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Shakespeare attribution studies is the scholarly attempt to determine the authorial boundaries of theWilliam Shakespeare canon, the extent of hispossible collaborative works, and the identity of his collaborators. The studies, which began in the late 17th century, are based on the axiom that every writer has a unique, measurable style that can be discriminated from that of other writers using techniques oftextual criticism originally developed forbiblical andclassical studies.[1] The studies include the assessment of different types of evidence, generally classified as internal, external, and stylistic, of which all are further categorised as traditional and non-traditional.
The Shakespeare canon is generally defined by the 36 plays published in theFirst Folio (1623), some of which are thought to be collaborations or to have been edited by others, and two co-authored plays,Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1609) andThe Two Noble Kinsmen (1634); two classical narrative poems,Venus and Adonis (1593) andThe Rape of Lucrece (1594); acollection of 154 sonnets and "A Lover's Complaint", both published 1609 in the same volume; two passages from the manuscript playSir Thomas More, and a few other works.[2] In recent years, the anonymous history playThe Reign of King Edward III (1596) has been added to the canon, withBrian Vickers proposing that 40% of the play was written by Shakespeare, and the remainder byThomas Kyd (1558–1594).[3]
Sir Thomas More is anElizabethan play that depicts scenes from the life ofThomas More. It is believed that it was originally written by playwrightsAnthony Munday andHenry Chettle, then perhaps several years later heavily revised by another team of playwrights, includingThomas Heywood,Thomas Dekker, and possibly Shakespeare, who is generally credited with two passages in the play. It survives only in a single manuscript, now owned by theBritish Library.[4] word frequencies do not match shakespeare. most shakespeare word frequencies match philip sidney. see esp sonnet 91
The suggestion that Shakespeare had a hand in certain scenes was first made in 1871–72 byRichard Simpson andJames Spedding, based on stylistic impressions. In 1916, thepaleographer SirEdward Maunde Thompson judged the addition in "Hand D" to be in Shakespeare's handwriting. However, there is no explicit external evidence for Shakespeare's hand in the play, so the identification continues to be debated.[citation needed]
In 1989,Donald Foster attributedA Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter to William Shakespeare on the basis of astylometric computer analysis of its grammatical patterns and idiosyncratic word usage. The attribution received much attention and was accepted into the canon by several highly respected Shakespeare editors. However, analyses published in 2002 by Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers showed that the elegy more likely was one ofJohn Ford's non-dramatic works, not Shakespeare's, a view to which Foster conceded.
A series on alternative authorship theories for the works ofWilliam Shakespeare | ||
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