Summary of Features
When the scene is divided (in various ways) between dispensable and indispensable material, a
number of curious features emerge. The Captain says the confession will be read aloud but it is
not. Certain phrases that appear in the indispensable material are repeated verbatim or slightly
reworked in the dispensable material (‘well, that’s set downe’) or potentially dispensable material:
‘Y’are deceiud’/“You are vndone, ‘knot of his scarfe’/‘your scarfe, that has a knot on’t. In the dis-
pensable material a letter is introduced that is irrelevant to the plot. There is a discrepancy
between the form of execution threatened in the indispensable and dispensable material. First the
Interpreter says they will have to hang Paroles and later he calls for the headsman implying
decapitation. There is a passing reference to Mile End, the green where London’s militia trained.
Middleton makes reference to Mile End’s military association in his works, Shakespeare does not.
The brothers are addressed as Dumaine in the dispensable material and nowhere else by that
name in the play. None of these individual features prove Middleton's authorship of all of the sup-
posedly dispensable material in the scene. Even collectively such inconsistencies and repetitions
might be found in the works of Shakespeare and others in the period, though their concentration
here seems unusual. Conversely, these are exactly the types of features of discontinuity we might
expect if someone other than the original author added material to a play-text.
Results
Version One Shakespeare Middleton
Indispensable material (bold, italicized or not): 27 11
Dispensable material (Roman + not bold italics): 7 15
Version Two
Hypothesized original 1 (bold, italicized or not + not bold italics): 29 11
Hypothesized dispensable (Roman): 5 15
Version Three
Hypothesized original 2 (un-italicized bold + not bold italics): 28 10
Hypothesized dispensable (Roman + bold italics): 6 16
* Not only is the ye a Shakespearean preference but also Middleton never uses fare ye well, while Shakespeare
does in seven plays: Twelfth Night, Coriolanus, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Measure for Measure, Troilus and
Cressida, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The use in Measure for Measure appears in a passage attributed to
Shakespeare (4.3.148).
THOMAS MIDDLETON IN ALL’S WELL? PART TWO 319
The three cut versions of the scene vary slightly in their results. If the material is considered to be
indispensable to the plot, markers of Shakespeare's preferences eclipse those of Middleton. We can
use Fisher’s Exact Test to describe statistically the precise relationship between the two test samples
in these three tests. The algorithm generates a two-sided probability value of 0.00621 for Test One.
That is, cutting 124 prose lines from a scene of 3.41 lines (36 per cent) would give us these skewed
values by chance alone only one time in 161. Test Two, which supposes a subtler cutting (or its cor-
ollary, addition) of dispensable material, delivers results that reveal a greater disparity between the
two samples: a two-sided probability value of 0.000759, or chance alone producing these skewed
values one time in 1,318. The third test, which accommodates the subtle adaptation of Option 2
while introducing further cuts, delivers a two-sided probability value of 0.000946, or chance alone
producing these skewed values one time in 1,057. As observed above (n. 51), I would suggest an
additional cut (or, conversely, addition) to the final exchange between the Interpreter and Paroles:
‘You are vndone Captaine all but your scarfe, that has a knot on't yet (4.3.263-4)? Moving this
speech into the ‘hypothesized dispensable’ section of Version Three gives the following results:
Version Four Shakespeare Middleton
Hypothesized original 2 (unitalicized bold + italics): 26 10
Hypothesized dispensable (unitalicized not bold + bold italics): 6 18
These results deliver a two-sided probability of 0.00051, meaning that chance alone would do this
about one time in 1,961.
Conclusion
In Chapter 17, I began with an overview of the Maguire-Smith and Vickers—Dahl debate. In vari-
ous ways, Vickers—-Dahl persuasively demonstrated that Maguire-Smith’s use of evidence for
Middleton as co-author of All’s Well was wrongheaded. The various markers in the text they iden-
tified as Middletonian were far too widely distributed to be convincing; their emphasis on plot
details, novelistic stage directions, and nonsense language was either too general or too specific to
be useful in determining authorship. Vickers and Dahl rightly noted that Maguire and Smith’s
broad-strokes evidence could not possibly determine the presence of Middleton's hand, and that,
moreover, the evidence they produced did not even suggest Middleton as collaborator. Maguire
and Smith were wrong in their proposal that Middleton collaborated with Shakespeare in writing
All's Well. But their fine critical instincts were right. Middleton is present in All’s Well, but, as [hope
to have proven, not as Shakespeare's collaborator.
My analysis began by noting Taylor’s 1987 evidence that the Folio text of All’s Well includes
material that appears to date from a later performance than the play’s original composition.
Then, reporting Maguire and Smith's use of marker evidence, I focused on the various clusters of
apparently Middletonian markers in 4.3. Some of these markers were shown to be false; others
were introduced. Drawing on Jackson's article that observed a sixty-nine-line passage in All’s
Well 4.3 as a statistical outlier in Shakespeare’s canon (Jackson 1990a), I began to focus on a
specific passage of forty-one TLN lines (overlapping, in part, with Jackson's) which included eight
Middleton markers (five different) and one Shakespeare marker. The clustering of these markers
in single scene, let alone 373 words, was shown to be unparalleled in the Shakespeare canon but
common in Middleton. Within these 371 words are two oaths, both used by Middleton (one
regularly) but never by Shakespeare. I then completed a lexical analysis on the selected forty-one
320 RORY LOUGHNANE
lines of comic prose in All’s Well, comparing its results for word sequences and collocations to
those found for similar passages in Antony and Cleopatra and Hengist. The habitual writing of
Middleton was shown to be much more significantly present in All’s Well than Antony.
Shakespeare's preferences were shown to remain a significant presence in writing from late into
Middleton’s career. In this process, I also considered the canon size of both authors. Middleton's
canon was shown to be smaller and more varied in genre than Shakespeare’. This difference in
size and genre negatively affected Middleton's results when compared to Shakespeare's in OSEO
and LION tests. But despite this the results for All’s Well again pointed towards an unusual
amount of Middletonian idiom.
Taylor and I cut the scene into what we thought indispensable and dispensable material, on the
assumption that material added is usually material that can easily be cut. Seeking an independent
version of this test, we asked Bourus and Karim-Cooper to consider the possibility of dispensable
material in that scene. I began by ruling out the possibility that Shakespeare added the forty-one
lines in 4.3 at a later date, and, conversely, noted that restricting the search to post-1607 did not
rule out Middleton's involvement. Bourus and Karim-Cooper suggested that much of the second
half of the Paroles scene was dispensable, including my forty-one-line passage. I divided the
scene between dispensable and indispensable material and recorded the distribution of markers.
The results were that Middleton’s markers cluster in the dispensable material and Shakespeare's
the opposite. The statistical improbability of coincidental clustering seems to rule out everything
but a new conclusion about Middleton's involvement with the play.
Thomas Middleton added new material to All’s Well that Ends Well, most likely as a revival for
the King’s Men after Shakespeare’s death at some point between 1616 and the setting of the Folio.
If I have proven that he wrote this short passage, then we must consider the likelihood that
Middleton's writing is also present elsewhere in the play. As with initial studies of Measure for
Measure and Macbeth, the extent of Middleton’s involvement remains undetermined. But this
process is under way.** The added material of (at least) forty-one TLN lines in 4.3, although easily
dispensable, is undeniably rich comic prose. The gulling of Paroles is one of the most memorable
passages of the play. Textually, ethically, emotionally, All’s Well has long been considered
problematic. The discovery that Thomas Middleton added material to Shakespeare's play after its
original composition does not necessarily offer a corrective to all of these issues. But it does
enable and encourage a new understanding of the layers of composition, authorial and temporal,
which produced this complex, divisive comedy.
°° The chapters on All’s Well by Taylor and John V. Nance in this volume (Chapters 20 and 21) corroborate my
findings for 4.3, by proposing Middleton's presence in 1.1 and 2.3. I discuss the implications of Taylor's findings for
1.1 for the critical and cultural reception of the play in Loughnane (2016b).
Chapter 20
Middleton and the King’s Speech in
All's Well that Ends Well
JOHN V. NANCE
aurie Maguire and Emma Smith suggest that the unusually high proportion of rhyme in All’s
Well that Ends Well is evidence of Thomas Middleton's co-authorship of the play (Maguire
and Smith 2012b). They cite Marvin Spevack’s figures to show that the 19 per cent rhyme in All’s
Well conflicts with Shakespeare's Jacobean average of 5 per cent. Maguire and Smith also note that
Middleton uses rhyme often in his plays, and (combining this feature with other markers of
Middleton's style) they suggest Middleton's collaborative presence in rhyming portions of the
text. Habits of rhyming have been successfully used before to discriminate authorship (Jackson
1979; 1993a; Taylor 2014a). My own investigation builds on emerging scholarship that suggests
Middleton adapted All’s Well that Ends Well; I analyse the unique characteristics of the King’s
speech at 2.3.109-36. (In Chapter 25 of this volume, Rory Loughnane and Gary Taylor argue for
Middleton as an adapter of All's Well that Ends Well.) This King’s speech contains seven consecu-
tive rhyming iambic pentameter couplets.
Maguire and Smith’s theory that All’s Well includes the work of more than one playwright is
in fact a variation of the orthodox nineteenth- and early twentieth-century view that All’s Well
contains chronologically distinct strata from different parts of Shakespeare’s career. Israel
Gollancz considered many of the rhyming iambic pentameter lines in All’s Well—and the King’s
speech more specifically—to be ‘boulders of an old strata embedded in the later deposits’ and
Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson suggested that the King’s heroic couplets in
2.3.109-36 ‘might be omitted without any loss to the context’ (Gollancz 1894, v; Wilson 1929,
2.3.127-47n.). Before I address the lexical details of the King’s speech, it may be helpful to situate
it within a general analysis of the heroic couplet in Shakespeare's plays from 1603 to 1607 and in
Middleton’s plays from 1616 to 1624. (For these dates, see Chapter 21 in this volume.)
Shakespeare's average rate for heroic couplets in 1603-7 is one for every 106 verse lines (1:106).’
Two of Shakespeare's four single-author plays in this period have rates less frequent than 1:100,
and all four have rates lower than 1:82. By contrast, Middleton's average rate for heroic couplets in
1616-24 is 1:33 lines (three times more frequent than Shakespeare’s average). None of the six
single-author Middleton plays in that period has a rate less frequent than 1:43 lines (The Widow).
' Counts of Shakespeare's heroic couplets are from Frederic W. Ness, an authority cited by Brian Vickers that
I have confirmed independently for Shakespeare and Middleton using the same criteria, Marvin Spevack’s con-
cordance, and the Oxford Collected Works of Middleton (Ness 1941; Spevack 1973; Taylor and Lavagnino 20072).
322 JOHN V. NANCE
Two of those six Middleton plays have a rate more frequent than 1:30 lines (Hengist, Chess) and
four of Middleton’s six plays have a rate higher than 1:40 lines.
The general use profiles for heroic couplets in Shakespeare and Middleton suggest that
Middleton (in the period when he might have adapted All’s Well) is more likely than Shakespeare
(in the period when he wrote All’s Well) to use the heroic couplet. Maguire and Smith's impression
of rhyme in both canons seems to be verified by a quantitative assessment of heroic couplets.
However, these data are undeniably limited because I am only working with a small portion of
both canons (each chronologically restricted by their putative relationship to All’s Well at the time
of its composition and possible revision). In any case, Maguire and Smith are right to point out
the unusually high percentage of rhyme in All’s Well. Frederic W. Ness counts 81 heroic couplets
in the play, which yields a rate of one every 37 verse lines: right in the middle of the Middleton
range in 1616-24, but far higher than the Shakespeare range in 1603-7. But both Shakespeare and
Middleton do use heroic couplets, and we cannot attribute the King’s speech to Middleton simply
because he used heroic couplets more frequently than Shakespeare. In order to test claims of
Middleton's presence in the rhyming portions of All’s Well—and specifically the King’s speech in
heroic couplets—we need to apply additional quantitative methods to the words themselves, and
analyse the unique lexical characteristics.
Using the digital databases Literature Online (LION) and Early English Books Online-Text
Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP), I have searched every word sequence (bigram, trigram, and
quadgram) and substantive collocation (proximity searches for content words) in the King’s
speech at 2.3.109-36 against (a) all early modern dramatic texts from 1576-1642 and (b) all early
modern texts from 1576-1642.’ In the event that two or more consecutive words provide an exact
match, I searched within a ten-word proximity for other non-consecutive matching words in the
contested passage. The non-consecutive proximity matches are not recorded if their adjacency
is more than ten words distant—the default distances for proximity searches in LION and
EEBO-TCP—from the root bigram. I then supplemented the LION and EEBO-TCP data by
duplicating the above parameters and searching the canons of Middleton and Shakespeare using
Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO). OSEO is a necessary complement to LION and
EEBO-TCP for any attribution study that involves Middleton as a candidate because it contains
modernized texts of all works currently attributed to him. The primary tests conducted here
record all parallels unique to a single dramatic text first performed between 1576 and 1642 and all
parallels unique to a single text printed between 1576 and 1642.’ I have not restricted the data
to include only Shakespeare parallels from 1602-7 and only Middleton parallels from 1616-24.
I incorporate all unique parallels from the full canons of both candidates.
Before I proceed to an analysis of the verbal features of the King’s speech 2.3.109-36, I will first
test the reliability of this method on equivalent passages in Shakespeare and Middleton. The cri-
teria for these control tests are that they must be single speeches in rhymed iambic pentameter
from single-author plays chronologically and thematically close to each author’s putative
> These searches included variant spellings and variant forms. If there is no exact parallel found for a search
phrase, I have counted matches where there is a slightly different word order, different tense, or different number
if the word sequence or collocation retains an identical thought, image, or lexical correspondence.
> LION identifies unique dramatic parallels more reliably than EEBO-TCP because the interface allows the user
to search for collocations and phrasal repetends within the specified date range by first performance. EEBO-TCP
does not allow the user to search for dramatic parallels using the first-performance-date criterion, so all data from
EEBO-TCP is from publication date. Some plays—such as Hengist (performed 1620, published 1661)—were per-
formed well before 1642 but not published until after 1642. Parallels for Hengist in 1576-1642 will appear in LION
but not in EEBO-TCP. These tests combine LION and EEBO-TCP evidence. For example, a unique parallel in
Hengist will not appear in EEBO-TCP with the applied limits 1576-1642, but if this parallel is unique in LION from
1576-1642 and EEBO-TCP shows no results for this parallel, I have counted it as unique to a single text.
MIDDLETON AND THE KING'S SPEECH 323
involvement with All’s Well. Every passage tested here must be of equivalent length to ensure the
most accurate results, but there are no speeches in Shakespeare or Middleton of equivalent
length that match the criteria provided by the King’s speech (223 total words, 144 words in con-
secutive heroic couplets). The seventeenth-century Shakespeare speech closest to All’ Well
2.3.109-36 in both consecutive heroic couplets and word count is Troilus and Cressida 2.235-49.
This Troilus speech, like the King’s speech, comes from one of what are sometimes called the
‘problem plays; and contains a high proportion of heroic couplets: 115 words in seven consecu-
tive couplets of rhymed iambic pentameter. I list here all parallels unique to one other dramatic
text from 1576-1642:
fold NEAR I see Shakespeare, Macbeth 4.1.138 (very close to where Middleton
intervenes, but Middleton’s presence before 4.1.141 is
disputed).
I see then in Thomas Dekker and John Webster Northward Ho 4.1 by
Dekker (Pierce 1909, 131)
women NEAR are angels Dekker and Middleton Patient Man 1.1 by Dekker
things won Ben Jonson Hymenaei
more then it is Shakespeare Richard II
that she was never Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge Looking Glass as ‘that she
be never’
did NEAR never yet that Shakespeare The Winter's Tale
when desire James Shirley Grateful Servant
maxim NEAR teach Philip Massinger Renegado
that though my hearts Henry Glapthorne Ladies Privilege
love doth bear Samuel Daniel Queens Arcadia
The first test records only eleven unique types in eleven plays from 1576-1642. Shakespeare
(three) is the only playwright to have more than two unique types. Middleton does not have a
single clear parallel and is less likely to have written this passage than Daniel, Glapthorne, Jonson,
Massinger, or Shirley.
For the second test, adding EEBO-TCP data I recorded all types unique to a single text from
1576-1642 together with dates of first printing:
thousand fold I John Norden A sinfull man’s solace (1585)
glass of NEAR praise Robert Travers A learned and very profitable exposition
(1579)
won NEAR are done Jean de Serres A general inventory (1607)
lies NEAR in the doing Thomas Churchyard A light bondell of lively discourses
(1580)
she beloved Henoch Clapham Three parts of Solomon his song of
songs (1603)
did NEAR never yet that Shakespeare The Winters Tale (performed by 1611,
printed 1623)
achievement NEAR command John Davies The muses sacrifice (1612)
324 JOHN V. NANCE
The data show only seven types unique to one other text from 1576-1642. No author has more
than one unique type. Shakespeare has a single link to The Winter’s Tale. The initial results of this
test suggest that Shakespeare is just as likely as John Norden or Henoch Clapham to have written
Troilus 2.235-49. Ordinarily, a single unique type is insignificant in these types of data profiles.
However, the single unique type for Shakespeare is the only unique type from drama to also be
unique to a single text of the period. On strictly numerical grounds Shakespeare may not appear
more likely than the other authors represented here to have written this speech in Troilus, but he
is more likely than any other playwright. Moreover, all these unique parallels (like Troilus itself)
come from 1612 or earlier; seven of the nine are from 1607 or earlier.
As a result of the 115-word constraint imposed by Shakespeare's control, I used the first 115
words in seven consecutive couplets of rhymed iambic pentameter of Simon’s 144-word speech
that opens Hengist 4.1. I list here all parallels unique to a single play from 1576-1642:
lo I the Jonson Time Vindicated
the Mayor of NEAR by Middleton Witch
by name with John Fletcher Bonduca
that’s NEAR mill horse Middleton Nice Valor
of our coming NEAR look Middleton Trick
done I find Anthony Munday (?) Fedele
and yet not NEAR myself Middleton Phoenix
I my self I Shakespeare Julius Caesar
for need NEAR now Anonymous Return from Parnassus
castle see William Rowley All’s Lost by Lust
the king the other Jonson Love’s Welcome
the other too Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing
here they be NEARnow — Middleton Widow
queen and thee the Thomas Heywood Royal King
gift all William Rowley Shoomaker a Gentleman
all steel and Jasper Fisher Fuimus Troes
but the conceit Heywood Fair Maid
but NEAR the conceit of | Middleton Trick
The data show eighteen unique types in seventeen plays from 1576-1642. Middleton (seven),
Shakespeare (two), Rowley (two), Heywood (two), and Jonson (two) are the only playwrights to
have more than one unique link. Middleton has three times as many unique links as Shakespeare,
and nearly as many unique types as the combined totals of the candidates with more than one.
Middleton is clearly more present here than any other playwright. All of Middleton's unique par-
allels are proximity matches, and this type of data confirms Taylor’s observation that ‘collocations
are more significant than word strings’ in lexical data identifying Middleton.*
The next test records all parallels unique to a single text from 1576-1642.
one NEAR that’s lame Thomas Churchyard The honor of the law (1596)
trollops for John Milton An apology (1642)
of our coming NEAR look Middleton Trick (1608)
not look it Gervase Babington A very fruitful exposition (1583)
* Taylor’s control test for Middleton in Mad World demonstrates that Middleton is more identifiable in colloca-
tions (search strings implementing a proximity operator) than consecutive word strings (Taylor 20144, 252).
