shakespeares_birthplace,_Stratford-upon-Avon_26l2007.jpg ÄLicense: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 ÄContributors: John Image:ShakespeareMonument cropped.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:ShakespeareMonument_cropped.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: Cropped from original by current uploader. License as before. Image:Shakespeare grave -Stratford-upon-Avon -3June2007.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Shakespeare_grave_-Stratford-upon-Avon_-3June2007.jpg ÄLicense: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 ÄContributors: David Jones Image:Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. William Blake. c.1786.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Oberon,_Titania_and_Puck_with_Fairies_Dancing._William_Blake._c.1786.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: William Blake. c.1786. Image:Henry Fuseli rendering of Hamlet and his father's Ghost.JPG ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Henry_Fuseli_rendering_of_Hamlet_and_his_father's_Ghost.JPG ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: User:Andreagrossmann, User:TÉrelio Image:Globe theatre london.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Globe_theatre_london.jpg ÄLicense: GNU Free Documentation License ÄContributors: AndreasPraefcke, BLueFiSH.as, Siebrand File:Title page William Shakespeare's First Folio 1623.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Title_page_William_Shakespeare's_First_Folio_1623.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: William Shakespeare; copper engraving of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout Image:Sonnets1609titlepage.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sonnets1609titlepage.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: William Shakespeare Image:Pity.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Pity.jpg ÄLicense: unknown ÄContributors: Bobo192, Paul Barlow, Qp10qp, The Thing That Should Not Be, 7 anonymous edits Image:Macbeth consulting the Vision of the Armed Head.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Macbeth_consulting_the_Vision_of_the_Armed_Head.jpg ÄLicense: unknown ÄContributors: Andreagrossmann, Anetode, Awadewit, , GeorgHH, Juiced lemon, Mattes, WolfgangRieger, 3 anonymous edits Image:Millais - Ophelia (detail).jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Millais_-_Ophelia_(detail).jpg ÄLicense: unknown ÄContributors: AnnaKucsma, Deerstop, Ham, Ilse@, Kilom691, Mattes, Phrood File:Gilbert WShakespeares Plays.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Gilbert_WShakespeares_Plays.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: John Gilbert (painter) Image:Shakespeare.jpg ÄSource: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Shakespeare.jpg ÄLicense: Public Domain ÄContributors: It may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers' Company. 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Engraver unknown. 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