DOCSLIB.ORG

Arden of Faversham, Shakespearean Authorship, and 'The Print of Many'

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Chapter 9 Arden of Faversham, Shakespearean Authorship, and 'The Print of Many' JACK ELLIOTT AND BRETT GREATLEY-HIRSCH he butchered body of Thomas Arden is found in the field behind the Abbey. After reporting Tthis discovery to Arden's wife, Franklin surveys the circumstantial evidence of footprints in the snow and blood at the scene: I fear me he was murdered in this house And carried to the fields, for from that place Backwards and forwards may you see The print of many feet within the snow. And look about this chamber where we are, And you shall find part of his guiltless blood; For in his slip-shoe did I find some rushes, Which argueth he was murdered in this room. (14.388-95) Although The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Raphael Holinshed and his editors records the identities and fates of Arden's murderers in meticulous detail (Holinshed 1587, 4M4r-4M6v; 1587, 5K1v-5K3v), those responsible for composing the dramatization of this tragic episode remain unknown. We know that the bookseller Edward White entered The Lamentable and True Tragedy ofArden ofFaversham in Kent into the Stationers' Register on 3 April 1592 (Arber 1875-94, 2: 607 ), and we believe, on the basis of typographical evidence, that Edward Allde printed the playbook later that year ( STC 733). We know that Abel Jeffes also printed an illicit edition of the playbook, as outlined in disciplinary proceedings brought against him and White in a Stationers' Court record dated 18 December 1592 (Greg and Boswell 1930, 44). No copies of this pirate edition survive, but it is assumed to have merely been a reprint of White's; Jeffes was imprisoned on 7 August 1592, so his edition must have appeared prior to this date. James Roberts printed a second edition for White in 1599 (STC 734). White presumably transferred the rights to publish the play to Edward Allde in 1624, and Edward's widow Elizabeth issued a third edition in 1633 (STC 735). 1 1 On the early publication history of the play, see the Introductions to the Malone Society Reprints and Revels Plays editions (Macdonald and Smith 1947, v-vii; Wine 1973, xix-xxiv). 140 JACK ELLIOTT AND BRETT GREATLEY-HIRSCH The three extant editions of Arden ofFaversham bear no indication of authorship or of the aus- pices under which the play was first produced. This is not uncommon for plays printed from 1580 to 1599, even those associated with professional companies: out of 84 such playbooks printed during this period, 54 (or 63 per cent) do not identify their authors, and 21 (or 25 per cent) men- tion neither author nor repertory. (These figures, derived from the online DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks, exclude academic and closet drama, translations, dramatic interludes, inns-of-court plays, pageants, and occasional entertainments.) Despite the lack of company ascription and records of performance prior to the eighteenth century, critics generally assume that Arden ofFaversham belongs to the professional theatre. For Alexander Leggatt, the ability of the writer of Arden ofFaversham 'to open a vein of realism in Elizabethan drama' shows a height- ened level of professionalism and a remarkable familiarity with the drama of the time, given that 'realism is a sophisticated form, and realism as he practises it is often complex and mysterious', and he noted parallels with Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI (Leggatt 1983, 133). Will Sharpe describes 'whoever wrote Arden of Faversham' as 'one of the most innovative and daring talents the Renaissance theatre ever saw' (Sharpe 2013, 650). Likewise, Martin White's assessment of the 'undoubted strengths of the play', including 'the complexity of its characterization, the linking of language and themes, the interweaving of public and private issues, and the constant awareness of the potential of the theatrical experience', lead him to conclude 'that the author was a master play- wright' (White 1982, xiii). In his recent edition of the play, Martin Wiggins challenges this prevailing critical consensus, arguing that the author 'was not a theatre professional', but rather 'an enthusiastic amateur' (Wiggins 2008, 285-6). MacDonald P. Jackson offers a careful rebuttal of Wiggins's argument (Jackson 2014a, 104-13). Even if Wiggins is right, he does not go so far as to categorize the play as closet drama, acknowledging that the author of Arden of Faversham was 'far more likely to have been a man' writing 'in the milieu of the developing commercial theatre' (Wiggins 2008, 284). If Arden ofFaversham is a closet drama, it is an unusual, if not unique, example: it lacks the charac- teristic neo-Senecan 'high style' and declamation, and, while closet drama is frequently con- cerned with familial subjects, Arden of Faversham's 'native, bourgeois, homely settings and characters' (Hackett 2013, 156)-the generic features of domestic tragedy-are at odds with the tragedies of state more typical of the closet drama and better suited to its readership, 'Tragoedia cothurnata, fitting kings' (The