MIDDLETON AND THE KING’S SPEECH 325
must be done I John Deacon A summarie answer to all the material points (1601)
and yet not NEAR myself Middleton Phoenix (1607)
expect a rare G. Co. A brief narration... William Sommers (1598)
the thing to give David Dickenson A short explanation (1635)
the other too I Henry Constable The catholic moderator (1623)
here they be for Lancelot Andrews Sermons (1629)
The data show two unique types for Middleton and none for Shakespeare. Middleton is the only
author to have more than one text represented in this list, and all of his types are from single
authored plays. Middleton is also the only playwright listed here. Both control tests on Middleton's
speech in Hengist confirm Middleton's authorship.
The data profiles for both tests in the Middleton sample and the Shakespeare sample are notice-
ably different. Middleton’s sample clearly identifies Middleton as the correct author, and
Middleton’s sample contains more unique Middletonian types than Shakespeare’s.* The first con-
trol test conducted on Shakespeare’s sample properly identified him as the correct author, and the
second test, although generally inconclusive, did not challenge an attribution to Shakespeare,
identifying him as the dramatist likeliest to have written the passage, and also identifying the cor-
rect date range for Shakespeare’s authorship. Now that I have demonstrated that these methods
can properly identify whether a speech of 115 lines in rhymed iambic pentameter couplets is by
Shakespeare or Middleton, I will move on to an analysis of All’s Well 2.3.109-36.
Because the control tests for Shakespeare and Middleton are limited to 115 words of consecu-
tive heroic couplets, I also have to limit the testable range for the King’s speech to 115 words of
consecutive heroic couplets. The following evidence for All’s Well 2.3.109-36 is thus drawn from
2.3.117-30, from the beginning of the consecutive couplet sequence. Like the control samples for
Shakespeare and Middleton, this portion of the King’s speech contains 115 words in seven con-
secutive couplets of rhymed iambic pentameter. I list here all parallels unique to one other dra-
matic text first performed in 1576-1642:
from lowest NEAR virtuous Middleton Triumphs of Integrity ‘here they shall
finde faire virtue and her name| from low obscure
beginnings rasyde to fame’
virtuous NEAR the place is Middleton Triumphs of Integrity
dignified by Middleton Triumphs of Integrity
dignified NEAR deed William Sampson Vow Breaker
additions NEAR swell Thomas Nabbes Microcosmos
virtue none Dekker Old Fortunatus
honor NEAR alone is Middleton Sherley ‘glory that she alone is happy in
thy birth, and that she bears the honor of giving
thee thy name’
without a name NEAR go Middleton Hengist ‘Nor never seek one for’t, let it
go| Without a name; would all griefs were served
so| Our using of em mannerly makes ‘em grow
is so the NEAR it is Middleton Nice Valor
° Taylor’s control test on rhymed tetrameters in Mad World also identified Middleton as the correct author on
the basis of unique parallels (Taylor 2014a, 253).
326 JOHN V. NANCE
so the property George Chapman, Bussy
property by Nathaniel Richards Messallina
should go not Chapman Blind Beggar
it... go not by Middleton Michaelmas ‘it... goes not by’
is young wise John Lyly Endimion
she is young NEAR wise NEAR fair Middleton Trick ‘she’s young she's fair she’s wise’
fair in these Joseph Rutter Shepherd's Holyday
breed honor Middleton Game At Chess
which challenges Anonymous, Masque of flowers (1613)
when rather Massinger and Fletcher Thierry
from NEAR our acts Middleton Women Beware
trophy and as William Rowley Shoomaker
The data show ten unique types for Middleton in drama and none for Shakespeare. Jonson
(three), Chapman (two), and Nabbes (two) are the only other playwrights with more than one
unique type. Middleton has four unique types in entertainments, with three of the four coming
from Triumphs of Integrity (1623). Five of Middleton’s ten unique types are from early modern
plays, so even if we eliminated entertainments from the results Middleton would still have more
unique types than any other author. The high proportion of unique Middletonian types in early
modern plays is especially suggestive of his authorship when we consider how much smaller his
canon is than Shakespeare's. Reliable word counts for Middleton’s entire dramatic canon are cur-
rently unavailable, but most scholars agree that Middleton wrote only sixteen solo-authored
plays and worked as a collaborator in an additional twelve. Shakespeare is responsible for
twenty-eight unassisted plays (excluding Measure and Macbeth) and eight collaborative plays
(10 if we include Arden and Double Falsehood).° All of Middleton’s unique types are from
unassisted dramatic works, so removing collaborations from the data does not affect the results.
Seven of Middleton’s unique types come from dramatic works written between 1620 and 1624.
These data tend to support Taylor's dating of the alterations to All’s Well in the period from
mid-1620 to mid-1622.
The next test records types unique to a single text from 1576-1642:
from lowest NEAR proceed Middleton Solomon (1597): ‘For lowest minds do
covet highest pitch,| As highest braves proceed
from lowest tongue’
from lowest NEAR virtue Middleton Triumphs of Integrity (1623): ‘here they
shall finde faire virtue and her name| from low
obscure beginnings rasyde to fame’
without a name NEAR go Middleton Hengist (first performance 1620,
printed 1661) ‘Nor never seek one for't, let it go|
Without a name; would all griefs were served so|
Our using of em mannerly makes em grow
the property by Richard Montagu Apollo caesarem (1625)
® Including portions of collaborative plays, Shakespeare's dramatic canon is 740,207 words. See Loughnane’s
Chapter 17 for a new estimate of the size of Middleton’s canon.
MIDDLETON AND THE KING’S SPEECH 327
she is young NEAR wise NEAR fair Middleton Trick (1608) ‘she’s young she’s fair she’s
wise
heir and these Hakluyt Principal Navigations (1599)
and these breed John Boys The autumn part (1613)
challenges it self Joseph Hall A Short Answer (1641)
from our acts John Taylor The great O toole (1622)
our fore goers Miles Coverdale Fuitfull lessons (1593)
debosh on Pierre Du Moulin Heraclitus (1609)
The data show eleven unique types in eleven texts from 1576-1642. Middleton (four) is the only
author to have more than one unique type. There are no unique Shakespeare types. All but
three of all types unique to a single text post-date the original composition of All’s Well (and
one of those exceptions comes from Middleton). As observed in the first test on the King’s
Speech, Middleton is more present than any other author. The data profiles for these two tests
are contradictory to the evidence in Shakespeare’s control tests and they closely resemble the
data profiles for the Middleton control tests. As in Hengist 4.1, Middleton is overwhelmingly
present in these lines.
Middleton's presence has been detected in 115 words contained within seven consecutive heroic
couplets in All’s Well, but data for this segment of the King’s speech exclude the 42-word segment
(2.3.131-6) in two consecutive heroic couplets (three if we pair ‘dumb’ from 2.3.131 to comple-
ment the rhyme of ‘tomb’ in 2.3.132) that follow 2.3.117-30, and it also excludes the 64-word seg-
ment in blank verse (2.3.109-16) that precedes 2.3.117-30. This means that 49 per cent (107/222
words) of the King’s speech is unaccounted for. I have conducted the same lexical tests on the
remainder of the King’s speech to generate a complete lexical profile of the entire passage.
The remaining 42 words in heroic couplets (2.3.131-6) show four unique parallels from five
different dramatic texts from 1576-1642:
indeed what should Heywood Challenge for Beauty
creature as a Beaumont and Fletcher Philaster ‘creatures as a
as a maide Middleton Five Gallants
virtue and she Shakespeare Tempest
Shakespeare and Middleton both have one parallel. Scholars have noted Shakespeare’s tendency
to use a heroic couplet at the end of a speech, but even if we limit this evidence to only include the
seventeen words enclosed in the final couplet (2.3.135-6) the evidence is inconclusive: Middleton
and Shakespeare both have a single parallel unique to drama. EEBO-TCP provides additional
parallels for each of the four unique LION matches, and EEBO-TCP adds no unique parallels for
non-dramatic texts.
The 64-word segment in blank verse that opens the speech (2.3.109-16) contains eight parallels
unique to a single dramatic text from 1576-1642:
bloods of NEAR heat Middleton No Wit/Help Like A Woman's
weight and NEAR bloods Middleton Yorkshire
pour NEAR together Jonson Neptune’s Triumph ‘pouring out of the pot together’
in differences Jonson Case is Altered
if she be virtuous Nabbes Microcosmos
328 JOHN V. NANCE
save what thou Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet
a poor physicians Daniel Queen’s Arcadia
of NEAR the name but — Middleton Mad World
Middleton has three unique parallels compared to Shakespeare's one. Jonson (two) is more likely
than Shakespeare, but Middleton is the likeliest candidate. The next test records all parallels
unique to a single text from 1576-1642:
build up strange Lambert Daneau A fruitfull commentarie (1594)
strange NEAR our bloods Nicholas Coeffeteau A table of human passions (1621)
bloods of NEAR heat Middleton No Wit/Help Like A Woman’ (performed 1611)
weight and NEAR bloods — Middleton Yorkshire (1607)
confound distinction William Twisse A discovery of D. Jackson (1631)
if she be all Augustine City of God (1610)
the name but do Thomas Gataker A discussion of popish doctrines (1624)
name NEAR do not so Shakespeare Sonnet 36 ‘name. but do not so’ (1609)
This 64-word segment yields eight parallels unique to a single text from 1576-1642. Two of
Middleton's three unique parallels from drama are retained. Shakespeare loses his unique dra-
matic parallel from Romeo and Juliet but gains one from Sonnet 36. Middleton (two) has more
than any other author including Shakespeare (one) and he is the only author to have more than
one unique parallel.
‘The evidence generated by these two segments points more to Middleton than Shakespeare (or
anyone else), but separately, the sample sizes are too small to suggest anything conclusive. Even if
we add these two segments together to form a single large segment it would still not be equal (107
words) to the segment used in the three previous primary tests (115 words). As a result, the data
extracted from the two remaining segments of the King’s speech should not be as definitive as the
115-word segment (2.3.117-30). Yet despite an eight-word difference, the combined totals of the
two remaining segments of the King’s speech reach the same conclusion as the 115-word segment.
In the combined 107-word segment (2.3.109-16 and 2.3.131-6), Middleton has four parallels
unique to drama and three parallels unique to one other text and Shakespeare has only two par-
allels unique to drama with only one parallel unique to one other text. As similarly observed in
Middleton’s control test from Hengist and the 115-word segment of the King’s speech (2.3.117-30),
Middleton has more unique dramatic parallels and more unique parallels to one other text in the
107-word sample (2.3.109-16 and 2.3.131-6) than any other author from 1576-1642. These results
do not resemble the data profiles of Shakespeare's 115-word control tests, both of which suggest
Shakespeare's authorship more than any other playwright. The total results for the King’s speech
in its entirety (all 222 words) show fourteen parallels unique to one other dramatic text and seven
parallels unique to one other text for Middleton compared to only three unique dramatic paral-
lels and one parallel unique to a single text for Shakespeare.
Using the same methods, I have analysed the longest remaining speech with consecutive heroic
couplets by the King to see if they provide the same results. All’s Well 2.1.171-82 contains six con-
secutive couplets but only 84 words. The first test shows eleven unique parallels in ten plays from
1576-1642.’ Middleton only has a single unique type. Shakespeare (with three) is the only play-
” what impossibility Lyly Endimion; in common sense Shakespeare 2 Henry IV; saves another Davenant The Just
Italian; life is dear Middleton Hengist ‘life is dearer’; rate worth Marston Antonio and Mellida; name of life NEAR
life Shakespeare Measure for Measure 3.1; of life in thee Shakespeare 2 Henry IV; happy call Randolph Jealous Lovers;
infinite or Armin Valiant Welshman; or monstrous Nabbes The Unfortunate Mother; Physicke I will Holyday
Technogamia.
MIDDLETON AND THE KING’S SPEECH 329
wright to have more than one. Shakespeare is also the only playwright to have a single play with
more than one unique type (two in 2 Henry IV). The third Shakespeare parallel comes from
Measure for Measure, a play often associated with All’s Well and close to its date of original com-
position. The second test generates five types unique to a single text from 1576-1642.* Shakespeare
has one unique type (from a play included in his compressed canon) and Middleton has none.
Although limited to a sample of only 84 words, the data profile of these tests is nearly identical to
the results from Shakespeare's control test: Shakespeare has more unique dramatic types than any
other author and he is the only playwright represented in types unique to a single text. Middleton's
presence is limited to a single unique type. These two speeches, 2.1.171-82 and 2.3.109-36, are the
longest speeches by the King in heroic couplets in All’s Well. The first (2.1.171-82) indicates
Shakespeare’s authorship and the second (2.3.109-36) clearly indicates the presence of Middleton
more than any other author.
In addition to the lexical evidence, the formal features of the King’s speech 2.3.109-36 resonate
more directly with Middleton’s work in 1616-24 than Shakespeare's in 1603-9. Middleton did not
write a speech in heroic couplets of equal length to All’s Well 2.3.109-36 in his plays from 1616-24,
but there is ample evidence outside of this restricted canon for a known familiarity and dexterity
with rhymed iambic pentameter in his civic entertainments.’ Middleton wrote ten civic pageants
from 1616-24 and all but one of them (Civitatis Amor) are written almost exclusively in heroic
couplets.’° Middleton's formal preference for heroic couplets in Lord Mayor’s shows during this
period is a conventional one. Kara Northway demonstrates that Munday, Dekker, Heywood,
Webster, and John Taylor are all partial to rhymed iambic pentameter in their entertainments and
she suggests that after 1600, heroic couplets become ‘widespread throughout the pageants for the
rest of the period before the civil war’ (Northway 2007, 173). Northway links this formal trend
towards rhymed iambic pentameter to the content of the pageants themselves. Early modern dis-
cussions about poetry often claim that rhyming requires more exertion than unrhymed verse,
and Northway sees a relationship between the laboured form of rhyme and the various forms of
labour associated with the pageants.
There are currently no pageants attributed to Shakespeare, and there is no reason to believe that
he ever wrote one. Pageant writers were typically not shareholders in a prosperous theatre company.
‘They were usually hired men who had to adjust their creative vision to the tedious demands of livery
companies and the caprice of court. Many playwrights (like Middleton) also wrote pageants to
brave a competitive and precarious profession in a vicious and unforgiving city."’ Pageant writing
was highly competitive jobbing’ work done by adaptable, freelance craftsmen. Parr suggests that we
8 within an organ Phillipe Mornay The true knowledge of a man’s own self (1602); for all that life John Sym Life’
preservative against self killing (1637); name of life NEAR life Shakespeare Measure for Measure 3.1; happy call thou
Wither fair virtue (1622); hazard needs Lambert Daneau True and Christian friendship (1586).
° The terms ‘civic entertainment and ‘civic pageant’ tend to elide the three major types of entertainments during
this period: pageants presented for monarchs while on progress, royal entry pageants, and Lord Mayor’s shows.
There are important differences in occasion, form, and design for these three types, but they are often grouped
together (Bergeron 1971, 3). Middleton had a more consistent professional relationship to the Lord Mayor’s shows
than the other two.
Civitatis Amor; The Triumphs of Honor and Industry; Masque of Heroes; The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity; The
World Tossed at Tennis; Honorable Entertainments; The Sun in Aries; An Invention; The Triumphs of Honor and Virtue;
and The Triumphs of Integrity. The speeches in Amor are written in alternate rhyme (abab) with a capping couplet.
" Bergeron notes that in addition to Middleton, other familiar playwrights such Peele, George Gascoigne, Lyly,
Jonson, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, and Munday also wrote civic entertainments (Bergeron 1971, 4). Of these
dramatists, only Heywood has been confidently identified as a sharer in a theatre company (Worcester’s Men
which became Queen Anne’s Men in 1603), but Heywood did not write pageants until late in his career and after
Queen Anne’s Men dissolved in 1623. Richard Rowland notes that Heywood wrote six of the seven Lord Mayor
pageants staged in the 1630s (Rowland 2010, 301-40). We know that after 1623 Heywood worked with Henrietta’s
Men and Lady Elizabeth’s Men until his death in 1641, but it is not clear if Heywood was also a sharer with either
one of these companies during the time he was also writing civic pageants.
330 JOHN V. NANCE
should avoid reiterating the conception that civic entertainments are simply ‘hackwork instead of
‘polished efforts perfectly suited to their individual occasion, but the circumstances of most
pageants seem to encourage associations to routinized banality (Taylor and Lavagnino 20074,
1431-4). In other words, pageants often seem more like work than great dramatic works."
Like most civic entertainments of their kind, Middleton’s Lord Mayor pageants are celebra-
tions of a livery member-and the industry of the company to which he belongs-who has risen
through the ranks to become a powerful municipal figure. They are spectacles designed for the
city to celebrate one of their own. Scholars have noted the seventeenth-century shift away from
Elizabethan civic entertainments for the monarch (progress shows or entry shows) in favour of
civic entertainments for the Lord Mayor, and David M. Bergeron notes that this trend ‘reflects the
increasing wealth and prominence of the guilds’ as well as the ‘temperament of James I, who pre-
ferred masques to public pageants (Bergeron 1971, 5). Most researchers see a direct correlation
between this royal inclination and the progressive extravagance of the Lord Mayor's shows in
Jacobean London. Gail Kern Paster suggests that the measured grandiosity of these civic enter-
tainments is actually an impulse ‘to present the city’s greatness and magnificence apart from, if
not precisely equal to, the magnificence of Whitehall’ and Lawrence Manley endorses this per-
spective (Paster 1985, 54; Manley 1995, 221). The viewpoint that Lord Mayor’s shows stage a com-
petition of sorts between civic self-representation and royal opulence seems to contradict the
indispensable cooperative relationship between the livery companies and the crown. This affili-
ation was primarily based on financial stability; the King would often appeal to the liveries to
support the country’s expenses and in return, the livery companies would receive corporate dis-
pensations (Brenner 2003, 51-92). The facilitating presence of the King at Lord Mayor’s shows can
be seen to support this spirit of alliance.'’ Despite the necessary and practical cooperation
between the King and the liveries, many scholars still support an oppositional perspective.
However, Anthony Parr notes that if such a rivalry was present, ‘this was because they [the livery
companies] wished to enhance their self-esteem and project a modern corporate image, and not
because they saw themselves as in being in opposition to royal authority’ (Taylor and Lavagnino
20074, 1432).
Allegations that Lord Mayor’s shows potentially disparage hierarchical principles of nobility
threaten to elide more realistic notions of difference between the merchant class and the English
aristocracy that emerge in these entertainments. Civic mercantilist notions of worth are different
from traditionally aristocratic conceptions of inherent worth because they are drawn from the
spirit of labour and industry.'’* Lord Mayor’s shows customarily emphasize these civic virtues
because a livery company member usually attained this position of prominence through work,
service, and the pursuit of prosperity, not by blood. The procession of the Lord Mayor elaborately
observes the benefits of a civic mercantilist ideology by endorsing labour as a legitimate means to
© Bergeron notes that like most pageant writers, Middleton has a tendency to lapse into formulaic composition
in his civic pageants by ‘presenting a pastiche of former shows’ as opposed to creating ‘anything strikingly original’
(Bergeron 1971, 193). Bergeron also notes The Triumphs of Truth (1613) is exceptional in Middleton’s oeuvre of civic
pageantry through its use of ‘dialogue, dramatic conflict, vivid and consistent imagery, thematic development and
integrated allegory’ (Bergeron 1971, 197). These are attributes that are more commonly associated with plays as
opposed to civic entertainments, so we can extend Bergeron’s remarks to suggest that Middleton’s most successful
and most original pageant is also his most dramatic.
