Crowell Who wrote the plays and poems attributed to William Samuel Shakespeare? This simple yet provocative question has long bedeviled Shakespearean studies. According to traditional scholars, the canonical texts can only trace to the singular genius of a glover’s son from the small town WILLIAM FORTYHANDS of Stratford-on-Avon. But dissident voices have disrupted this consensus for WILLIAM more than 150 years, and while skeptics who engage the “authorship ques- tion” have often been dismissed as marginal cranks or elitists (or, in contem- porary parlance, as “deniers”), their ranks have included such luminaries as Mark Twain, Henry James, and Sigmund Freud—as well as such acclaimed FORTYHANDSDisintegration and Reinvention Shakespearean actors as Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance. of the Shakespeare Canon The counterweight to the claim that “Shakespeare wrote Shake- speare” typically hinges on the promotion of a single alternate candidate. Popular contenders have included Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and more recently, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. In Willam For- tyhands, Samuel Crowell argues that this is the wrong way to approach the problem. The real problem, according to Crowell, rests in our fundamental perspective on the First Folio—the inaugural collection of Shakespeare pub- lished seven years after his death. Drawing on the history of Shakespearean scholarship, literary criticism, philosophy, and even science fiction,William Fortyhands seeks to show not only how our understanding of Shakespeare has been distorted, but how analytical tendencies have allowed the plays to be parceled out to other authors, only to find Shakespeare’s hand, even today, throughout Elizabethan literature. of the Shakespeare Canon Disintegration and Reinvention William Fortyhands is also a memorial—without a tomb—for Shake- speare’s many gifted and highly educated peers, whose contributions have been scanted in favor of simplistic narratives pitting the Bard of Avon against some single rival claimant. Among those profiled are the prolific bohemian Robert Greene, the brilliant satirist Thomas Nashe, the learned sailor and doctor Thomas Lodge, the outrageous and supremely poetic Christopher Marlowe, the whimsical and humane Thomas Dekker, the encyclopedic Michael Drayton, and the earnest historian Samuel Daniel. William Fort- yhands throws a light on the creative efflorescence that was Elizabeth’s Lon- don—but from which only one name has emerged. $20.00 ISBN 978-0-9907335-4-6 52000> $20.00 Nine-Banded Books Cover art by Josh Latta Cover design by Kevin I. Slaughter 9 780990 733546 www.ninebandedbooks.com 9BB William Fortyhands Disintegration and Reinvention of the Shakespeare Canon NiNe-BaNded Books William Fortyhands: Disintegration and Reinvention of the Shakespeare Canon Copyright ©2016 Samuel Crowell All rights reserved Published by Nine-Banded Books PO Box 1862 Charleston, WV 25327 www.ninebandedbooks.com ISBN 10 0-9907335-4-8 ISBN 13 978-0-9907335-4-6 Editorial assistance Anita Dalton ~ James Nulick ~ Ann Sterzinger Cover illustration ©2016 by Josh Latta Cover design by Kevin I. Slaughter For My Mother And My Children And My Teachers, L.B. and A.P. William Fortyhands CONTENTS Preface ~ 13 Chapter 1: The Cloud of Unknowing ~ 15 John Aubrey – Avebury – Problems of Knowing – Discontinuity – Space – Time – Sequence – Revolutionary Potential – Historical Knowledge Chapter 2: Hidden Persuaders ~ 23 Ben Jonson’s Folio – Macaulay’s Fable – The First Folio – Later Folios – Later Comments by Jonson Chapter 3: Elizabeth’s Beat Generation ~ 35 The Beat Generation – John Lyly – Thomas Lodge (Gosson) – George Peele – Robert Greene – Thomas Nashe (Harvey) – Thomas Kyd – Christopher Marlowe Chapter 4: The First Editors ~ 49 Samuel Pepys – Edward Ravenscroft – Nicholas Rowe – John Aubrey – The Shakespeare Mythos – Alexander Pope – Lewis Theobald Chapter 5: Poets Corner ~ 55 Homer’s Iliad – Pope and George Chapman – Michael Drayton – Philip Sidney –Edward Dyer – Mary Sidney – John Davies of Hereford – Samuel Daniel – Poetic Forms – Dactylic Hexameter Chapter 6: Apotheosis and Evidence ~ 73 David Garrick’s Jubilee – Shakespeare’s Will – A Groatsworth of Wit Paid with a Million in Repentance – Francis Meres’ Palladis Tamia Chapter 7: Our English Homer ~ 87 The Nature of Attribution Studies – Early Attribution Studies: Homer – Early Attribution Studies: The Bible – Erasmus – Schmucker – Schleiermacher – Hermeneutics – Unitarians versus Analysts – Authorship and Inerrancy Chapter 8: Toward a Shakespeare Chronology ~ 93 Samuel Johnson – Edward Capell – Edmond Malone – Shakespeare’s Chronology – Nashe’s Preface to Greene’s Menaphon – The Ur-Hamlet – The German Hamlet – Other Ur-plays Chapter 9: Blood Is