Spanish Tragedy 4.1.154). Critics have given insightful readings of Arden of Faversham as a domestic tragedy (Adams 1943; Orlin 1994; Berek 2008). Moreover, a search of DEEP shows that all of the extant playbooks printed from 1580 to 1599 and designated by modern scholars as closet drama explicitly name their authors. The only external evidence for authorship appears in a catalogue of playbooks appended to his 1656 edition of Thomas Middleton's The Old Law (Wing M1048) by the publisher Edward Archer. This list attributes Arden of Faversham to Richard Bernard, a clergyman and author of a popular edition of Terence's plays in both Latin and English. Alongside ascriptions that are accurate, Archer's list has others that are highly unlikely or impossible. W. W. Greg thought that at least some of the errors were compositorial in nature, resulting from a misalignment of the columns when the table was set for print, such that Archer may have intended to designate Shakespeare as the author of Arden of Faversham, since his name appears in the misaligned entry directly above it. Even if Archer meant this, the evidence is unreliable because although Archer 'shows occa- sional signs of rather unexpected knowledge', according to Greg, 'his blunders ... are so many and so gross that very little reliance can be placed upon any particular ascription' (Greg 1945, 135). With the external evidence unreliable, scholars have turned to close analysis of the play's style for internal evidence of its authorship. Several of the major figures actively writing for the profes- sional London theatre during the 1590s, including Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, Christopher ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM AND 'THE PRINT OF MANY' 141 Marlowe, and Shakespeare, have been proposed as author( s) ofArden ofFaversham (Kinney 2009a, 80-91; Sharpe 2013, 650-7), with Kyd, Marlowe, and Shakespeare emerging as the primary sus- pects. Our purpose here is to subject Arden of Faversham to rigorous statistical and computa- tional analysis using the most advanced and recent techniques. Before turning to the results of this analysis, we will give our rationale for text selection and preparation, outline the methods employed, and explain their strengths and weaknesses. Text Selection and Preparation Computational authorship attribution needs a corpus of machine-readable (that is, electronic) texts, what we will call our authors-corpus, which are searched for stylistic patterns in order to generate authorial profiles that may be compared with a correspondingly generated profile for the text to be attributed. In an ideal universe, such an authors-corpus would consist only of well- attributed, sole-authored texts of sound provenance, with each of the individual authors repre- sented by equally sized bodies of writing. The full body of surviving English drama of the 1580s and 1590s is far from this ideal. Many playbooks in print-the primary form in which these plays come down to us-were anonym- ously published and/or collaboratively written (Masten 1997; Hirschfield 2004; Nicol 2012; Jackson 2012a). External evidence for plays' authorship is seldom unambiguous and often unreli- able. Whether by accident or fraud, publishers named the wrong authors on their playbooks. Early modern commentators were as prone to err as we are, as with Archer's list or the gross inac- curacies oflater cataloguers such as Edward Phillips. Some external evidence is simply inscrut- able: scholars continue to puzzle over what Philip Henslowe meant by the letters 'ne' inserted alongside records of particular performances in his Diary (Foakes 2002, xxxiii-xxxv). 2 The texts of 1 and 2 Tamburlaine the Great exemplify the problem. Early printed editions of these plays name no author, nor do the plays' entries in the Stationers' Register. The only external evidence for Marlowe's authorship appears in The Arraignment ofthe Whole Creature at the Bar of Religion, Reason, and Experience (STC 13538.5), a theological treatise published in 1632, decades after the play's composition, in which the marginal gloss 'Marlow in his Poem' appears alongside a passage describing episodes in the Tamburlaine story (2H4v). It is not without irony that the source of this Marlovian attribution is itself frequently misattributed: until scholars noted a mar- ginal direction to 'See my Preface before Origens Repentance' (T1v) identifying Stephen Jerome as the author, The Arraignment was erroneously ascribed to Robert Henderson and Robert Harris, both mistaken for Robert Hobson, the volume's editor, who signed his dedication 'R. H.'. Thus 'By the most conservative standards of cataloguing', Lukas Erne remarks, 'Tamburlaine would in fact have to be regarded as an anonymous play' (Erne 2013b, 64 n. 25). The difficulties of establishing authorial canons are surveyed in relation to Shakespeare in the chapters by Gary Taylor and Rory Loughnane ('Canon and Chronology', Chapter 25) and Gabriel Egan ('A History of Shakespearean Authorship Attribution', Chapter 2) in this volume.
Recommended publications
  • Robert Greene and the Theatrical Vocabulary of the Early 1590S Alan