8 Hentschell claims that the Lord Mayor rivals the King’s authority in the dramaturgy of Lord Mayor’s shows,
but it is also possible to interpret this staged mayoral prominence as a representation of the interdependence of the
city and the crown. By honouring the Lord Mayor in a theatrical act of flattery, the King temporarily postpones his
implicit status in a performed deferral that recognizes his own reliance upon the industry of the livery companies
(Hentschell 2008).
‘The term ‘civic mercantilist’ is one way of describing the commercial relationship between merchant capital
and the urban marketplace. Merchants and mercantilists are both integral to an economic system structured
around supply and demand in the marketplace.
MIDDLETON AND THE KING’S SPEECH 331
self-betterment. In this way, the celebration of the Lord Mayor is also a celebration of the guild
system, which in turn becomes a festive observance of city life itself.
Pageant writing was a form of labour for Middleton but it was also an opportunity to explore
the attitudes and priorities of a city defined by its relationship to evolving notions of worth.
Many of Middleton’s Lord Mayor’s shows laud and encourage the commercial interests of the
livery companies (and the merchant class more generally) while framing traditional, aristocratic
authority as an obliging partner in the accumulation of capital and social status. Like most
entertainments of their kind, Middleton’s Lord Mayor's shows theatricalize the cooperation of
the city and the crown by allegorizing this productive interdependence. Middleton speaks for
and about the city in his entertainments and as a result, civic notions of achieved worth are often
emphasized more than traditional notions of inherited worth. However, this alignment does not
suggest an active debasement of royal authority. It instead demonstrates the positive effects of
this partnership from the city’s point of view. Following Northway, Middleton's use of heroic
couplets in Lord Mayor's shows is a formal elaboration of this position. The strength of
Middleton’s endorsement of commercial opportunity in the form and content of his pageants is
undoubtedly influenced by the livery companies he wrote for, but Middleton exhibits a fascin-
ation (if not an obsession) with the lived effects of city life throughout his entire career.
Middleton's aesthetic relationship with the city has been much explored (Chakravorty 1996;
Daileader 1998; Leinwand 1999, 55-60; Taylor and Lavagnino 20074, 25-58; Gossett 2011, Part 1;
Yachnin 2012).
Civic entertainments simply gave Middleton another outlet for exploring the physical and
ideological contours of city life familiar to us in his plays (especially his city comedies). Notions
of class and the enigma of opportunity in Middleton's plays may become a quasi-propagandized
glorification of civic possibility in Middleton’s entertainments, but Middleton still speaks both
for and about the city in both dramatic forms. Bergeron observes that Middleton often borrows
dramaturgical elements from his pageants while writing his plays. For Bergeron, this type of
self-derivation emphasizes Middleton's rare ability to move sinuously between distinctive dra-
matic forms within a single dramatic text and it demonstrates ‘the steady commerce between
civic entertainments and the regular drama in Middleton's works more generally (Bergeron 1985,
66; 1983). Middleton’s pageants and Middleton's city comedies have a shared emphasis on
location which often extends to a shared dramatization of the types of relationships generated
and sustained by the city. In addition to these internal thematic associations, plays and entertain-
ments are also the semiotic traces of Middleton’s relationship to the material conditions of dra-
matic composition. Like most freelance artisans, Middleton was paid on a job-to-job basis and a
good portion of this work required composing in fragments rather than constructing whole
plays. Civic entertainments are generally short by design, and Middleton would only be respon-
sible for writing a series of speeches to accompany the visual display for a single entertainment.
The labour of writing in fragments for civic entertainments is very similar to the labour of writing
in fragments for a theatrical adaption. Both forms of production are characterized by a controlled
quantity of original lines that are suited for a specific theatrical occasion, not chosen by Middleton.
In combination with lexical data that suggest Middleton’s presence in the King’s speech
2.3.118-45, Middleton’s formal preference for heroic couplets in civic entertainments becomes
particularly important when we entertain the possibility that he added rhyming iambic pentam-
eter lines to his adaptation of All’s Well that End’s Well. All’s Well has long been considered a prob-
lematic play primarily because of an indistinct ethical tone accentuated by sharp shifts in mood
and a general seediness. Scholars since FE. S. Boas have commented on the ‘perplexing moral
entanglements’ in All’s Well and Measure for Measure and most critics agree that these two plays
are more closely bound to one another than they are to the third problem play, Troilus and
Cressida (Boas 1896, 409). Middleton adapted Measure for Measure in 1621, and it is easy to
332 JOHN V. NANCE
understand why he would be attracted to All's Well (Jowett and Taylor 1993; Taylor and
Lavagnino 20072, 1542-85; Bourus and Taylor 2014). It is a play that stages the simultaneous pos-
sibility and denial of transactional satisfaction in a series of self-interested exchanges. These
transactions are complicated further by the fundamental problem of representation in social
(and sexual) situations. All’ Well also seems to be concerned with the cooperative relationship
between the crown and a labourer. Helena, the ‘poor physician's daughter, embodies a sense of
civic mercantilist possibility in her pursuit of Bertram, the King’s ward. Bertram spurns Helena as
his wife, despite the King’s prompting that he accept her, because she is not of noble blood. The
King’s speech 2.3.109-36 is a sententious defence of Helena’s value despite her lack of inherent
honour by birth:
Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
Of color, weight, and heat, poured all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stands off
In differences so mighty. If she be
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st—
‘A poor physician’s daughter’—thou dislik’st
Of virtue for the name. But do not so.
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
‘The place is dignified by the doer’s deed.
Where great additions swell’s, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour. Good alone
Is good, without a name; vileness is so.
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she’s immediate heir,
And these breed honor. That is honour’s scorn
Which challenges itself as honour’s born
And is not like the sire; honours thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers. The mere word's a slave,
Debauched on every tomb, on every grave
A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb
Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb
Of honored bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest. Virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
(2.3.109-36)
The King values Helena because her virtue and honour derives from her deeds instead of a name
begotten by ‘foregoers. The type of worth that the King recognizes in Helena often fails to prolif-
erate in inherited social positions, and this speech seems to resist inherited notions of worth that
are often without recourse to practical confirmation. This labour-based conception of worth is set
in a cooperative relationship with royal authority: the King acknowledges Helena’s ameliorative
labour by granting her recognition and a special dispensation as a reward. This speech centres on
Helena’s worthiness (and her labour), and the recompensing agency of the King is structured asa
MIDDLETON AND THE KING’S SPEECH — 333
complement to her actions. This is the most determined vindication of Helena in All’s Well and it
justifies a civic mercantilist ideology in the form of rhyming iambic pentameter lines. Helena was
born low, but her actions have facilitated advancement and consequently revealed the possibility
of self-betterment through a dedication to her craft. Beyond the lexical data that suggest
Middleton's authorship, the relationship between the form and content of this speech has more
parallels in the entertainments of Middleton than anything in Shakespeare's canon. Shakespeare
often has powerful characters rise up from the world of the play to present a moralizing speech in
rhymed iambic pentameter, but so does Middleton (and many other playwrights). The social
dynamics of middle-class struggle at the heart of this passage are a noted priority for Middleton
in his pageants and plays, and although Shakespeare will often descend into the prosaic world of
working-class citizens, notions of worth in his characters are generally governed by heredity.
Helena has gained the King’s favour, but the progression of the plot does not adjust her inherited
low status. We see the worth of seemingly low-born characters in Shakespeare's plays, but this
worth is eventually validated by the revelation that they are actually high-born aristocrats.
Middleton does not incorporate exposures of this kind and his plays and civic entertainments
often dramatize the possibility—and attendant complications—that virtue, honor, and worth can
in fact proceed from ‘the lowest place. We should credit Shakespeare (or his source) with the ini-
tial formation of Helena’s class-defying desire for Bertram, but it seems we should credit
Middleton for the elaboration of Helena’s worth despite her lack of title.
Whereas the first King’s speech (2.3.109-36) emphasizes the cooperation between royal author-
ity and civic labour as a means to validate the worthiness of those not born to a noble title (a type
of cooperation that is also present in the form and content of Middleton’s Lord Mayor's shows),
the King’s second long speech in this scene (2.3.141-58) is an explicit defence of royal authority.
Both speeches present the King’s response to Bertram’s repudiation of Helena’s perceived base-
ness, but the King’s second speech does not accentuate Helena (or her labour):
My honor’s at the stake, which to defeat
I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
Proud, scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love and her desert; that canst not dream
We, poising us in her deflective scale,
Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
It is in us to plant thine honor where
We please have it grow.
(2.3.141-149.5)
The King seems to think that Bertram’s rejection of Helena is an assault on his royal honour, and
instead of validating his command by enhancing and elaborating Helena’s worthiness, the King
disciplines Bertram for not following orders. The King produces his ‘power’—a response to the
open defiance of his royal office—in a series of contemptuous threats, and Bertram emerges as a
‘proud, scornful boy’ who is ‘unworthy’ of royal favour. Helena is alluded to only in relation to the
innate infallibility of the King’s command, and the King does not even use her proper name. As
the speech continues, the King’s language becomes increasingly aggressive:
Obey our will, which travails in thy good;
Believe not thy disdain, but presently
Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
334 JOHN V. NANCE
Which both thy duty owes and our power claims,
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever
Into the staggers and the careless lapse
Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate
Loosing upon thee in the name of justice
Without all terms of pity. Speak, thine answer.
(2.3.150-8)
By refusing Helena, Bertram repudiates an amalgam of patriarchal authority and patriarchal
order. Bertram is the King’s ward, so his insolence doubles as a treasonous defiance of royal power
and an arrogant rejection of the word of a father. Like most fathers (and most monarchs), the
King assumes that he knows what is best for Bertram (if only because he is a father), and he finds
Bertram’s explicit rejection of this assumption to be an injustice of the highest order. Like most
monarchs (and most gods), the King demands obedience and he threatens to forsake Bertram if
the young subject continues to neglect his ‘duty’ to ‘Obey’. The King’s censures—seemingly drawn
from the grand, religious language of fatherly chastisement since the biblical Abraham—openly
align Bertram’s sense of worth with his decision to acquiesce to the King’s will and nothing is said
of Helena or her sense of worth. Like the god of Abraham (and most men), the King’s threats are
intended to sustain the legitimacy of power in the process of marginalizing the lived human rela-
tionships that occasion such demonstrations.
Critically, formally, and lexically, this speech has little in common with the King’s first speech.
It is written in imposing blank verse with no rhyming couplets and it is studded with driving,
insistent librettos that forge a peremptory argument for compliance. There is nothing in this
speech that specifically extols Helena, nor is there any effort made to stress the essentially collab-
orative relationship between Helena and the King. Despite these differences, both speeches can
be seen as a direct response to Bertram’s initial, class-conscious dismissal of Helena :
But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
Must answer for your raising? I know her well;
She had her breeding at my father’s charge.
A poor physician’s daughter my wife? Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever.
(2.3.104-8)
The King’s first speech in heroic couplets takes its cue (both formally and theatrically) from
Bertram’s obnoxious use of ‘Disdain’ in relation to a perceived mismatch. The first sentence of
the King’s response uses Bertram’s own language, simply changing ‘disdain to ‘disdain’st. That
sentence might have been in Shakespeare’s original script: it contains nothing that specifically
links it to Middleton. The King’s single sentence could have been followed by, and dramatically
interrupted by, Bertram’s next speech:
KING "Tis only title thou disdain’st in her, the which
I can build up.
BERTRAM I cannot love her, nor will strive to dot.
KING ‘Thou wrong’st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose—
HELEN That you are well restored, my lord, I’m glad.
Let the rest go.
KING My honour’ at the stake, which to defeat...
MIDDLETON AND THE KING'S SPEECH 335
The King’s second speech in blank verse defers the repetition of Bertram’s ‘disdair ten lines, until
immediately after the King’s posturing is complete (‘Believe not thy disdain, but presently| Do
thine own fortunes thy obedient right’). The King’s second speech invalidates Bertram’s ‘disdain’ by
suggesting that the very use of the word flouts the King’s authoritarian generosity. Both speeches
use ‘disdain’ as a fulcrum for a royal response to Bertram’s own response to Helena, but they pro-
ceed in different directions from their shared lexical targeting. Helena’s lines (“That you are well
restored...’) immediately preceding the King’s second long speech in this scene (“My honour’s at
the stake ...”) contain m—a common contraction in Middleton's canon but rare in Shakespeare’s—
and this suggests that Helena’s speech, in addition to 2.3.109-36, may also have been added or
altered by Middleton." Sensing that her choice is the cause of confrontation between Bertram and
the King, Helena interrupts the King’s initial posturing (“Thou wrong’st thyself...”) to tell him to
‘let’ the issue of marriage ‘go, but the King proceeds to respond to Bertram’s non-compliance with
threats and an ultimatum. This emphasizes that the King’s honourable motive to punish Bertram’s
defiance (made clear in the following speech) has nothing to do with Helena. The inclusion of
Helena’s lines between the two long speeches by the King grants Helena agency in what would
otherwise be a homosocial dispute about her and it accentuates Helena’s worth (elaborated by the
King in 2.3.109-36) by underscoring her benevolence. These lines have more in common with the
Helena presented in Middleton's version of the King’s speech than they do with Shakespeare's, and
it seems that they also call attention to the intrinsic differences between the speeches themselves.
Helena’s lines make the second King’s speech more explicitly about the King’s royal authority. If
Middleton added Helena’s speech to a revised version of the play, it is also likely that he moved or
removed lines from Shakespeare's original version. The King would not respond to himself in this
exchange, so it is possible that Middleton cut a response by another character (presumably
Bertram) or rearranged the dialogue so that Helena could speak for herself. The lexical data (gen-
erated by the same methods used above) for the King’s single line (2.3.138) and Helena’s two lines
(2.3.139-40) show three types unique to a single dramatic text from 1576-1642:
well restored Fletcher Monsieur Thomas
lord I'm glad Glapthorne The Tragedy of Albertus
let the rest go Middleton, Ford, Dekker, Rowley The Spanish Gypsy (4.3)
There are no unique types in drama for Shakespeare, and all three of these types occur after
Shakespeare's career. The only unique type in drama for Middleton comes from a collaborative
play. Most scholars attribute The Spanish Gypsy 4.3 to Rowley, but Taylor recognizes ‘the high
ratio of feminine endings [in 4.3] could be Middleton's’ even though Rowley ‘seems more likely’
(Taylor and Lavagnino 2007b, 436). The second test shows three types unique to a single text
from 1576-1642:
thou should’t strive Nathaniel Pownall The young divine’ apology (1612)
strive to choose Ariosto (trans. Markham) Satires (1608)
restored my lord Bacon Sir francis bacon, his apologie (1604)
There are no unique types to a single text from a play of 1576-1642 and there are no unique types
linked to Shakespeare or Middleton. If we extend the lexical criteria for these three lines to
© Following Jackson, Roger V. Holdsworth counts 472 instances of I’m in Middleton's unaided plays but only four
instances in Shakespeare's unaided plays (Jackson 1979, 19; Holdsworth 1982, 82). lam grateful to Rory Loughnane
for pointing out the significance of this contraction. See Loughnane’s essay on All’s Well (Chapter 17) for the pres-
ence of other Middleton markers in 2.3 more generally.
336 JOHN V. NANCE
include repetends found in one canon (Shakespeare or Middleton) but not the other, Middleton
has one type compared to zero for Shakespeare:
my lordIm Middleton Mad World; Revengers; and Hengist. five times elsewhere in
drama; four times elsewhere in EEBO-TCP
Middleton is the only author to use this phrase in more than one text. Middleton's type also con-
tains the Middletonian marker I’m and this evidence seems to confirm what we already know
about Middleton and Shakespeare: the contraction I’m appears much more frequently in
Middleton’s canon than it does in Shakespeare’s. These twenty-one words of dialogue (2.3.138-40)
reveal nothing conclusive about authorship—this is not surprising with such a small bit of text—
but they do suggest the presence of Middleton more than Shakespeare.
Both of the King’s long speeches in All’s Well 2.3 seem to serve the same theatrical purpose.
Moreover, only four short lines (2.3.137-40) separate these two long speeches by the King, and it
seems unlikely that they were both intended to be included in Shakespeare’s version of the play.
The King emerges as two different characters in these two different speeches and the first speech
(2.3.109-36) emphasizes Helena whereas the second (2.3.141-58) hardly mentions her at all. Ihave
shown that on the basis on verbal parallels, Middleton is more likely than any other author to
have written 2.3.117—30, and in combination with the formal features of the speech that are more
common in Middleton than Shakespeare, I suggest that all, or almost all, of this speech was added
when Middleton was hired to revise and adapt All’s Well for a revival.
Yet any claim for Middleton’s authorship of the King’s speech 2.3.109-36 is complicated by the
fact that it may not seem to fit into the larger narrative of theatrical adaptation and Middleton's
adaptations of Shakespeare more specifically (Jowett and Taylor 1993, 123-71). Beyond general
structural changes in Measure for Measure (changing the location) and Macbeth (significantly
compressing the action), Middleton also added comic material to these plays, but the King’s
speech in Alls Well 2.3.118-45 is not comic. Other chapters in this volume (Chapters 17-19, 21), that
also suggest Middleton's presence in All’s Well, identify sections of the play that contain comic
material. As a result, the King’s speech 2.3.109-36 may not seem to meet the criteria for added
passages that we see in other Shakespeare plays adapted by Middleton. But a close parallel to the
King’s speech in another Shakespeare play adapted by Middleton is the character of Hecate in
Macbeth. Like the King’s speech, Middleton's Hecate material is also written for a character exert-
ing godlike sovereign authority in a specific type of rhyming verse that reminds Taylor of the
‘verbal and visual semiotics of civic humanist London pageantry’ (Taylor 20142, 263). Taylor cor-
respondingly links Hecate’s supernatural art ‘to the wider world of the urban guild’ and ‘the craft
ethic’ of city labourers, associations that also emerge in the language of the King’s speech when he
extolls the virtues of a different female labourer practicing a different type of art (Taylor 20142,
264). Although the King’s speech does not amplify the comic material of the play, it does reshape
our impression of Helena and the King in accordance with Middletonian aesthetics found else-
where in Middleton's canon and in Middleton's adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Texts by Middleton are more present in the data for the King’s speech than texts written by any-
one else. In combination with an analysis of Middleton’s general patterns that link him more
closely to the form and content of the King’s speech than Shakespeare, these results suggest
Middleton as the author of All’s Well 2.3.117-30. The rhyme evidence—first proposed by Maguire
and Smith as indicative of Middleton—is suggestive, but is in itself insufficient for a confident
attribution. The lexical evidence, by contrast, seems decisive.