a Beggar ~ 99 Sources for the Plays – Philosophical Sources – Montaigne – The Panchatantra – Milkmaid and Bucket – Aesop – Hellenist Philosophy – Epicurus, Zeno, Pyrrho – McCarthy, Sir Thomas North – Marcus Aurelius – Logos – Stoicism – Seneca Chapter 10: Frauds and Forgeries ~ 107 William Henry Ireland – John Payne Collier – Permanent Damage to Primary Sources – Thomas Carlyle – Of Heroes and Hero Worship – Disraeli’s Venetia Chapter 11: Henslowe and His Crew ~ 113 The Diary of Philip Henslowe – Edward Alleyn – Anthony Munday – Henry Chettle – Thomas Dekker – Thomas Heywood – John Webster – Sir Thomas More Manuscript Chapter 12: The First Dissidents ~ 121 Joseph C. Hart – Chambers’ Edinburgh Review – William Henry Smith – Francis Bacon – Delia Bacon Chapter 13: Bacon and Ciphers ~ 129 Ignatius Donnelly – Standard Anti-Shakespeare Arguments – Parallelisms – The Cipher – Vedic Expansions Chapter 14: Turn-of-the-Century Skeptics ~ 139 New Shakespeare Society – Frederick Fleay – J. M. Robertson – George Greenwood – Walt Whitman, Henry James, Mark Twain – Marlowe (Zeigler, Mendenhall) – William Stanley, Earl of Derby – Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland – John Aubrey Chapter 15: Topical Allusions and Generation J ~ 145 Generation J – Ben Jonson – Beaumont and Fletcher – Philip Massinger – John Ford – John Marston – The “War of the Theaters” – The Parnassus Plays – Satiro-mastix – Political Contexts – Essex Rebellion – Gunpowder Plot – Shakespeare’s Absence Chapter 16: Black Iron Prison ~ 157 Philip K. Dick – “Black Iron Prison” – “Bad Quartos” – Sir Thomas More Attribution – Stipulations About Parallelisms – The “Disintegration” Speech – The Clayton Loan Chapter 17: Oxford and Marlowe ~ 167 James Looney’s Idea – The Life of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford – Prince Tudor Theory – Vedic Expansion – Christopher Marlowe (Hotson) Chapter 18: Modern Reinventions ~ 175 Context of Discovery, Context of Justification – Kuhn’s Paradigm Shift – Gary Taylor – “Shall I die” – Donald Foster – “Funeral Elegy” – Elliott and Valenza – Brian Vickers Chapter 19: The Oxford Reaction ~ 181 The Growth of Oxfordianism – Accusations of “Hate Virtue” – “Monstrous Adversary” or “Roaring Homo” – Shakespeare “Denialism” – Oxford’s Bible (Strittmatter, Anderson) – Sackville, North, and other recent nominations Chapter 20: The Quarto Plays ~ 189 Chapter 21: The Folio Plays ~ 197 Chapter 22: Apocrypha, Poems, Sonnets ~ 203 Chapter 23: Shakespeare Back to Front ~ 211 Shakespeare’s Life – Circumstances and Challenges – Known Activities – Probability of Fitting the Known with the Assumed (Playwriting) – On Poet-Ape Chapter 24: Legends of the Noble Hand ~ 219 Edward Ravenscroft – The Pinner of Wakefield – Other Oblique References – The Test That All the Candidates Fail – Lack of Direct Evidence – The Likely or Possible Activities of the Earl of Oxford Chapter 25: Beethoven’s Staircase ~ 231 Beethoven’s Ninth – The “Death of the Author” – Vickers’ Protestations – The Intentional Fallacy – The Genetic Fallacy – Reader Response – Hermeneutics (Dilthey) – Loss of Secure Subject, 20th Century Intellectual Trends – Love’s Types of Authorship (Precursory, Executive, Declarative, Revisory) Chapter 26: The Folio Unbound ~ 239 Speculations on Henry V – Suggestion of Quartos Being Shakespeare’s Revisions – The Case for Hamlet – The Tempest – Individual Play Analysis Advocated for Purposes of Chronology and Context Chapter 27: Conclusions ~ 253 Traditional Attribution to Shakespeare Is Unassailable – But That Doesn’t Make it Unquestionable – Unitarians versus Analysts, Irreconcilable Approaches – Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke – Psychological Reactions to Unknowing: Hate-Virtue, Milkmaid and Bucket or Cascading Assumptions – Chain of Reasoning versus Skein of Reasoning – Forgery and Fraud – Gluttony-Virtue or Vedic Expansions – Black Iron Prison or Epistemic Closure – Accusations of Denial – Traditional Categories: Internal Evidence (Moot) – External Evidence (Title Pages) – Contextual Evidence (Anyone but Shakespeare) – Expand the Pantheon Acknowledgements ~ 267 Bibliography ~ 269 Index ~ 285 44. Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men’s minds from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we denominate idols of the theatre. […] 45. The human understanding, from its peculiar nature, eas- ily supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds; and although many things in nature be sui generis, and most irregular, will yet invent parallels and conju- gates, and relatives where no such thing is. […] 46. The human understanding, when any preposition has been once laid down, (either from general admission and belief, or from the pleasure it affords), forces every thing else to add fresh