    Robert Greene and the Theatrical Vocabulary of the Early 1590S Alan

    Robert Greene and the Theatrical Vocabulary of the Early 1590s Alan C. Dessen [Writing Robert Greene: Essays on England’s First Notorious Professional Writer, ed. Kirk Melnikoff and Edward Gieskes (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 25-37.\ Here is a familiar tale found in literary handbooks for much of the twentieth century. Once upon a time in the 1560s and 1570s (the boyhoods of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson) English drama was in a deplorable state characterized by fourteener couplets, allegory, the heavy hand of didacticism, and touring troupes of players with limited numbers and resources. A first breakthrough came with the building of the first permanent playhouses in the London area in 1576- 77 (The Theatre, The Curtain)--hence an opportunity for stable groups to form so as to develop a repertory of plays and an audience. A decade later the University Wits came down to bring their learning and sophistication to the London desert, so that the heavyhandedness and primitive skills of early 1580s playwrights such as Robert Wilson and predecessors such as Thomas Lupton, George Wapull, and William Wager were superseded by the artistry of Marlowe, Kyd, and Greene. The introduction of blank verse and the suppression of allegory and onstage sermons yielded what Willard Thorp billed in 1928 as "the triumph of realism."1 Theatre and drama historians have picked away at some of these details (in particular, 1576 has lost some of its luster or uniqueness), but the narrative of the University Wits' resuscitation of a moribund English drama has retained its status as received truth.
  • King and Country: Shakespeare’S Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company

    King and Country: Shakespeare’S Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company

    2016 BAM Winter/Spring #KingandCountry Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board BAM, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board The Ohio State University present Katy Clark, President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company BAM Harvey Theater Mar 24—May 1 Season Sponsor: Directed by Gregory Doran Set design by Stephen Brimson Lewis Global Tour Premier Partner Lighting design by Tim Mitchell Music by Paul Englishby Leadership support for King and Country Sound design by Martin Slavin provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Movement by Michael Ashcroft Fights by Terry King Major support for Henry V provided by Mark Pigott KBE. Major support provided by Alan Jones & Ashley Garrett; Frederick Iseman; Katheryn C. Patterson & Thomas L. Kempner Jr.; and Jewish Communal Fund. Additional support provided by Mercedes T. Bass; and Robert & Teresa Lindsay. #KingandCountry Royal Shakespeare Company King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings BAM Harvey Theater RICHARD II—Mar 24, Apr 1, 5, 8, 12, 14, 19, 26 & 29 at 7:30pm; Apr 17 at 3pm HENRY IV PART I—Mar 26, Apr 6, 15 & 20 at 7:30pm; Apr 2, 9, 23, 27 & 30 at 2pm HENRY IV PART II—Mar 28, Apr 2, 7, 9, 21, 23, 27 & 30 at 7:30pm; Apr 16 at 2pm HENRY V—Mar 31, Apr 13, 16, 22 & 28 at 7:30pm; Apr 3, 10, 24 & May 1 at 3pm ADDITIONAL CREATIVE TEAM Company Voice
  • Accepted Version