Chapter 21
All’s Well that Ends Well: Text,
Date, and Adaptation
GARY TAYLOR
I the Times Literary Supplement in 2012, Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith asked, for the first
time, whether Thomas Middleton hada hand in All’s Well that Ends Well. Their suggestion (that
he seems to have had) was immediately attacked by Brian Vickers and Marcus Dahl. Maguire
and Smith explicitly sought to open a conversation; Vickers and Dahl sought to stop further
investigation (Maguire and Smith 2012b; Vickers and Dahl 2012). But these mighty opposites
both cited my 1987 conclusions about the Folio text of All’s Well, both wavered on the date of the
play’s composition, both emphasized literary interpretation, and both were unclear whether
the question was Middleton's active collaboration with Shakespeare or merely retrospective
adaptation of Shakespeare’s original. Their shared assumptions undermined the ability of either
party to answer the important question that Maguire and Smith had raised.
Any edition of All’s Well, or Shakespeare’s Complete Works, must attend to this dispute; even to
ignore it would represent a decision, because it would leave intact Shakespeare's claim to sole
authorship. Rory Loughnane, as editor of the play for the New Oxford Shakespeare, therefore
engaged directly and extensively with the debate, and much of his work on the play was com-
pleted before I wrote this chapter. So too was the work of Terri Bourus and Farah Karim-Cooper.
None of these scholars (or John V. Nance) was a contributor to the 2007 Oxford Middleton, and
none had a personal stake in the debate over Middleton’s hand in All’s Well. Although I have
encouraged their investigations of the problem, I have not tried to influence their conclusions,
which have all been reached independently. But I am personally entangled in the history of this
play and of the Middleton canon, and I am cited by Maguire and Smith, and by Vickers and Dahl,
as an authority. I have therefore felt it necessary to return to these issues myself, and re-examine
my previous assumptions.
Text
My 1987 textual introduction to the play in the 1986 Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare
presupposed—as did the edition’s Textual Companion generally—the intellectual categories
created by the New Bibliography of R. B. McKerrow and W. W. Greg, and in particular the criteria
that allegedly distinguished between ‘foul papers’ and ‘promptbooks’ (Taylor 1987b). But textual
338 GARY TAYLOR
criticism has not stood still in the thirty years since I wrote that introduction. In the wake of the
1986 edition, Paul Werstine pursued a line of argument and a systematic examination of all sur-
viving playbooks (from the years before the closing of the theatres) that produced a series of art-
icles and most recently a book demonstrating, indisputably, that most of the textual features cited
in the twentieth century (by me and many others) as proof of ‘foul papers’ actually occur in early
modern playhouse manuscripts (Werstine 2013). Thus, the evidence I cited in 1987—variant
speech prefixes, literary stage directions, ghost characters, misleading punctuation, and the high
rate of error in the Folio text—does not, in fact, support my conclusion that the 1623 text was set
‘from Shakespeare’s own foul papers’ (Wells et al. 1987, 492).'
Werstine’s research actually clarifies and simplifies the tangle of textual evidence I described
in 1987, which has confused editors since the eighteenth century. “These foul papers may’, I con-
cluded, ‘have been annotated by a book-keeper’ (Wells et al. 1987, 492). Once we have eliminated
the so-called evidence for so-called ‘foul papers, the evidence for theatrical annotation is much
easier to explain, and much stronger than I had realized. First, Paroles is given two entrance dir-
ections in the final scene (5.3.155.1, 228), a duplication treated as an error by all editors since
Nicholas Rowe in 1709; as Werstine shows, duplicated stage directions are one of the few reliable
signs of an annotated playhouse manuscript. The duplicated entrance directions for Paroles very
closely resemble the duplicated entrances for Emilia (4.2.0.1, 4.2.54.1) in the 1634 first quarto of
The Two Noble Kinsmen; that text also contains a duplicated exit for the Jailer’s Daughter in 4.3.
Recent scholars have all agreed that the quarto derives from an annotated playhouse manu-
script, which apparently includes alterations made for a revival in the 1620s (Wells et al. 1987,
629; Fletcher 1997; 2005, xiii; 2012, 52). As in Kinsmen, the Paroles duplication in All’s Well might
result from a decision to omit or to add material to the original text.
Secondly, the regular act divisions in the play almost certainly date from the second half of
1608, or later. But no historical or stylistic evidence puts the original composition of All’s Well
after the King’s Men began performing indoors at the Blackfriars; these divisions therefore seem
to be late theatrical annotations, like those in Folio Titus Andronicus and A Midsummer Night’
Dream (Taylor 1993c).
Both the preceding features of the Folio text of All’s Well were noted as evidence of theatrical
annotation in 1987. For a third feature it is worth quoting that introduction:
As W. J. Lawrence pointed out in Shakespeare’ Workshop (1928; pp. 48-74), All’s Well is
the only public theatre play written before 1609 which calls in its stage directions for
cornetts, an instrument before then very strongly associated with the boys’ companies.
The instruments are not used for any particular or unusual dramatic purpose, and seem
much more typical of the practice of the King’s Men after 1609 than before. The layout of
the directions may also be suggestive of a bookkeeper: “Flourish Cornets.’ at 1.2.0.1 occu-
pies a separate line, and at 2.1.0.1 “Flourish Cornets.’ occurs incongruously at the end of a
long direction. (Wells et al. 1987, 492)
' Much of my own intellectual energy, in that textual introduction and throughout the Textual Companion, was
devoted to discrediting the idea of intermediate transcripts, advocated by Fredson Bowers (then the most influen-
tial living editor and analytical bibliographer). That intermediate category presumed that all early modern
‘promptbooks’ had to be perfectly systematic and complete in their treatment of speech prefixes and stage direc-
tions; in fact, none are. This is an area where Werstine agrees with my 1987 work; but at that time I did not go
far enough in recognizing the variety of playhouse documents, or the weakness of much of the evidence for
‘foul papers.
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 339
The Lawrence thesis has been confirmed, more recently, by David Lindley:
Whereas it seems highly likely that before 1608 the bulk of the music in the plays of the
adult companies, both instrumental and sung, would have been generated by the actors
themselves and their apprentices, after that date an ensemble of more specialist musi-
cians would have been required. ... The important fact, however, is that while the cor-
nett is called for quite frequently in the plays of all the boys’ companies, it is not, as far
as I have discovered, mentioned in the text of any amphitheatre play printed pre-1609.
It is, therefore, generally accepted that mention of the cornett is a clear marker of
post-Blackfriars provenance for the stage directions in any plays.... The real import
of the change from trumpet to cornett is less a question of volume, than a case of reflect-
ing the changed nature of the instrumental ensemble available now to the company.
(Lindley 2012, 52-4)
Unlike the Elizabethan or Jacobean trumpet, the cornett has finger-holes and a cup mouthpiece,
making it musically more versatile but also much more difficult to play. As music historian
Bruce Dickey notes, ‘at every stage of its development the cornett was an instrument of profes-
sional musicians’ (Dickey 1997, 53). Consequently, ‘the availability of cornettists, Lindley con-
cludes, ‘must have come to the King’s Men with the creation of a Blackfriars ensemble’
(Lindley 2012, 55).
These three types of evidence for theatrical annotation come from scholars who were not
involved in polemical attribution disputes about All’s Well that Ends Well: those scholars were,
instead, systematically surveying playhouse manuscripts, documents of performance, act divi-
sions, and music cues throughout the extant drama of the whole period. All three independently
support the hypothesis that All’s Well was printed from a manuscript that had been annotated in
the theatre.
This conclusion is supported by another kind of evidence, also noted in 1987, which unlike the
preceding categories is unique to All’s Well. E. K. Chambers—a scholar famous for his 1924 British
Academy lecture diagnosing and resisting “Ihe Disintegration of Shakespeare’ (Chambers
1924-5)—proposed in 1930 that ‘the book-keeper has probably added the letters G. and E. to the
1. and 2. by which the author discriminated the brothers Dumain’ (Chambers 1930, 1: 450). No
exact parallel for this peculiarity exists in the Shakespeare (or the Middleton) canon; it establishes
that there is something unusual or anomalous about the Folio text of All’s Well, but it does not, in
itself, contribute to an argument about attribution. However, these abbreviations are another
example of duplicated directions. Either the number, or the letter, is sufficient to differentiate the
two characters; the numbers are commonplace in dramatic speech prefixes throughout the
period, but the letters are idiosyncratic. However, modifications of speech prefixes do occur in
theatrical manuscripts; for instance, in The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore Hand C alters the speech
prefixes in Hand D’s three pages, primarily to bring them into line with other parts of the play.
Something similar seems to be happening here.
We thus have four independent categories of evidence that the Folio text of All’s Well derives
from an annotated playhouse manuscript. Nothing in the text contradicts that hypothesis.
Features of the play that may suggest a particular author's handwriting could have stood in the
playbook, either because the manuscript itself was in the author's (or authors’) handwriting, or
because such features were preserved in a transcript. We cannot determine, from such evidence,
whether Isaac Jaggard’s compositors were working from the playbook itself, or from a transcrip-
tion of it, but that difference does not affect the central conclusion.
340 GARY TAYLOR
Date(s)
‘The preceding evidence of theatrical annotation is not based upon, and does not in itself support,
attribution to Shakespeare or to Middleton or to anyone else. Whether the play contained the
work of one playwright, or two, it would have been prepared for performance by the King’s Men.
But theatrical annotation does establish that our only surviving text of All’s Well that Ends Well
results from three successive stages of composition, which need to be logically separated:
(1) original authorial composition of the play
(2) theatrical annotation of the playhouse manuscript
(3) compositorial typesetting of the printed play
Modern scholarship has consistently identified All’s Well as a Jacobean play. Any hypothesis about
the play’s authorship should not presuppose a new date of original composition; instead, a
re-dating of the play would need to be made, and defended, independently. A different date should
not be conjured out of thin air simply because it is convenient for a particular attribution hypoth-
esis. G. K. Hunter’s 1959 Arden edition (still the most recent Arden) tentatively dated the play to
1603-4 (Hunter 1959, xviii-xxv). In 1987 my own ‘Canon and Chronology’ essay placed All’s Well
in 1604-5; Susan Snyder’s 1993 edition agreed; in 2003, Alexander Leggatt suggested 1603, per-
haps just after Elizabeth’s death (Taylor 1987c, 126-7; Snyder 1993, 20-4; Leggatt 2003, 5-11). Then
in 2005, the revised Oxford Complete Works placed the play’s original composition in 1606-7,
after Antony and Cleopatra but before Pericles (Wells et al. 2005, 10: 1031). This later date better fits
some of the stylistic evidence I had cited in 1987, but the chief reason for the change was
MacDonald P. Jackson’s argument that the play’s rare name for the offstage character Spurio
(2.1.41, 4.3.131) had been picked up from a major character in Middleton’s Revenger's Tragedy, per-
formed by the King’s Men in 1606 (Jackson 2001e). That late date has been supported by a 2014
statistical analysis of the play’s versification, which puts All’s Well at the start of 1607; but that same
article eventually dates the play to 1603-4 (Bruster and Smith 2014, table 1). Moreover, Jackson's
entire argument was challenged by Quentin Skinner in 2014, who concluded that Shakespeare
‘almost certainly’ wrote the play ‘in the latter half of 1604 or the early months of 1605’ (Skinner
2014, 315-19). Martin Wiggins, in the most recent discussion of its date, places All’s Well in 1605
(Wiggins and Richardson 2015a, 194-5).”
Despite these relatively minor differences, between 1959 and 2015 a strong scholarly consen-
sus has agreed in dating the original composition of All’s Well between 1603 and (at the latest)
1607. Maguire and Smith cite and endorse Jackson’s dating of the play after The Revenger's
Tragedy, but they go further than other scholars, shifting my ‘1606-7’ to ‘1607 or later’ having
earlier given the less confident ‘1606-7 (or later)’ (Maguire and Smith 2012a; 2012b). I know of
no evidence that would place the original composition of All’s Well later than 1607, and Maguire
and Smith cite none. Moreover, they do not acknowledge that their own hypothesis of collab-
oration may undermine Jackson's argument: if Middleton collaborated on the play, then the
name Spurio might be his in both plays, and we need not assume that All’s Well post-dates
Revenger.
Maguire and Smith’s case for collaboration weakens Jackson's evidence for a later date for Alls
Well, but it also crucially depends upon that date. Their argument presupposes that All’s Well was
> His discussion of the date also points to profanity as evidence against a later date, and notes that the distribu-
tion of profanity does not support theories of collaboration. He cites the gap between Othello and King Lear as
further evidence for placing All’s Well in 1605, but that gap is itself created by his later dating of Timon of Athens.
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION 341
written after Shakespeare and Middleton had collaborated on Timon of Athens. But the dating of
All’s Well in the 1986 Oxford Shakespeare (and other editions from 1959 to 2004) put All’s Well
before Timon. And recent scholarship on Timon has, while acknowledging its collaborative sta-
tus, also tended to push its date later, from the 1605 of my 1987 chronology to 1606 or later. It
makes perfect sense for Shakespeare to have first collaborated with Middleton on Timon of
Athens, where the plot combines Shakespeare's interest in the classical world with Middleton's
command of city comedy. It is harder to make sense of the two playwrights first collaborating on
All’s Well, which may be a problem comedy but is certainly not a city comedy. In the New Oxford
Shakespeare, we again place All’s Well before Timon of Athens.
Although I disagree with Maguire and Smith’s claim that All’s Well might have been written
after 1607, I must also accept some responsibility for their mistake. In retrospect, the date of 1607
I admitted as a possibility in the 2005 Oxford edition seems unjustified. The Act to Restrain
Abuses of Players, which forbade and heavily fined the speaking of ‘the holy Name of God’ on
stage, was passed by Parliament on 27 May 1606. All’s Well, like other non-classical plays written
before passage of the Act, uses ‘God’ liberally. It appears twenty times, a figure entirely in keeping
with the number in Shakespeare's plays written before the Act:
God send him well (1.1.150)
I shall neuer haue the blessing of God (1.3.19)
God would serue the world so (1.3.66)
Gods mercie (1.3.121)
God shield you meane it not (1.3.140)
And praie Gods blessing into thy attempt (1.3.227)
if God haue lent a man any manners (2.2.7)
Fore God I thinke so (2.3.39)
Who? God. (2.3.226)
whether God send her quickly (2.4.9)
whence God send her quickly (2.4.10)
God saue you Captaine (2.5.27-8)
God saue you pilgrim (3.5.26)
Now God delay our rebellion (4.3.15)
God blesse you Captaine Parolles (4.3.256)
God saue you noble Captaine (4.3.257)
I thanke my God (4.5.71)
God saue you sir (5.1.8)
both the office of God and the diuel (5.2.37-8)
I praise God for you (5.2.43)
Private transcripts of the plays of some dramatists, designed for readers rather than theatres,
sometimes preserved language that the Act banished from performances. But no play demon-
strably written after May 1606 by Shakespeare alone, or Middleton alone, contains so many for-
bidden references to the Christian deity (Taylor 1993a). MacDonald P. Jackson dates The Revenger's
Tragedy to ‘early spring 1606 (Taylor and Lavagnino 2007), 363). This date is confirmed by Roger
Holdsworth’s research in this volume (Chapter 22)—which also shows that the period from
autumn 1605 to summer 1606 is so crowded that it leaves no room for Shakespeare (or Middleton)
to have worked on All’s Well. Composition in 1606 or 1607 now seems unlikely. The 2005 Oxford
edition was therefore almost certainly mistaken in placing All’s Well after Antony and Cleopatra.
The latest date that satisfies all the current available evidence would be late summer or early
342 GARY TAYLOR
autumn of 1605. It would therefore be safest, in any discussion of the authorship of All’s Well, to
assume that the play was originally written at some time between 1603 and 1605.
At the other end of the spectrum, Charlton Hinman’s work on the printing of the 1623 Folio
demonstrated that All’s Well was typeset in 1622, after King John and most of the comedies, but
before Twelfth Night, Winter’ Tale, the rest of the histories, or any of the tragedies. In particular, it
belongs to a section of the Folio comedies that ‘must have been printed in 1622 and probably not
earlier than the second quarter of that year. Typesetting of All’s Well was not completed until
‘about November 1622’ (Hinman 1963, 2: 461). This means that Jaggard’s compositors must have
had a manuscript of All’s Well in hand by April 1622 at the earliest, and theoretically as late as
September.
Playhouse annotation—the middle phase of the evolution of our extant text—could have taken
place, theoretically, at any time between 1603 and the first half of 1622. Duplicated stage directions
and modifications of speech prefixes could occur as a result of preparation for the play’s first per-
formances, soon after the author(s) completed writing the play. However, the act divisions and
cornett directions both suggest preparation for performances after August 1608, when the King’s
Men acquired access to the Blackfriars. None of the stylistic or historical evidence puts compos-
ition of the original play that late, and to my knowledge no modern edition or chronology has
ever placed it that late. This evidence therefore suggests that the manuscript had been annotated
for a revival, no earlier than late 1608 or early 1609.
That conclusion is also supported by the redundant initials ‘E’ and ‘G’ in speech prefixes. As
first suggested by Edward Capell, these look like the initials of actors; Chambers (and the 1987
textual introduction, among many others) noted that those initials would fit two actors with
long-standing connections to the King’s Men, listed in the 1623 Folio among the ‘principal actors’
of Shakespeare’s plays: William Eccleston (1610-11, 1614-25) and Robert Gough. They are also
named in theatrical annotations to the manuscripts of The Lady’s [or ‘Second Maiden’’] Tragedy in
late 1611 and Sir John van Olden Barnavelt in 1619 (Gurr 2004b, 226, 228). Two hired men with
these initials did not overlap in the company, so far as we can tell, until 1611. Of course, the docu-
mentary record is not complete, and it is always possible to conjecture that one or both of those
men were working together for the King’s Men in other years. But since the evidence of cornetts
and act divisions already points to a later Jacobean date, such conjectures seem unnecessary. If ‘E’
and ‘G’ do refer to actors—and no other satisfactory explanation has ever been offered—then the
playhouse manuscript of All’s Well was probably annotated, or annotated again, between 1611 and
the first half of 1622.
Again, this evidence does not in itself prove that All’s Well contains any revisions by Shakespeare
or by any other playwright. Shakespeare was still writing for the King’s Men from 1611 to late 1613
or early 1614, and he might have been involved in modifications of the play at that time. The
nature of theatrical annotation is that it primarily affects stage directions and speech prefixes, or
is only visible in printed texts through its impact on stage directions and speech prefixes, and
those features do not necessarily entail alteration of the play’s dialogue. The textual evidence for a
theatrical revival after 1609 does, however, mean that certain features of the play might result
from post-Shakespearean adaptation by another playwright.
If the Folio text contains new additions by another playwright—like those in The Spanish
Tragedy, or Mucedorus, or Doctor Faustus—then we would expect the evidence of a second writer
to be distributed differently than it would be if Shakespeare had collaborated with that same
* Gough is not certainly associated with the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men until the manuscript of The [Lady's]
Tragedy, licensed on 31 October 1611. Chambers does not mention this possibility, but the ‘G? might also refer to
Samuel Gilbourne (associated with the company from 1605 to 1623).
ALL'S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION = 3.43
writer. New additions affect a much smaller proportion of the text; they are therefore less likely
than collaboration to affect gross totals of stylistic features for the whole play.
Vickers and Dahl directly addressed, and successfully undermined, much of the evidence cited
by Maguire and Smith in support of Middleton’s co-authorship of the original play. In most
respects, Alls Well overall fits within Shakespeare's own stylistic norms, insofar as those can be
quantitatively evaluated. Maguire and Smith do not convincingly identify a run of consecutive
scenes written by Middleton, as happens for instance in Timon of Athens. Indeed, sustained
stretches of writing in two different styles almost always happen in collaborative early modern
plays. Nor have Maguire and Smith identified a single scene written in its entirety by Middleton.
If the question is ‘Did Shakespeare collaborate with Middleton in All's Well as he did in Timon of
Athens, or as he did with George Wilkins in Pericles, with John Fletcher in All Is True and The Two
Noble Kinsmen, with Thomas Nashe in 1 Henry VI, or with George Peele in Titus Andronicus?’
then the answer has to be ‘No.
However, both parties to the Times Literary Supplement dispute simultaneously minimized
and fudged the possibility of posthumous adaptation. In the final paragraph of their original art-
icle Maguire and Smith briefly cited John Dover Wilson’s hypothesis that the play had been
altered later by a second hand. Vickers began his own rebuttal by foregrounding this allusion to
Wilson, whom he pejoratively labelled ‘the Grand Disintegrator’ This adoption of the rhetoric of
E. K. Chambers (eerily combined with Dostoyevsky) is disconcerting, coming from a scholar
who has lambasted other scholars for ignoring the evidence that Shakespeare collaborated on at
least eight plays. More specifically, Vickers elsewhere endorses Wilson's attribution of Act 1 of
1 Henry VI to Nashe and of Act 1 of Titus Andronicus to Peele, and berates scholars who have
ignored Wilson's work. It is not clear, then, why Vickers attacks Maguire and Smith for agreeing
with Wilson here (Vickers 2002b, 166-9, 180-3, 205-6; 20074; 2010).
More significantly, both parties to the dispute over All’s Well fail to distinguish between
Wilson's theories of ‘continuous copy’ (dismantled by Chambers) and Gerald Eades Bentley’s
emphasis on the theatrical evidence for new additions to revived plays (Bentley 1971, 235-63).
From the perspective of Bentley (and Werstine), we need to examine All’ Well for evidence of
particular passages that might have been added to spice up a revival, to update a play for new
performance conditions, or to allude to more recent events.
Middleton, in particular, is famous for his topical allusions. In his Epistle “To the Comic
Play-readers, which prefaces The Roaring Girl (1611), he famously compared “The fashion of
play-making’ to ‘the alteration of apparel’:
in the time of the great-crop doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with mighty
words to lean purpose was only then in fashion; and as the doublet fell, neater inventions
began to set up. Now in the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our gar-
ments: single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests dressed up in hanging sleeves; and
those are fit for the times and termers. Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled
with diverse colours, you shall find this published comedy. (Epistle 1-11)
Likewise, Paroles claims that “Virginity like an old courtier wears her cap out of fashion, richly
suited but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now’ (1.1.132-4). This
sentence makes an explicit statement about fashions at the time of writing. Fashions, notoriously,
change quickly. But Shakespeare himself tells us that brooches remained in fashion from 1597,
when he wrote 2 Henry IV (‘brooches, pearls, 8.42), to 1609-10, when he wrote The Winter's Tale,
where Autolycus the pedlar told audiences that he had sold every ‘ribbon, glass, pomander,
brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring’ to his customers, ‘as if
344 GARY TAYLOR
my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer’ (4.4.575-9). Somewhere
between those two dates, anywhere from 1599 to 1604 (depending on the scholar), Laertes
describes Lamord as ‘the brooch indeed| And gem of all the nation’ (Hamlet 17.89-90) and
Cleopatra swears that ‘th'imperious show| Of the full-fortuned Caesar’ shall never ‘Be brooched’
(that is, adorned) with her captive presence (Antony and Cleopatra 41.25-6).
These passages suggest that Shakespeare, at least, did not consider brooches unfashionable
until after the period when he originally wrote All’s Well, and Ben Jonson refers to them positively
in 1614. But, as Hunter noted in the Arden edition, ‘In Jonson’s Christmas (1616) it [the brooch]
belongs clearly to the dress of the past, being worn by old’ Christmas, as he is twice called
(Hunter 1959, 12; Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 5: 257). Toothpicks, too, are described
positively in King John (1596) and Henry Chettle’s Tragedy of Hoffman (1603); James Shirley men-
tions them in three plays (The Ball, The Witty Fair One, and The Grateful Servant). But between
1603 and the 1630s, I have found in Literature Online (LION) only one play that refers to them:
Middleton’s More Dissemblers Besides Women, where a comic servant describes a page as ‘good
for nothing but to carry toothpicks’ (3.1.79). The Oxford Middleton dates Dissemblers to 1614, but
other scholars have placed it as late as 1619. (See Taylor and Lavagnino 2007b, 378-9.) This does
not suggest any great appreciation of the toothpick in the later years of James I’s reign. Thus, this
reference to the unfashionable brooch and toothpick suggests that the dialogue on virginity in 1.1
was written no earlier than 1615, after Shakespeare's retirement from the theatre.
It may also be significant that England was at peace, and that English soldiers were not going
overseas to fight, from the accession of James I until the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618.
In May 1620 King James allowed Count Dohna to levy English volunteers to travel abroad to
defend the Protestant cause and the Palatinate. These were volunteers because James did not want
to be drawn into a war with the House of Austria, the dynastic and family alliance between the
King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor (Patterson 1997, 304). The attitude of King James in
1620-22 is perfectly expressed by the French King in All’s Well:
We here receive it
A certainty vouched from our cousin Austria,
With caution that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid—wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial.
(1.2.4-9)
A listener could easily substitute ‘Palatine’ for ‘Florentine’. This may, of course, be a coincidence:
revivals of Shakespeare’s plays, in the last four centuries, have often found fortuitous connec-
tions between his words and their own political circumstances. But it is odd for a King of France
in the early seventeenth century to describe Austria as ‘our dearest friend’: the House of Austria
was ‘France's traditional enemy, and France was reluctant to support Austria when war broke
out in 1619. And it is a fact that, on 22 July 1620, an English regiment of 2,200 soldiers, com-
manded by Sir Howard Vere, set sail from Gravesend. By the winter of 1620 they were garrisoned
in Palatine cities, defending them against attack by a multinational Catholic army (Trim 2004;
Lawrence 2009).
This situation closely resembles that in All’s Well, where French volunteers travel to a besieged
Florence to defend it against attack. Middleton and Rowley’s 1620 masque The World Tossed at
Tennis explicitly refers to this situation, when the Soldier announces his departure at the end of
the masque (written by Middleton): ‘Tll over yonder to the most glorious wars| That eer famed
ALL'S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 3.45
Christian kingdom (878-9). In April 1622, King James ‘allowed two Catholic peers, Lord Vaux
and the Earl of Argyll, to raise regiments for the army of Flanders’ (Coghill 1989, 20). King
James was therefore allowing English volunteers to fight on either side, as does the French King
in All’s Well:
Yet for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.
(1.3.13-15)
Dramatically, this is odd, because the plot proceeds to ignore the presence of French soldiers on
the other side of the war around Florence. Whether or not Middleton wrote any or all of the mili-
tary material in All’s Well, that element of the play’s plot would certainly have interested him (and
many London spectators) from 1620 to 1622. That would have been an attractive time for a revival,
whether or not the King’s Men commissioned any new additions. And if the company did com-
mission any additions, Middleton would have been the obvious person to write them.
Finally, the addition of ‘E’ and ‘G’ to speech prefixes in so many scenes may also reflect the
political and military circumstances of 1620-2. To see why, it is necessary to track those initials
throughout the play. In 1.2, the entrance of the French court calls only for ‘diverse Attendants,
and the speech prefixes for two numbered lords; in 2.1, the entrance of the court calls for ‘diverse
young Lords; with speech prefixes for two numbered lords, who are leaving to fight in Florence.
In 3.2, at Roussillon, Helen enters with ‘two Gentlemen, who are repeatedly addressed as ‘gentle-
men, not lords; they have come from Florence (‘thence we came’), and the speech prefixes
identify them only as ‘French. Most editors since Rowe have distinguished these characters:
those in 1.2 and 2.1 are editorially identified as first and second ‘Lord, those in 3.2 as first and
second ‘Gentlemen’ In 1863, the influential Cambridge editors, W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright,
noted that the entrance direction in 3.6 (‘Enter Count Rousillion and the Frenchmen as at first’)
‘seems to prove that the two gentlemen were different persons’ (Clark and Wright 1863-6, 3: 317).
Throughout 3.6, the two characters are distinguished as ‘Cap. E’ and ‘Cap. G’; in 4.1, the direction
‘Enter one of the Frenchmen’ is followed by speech prefixes for ‘1. Lord. E’ and then simply ‘Lor.
E’; in 4.3 ‘Enter the two French Captaines’ precedes prefixes that consistently label them ‘Cap. G
and ‘Cap. E’ A lord could certainly be a captain, as demonstrated by the reference to ‘the Captain
of his horse, Count Roussillon (4.3.241). Then, in the final scene, the entrance direction calls for
‘the two French lords, with attendants to accompany the King, but the two lords are given noth-
ing to say or do. They might be dismissed as ‘ghost characters’ in the final scene, as long as the
Folio text was imagined as a reflection of ‘foul papers’; but given the evidence of playhouse
annotation, and the particular playhouse attention to these two characters, it is likelier that their
presence in that scene reflects stage practice, at least in a revival. In fact, ‘the two French lords’
might have been intended to replace ‘the attendants. Rather than being an original intention
forgotten by the playwright, they might have been no part of Shakespeare’s original intention,
but an addition after his death.
Overall, the theatrical ‘E’ and ‘G’ seem designed to aggrandize the importance of these charac-
ters. The initials in speech prefixes combine at least two sets of characters that the original script
seems to have distinguished (the French lords and the French gentlemen). They might even
* C. E. McGee's introduction to The World Tossed at Tennis addresses this political context (Taylor and
Lavagnino 20074, 1405-6); Middleton also referred to the Palatinate in Anything for a Quiet Life (1621) and A Game
at Chess (162.4).
346 GARY TAYLOR
combine four or five sets of characters (the attendant lords in 1.2, the departing lords in 2.1, the
gentlemen in 3.2, the soldiers in 3.6, 4.1, and 4.3, and the attendants in 5.3). Shakespeare's plays
often contain successions of small parts that later revivals prefer to combine; keeping them separ-
ate, in the original script, maximized the opportunities for doubling small roles. But ‘E’ and ‘@’
produce a different effect: the initials create two important characters, who appear in at least
seven scenes and presumably also among the silent ‘soldiers’ in 3.3 and ‘the whole army’ in 3.5.
And what is the function of those two aggrandized characters? They represent a consistently
positive picture of the lords, gentlemen, captains, and soldiers who have elected to go abroad to
fight on behalf of a besieged city. Without them, the volunteer expeditionary army would be rep-
resented by only Bertram and Paroles, who are both ambivalent at best. In contrast, ‘E’ and ‘@’
represent figures comparable to the noble ‘Soldier’ in Middleton and Rowley’s World Tossed at
Tennis and the other noble ‘Soldier’ in Middleton's Nice Valour (written in the summer or autumn
of1622). Ihave covered Nice Valour’s relationship to the Thirty Years War elsewhere (Taylor 2001¢).
Finally, Maguire and Smith cite the French King’s ‘fistula’ (1.1.25) as evidence of Middleton's
authorship, comparing it to the Black Knight's fistula in A Game at Chess (1624). Vickers and Dahl
rightly object that All’s Well does not specify ‘fistula in ano’. I would also object that Middleton
had no reason to write about a fistula, of any kind, in 1603-6. The Black Knight's fistula clearly
referenced, and satirized, the medical condition of the Spanish ambassador to England, Count
Gondomar, whose fistula was the most famous in early modern England. The fistula in All’s Well
is not necessary to the plot, and might easily have been added or substituted in a revival. But if so,
that reference is likely to have post-dated Gondomar’s arrival in England in 1613. Middleton's
other references to a fistula—in Widow 4.2.93 and Owl 1372—belong to that period. Gondomar
returned to England on 8 March 1620, where he was immediately deeply involved in the disputes
over the Palatinate. A fistula in 1603, or even 1607, cannot be taken seriously as evidence of
Middleton’s co-authorship. But a fistula would be especially topical from 1620 (the year that
Gondomar was satirized in Vox Populi) to May 1622 (when Gondomar left England).
Of course, Middleton was not the only playwright who paid attention to changing sartorial
fashions, the Thirty Years War, or Gondomar. Nevertheless, without jumping to conclusions
about authorship, we can accept that the Folio text of All’s Well derives from an annotated
theatrical manuscript, that All’s Well was originally written between 1603 and early 1606, and
that the Folio text contains evidence of a second temporal layer, added between 1616 and the
middle of 1622.
Linguistic Evidence: Contractions
Maguire and Smith’s evidence linking the play, thematically, to the Middleton canon might be
reconsidered, not as proof that Middleton co-authored it, but as evidence that Middleton might
have been interested enough in the play’s characters and ideas to be attracted by the prospect of
adapting it. From this perspective, the attribution problem would be reconceptualized: rather
than attempting to establish that the entire play is or is not anomalous, scholars might investi-
gate whether any specific passages clash significantly with the style of the rest of the play. That
investigation might begin by re-evaluating evidence already cited by both parties to the attribu-
tion dispute.
Maguire and Smith called attention to a number of contractions that have elsewhere been
associated with the Middleton canon; Vickers and Dahl countered with statistics that seem to
demonstrate that the frequencies of such contractions in All’s Well can be matched in other
ALLS WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION 347
Shakespeare plays of undisputed single authorship. But Vickers and Dahl could not find a parallel
in the Shakespeare canon for a play (or poem) that contains four examples of the rare contraction
with't. In this respect, then, All’s Well is truly anomalous. The closest any Shakespeare play comes
to this total is The Winter's Tale with three (in a significantly longer text). Only four other plays in
the Shakespeare canon have any examples of the contraction at all: there is one each in The Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Othello, The Tempest, and The Two Noble Kinsmen (in a Fletcher scene). In
other words, outside All’s Well there are only six Shakespearean examples of this contraction; All’s
Well contains 40 per cent of the examples in the entire Shakespeare canon. By contrast, the con-
traction appears 44 times in Middleton’s dramatic canon, including No Wit/Help Like a Woman's
(4), More Dissemblers Besides Women (4), Women Beware Women (5), and A Game at Chess (4).
This gives four comparable Middleton plays, to none for Shakespeare. Another four Middleton
plays match the total in The Winter's Tale: Wit at Several Weapons, The Witch, The Widow, and
Hengist, King of Kent. Because these Middleton plays are shorter than The Winter’ Tale, they all
use with’t at a relatively higher frequency than the Shakespeare play.
Objectively, the high frequency of with’t in All’s Wellis much more likely to occur in a Middleton
play than a Shakespeare play. This outlier does not support the claim by Vickers and Dahl that
there is nothing at all anomalous about the linguistic profile of All’s Well: it forces them to suggest
that All’s Well might have been written as late as 1609, which conflicts with their insistence
elsewhere that the play is closely connected to Measure for Measure. Admittedly, any theory of
attribution should acknowledge that there are disputes about the dating of All’s Well. For Measure
for Measure and for The Winter’s Tale we possess documentary evidence of a performance, which
establishes a firm latest-possible date of original composition, but we possess no such indisput-
able evidence for All’s Well. But Vickers and Dahl cannot have it both ways: All’s Well cannot be
Shakespeare's early Jacobean problem play for one set of arguments, and Shakespeare's later
Jacobean romance for another set of arguments.
On the other hand, the anomalously high frequency of witht does not support Maguire and
Smith’s conjecture that Middleton collaborated with Shakespeare on the play around 1606, either.
All eight Middleton plays with high totals come from the period 1611-24. Only one early
Middleton play has more than one example (Your Five Gallants, with two). The highest total
appears in Women Beware Women, written in 1621. The contraction with’t suggests that Middleton
worked on the play (if he did at all) at a later date than Shakespeare. Moreover, all four examples
of the contraction occur in a single section of a single scene: the conversation of Paroles and
Helen in 1.1. In fact, all four examples are spoken by Paroles, in a mere twenty-one lines of the
scene (1.1.116-32). This pattern of distribution does not in itself suggest that Middleton co-wrote
the entire play, or even that entire scene. But it does suggest that this particular stretch of dialogue
(the conversation about virginity) is profoundly anomalous, within the Shakespeare canon
as a whole.
However, Vickers and Dahl would probably dismiss this anomaly. In addition to their quanti-
tative argument, Vickers and Dahl mount a more general, conceptual attack on this whole cat-
egory of evidence, claiming that such features are routinely modified by compositors, scribes, and
playhouse editors, and that such linguistic forms are profoundly unreliable as evidence of author-
ship. This objection had been answered by Roger V. Holdsworth thirty years before (Holdsworth
1982). Vickers and Dahl are right to recognize that these features of the text might, occasionally,
be disturbed by scribes and compositors; I have myself examined the influence of such agents in
the texts of both Middleton and Shakespeare, and the relationship of textual transmission to attri-
bution has been at the centre of MacDonald P. Jackson’s work throughout his career, beginning
with his Oxford dissertation on Arden of Faversham (Jackson 1963) and continuing through his
current work on the Cambridge edition of John Webster's works.
348 GARY TAYLOR
Vickers and Dahl take this necessary scepticism to the length of expressing doubts about
whether Middleton preferred modern has (over obsolescent hath), though that preference is
demonstrated in his autograph manuscripts of A Game at Chess, and throughout the entire
canon of his plays. Shakespeare’s opposed preference for hath might more reasonably be dis-
puted, because not all scholars accept his authorship of the Hand D pages in Sir Thomas More;
nevertheless, as Vickers and Dahl acknowledge, all Shakespeare's undisputed single-author
plays prefer hath. Moreover, in both canons the distribution of such linguistic evidence is
directly related to the chronology of the plays. Shakespeare’s plays, and Middleton’s, were set
into type by many compositors working for many printers; printers who set Shakespeare plays
also set Middleton ones. The two authors are the only agents that might explain this consistent
difference in the preference for the two forms in the two canons. The same reasoning applies to
all the other linguistic evidence of Middleton’s work identified by David J. Lake, Jackson, and
Holdsworth.
In any case, Vickers and Dahl make these claims in generalized terms, without paying atten-
tion to the specifics of the texts being considered. This passage in All’s Well, with the anomalous
concentration of with’t, occurs ona page (Shakespeare 1623, sig. Var) set by Jaggard’s Compositor
B, who also set most of the rest of All’s Well, and most of the rest of the 1623 First Folio. Why
should that compositor have suddenly erupted with this enthusiasm for with’t? The page shows
no signs of excessive crowding. There are wide blank spaces before and after both stage directions
(‘Enter Parrolles’ and ‘Enter Page’). All four examples of the contraction appear in prose, but two
of them (‘Away witht’) are at the end of prose speeches, with lots of blank space filling out the rest
of the type line. The other two (‘Out with’? and ‘Off witht’) occur in lines that are not at all
crowded; in mechanical terms, the full with it could have been accommodated as easily as the
contracted with’t. Nothing about the printing of this particular page justifies scepticism about the
contractions here. Vickers and Dahl accept the earlier view that All’s Well was set from
Shakespeare's own foul papers; in that case, scribal intervention cannot explain the anomaly. If
Vickers and Dahl were to change their minds and endorse the hypothesis of theatrical annotation
then they might reasonably maintain that a scribe could have intervened between Shakespeare
and the Folio; but in that case they would also have to accept the evidence for a late revival, and
the possibility of posthumous adaptation.