    Accepted Version

    Article [Review of:] The New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition / gen. eds. Gary Taylor , John Jowett , Terri Bourus , and Gabriel Egan. - Oxford : Oxford Univ. Press, 2016 ; The New Oxford Shakespeare : The Complete Works : Critical Reference Edition / gen. eds. Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, and Gabriel Egan. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 ; The New Oxford Shakespeare : Authorship Companion / eds. Gary Taylor and Gabriel Egan. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 ERNE, Lukas Christian Reference ERNE, Lukas Christian. [Review of:] The New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition / gen. eds. Gary Taylor , John Jowett , Terri Bourus , and Gabriel Egan. - Oxford : Oxford Univ. Press, 2016 ; The New Oxford Shakespeare : The Complete Works : Critical Reference Edition / gen. eds. Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, and Gabriel Egan. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017 ; The New Oxford Shakespeare : Authorship Companion / eds. Gary Taylor and Gabriel Egan. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Shakespeare, 2018, vol. 14, no. 3, p. 291-296 DOI : 10.1080/17450918.2018.1496136 Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:123514 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version. 1 / 1 Review of The New Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, gen. eds. Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, and Gabriel Egan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Critical Reference Edition, 2 vols., gen. eds. Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, and Gabriel Egan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Authorship Companion, eds. Gary Taylor and Gabriel Egan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Lukas Erne English Department, University of Geneva, Switzerland The publication of The New Oxford Shakespeare is a major event in the editorial history of Shakespeare.
  • In Defence of Kyd: Evaluating the Claim for Shakespeare's Part

    In Defence of Kyd: Evaluating the Claim for Shakespeare's Part

    1 In Defence of Kyd: Evaluating the Claim for Shakespeare’s Part Authorship of Arden of Faversham DARREN FREEBURY-JONES Abstract: MacDonald P. Jackson first argued for Shakespeare’s part authorship of Arden of Faversham in his university dissertation in 1963. He has devoted several articles to developing this argument, summarized in his monograph Determining the Shakespeare Canon (2014). Jackson’s part ascription has led to the inclusion of the domestic tragedy in The New Oxford Shakespeare. However, Jackson and his New Oxford Shakespeare colleagues have either dismissed or neglected the evidence for Thomas Kyd’s sole authorship presented by other scholars. This essay focuses primarily on Jackson’s monograph and argues that the evidence for adding the play to Kyd’s canon, encompassing phraseology, linguistic idiosyncrasies, and verse characteristics, seems solid. Contributor Biography: Darren Freebury-Jones is Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies (International – USA) at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon. His 2016 doctoral thesis examined Thomas Kyd’s influence on Shakespeare’s early plays and he is one of the editors for the first edition of Kyd’s collected works since 1901. He has also investigated the boundaries of John Marston’s dramatic corpus as part of the Oxford Marston project. His recent and forthcoming work on the plays of authors such as Shakespeare, Kyd, Lyly, Marlowe, Peele, Nashe, Marston, Dekker, Fletcher, and others can be found in a range of peer-reviewed journals. The Authorship of Arden of Faversham He was right after all, and the scholars who for a generation now have ignored or sneered at his evidence, sometimes—when they have condescended to mention it—printing the word evidence itself between inverted commas, have not turned out to be our most reliable guides.
  • Title Jest-Book Formation Through the Early Modern Printing Industry