More generally, Vickers and Dahl fail to present adequately the work of Cyrus Hoy, Lake,
Jackson, and Holdsworth, who in the era before massive digital databases demonstrated that such
linguistic evidence could help discriminate playwrights from one another. None of those scholars
relied solely upon such evidence, and none of them ever relied upon a single contraction, or a
single form (like has instead of hath). Neither do Maguire and Smith. It is therefore misleading to
consider such features one at a time; what matters is the concentration of such features in a single
text, or in parts of one text but not other parts.
For instance, the 16 lines (or 187 words) that contain four instances of with’t (1.1.116-32) also
contain for’t (117), in’t (118), by’t (126), and neer (130).° These four other contractions are also more
characteristic of Middleton, overall, than Shakespeare, overall. But more significant than each
author's overall preference is the relative likelihood, in each author, of combinations of such con-
tractions. No other scene in the Shakespeare canon contains all five. The rarest of these
contractions in Shakespeare are with’t and by’t, and no other scene in the Shakespeare canon
combines both. Moreover, four of these contractions involve a preposition, and Holdsworth
° The lines are prose, so a word count is a more accurate way of quantifying the passage; I have counted contrac-
tions as a single word, but hyphenated compounds such as se/f-love as two. I have not counted speech prefixes. The
count begins with ‘away with’ and ends with ‘off with’t while ’tis vendible’ (in each case assuming that the whole
phrase containing the contraction must have been part of any addition).
ALL'S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION 349
demonstrated that this whole category of non-verbal contractions is much more common
in Middleton than Shakespeare (Holdsworth 1982, 101-8). This is true even of relatively high-
frequency contractions like for’t and in’t. Holdsworth, without any suspicion of Middleton’s
possible presence in All’s Well, in 1982 singled it out as the only example of a Shakespeare play with
a large number of contractions in which non-verbal ’t contractions exceeded ‘t contractions after
verbs (which Shakespeare elsewhere preferred).
In striking contrast to the rarity of combinations of these five contractions in the Shakespeare
canon, they occur frequently in the significantly smaller Middleton canon. Five Middleton scenes
contain all five contractions: No Wit scene 9, Ladys Tragedy 3.1, Wit at Several Weapons 5.2,
Dissemblers 4.2, and Women Beware Women 3.1. Again, these all belong to a later period of
Middleton's career, and suggest that (if he is present at all in All’s Well) he was retrospectively
adapting, not collaborating. Ten Middleton scenes contain both of the rarest contractions, with’t
and by’t: the five just listed, plus Dissemblers 2.1, Middleton's section of the masque World Tossed
at Tennis, Hengist 3.3, Women Beware Women 2.2, and A Game at Chess 2.1. Middleton has ten
parallels for this combination and Shakespeare none. But this group of ten Middleton scenes is,
on average, even later in Middleton's career. Three plays contain more than one such scene, and
they are all late (No Wit, Women Beware Women, and Game at Chess).
We might attribute this difference to chronology rather than authorship. Lake and Jackson
have established that, beginning in about 1600, the use of contractions became more common in
plays by many authors. Thus, Middleton’s more frequent use of such contractions might theoret-
ically result from the fact that Middleton's earliest extant play was written in 1603, and that he
wrote plays for a decade after Shakespeare retired. But although the early seventeenth century
does see a rise in contractions in dramatic dialogue, that general change will not explain this par-
ticular combination of contractions in All’s Well. A search of LION reveals no play before 1606
that contains all five contractions. The first plays to do so are Edward Sharpham’s The Fleir that
Wiggins dates 1606, Middleton’s Puritan that Wiggins dates 1606, and Armin’ Two Maids of
Moreclack that Wiggins dates 1608 (Wiggins and Richardson 2015a). The use of these contrac-
tions in All’s Well would make sense, as part of a more general wave, only if the play were written
in 1606 or after. But the only Shakespeare play to contain all five contractions is The Winter’ Tale,
dated in recent editions between 1609 and 1611. That parallel does not suggest that Shakespeare
was an early convert to this combination. Not counting All’s Well itself, only twenty extant dra-
matic texts written between by 1623 contain all five contractions, and 60 per cent of those were
written or co-written by Middleton: Puritan, No Wit, Lady’s Tragedy, Wit at Several Weapons,
More Dissemblers, Widow, Witch, Fair Quarrel, World Tossed at Tennis, Hengist, Women Beware
Women, and The Changeling.* In the whole period from 1576 to 1623, no one but Middleton used
all five in a single scene—or even in a single act.
Lake, Jackson, and Holdsworth all used combinations of contractions as evidence for the
authorship of whole plays, or of authorial shares in plays divided between two collaborators. But
Iam modifying this technique to deal with smaller units of text, which is necessary when dealing
with adaptation rather than collaboration. Scenes are dramatic units, which are also units of
composition in collaborative and adapted plays, so it makes sense to look at the distribution of
authorial markers in whole scenes. Because Shakespeare's extant dramatic canon contains many
more scenes than Middleton's, such evidence should favour Shakespeare, but in this case it
® The other plays with all five include Joshua (?) Cooke’s Greenes Tu Quoque (1614), Jonson's Devil is an Ass
(1614), Webster’s Duchess of Malfi (1614), S. S’s Honest Lawyer (1616), and the difficult to date Love’s Cure, which
apparently in its extant text contains writing by Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger; Wiggins
does not include it in his volume for 1603-8. Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Two Noble Kinsmen (1613-14) contains all
five, but they are divided between the two authors; only three appear in Shakespeare's share.
350 GARY TAYLOR
overwhelmingly points to Middleton. But scenes vary enormously in their length. A better meas-
ure of authorial practice might therefore be the distribution of such features in passages of only
187 words or less. But again, Middleton’s smaller canon produces many more parallels than
Shakespeare's.
A full list is given in Dataset 5.1; here, I will summarize the resulting six conclusions:
#1 No Shakespeare passage of this length contains more than two of these five contrac-
tions. By contrast, the much smaller dramatic Middleton canon contains 21 passages of
187 words or less which contain three or more of the five contracted forms. One of those
may have been written by or with Thomas Dekker, another is in a scene co-written with
William Rowley, but the other nineteen are clearly Middleton's. The nineteen certain
passages come from ten different plays.
#2 No Shakespeare scene combines the rare contractions by’t and with’t. Eight scenes
clearly by Middleton contain both those contractions, and in two scenes they are not far
outside the 187-word limit: Hengist 3.3.35-62 and Game at Chess 2.1.63-105.
#3 Fourteen Shakespeare passages combine two of the relatively commoner contrac-
tions (for’t, in’t, or ne’er). By contrast, Middleton’s much smaller dramatic canon contains
forty-four passages with two of those common contractions (more than three times the
Shakespeare total).
#4 Only two Shakespeare passages combine the rarer with’t or by’t with one of the
other three, commoner contractions (for’t, in’t, or ne’er): Winter's Tale 2.3.116-30 and
Cymbeline 5.6.370-5. In each case, there are only two contractions. Not counting pos-
sibly co-authored scenes, the much smaller Middleton dramatic canon contains forty-one
such passages with just two contractions, one of which is with’t or by’t: more than twenty
times the Shakespeare total. The play with the highest number of such combinations is
Women Beware Women (with seven such passages); no Shakespeare play has more than
one, and no other Middleton play has more than four. (Eleven Middleton pays have
more than one.)
#5 In Cymbeline, 4.2.75-96 contains the combination ‘ne’er...for’t, but if we count
instead from 4.2.96 to 4.2.116 we have the combination ‘for’t...in’'t? This requires us to
double-count for’t, but this is the closest combination of any three of these five contrac-
tions anywhere else in the Shakespeare canon. It is twice the size of the passage in All’s
Well, but it nevertheless seems worth recording. However, exactly this kind of hinge
(where a single contraction could go one way or another) occurs six times in the much
smaller Middleton canon, and twice in one play (Women Beware Women). All six of the
Middleton passages with such a hinge are shorter than the Cymbeline example. (The
Middleton examples are at Your Five Gallants 1.1.139-63, No Wit 9.481-510, Dissemblers
4.2.187-215, Hengist 4.4.76-108, Women Beware Women 2.2.160-82, 3.1.8-32.)
#6 At Coriolanus 3.1.123 two of the five contractions appear within a single line (‘ne’er
did service for’t’). This is one of the fourteen passages listed above, which contain two of
the relatively common contractions, but it is unusual because of the close proximity of
the two contractions, separated by only two intervening words. Nowhere else in
Shakespeare are any of these contractions so close together, except in the prose conver-
sation between Helen and Paroles in All’s Well 1.1: ‘witht. I will stand for’? (116-17) and
‘by’t. Out witht’ (126). But Middleton’s much smaller dramatic canon contains nine such
close collocations of two of these five contractions in a single line. Unlike the Coriolanus
passage, two of the nine Middleton parallels include the rare contraction with’t (as do
ALLS WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION 351
both the All’s Well examples).” Also unlike the Coriolanus passage, but like the All’s Well
passage, in both those Middleton parallels, with’t, although close to the other contrac-
tion, is separated from it by a sentence-break.
However we analyse the combinations of contractions, Middleton’s much smaller dramatic canon
produces many more parallels than Shakespeare's. But the evidence that points to Middleton does
not point to collaboration. Of the nineteen undoubtedly Middletonian passages that contain
three or more of the five contractions (#1 above), only two come from the thirteen years of
Middleton's writing before 1611, but ten come from the eight years of 1616-4. The two closest col-
locations of by’t and with't, in either canon (#2), come from 1620-4. Of the passages that contain
just two of the three commoner contractions (#3) only eight come from all the years before 1611,
but thirteen come from 1618-24. Of the combinations of by’t or with’t with one commoner con-
traction (#4), nine date from the years before 1611, but ten come from 1620-1 alone, and by far the
highest total for any single play is Women Beware Women. Only one of the Middletonian hinges
(#5) comes from before 1611; half the total comes from 1620-1 alone, and the only play with two
examples is Women Beware Women. The two best parallels for close collocations (#6) come from
World Tossed at Tennis (1620) and Women Beware Women (1621).
Finally, we might consider these contractions from another perspective. It does not seem likely
that Middleton (or anyone else) would have written the 187 words that contain these contractions
and nothing else. We might therefore, provisionally, consider this concentration of contractions
as a feature of the whole dialogue on virginity, beginning with the question by Paroles (‘Are you
meditating on virginity?’) and ending with Helen's ‘Not my virginity yet’ (1.1.98-139). This pas-
sage contains 452 words (not counting speech prefixes). In all of extant English drama up to 1623,
there are only five other scenes that contain all five contractions, and they are all by Middleton. In
No Wit/Help like a Woman's (1611) they occur at 9.453-510 (a passage containing 340 words), in
‘The Lady’s Tragedy (1611) at 3.1.37-127 (802 words), in Wit at Several Weapons (1613) at 5.2.243-93
(459 words), in More Dissemblers Besides Women (1614) at 4.2.127—215 (687 words), and in Women
Beware Women (1621) at 3.1.8-80 (654 words). These five parallels all come from 1611-21. None is
more than twice the length of the All’s Well passage; one is significantly shorter, and one only
seven words longer.’ In all the extant plays written by 1623, only Middleton provides a concentra-
tion of these five contractions which exceeds, or which comes anywhere near, the concentration
found in the virginity dialogue in the first scene of All’s Well.
This distribution of clusters can be evaluated statistically. Using Fisher’s Exact Test, the null
hypothesis would be that authorship is not the reason for clustering. In the Middleton canon of
plays performed before publication of the Shakespeare Folio in 1623 there are five plays (not
counting pageants, entertainments, or masques) that contain a scene in which all five contrac-
tions appear within a stretch of text containing less than 850 words and there are 21 full-length
Middleton plays, up to that date, that do not contain such a scene. In LION there are 339 plays not
by Middleton, first performed from 1576 to late 1623 (not counting pageants, entertainments, or
masques), and none of those 339 plays contains such a scene. (In the count for Middleton we
” Lady ‘neer be seen to plead int’ (1.2.77), ‘and ne’er trouble me int’ (1.2.178), ‘shall ne’er be hanged for’t’ (3.1.191);
Wit at Several Weapons ‘for’t; part witht (3.1.259); Masque ‘ne’er thrived int’ (212); Tennis ‘int, it shall ne’er’ (440);
Women Beware Women ‘ne’er was fitter time nor greater cause for’t’ (2.1105), ‘with’t. He that died last in’t (3.2.346).
8 Attribution scholars have agreed that William Rowley wrote most of Weapons 5.2, but the scene also appar-
ently contains some mixed writing; as Michael Dobson notes, Act 5 ‘is full of composite writing in which verbal
mannerisms of both playwrights are visible, and is probably the section of the play on which they collaborated
most closely’ (Taylor and Lavagnino 2007, 1016). None of Rowley’s other known work has such a high concentra-
tion of these contractions. However, even if we attribute this passage to Rowley alone, Middleton would still be the
likeliest dramatist to have written the virginity passage in All’s Well 1.1.
352 GARY TAYLOR
exclude his adaptations of Macbeth and Measure for Measure, in neither of which he wrote a con-
tinuous passage as long as 850 words, and his one-act Yorkshire Tragedy, and of course we also
exclude All’s Well itself from the not-Middleton set.) Putting these numbers in the 2-by-2 contin-
gency table of the online Fisher Exact Test calculator provided by Vassar Stats shows that one
time in 666,667 these results would be observed purely by chance even if our null hypothesis were
true and authorship were not the cause. It seems virtually certain that the clustering of these
contractions is a consequence of authorship, and in particular of authorship by Middleton.
None of this evidence can be made to support Shakespeare’s authorship of this passage. None
of it looks like Middleton's collaborative work from 1603 to 1607, either. But all of it makes sense if
Middleton wrote new additions for a revival of All’s Well at some time between 1611 and the mid-
dle of 1622.
Verbal Sequences
The advantage of the evidence in the preceding section is that it is objective: these contractions
exist, or do not exist, in the text of any given play, or in a passage of a certain number of words,
and therefore it is easy for others to check. Because such evidence can be clearly defined, it can be
counted and searched in modern databases, so that we are not reliant upon fallible human
searches or value judgements.
Because the objective concentration of contractions has singled out this passage, we can now
investigate it using a technique that examines all 187 words. The complete canons of Shakespeare
and Middleton are both available, in modern spelling, in Oxford Scholarly Editions Online
(OSEO), where they can be searched digitally. I have searched all consecutive strings of two to
four words in this passage; we know that longer sequences are not reliable evidence of authorship
(Antonia, Craig, and Elliott 2014). Where two, three, or four consecutive words match exactly
fewer than ten times, I have searched the immediate vicinity for other words not consecutive but
adjacent, or not exactly identical.? Full results of my search can be found in Dataset 5.2, which
places an asterisk beside every type (a particular sequence of words) that occurs in one canon but
not the other, and for those asterisked word sequences it also lists the tokens (the actual texts in
which it occurs). This distinction between types and tokens is routinely made in tests of author-
ship and chronology.
The Shakespeare canon is linked to this passage by 26 types (and 54 tokens) that do not
appear in Middleton's extant work; the Middleton canon is linked to this passage by 24 types
(and 49 tokens) that do not appear in Shakespeare’s extant work. Shakespeare wins by a hair.
But this result is more significant than it might seem, for two reasons. Shakespeare has a signifi-
cantly larger extant canon than Middleton does; a tie means that Middleton is proportionally
much better represented here than Shakespeare. In fact, a similar test of a passage in Middleton's
A Mad World, my Masters also had more Shakespeare parallels than Middleton ones
(Taylor 2014a). Rory Loughnane’s Chapter 17 on All’s Well in this volume has for the first time
provided word counts for both canons, demonstrating that Shakespeare’s extant canon is at
least half again as large as Middleton’s; Middleton’s dramatic canon is less than 60 per cent the
size of Shakespeare's.
° Because this is a passage of only 187 words, and because I am using OSEO, which already modernizes both sets
of texts, the task is manageable. See Anna Pruitt’s chapter in this volume (Chapter 6) for the dangers of error when
conducting LION searches of larger passages.
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 353
Since we know that genre affects all sorts of stylistic features, expanding the Middleton canon
by using his works other than plays might also distort results. Unlike Shakespeare, Middleton
wrote pamphlets, but none of the contractions I examined above cluster in any of his
non-dramatic prose. Other aspects of the style of the passage in All’s Well might also be affected
by the distinction between dramatic and non-dramatic writing, or dramatic writing for the the-
atre as opposed to masques and civic pageants. Therefore, a fair comparison of the two canons
here must be based specifically on plays. But because Shakespeare’s dramatic canon is so much
larger than Middleton’s, we must find a way to produce comparable sample sizes, without disad-
vantaging either author.
In other cases (as for example when testing the authorship of plays from the late 1580s and early
1590s), date of composition has been used as a way of equalizing canon sizes. Here, the hypothesis
of adaptation presumes that two different dates are involved. If Middleton adapted the play, it
seems most probable that he did so after Shakespeare's death in 1616. We might therefore reason-
ably test one range of dates for Shakespeare, and another range of dates for Middleton.
For Shakespeare, the years from 1602 to 1607 (from just before the earliest date for All’s Well,
to just after the latest) include five plays in the 1987 chronology: Troilus, Othello, Lear, Antony,
and Measure.’® The last is complicated, because Middleton apparently adapted Shakespeare's
original, but it is easy enough to subtract the 901 words in the passages in 1.2, 4.1, and 4.3 that
have been most convincingly attributed to Middleton. With this slight modification, these five
Shakespeare plays contain 120,734 words.'’ For Middleton, in order to get a similar word total
from single-authored plays, we need six plays instead of five (Middleton's are shorter than
Shakespeare’s), and we need more years (1616-24): The Widow, The Witch, Hengist, Women
Beware Women, Nice Valour, and A Game at Chess. These six plays contain 112,972 words.” This
restricted Middleton canon is 7,762 words smaller than the restricted Shakespeare canon. Even
if we add to the late-Middleton canon the 901 words from Measure that seem to have been
written by Middleton in 1621, the Shakespeare sample is 6 per cent larger than the Middleton
sample. So we are still weighting the odds somewhat in Shakespeare's favour.
So here are two similar ‘canons, constructed around dates determined by other means and by
other scholars, who had no suspicion that Middleton might have adapted All's Well after
Tam using the 1987 chronology, because (with the exception of All’s Well itself) that is the one referenced by
both sides of the dispute. The 2016 New Oxford Shakespeare chronology puts Hamlet in the position previously
occupied by Troilus and Cressida. But that re-dating is unconventional, and likely to be controversial; it would add
even more words to the restricted Shakespeare canon, thereby further unbalancing the comparison between the
two authors; and it would not increase the evidence for Shakespeare. Moreover, Troilus has the advantage of
belonging, like All’s Well and Measure for Measure, to the triumvirate most often labelled as the problem plays.