    Title Jest-Book Formation Through the Early Modern Printing Industry

    Title Jest-book formation through the early modern printing industry: the two different editions of Scoggin's Jests Sub Title 二つのScoggin's Jests : 異なる版が語ること Author 小町谷, 尚子(Komachiya, Naoko) Publisher 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会 Publication year 2014 Jtitle 慶應義塾大学日吉紀要. 英語英米文学 (The Hiyoshi review of English studies). No.65 (2014. 10) ,p.45- 85 Abstract Notes Genre Departmental Bulletin Paper URL https://koara.lib.keio.ac.jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/detail.php?koara_id=AN10030060-2014103 1-0045 慶應義塾大学学術情報リポジトリ(KOARA)に掲載されているコンテンツの著作権は、それぞれの著作者、学会または出版社/発行者に帰属し、その権利は著作権法によって 保護されています。引用にあたっては、著作権法を遵守してご利用ください。 The copyrights of content available on the KeiO Associated Repository of Academic resources (KOARA) belong to the respective authors, academic societies, or publishers/issuers, and these rights are protected by the Japanese Copyright Act. When quoting the content, please follow the Japanese copyright act. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Jest-book Formation through the Early Modern Printing Industry: The Two Different Editions of Scoggin’s Jests Naoko Komachiya The confusion and conflation of differently originated jester figures date back to Shakespeare’s time. Scoggin’s Jests is often seen as the primary source of jesting material along with Tarlton’s Jests. The apparent identity of these jests with named figures somewhat obscured the true identity of jesters.1) Modern editors identify the socially ambiguous jester Scoggin in Shallow’s episodic recollection of Falstaff, who breaks ‘Scoggin’s head at the court gate’ in Henry IV, Part 2 (III. 2. 28–29), as the jester to Edward IV. René Weis, in explaining that Scoggin’s name was ‘synonymous with “buffoon” in Shakespeare’s day through a mid sixteenth-century jestbook, Scoggin, his iestes’, comments that the reference demonstrates that ‘even the young Falstaff was always brawling with various buffoons’.2) Weis and other editors simply deduce that Shakespeare’s misunderstanding resulted from the circulated name of Scoggin, and they do not show any evidence how the conflation occurred.
  • Redating Pericles: a Re-Examination of Shakespeare’S

    Redating Pericles: a Re-Examination of Shakespeare’S

    REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY A THESIS IN Theatre Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by Michelle Elaine Stelting University of Missouri Kansas City December 2015 © 2015 MICHELLE ELAINE STELTING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY Michelle Elaine Stelting, Candidate for the Master of Arts Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2015 ABSTRACT Pericles's apparent inferiority to Shakespeare’s mature works raises many questions for scholars. Was Shakespeare collaborating with an inferior playwright or playwrights? Did he allow so many corrupt printed versions of his works after 1604 out of indifference? Re-dating Pericles from the Jacobean to the Elizabethan era answers these questions and reveals previously unexamined connections between topical references in Pericles and events and personalities in the court of Elizabeth I: John Dee, Philip Sidney, Edward de Vere, and many others. The tournament impresas, alchemical symbolism of the story, and its lunar and astronomical imagery suggest Pericles was written long before 1608. Finally, Shakespeare’s focus on father-daughter relationships, and the importance of Marina, the daughter, as the heroine of the story, point to Pericles as written for a young girl. This thesis uses topical references, Shakespeare’s anachronisms, Shakespeare’s sources, stylometry and textual analysis, as well as Henslowe’s diary, the Stationers' Register, and other contemporary documentary evidence to determine whether there may have been versions of Pericles circulating before the accepted date of 1608.
  • Arden of Faversham

    Arden of Faversham

    Arden of Faversham The text of this edition is nearly that of the first Quarto, the copy of which in the Dyce Library at South Kensington has been carefully collated. I have not noted minute variations. The German editors, Warnke and Proescholt, give the various readings of the three Quartos and of later editions. 'Considering the various and marvellous gifts displayed for the first time on our stage by the great poet, the great dramatist, the strong and subtle searcher of hearts, the just and merciful judge and painter of human passions, who gave this tragedy to the new-born literature of our drama ... I cannot but finally take heart to say, even in the absence of all external or traditional testimony, that it seems to me not pardonable merely or permissible, but simply logical and reasonable, to set down this poem, a young man's work on the face of it, as the possible work of no man’s youthful hand but Shakespeare's.' Mr. A. C. Swinburne. PREFACE Early Editions. On 3rd April, 1592, * The Tragedie of Arden of Fever sham and Blackwall was entered on the Stationers' Registers to Edward White. In the same year appeared, * The lamentable and true Tragedie of M. Arden of Feversham in Kent. Who was most wickedlye murdered, by the meanes of his disloyall and wanton wyfe^ who for the love she bare to one Mosbie, hyred two desperat rujffins, Blackwill and Shakbagy to kill him. Wherin is shewed the great mallice and discimulation of a wicked womanly the unsatiable desire of fit hie lust and the shamefttll end of all murderers.
  • FRONT9 2.CHP:Corel VENTURA