" This date-specific Shakespeare canon does not include Timon of Athens, a collaborative play: the recent
Oxford Shakespeare and Arden Shakespeare editions argue for a messier division of authorship than earlier schol-
ars, detecting the presence of one author in the other’s scenes, and vice versa (Jowett 2004b; Dawson and
Minton 2008). Also, the Arden edition and Wiggins place Timon of Athens in 1607, after Antony and Cleopatra
(Wiggins and Richardson 2015a). Whether or not we accept those arguments, it seems reasonable to exclude
Timon as problematic, for this particular test, and I am excluding all collaborative Middleton plays, too. In the case
of both Macbeth and Measure, we are dealing with minimal adaptation by Middleton of a single-authored
Shakespearean original. I chose Measure for Measure for this test because it is often linked to All’s Well in criticism
and also because it is easy to subtract the three big chunks of Measure that seem clearly Middleton’s. For Macbeth
I have argued that Middleton is present in more elements of the play, and that there are passages of mixed writing.
In any case, if we must choose one or the other, it seems better to choose Measure (as a comedy) rather than
Macbeth (another tragedy).
® The Middleton word counts are taken from Holdsworth, who provides manual counts of words in Middleton's
eighteen non-collaborative plays, based on the same principles as the Shakespearean word counts in Spevack’s
concordance (Holdsworth 1982). But I have replaced Holdsworth’s manual count for The Widow with Loughnane’s
machine count, thus subtracting 156 words.
354. GARY TAYLOR
Shakespeare's death. If we compare those two chronologically restricted dramatic canons to this
passage, we get these results:"°
Shakespeare 22 tokens 14 types
Middleton 45 tokens 21 types
One of these n-grams (a commodity) comes from Pompey’s Middletonian soliloquy at the begin-
ning of Measure for Measure 4.3. But even if we ignore the evidence that Jowett and Bourus inde-
pendently give for attributing that speech to Middleton, and instead give it to Shakespeare (and
therefore give him an even larger control set than Middleton), we would only add one type/token
to Shakespeare's total and subtract only one from Middleton's (Taylor and Lavagnino 20072,
1542-85; Bourus 20144). If Shakespeare wrote this passage, why does Middleton dominate the
tokens by 2-to-1, and the types by 3-to-1? And since it takes six Middleton plays to equal five
Shakespeare plays, why do the Middleton plays have the highest individual totals? Shakespeare's
top play here is Othello, with seven types and seven tokens. But the shorter Women Beware
Women (summer 1621) has seven types and eight tokens, and the exceptionally short Nice Valour
(late summer 1622) has six types and eight tokens, which is more tokens than Othello despite the
fact that Middleton's play is about half the length of Shakespeare’s play. Widow has four types and
eight tokens; Hengist has six types and seven tokens. Three of the five Middleton plays have more
tokens than the top Shakespeare play; only one has fewer. None of the Middleton plays is as long
as Othello.
Finally, we can check these parallels, present in one or the other restricted canon, against the
larger database of LION, to see how rare they are within the drama of the period 1576-1642. Only
one of the Shakespeare n-grams here is rare: outside this passage in All’s Well, the phrase make
itself occurs only in Antony (within the restricted canon) and three other plays (Maids Tragedy,
Winter's Tale, and Shepherd’s Paradise). One of the Middleton n-grams is equally rare: outside this
passage in Alls Well, the phrase away with’t occurs only in The Widow (within the restricted
canon), and three other plays (Winter’s Tale, The Gamester, Double Marriage). There is nothing to
choose between these two competing n-grams. But the Middleton list also contains another rare
n-gram: lose by’t preceded by you occurs elsewhere only in The Widow (within the restricted
canon), and in two other plays (Shirley's Hyde Park and Abraham Cowley’s The Guardian, both
much later). So Middleton has two rare parallels, to Shakespeare's one. But Middleton, unlike
Shakespeare, has two rare parallels within one play in the restricted canon.
Finally, within the two restricted canons Middleton also has a parallel unique in early modern
drama: against the rule of occurs nowhere else but A Game at Chess. If we expand our search to the
whole passage, Middleton also has another parallel which occurs in only one dramatic text in
LION for 1576-1642: the longer juxtaposed with the verb lying (or lies), which occurs in Michaelmas
Term. Shakespeare, too, has one such unique parallel: and so dies (As You Like It). However, the
uniqueness of that parallel depends entirely on the present tense: Middleton in Lady’s Tragedy has
the very rare and so died twice. But even if we ignore the close parallel in Lady’s Tragedy, Middleton
® In the following list, types with more than one token are followed by a number. Shakespeare: said in;
against... of nature; to accuse (2); be buried (2); a desperate (2); to the very (5); of self (2); love which is; make itself
(2); how night; one do; to lose it; own liking; the gloss. Middleton: away with’t (2 tokens, and used twice in this All’s
Well passage, therefore counted as 4 tokens); there's little; tis against... nature; against the rule of; the rule of [noun];
virginity is (four times in this All’s Well’ passage, therefore counted as four tokens); and should be (2); much like a
(3); you cannot choose but (2); lose by’t; within ten; which is a (6); do sir (5); to like; that ne’er (5); a commodity; with
lying; the longer (2); kept the; while ’tis.
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 355
in this brief prose passage still has two unique dramatic parallels to Shakespeare's one. Since
Middleton’s dramatic canon is so much smaller than Shakespeare's, this is more than a 2-to-1
advantage in favour of Middleton; proportionally, it is 2.4 to 1.
This evidence of exact sequences of two to four words thus independently points in the same
direction as the evidence of contractions: this passage appears to have been written by Middleton,
not Shakespeare, and it appears to have been written between about 1620 and mid-1622, rather
than between 1603 and 1607.
Prose Style
Much of the case made by Maguire and Smith depends upon literary interpretation; so does
much of the rebuttal by Vickers and Dahl. Maguire and Smith look at literary interpretations of
both Middleton and Shakespeare, and to that extent are better critics than Vickers and Dahl, who
limit themselves to Shakespeare. Vickers in general objects to purely quantitative methods, but of
course qualitative evidence is subject to mere differences of critical opinion. It is impossible to
securely attribute All’s Well, or any part of it, simply on the basis of tone, subject matter, or inter-
pretation. Such arguments simply move rival readings of the play from the realm of criticism into
the realm of attribution.
However, a literary analysis of this specific passage in 1.1 seems much more practical than an
analysis of the entire play. We can begin simply by reading the passage as it was printed in 1623.
Here I have eliminated the hyphens when a word is divided between two type lines, but otherwise
changed nothing; Paroles is speaking about virginity:
... Away witht.
Hel. Iwill stand for't a little, though therefore I die a Virgin.
Par. There's little can bee saide int, ’tis against the rule of Nature. To speake on the
part of virginitie, is to accuse your Mothers; which is most infallible disobedience.
He that hangs himselfe is a Virgin: Virginitie murthers it selfe, and should be buried
in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate Offendresse against Nature.
Virginitie breedes mites, much like a Cheese, consumes it selfe to the very payring,
and so dies with feeding his owne stomacke. Besides, Virginitie is peeuish, proud,
ydle, made of selfe-loue, which is the most inhibited sinne in the Cannon. Keepe it
not, you cannot choose but loose by’t. Out with’t: within ten yeare it will make it
selfe two, which is a goodly increase, and the principall it selfe not much the worse.
Away witht.
Hel. How might one do sir, to loose it to her owne liking?
Par. Let mee see. Marry ill, to like him that ne’re it likes. ’Tis a commodity wil lose the
glosse with lying: The longer kept, the lesse worth: Off with’t while ’tis vendible.
Virginity is here treated paradoxically and irreverently; religion is turned against the values that
it usually upholds. Reduced to the level of a commodity, virginity is described in explicitly com-
mercial language: lose, increase, principal, worth. We may not agree with Arthur Quiller-Couch
and John Dover Wilson in their value judgements about the aesthetic merits of the dialogue here,
or their moral judgements of its sexual content; but we can recognize that the sexuality of this
prose is entirely characteristic of Middleton, and that similar aesthetic and moral judgements
have often been made about Middleton's work.
356 GARY TAYLOR
Vickers began his career with an important book on The Artistry of Shakespeare's Prose, and we
might therefore expect him to have a talent for distinguishing Shakespeare’s prose from someone
else’s (Vickers 1968). But Vickers’s book might better have been titled The Artistry of Prose in the
Shakespeare Canon since he did not, at that time, recognize Middleton’s hand in the prose of
Timon of Athens, or Fletcher's in the prose of Henry VIII, and he still does not recognize Marlowe's
prose in 2 Henry VI. More generally, Vickers analysed Shakespeare's prose with little reference to
the prose of other playwrights.
In 1968, Vickers began by comparing Paroles’s ‘set-piece on virginity’ to the paradoxes and
‘brief, witty, specious arguments of Donne; and then notes that similar arguments had been made
‘as a serious justification of marriage by St Jerome’ (Vickers 1968, 386). These are not the two
names that leap first to mind in discussions of Shakespeare's prose; Vickers’s own index does not
mention Donne at all, and lists Jerome only here. I do not know whether anyone has ever argued
that Shakespeare read Jerome, but the commentaries in OSEO do not identify Jerome as a source
for any of Shakespeare's plays or poems, and theological works by the early Church Fathers were
not a staple of the grammar school curriculum. Middleton, with at least the beginnings of a uni-
versity education, is much more likely than Shakespeare to have read Jerome; certainly, the intro-
duction to Middleton’s Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased does refer to Jerome’s commentary, and
in The Two Gates of Salvation and The Peacemaker Middleton demonstrated his serious intellec-
tual engagement with Christian theology.'* John Taylor rhymed the name Middleton with the
name Donne, Wendy Wall’s introduction to Microcynicon links it to Donne’s manuscript poems,
my introduction to The Widow links it to Donne’s sermons, and John Jowett’s commentary on a
Middleton scene in Timon likens elements of its style to Donne's (Jowett 2004b, 2.105-6n.). Such
comparisons do not prove that Middleton wrote this passage; but they outweigh the comparisons
offered as evidence that Shakespeare wrote it.
Vickers next noted that Paroles ‘is not given any logic to support’ his argument about virginity
(Vickers 1968, 386). This is rather surprising, given the central structural importance of logic to
Shakespeare's prose, and especially his comic prose, and particularly his set-piece comic prose.
According to Vickers’s index of ‘Recurrent Features in Shakespeare’s Prose; sixty pages of his
book comment on the dramatist’s use of logic, beginning with the first paragraph of his introduc-
tory section on ‘Linguistic Structure’ (Vickers 1968, 449, 28). The absence of logical structure
does not, in itself, mean that someone other than Shakespeare wrote this passage, but it does
mean that it is less obviously Shakespearean than, for instance, some of the prose speeches of
Lavatch elsewhere in the play.
Instead of logic, Paroles makes use of ‘brilliantly deflating images, which is true, and it is also
true that images in Shakespeare's prose often have a ‘deflating intent’ (Vickers 1968, 296, 22). But
anyone who has read even a sampling of Middleton’s work will immediately recognize that he,
too, had a gift for brilliantly deflating images. Indeed, Middleton’s ability to deflate his characters
and their ideals has been the basis of the political and critical hostility to his work for most of the
last four centuries (Taylor and Henley 2012).
Vickers justifies the ‘functions of this speech’ in terms of mood, theme, and character, but then
admits, rather deflatingly, that ‘I do not think that we should give it the full force of a parable pre-
dicting a crucial aspect of the play such as the similarly placed “belly fable” in Coriolanus undoubt-
edly has’ (Vickers 1968, 296-7). Finally, Vickers concludes by citing this passage as evidence of the
‘decline’ of ‘rhetorically structured syntax’ in Shakespeare’s prose, as it gives way to ‘more realistic
‘* Susan Snyder argued that the virginity dialogue was instead influenced by Erasmus’s colloquy ‘Proci et puel-
lae’ (Snyder 1993, 6-8). This was a standard school text, and therefore would have been familiar to both Shakespeare
and Middleton. The alleged parallels to Erasmus or Jerome seem to me commonplace, and therefore useless as
evidence of authorship.
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 357
conversational syntax’ (Vickers 1968, 297). Those of us who have studied Middleton may be
inclined to add ‘like Middleton’s’ to that last phrase, but Vickers in 1968 did not.
Vickers’s literary analysis of this passage was almost entirely negative: it does not resemble
the prose set-piece in Coriolanus, does not make use of the explicit logic that so often struc-
tures Shakespeare’s comic prose, and does not deploy the ‘rhetorically structured syntax’ of
Shakespeare's most characteristic prose. Moreover, Vickers’s claim that Paroles ‘triumphs in
this set-piece’ does not fit his observation, in the same sentence, that Paroles ‘does not excel
in repartee, and Helena easily outwits him; or his claim, in the next sentence, that Paroles ‘is
one of those characters who are always beaten in repartee’ (Vickers 1968, 297). Helen certainly
does outwit Paroles in their first prose exchange:
PAROLES. Save you, fair queen.
HELEN. And you, monarch.
PAROLES. No.
HELEN. Andno. (1.1.94-7)
She also certainly outwits him in their subsequent prose exchange, which begins with his ‘Under
Mars, I’ and her sarcastic response ‘I especially think under Mars’ (165-6) and ends with her ‘So
is running away’ (175). But Paroles does completely dominate their intervening prose dialogue
about virginity. For the bulk of their scene together, she does ‘outwit hin’ So, we might say, this
prose passage on virginity is not characteristic of the style of the prose dialogue between Paroles
and Helen elsewhere in the scene. Moreover, although the passage is thematically relevant to
Helen's situation, it does not relate to her immediate decision. Her soliloquy before Paroles
enters reveals her intense love and desire for Bertram, which motivates her actions throughout
the play. In her soliloquy after Paroles exits, ‘the King’s disease’ (1.1198) cues her own decisive
exit, and her subsequent actions. The King’s disease has nothing to do with her virginity, or her
dialogue with Paroles.
Even Vickers's description of the explicit theme of the speech was phrased negatively: ‘the
commodity [virginity] was so clearly not out of fashion for the Elizabethans’ (Vickers 1968, 297).
Vickers may have been using ‘Elizabethans’ in the common loose sense that applies it to the entire
Shakespearean period, but ‘Elizabethans’ is also literally true in the word’s more restricted sense:
under the Virgin Queen, virginity could hardly be allowed to go out of fashion. But Shakespeare’s
celebrations of virginity had gone out of fashion, for Middleton, long before 1620.
This succession of negatives does not make a strong stylistic or literary case for Shakespeare's
authorship of the prose dialogue on virginity. The kind of literary analysis that Vickers practised
in 1968 does not settle the question of authorship, one way or another. Twenty years later,
MacDonald P. Jackson provided a much more precise, and positive, description of the prose in
this passage, focusing on the image ‘Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to
the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach’ Russell Fraser, glossing the lines in his
New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of the play, had explained, “These tiny spiders carry disease
and are therefore inimical to the host? Jackson's objection to this gloss is worth quoting in full:
Disease is irrelevant, or at best incidental: the point is that the more the cheese-mites
flourish and multiply, the more quickly they devour the cheese that is the source of their
vitality, and so hasten their own death by starvation. The application of this image of a
hyperactive closed system to ‘virginity, which commits a form of genocide through its
passive failure to ‘breed; complicates the paradox to the point where Parolles is in danger
of deconstructing his own rhetoric. (Jackson 1988, 229)
358 GARY TAYLOR
Jackson argues, in a personal communication, that ‘Parolles’s cheese mites belong to a class of
Shakespearean images in which everything (creatures, activities, processes) seems to carry within
it the seeds of its own destruction. This is an astute observation, characteristic of Jackson’s lifelong
attention to authorial styles.
But I would read the passage somewhat differently. Jackson's analysis concentrates on the para-
dox of self-consumption; but Middleton, too, was interested in self-destruction, and his plots are
often driven by activity that in the end defeats or recoils against itself. More particularly,
Middleton often used similar language to describe that process. In The Widow Valeria swears, ‘I
will consume myself’ rather than be married to Ricardo (2.1.92). Such reflective images occur
throughout Middleton's work, beginning with The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased (1597): ‘Sin
digged a pit itself to bury sim’ (10.183). Elsewhere in Middleton the object of the verb consume is a
woman's ‘chastity’ or ‘virginity’ (Ghost of Lucrece 92, 83-4). Middleton also associates human
parasites with such self-destruction: a tobacco-addict has ‘lungs as smooth as jet and just of the
same colour, that when thou art closed in thy grave the worms may be consumed with them and
take them for black puddings’ (Black Book 791-4). Here, the reflective use of consume has the
physical sense ‘to ruin oneself through excessive spending’ (OED v. 7.b) and the emotional sense
‘to overwhelm’ (v. 10): the worms are obsessed with something that consumes them as they con-
sume it. These parallels do not make Middleton any more likely than Shakespeare to have written
the passage, but they do demonstrate that either writer was capable of this train of thought.’°
I would focus, instead, on what seems to modern readers the strikingly odd comparison of vir-
ginity to cheese. It would have seemed less peculiar to early modern readers and audiences.
Paroles’s assertion that virginity breeds mites depends on the Aristotelian concept of spontan-
eous generation, which held that inorganic matter could spontaneously come alive. Aristotle's
theory was universally accepted until 1668, and not decisively refuted until Louis Pasteur’s 1859
experiments (Black 1998). In his Sylua Syluarum, Francis Bacon, retrospectively hailed as a
pioneer of the scientific method, left notes for an experiment to determine whether “Holland-
Cheese... will breed Mites sooner, or greater’ if wine is added (STC 1168, 237). Bacon accepted
Aristotle's theory, and was simply trying to determine whether changes to the experimental
conditions might affect the speed or quantity of breeding. Bacon's notes were not published until
after his death in 1626, but the verb breed and the noun mite were yoked together as early as 1620
by Gervase Markham in Farewell to Husbandry: ‘neither shall any worme, mite or weauell, euer
breed in’ grain or peas, if they were enclosed ina sealed barrel (STC 17372, 123). This is the earliest
collocation of the verb and noun that I could find in a proximity search of Early English Books
Online-Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP) performed in March 2015.
But although spontaneous generation of mites from cheese would not have seemed odd in the
early seventeenth century, the comparison of virginity to cheese is, so far as I can tell, unique. The
basis for the comparison is probably that cheese and chastity could be called green."° In this pas-
sage, early modern descriptions of green cheese combine with assumptions about greensickness,
a greenish-yellow discoloration of the skin that is now called chlorosis. In 1554 the German phys-
ician Johannes Lange described that disease as ‘peculiar to virgins’; he recommended that suf-
ferers should ‘live with men and copulate. If they conceive, they will recover, as described in
Helen King’s history of the phenomenon (King 2004). This belief was widespread in England
'S The closest parallel in either canon to the paradoxical ‘dies with feeding’ occurs in Middleton's The Wisdom of
Solomon Paraphrased: ‘feeding on blood,| Forwhy she lives in sin, but dies in good’ (14:281-2).
'© Regarding a green complexion, see OED adj. 3; for a person who is immature (8.c) or young (10). ‘Green
cheese’ (OED n.) is ‘new or fresh cheese; cheese which has not been ripened or matured’. Proverbially, the moon is
‘made of green cheese; but it is also associated with Diana, goddess of virginity.