    FRONT9 2.CHP:Corel VENTURA

    144 Issues in Review The Red Bull Repertory in Print, 1605–60 With remarkable consistency throughout the early modern period, Red Bull playgoers are characterized as unlettered, ignorant, or possessed of a crass literary sensibility. Interestingly, though, they are also imagined as avid readers: Webster’s well-known depiction, following the failure at the Red Bull of his The White Devil, declares that ‘most of the people that come to that Play-house, resemble those ignorant asses (who visiting Stationers shoppes their use is not to inquire for good bookes, but new bookes).’1 Webster’s association of Red Bull spectators with book-buyers suggests that the persistent representations of the low literacy of this audience may obscure the extent to which the famously spectacle-driven Red Bull repertory intersects with early modern print culture. The number of Red Bull plays that were published with an explicit theatrical attribution, and more importantly the similarities in design and typography between them and plays belonging to the more elite indoor repertories, would seem to bear this out. As reading material, the Red Bull plays indicate that a seemingly ‘low’ or popular theatrical repertory is not sufficient evidence of the social or educational make-up of its audience. It is crucial at the outset to confront the publication figures that have led scholars to assume that a Red Bull attribution on the title page of a play quarto did not have any meaningful currency in early modern print culture: of the roughly 400 editions of plays published
  • The Oxfordian Volume 21 October 2019 ISSN 1521-3641 the OXFORDIAN Volume 21 2019

    The Oxfordian Volume 21 October 2019 ISSN 1521-3641 the OXFORDIAN Volume 21 2019

    The Oxfordian Volume 21 October 2019 ISSN 1521-3641 The OXFORDIAN Volume 21 2019 The Oxfordian is the peer-reviewed journal of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, a non-profit educational organization that conducts research and publication on the Early Modern period, William Shakespeare and the authorship of Shakespeare’s works. Founded in 1998, the journal offers research articles, essays and book reviews by academicians and independent scholars, and is published annually during the autumn. Writers interested in being published in The Oxfordian should review our publication guidelines at the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship website: https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/the-oxfordian/ Our postal mailing address is: The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship PO Box 66083 Auburndale, MA 02466 USA Queries may be directed to the editor, Gary Goldstein, at [email protected] Back issues of The Oxfordian may be obtained by writing to: [email protected] 2 The OXFORDIAN Volume 21 2019 The OXFORDIAN Volume 21 2019 Acknowledgements Editorial Board Justin Borrow Ramon Jiménez Don Rubin James Boyd Vanessa Lops Richard Waugaman Charles Boynton Robert Meyers Bryan Wildenthal Lucinda S. Foulke Christopher Pannell Wally Hurst Tom Regnier Editor: Gary Goldstein Proofreading: James Boyd, Charles Boynton, Vanessa Lops, Alex McNeil and Tom Regnier. Graphics Design & Image Production: Lucinda S. Foulke Permission Acknowledgements Illustrations used in this issue are in the public domain, unless otherwise noted. The article by Gary Goldstein was first published by the online journal Critical Stages (critical-stages.org) as part of a special issue on the Shakespeare authorship question in Winter 2018 (CS 18), edited by Don Rubin. It is reprinted in The Oxfordian with the permission of Critical Stages Journal.
  • Why Was Edward De Vere Defamed on Stage—And His Death Unnoticed?

    Why Was Edward De Vere Defamed on Stage—And His Death Unnoticed?

    Why Was Edward de Vere Defamed on Stage—and His Death Unnoticed? by Katherine Chiljan dward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, died on June 24, 1604. To our knowledge, there was neither public recognition of his death nor Enotice made in personal letters or diaries. His funeral, if one oc- curred, went unremarked. Putting aside his greatness as the poet-playwright “William Shakespeare,” his pen name, Oxford was one of the most senior nobles in the land and the Lord Great Chamberlain of England. During his life, numerous authors dedicated 27 books on diverse subjects to Oxford; of these authors, seven were still alive at the time of his death,1 including John Lyly and Anthony Munday, his former secretaries who were also dramatists. Moreover, despite the various scandals that touched him, Oxford remained an important courtier throughout his life: Queen Elizabeth granted him a £1,000 annuity in 1586 for no stated reason—an extraordinary gesture for the frugal monarch—and King James continued this annuity after he ascend- ed the throne in 1603. Why, then, the silence after Oxford had died? Could the answer be because he was a poet and playwright? Although such activity was considered a déclassé or even fantastical hobby for a nobleman, recognition after death would have been socially acceptable. For example, the courtier poet Sir Philip Sidney (d. 1586) had no creative works published in his lifetime, but his pastoral novel, Arcadia, was published four years after his death, with Sidney’s full name on the title page. Three years after that, Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke, published her own version of it.
  • Arden of Faversham to Alexander Goehr’S Opera Arden Must Die

    Arden of Faversham to Alexander Goehr’S Opera Arden Must Die

    Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare 15 | 1997 Comment le mal vient aux hommes From Private to Public Evil: or from the 'wicked woman' in Arden of Faversham to Alexander Goehr’s Opera Arden must Die Christa Jansohn Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/shakespeare/1143 DOI: 10.4000/shakespeare.1143 ISSN: 2271-6424 Publisher Société Française Shakespeare Printed version Date of publication: 1 November 1997 Number of pages: 59-76 Electronic reference Christa Jansohn, « From Private to Public Evil: or from the 'wicked woman' in Arden of Faversham to Alexander Goehr’s Opera Arden must Die », Actes des congrès de la Société française Shakespeare [Online], 15 | 1997, Online since 01 January 2007, connection on 22 April 2019. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/shakespeare/1143 ; DOI : 10.4000/shakespeare.1143 © SFS F R O M P R I V A T E T O P U B L I C E V I L : O R F R O M T H E I N A R D E N O F F A V E R S H A M T O A L E X A N D E R G O E H R ’ S O P E R A A R D E N M U S T D I E When in 1621 John Taylor prophesied that the bloody murder of Arden of Faversham would never be forgotten, he could hardly foresee how right he 1 was . Since the actual committing of the deed, in 1551, the spectacular crime seems to have remained fresh in men’s memory, as the numerous versions demonstrate.
  • Det. 1.2.2 Quartos 1594-1609.Pdf

    Det. 1.2.2 Quartos 1594-1609.Pdf

    author registered year of title printer stationer value editions edition Anon. 6 February 1594 to John 1594 The most lamentable Romaine tragedie of Titus Iohn Danter Edward White & "rather good" 1600, 1611 Danter Andronicus as it was plaide by the Right Honourable Thomas Millington the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex their seruants Anon. 2 May 1594 1594 A Pleasant Conceited Historie, Called the Taming of Peter Short Cuthbert Burby bad a Shrew. As it was sundry times acted by the Right honorable the Earle of Pembrook his seruants. Anon. 12 March 1594 to Thomas 1594 The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Thomas Creede Thomas Millington bad 1600 Millington Famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster . [Henry VI Part 2] Anon. 1595 The true tragedie of Richard Duke of York , and P. S. [Peter Short] Thomas Millington bad 1600 the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the whole contention betweene the two houses Lancaster and Yorke, as it was sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his seruants [Henry VI Part 3] Anon. 1597 An excellent conceited tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet. Iohn Danter [and bad As it hath been often (with great applause) plaid Edward Allde] publiquely, by the Right Honourable the L. of Hunsdon his seruants Anon. 29 August 1597 to Andrew 1597 The tragedie of King Richard the second. As it hath Valentine Simmes Andrew Wise "rather good" Wise been publikely acted by the Right Honourable the Lorde Chamberlaine his seruants. William Shake-speare [29 Aug 1597] 1598 The tragedie of King Richard the second.