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 359
from the late sixteenth century until the eighteenth century. Shakespeare and Middleton refer to
such virginal greensickness, so in itself the simile does nothing to distinguish them.
But Middleton, like Bacon but unlike Shakespeare, associated cheese with vermin.” Consider
Middleton's prose in The Black Book:
...when thou hast caught him in the mousetrap of thy liberty with the cheese of thy
office, the wire of thy hard fist being clapped down upon his shoulders, and the back of
his estate almost broken to pieces, then call thy cluster of fellow vermins together, and sit
in triumph with thy prisoner at the upper end of a tavern table... (693-8)
The association of cheese with a mouse is commonplace; but the other plural parasitic vermins
here, who are not mice, are more unusual. Middleton, unlike Shakespeare, also associated cheese
with Holland, and Amsterdam, and thus with Puritans, and thus with hostility to fornication."*
Middleton also associated cheese with the traffic in women: in The Phoenix, we hear of aman who
‘sold his wife to a cheesemonger’ (4.261). This cluster of associations comes together in Hengist,
when the Queen Castiza is rebuked for her bookish chastity: any woman ‘that has the green-
sickness and should follow her counsel| Would die like an ass and go to th worms like a salad’
(4.2.11-12). Middleton here specifically linked chastity, and its associated disease greensickness,
with the production of small parasites (mites/worms) that contaminate food (cheese/salad). Thus
virginity leads to death.
I do not know whether my reading of the passage is better than Jackson's, but I do feel strongly
that such interpretative differences cannot be made the grounds for a reliable attribution.
However, this does not mean that attribution scholars have to abandon critical close reading. We
simply need to find new ways of reading such passages, methods that are less subjective, and that
take account of the stylistic range of more than one candidate.
We can begin with the sequences of two to four words, which have already been objectively
identified as characteristic of one writer or the other. For instance, both authors use the two-word
sequence ‘tis against. But the only example in the Shakespeare canon occurs in the Elizabethan
comedy Twelfth Night, when Viola, reluctantly drawing her sword to duel with Aguecheek, tells
her reluctant opponent, ‘I do assure you ’tis against my will’ (3.4.259). The context, theme, speaker,
and tone of the parallel in Twelfth Night has nothing in common with the use of the same two
words by Paroles here in All’s Well. In contrast, only Middleton uses the longer three-word
sequence ‘tis against the. In A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Tim tells his Mother, “tis against the laws
of the University’ (3.2.122). This comes from a passage that combines irreverence toward a mother,
sexual puns, and obviously specious logic. Likewise, Middleton (but not Shakespeare) follows the
two-word sequence ‘tis against with the noun nature. In Mad World, Follywit declares, “tis against
nature to keep a courtesan to hinder your grandchild’ (4.3.50). Here, as in All’s Well, the context is
comic sexual prose, and Follywit’s logic is as self-evidently specious as Tim's or Paroles’s: he is
convincing himself that robbing his own uncle is perfectly justified.
Likewise, Middleton (but not Shakespeare) elsewhere uses the phrase of virginity: in
Michaelmas Term 1.3.14 it is part of a prose speech by a man addressing a naive maiden from the
country, trying to convince her of the wisdom of making a living by prostitution. Middleton also
(but not Shakespeare) has parallels for virginity is, which occurs four times in this dialogue
Shakespeare associated cheese with Welshmen, with toasting, with a meagre diet, with bad breath, with old
men (Nestor), and with a sculpted image of Slender (since cheese, like other foods, could be shaped to resemble
persons or objects).
'8 Plato’s Cap 325 (‘Holland cheese’) and especially Tennis 551, where ‘fresh cheese’ is associated with ‘Amsterdam’
and a Puritanical horror of ‘fornication.
360 GARY TAYLOR
between Helena and Paroles (1.1.112, 119, 124, 136). In Michaelmas Term ‘virginity is no city trade’
(1.3.47). This is the same man, trying to convince the same country maiden; it immediately fol-
lows ‘Let a man break, he’s gone, blown up,| A woman's breaking sets her up; which like the pas-
sage in All’s Well treats virginity as a valuable commodity and puns on blowing up. In Revenger's
Tragedy 2.1.153, the mother Gratiana uses the phrase virginity is when trying to persuade her
daughter Castiza to prostitute herself; the daughter defies the canons of filial obedience by rebuk-
ing and accusing her mother. In No Wit 1.211-12, the phrase is spoken by the clown Savourwit,
comparing the financial value of virginity to that of a dowry. In A Game at Chess 2.1.122-3, ‘thy
nice virginity| is recompense too little, the male Jesuit pawn tells the virgin White Queen’s Pawn,
and “Thy loss is but thy own: In all these passages defining what virginity is, the definition is com-
mercial and is usually made by unreliable males in the course of an obviously specious argument.
The same is true of All’s Well.
Shakespeare (but not Middleton) uses the three-word sequence he that hangs, but his use of it,
in As You Like It, refers to Orlando: ‘he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so
admired’ (3.2.330-1). It has nothing to do with suicide, virginity, theology, or commodification,
and it occurs in a pastoral dialogue in the forest between the play’s two principal romantic leads.
Helen is, of course, the female romantic lead in All’s Well, but Paroles is not the male romantic
lead, and there is nothing pastoral or romantic about their conversation. The Shakespearean
three-syllable phrase here overlaps with another three-syllable phrase, hangs himself, used by
Middleton but not Shakespeare. In Microcynicon, Cron ‘in a humour goes and hangs himself’
(1.60). The context is explicitly urban, commercial, sexual rather than romantic, and theological.
Cron is a usurer, and Paroles here uses the language of usury: ‘in one year will make itself two,
which is a goodly increase, and the principle itself not much the worse’
Shakespeare's only use of another phrase, much like a, occurs in The Rape of Lucrece, where the
thronging thoughts of the tragic heroine are said to be ‘Much like a press of people at a door’
(1301). Itis hard to make connections between that simile, or that context, and Paroles’s ‘much like
a cheese’ By contrast, in Middleton's Elizabethan satire Microcynicon the subject of the simile is,
as it is in All’s Well, sex: ‘much like a wanton courtesan’ (5.26) refers to an urban black hermaph-
rodite and his/her ‘sin. In Father Hubburd’s Tales the ‘angel-like’ gold of a ‘holy churchman is said
to be ‘much like a fair, sleek-faced courtier’ (1225-6), thus combining religion, money, and the
court (all subjects of the conversation between Paroles and Helen). In Middleton’s Jacobean Nice
Valour it is spoken by the Clown (who is also a servant): ‘much like a thing new-calved’ (4.2.176)
is as deflating and comic as ‘much like a cheese; and both cheese and calves are associated with
cows. Three lines later in the same speech, the Clown compares himself to ‘a green woman’ —a
woman suffering from the greensickness—because she has remained a virgin for too long.
Likewise, in Women Beware Women, Leantio’s ‘much like a fellow| That eats his meat with a good
appetite’ (3.2.54-5). Here the context is food—indeed, cheese was one of the ‘white meats’
(Fitzpatrick 2011, ‘cheese’)—in a speech about ‘sin and lust’ and ‘means raised from base prostitu-
tion. The fellow who ‘feeds’ has a ‘plague-sore, and is compared to a ‘barrer ass, so Leantio (like
Paroles here) combines eating, dying, and a failure to procreate.
Or consider Paroles’s sentence “You cannot choose but lose by’t. This combines two word
strings that appear in Middleton but not Shakespeare. But the strength of these parallels is not
just the exact sequence of words, but also the echo of contexts. In Women Beware Women the sor-
did clown Sordido advises the Ward to talk to Isabella, because ‘you cannot choose but one time
or other make her laugh’ (3.3.85-6). But the purpose of this prose advice is not the pleasure of
witty dialogue between a male suitor and the woman he loves: instead, making Isabella laugh will
enable the Ward to check out ‘what teeth she has’ This is part of a larger comic, but also queasy,
agenda: as a buyer would check the teeth of a horse for sale, the Ward is here checking out the
ALL'S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION 361
woman that his Guardian is, effectively, buying for him. The sentence in All’s Well combines this
phrase from Women Beware Women with another from The Widow, where ‘you're not like to lose
by’t’ (5.1.427) refers to the sexual union of two virgins, which also, not coincidentally, relieves
them of all their debts.
We can also look at the passages in the two canons that are linked to this passage by the preceding
objective survey of contractions and word strings. In that way, something empirical—clearly
identifiable features of the language of these speeches—lays the foundation for a critical analysis
of differences between the two candidate authors. For instance, the use of so many contractions
in prose may not seem remarkable; it is easy for us to read it as a natural rendition of relaxed,
idiomatic, conversational prose. But Shakespeare's uses of the five unusual contractions that clus-
ter here do not occur in prose. As I noted above, only one Shakespeare passage combines the rare
with’t with any of the other four contractions: Winter’ Tale (‘Not she which burns int... Can clear
me in’t} 2.3.114-42). Only one Shakespeare passage combines the rare by’t with any of the other
four contractions: Cymbeline (‘Ne’er mother| Rejoiced deliverance more...I have got two worlds
by’t, 5.6.371-5). Both these passages—the closest Shakespeare ever comes to the larger cluster of
contractions in the conversation about virginity in All’s Well—occur in verse, spoken in the first
by a king and two high-ranking members of his court (Leontes, Paulina, Antigonus) and in the
second by a king and a royal princess (Cymbeline and Innogen). Neither of these passages has
anything to do with virginity. Both are moments of high dramatic and emotional intensity. All
modern scholars agree that both these Shakespeare scenes post-date the original composition of
AIl’s Well. Shakespeare associates the clustering of these contractions not just with verse, but with
his most intense, most royal style in his last plays.
By contrast, Middleton combined these contractions throughout his career, from Michaelmas
Term (1604) to A Game at Chess (1624), and in prose from Michaelmas Term (1604) to The World
Tossed at Tennis, Hengist, and Women Beware Women (1620-1). In almost all Middleton’s parallel
passages, the combinations occur in ordinary conversations between ordinary people, and most
often in comedies. Even in tragedies that contain characters at the top of the social pyramid, the
contractions continue to be combined in prose speeches by ordinary, often comic characters: the
creditors and servants in Timon of Athens, Simon and the Barber in Hengist, the Ward and
Guardiano in Women Beware Women. The dramatic and literary use of these combined contrac-
tions is as characteristic of Middleton's prose as it is uncharacteristic of Shakespeare's.
Adaptation
It should not surprise us that it has taken scholars so long to recognize the signs of adaptation in
the Folio text of All’s Well that Ends Well. Unlike Macbeth and Measure for Measure there is no
song from another play to signal textual patching. Unlike Titus Andronicus there are not two
textual authorities to demonstrate that something has been added. Within a single text, adapta-
tion is intrinsically more difficult to identify than collaboration because it affects less of the text,
and it does not always coincide with scene divisions. Moreover, a reader’s ability to spot another
author’s style depends on the reader's familiarity with that other author. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
could spot Fletcher in many scenes of All Is True because he had read Fletcher well enough to
appreciate the characteristic rhythms of his verse, and he could read Fletcher because his work
had been collected in folio editions as early as 1647 and 1679, and edited by eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century scholars. But no attempt was made to edit or collect Middleton’s works until
1840, and the first one-volume critical edition was not published until 2007. Five years later,
Maguire and Smith detected signs of Middleton’s presence in All’s Well.
362 GARY TAYLOR
But long before Maguire and Smith, scholars had questioned the stylistic integrity of the Folio
text. When Vickers and Dahl described Wilson as ‘the Grand Disintegrator’ they obscured the
fact that he and his collaborator Quiller-Couch were articulating views that had been expressed
by many earlier critics. Part of the rhetorical force of Vickers’s book Shakespeare, Co-author was
his demonstration that the hypothesis of collaboration had been endorsed, and reinforced, by a
long line of critics and scholars. Elsewhere, in supporting the hypothesis that 1 Henry VI was
written in collaboration, he invoked the authority of S. T. Coleridge, and summoned Coleridge
again to support his belief that Shakespeare wrote the Additions to The Spanish Tragedy. But
when insisting that Shakespeare wrote all of All’s Well, Vickers and Dahl do not quote Coleridge’s
opinion, ‘in 1811, and again in 1818, that there are ‘two distinct styles’ in All’s Well, ‘not only of
thought, but of expression, which represent ‘two different and rather distant periods of the poet's
life. Nor do they quote his 1833 view that the play was ‘afterwards umgearbeite [fashioned], espe-
cially Parolles’ (Collier 1858, 2: 529; Coleridge 1930, 1: 237). Coleridge did not detect a second
author, but he believed that the Folio text of All’s Well contained clear stylistic evidence of two
distinct periods of composition.
In 1847, Gulian Verplanck argued, in a more scholarly way, that the Folio text of All’s Well
represented Shakespeare's revision of an earlier comedy; these views were developed by
other scholars and critics in subsequent decades, until their summation by Quiller-Couch
and Dover Wilson in 1929 (Verplank 1847, 2: 5-7; Wilson 1929). The nineteenth-century schol-
arship on this topic has received mixed responses, being surveyed fairly indulgently (Tolman
1906, 270-82; Price 1968, 86-109) and highly sceptically (Hunter 1959, xviii-xxv). In 1856
Charles Badham argued that the ‘mere ribaldry’ of the whole virginity dialogue was an inter-
polation, ‘forced in by the players for the sake of keeping Parolles longer on the stage’; not only
‘is the wit utterly unworthy of Shakspeare, but there is nothing of Parolles about it—none of
the extravagant attempts at Euphism in which that red-tailed humble Bee delights’
(Badham 1856, 276). The Cambridge-Macmillan editors Clark and Wright condemned it as
‘a blot on the play’ (Clark and Wright 1863-6, 3: 215). Israel Gollancz concluded that those
speeches were probably ‘an interpolation, “to tickle the ears of the groundlings”’ and the
Tudor edition noted that many editors regarded the virginity dialogue as an interpolation
(Gollancz 1894, v; Lowes 1912, 132).
My methods of analysis differ fundamentally from those of critics from Coleridge in 1833 to
Dover Wilson in 1929. But responses to the play, over more than a century, demonstrate that
many readers have found it difficult to believe that All’s Well is the result of a single period of com-
position by a single playwright. More recent critics have powerfully defended the artistic merits
of the play, but those defences are compatible with adaptation by Middleton in the early 1620s,
alongside such masterpieces as Women Beware Women and The Changeling.
Maguire and Smith deserve to be applauded for recognizing Middleton's style in the play. I had
not considered that possibility when I worked on All’s Well in the 1970s and 1980s, or when
I worked on Middleton in the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century. But Maguire
and Smith did not make a convincing case that Middleton collaborated on the play with
Shakespeare; about that, Vickers and Dahl are correct. However, rebuttal of the collaboration
hypothesis does not invalidate an adaptation hypothesis. The foregoing evidence of text, date, and
authorship supports the claim that the Folio text of All’s Well contains passages written by
Middleton, but those passages were written after Shakespeare's death.
Maguire and Smith also deserve credit for identifying 1.1 as a scene that showed signs of
Middleton's presence. If Middleton wrote 1.1.16-32, then he probably wrote the whole dialogue on
virginity. That conversation certainly satisfies the criteria for ‘dispensable’ material identified by
Bourus and Karim-Cooper (Chapter 18 in this volume). Eight theatrical texts from 1792 to
ALL’S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 363
1924 cut most of the conversation between Paroles and Helen, eliminating the entire block of
text from Paroles’s question ‘Are you meditating on virginity’ to the Page's entrance, 1.1.98-160
(Halstead 1977-80, 4: SS 255a—b). I do not believe that Middleton wrote Helen’s verse at the end of
that block, and in fact a notorious textual disruption marks the transition from the virginity dia-
logue to Helen’s long verse speech. When Paroles asks (in prose) “Will you any thing with it?;
Helen replies (in verse):
Not my virginity yet:
There shall your Master haue a thousand loues...
She continues in verse until the Page enters. Since the eighteenth century, most editors have
believed that “Not my virginity yet’ is a ‘break in sense and metre’ which can only be explained by
textual corruption. Hunter tried to defend the ‘abrupt’ transition psychologically, but even he
admitted that ‘nowhere else are her ellipses as harsh as here’ (Hunter 1959, 13). If the preceding
dialogue about virginity were an addition to the scene, then its insertion into the original play-
house manuscript might have obscured the text at that point, or led a scribe to misinterpret the
join between original and addition. Thomas Hanmer added ‘You're for the court’ between Helen’s
‘yet’ and “There’; Edmond Malone suggested, as an alternative, adding ‘I am now bound for the
court’ after Paroles’s question and before Helen’s answer. Both these solutions recognize that
“There’ needs some immediately preceding referent to ‘the court’. But once we recognize that the
virginity dialogue is Middleton’s addition to Shakespeare's scene, a simpler solution suggests
itself, at the beginning of the exchange.
PAR. Save you faire Queene.
HEL. And you Monarch.
PAR. No.
HEL. And no.
PAR. Are you meditating on [the court]?
HEL. ‘There shall your Master haue a thousand loues...
This conjecture is necessarily speculative. Since we possess only the adapted text, we cannot be
confident what the original text looked like.'? But this emendation solves the problem more eco-
nomically than Hanmer’s, Malone’s, or any of the many others that have accumulated since. A
reference to ‘the court’ follows naturally after ‘Queer’ and ‘Monarch: If Middleton wanted to add
a dialogue on virginity, the simplest way to introduce it would have been to alter ‘the court’ to
‘virginity. And Shakespeare, unlike Middleton, elsewhere used the idiom meditate on and the
present participle meditating: Henry V (‘meditate on blood, 5.2.60), 1 Henry VI (‘meditating that,
2.4.60), Richard III (‘meditating with, 3.7.74), and Julius Caesar (‘meditating that, 4.2.238).
Whether or not we accept this particular conjecture, the hypothesis of posthumous adaptation
explains a long-standing editorial crux.
‘That the virginity passage expands the role of the play’s most remarkable comic character fits
the pattern of other theatrical adaptations. It also suggests that Paroles is a likely candidate for
other expansions of the original text. Independently of this material in 1.1, the theatrical annota-
tions of the script suggest that we should also look at passages involving ‘E’ and ‘G. My analysis
therefore reinforces Loughnane’s independent evidence, elsewhere in this volume (Chapters 17
Helen's ‘ay; in response to Paroles’ question, might also have been part of the original text, but assuming so
would complicate an otherwise simple conjecture.
364 GARY TAYLOR
and 19), that Middleton wrote a significant portion of 4.3, including new material for Paroles, ‘E’
and ‘G. That additional material in 4.3 also expands the play’s military plot, and the play’s rele-
vance to audiences preoccupied with the Thirty Years War. That date may also be relevant to
Nance’s argument elsewhere in this volume (Chapter 20) that Middleton wrote ‘the King’s speech’
in 2.3, justifying royal promotion on the basis of merit rather than inherited titles. That speech
would have been particularly appropriate at any time after 1615, when George Villiers began his
extraordinary ascent from ordinary gentleman to the most powerful peer of the realm. In 2.3, the
King is rewarding his favourite (Helen), just as King James rewarded his favourite (Villiers),
partly through arranging a favourable marriage to the heiress Lady Katherine Manners, daughter
of the Earl of Rutland; the marriage was solemnized on 16 May 1620. At that time, Buckingham
was also strongly supporting the English volunteer force going to the defence of the Palatinate,
contributing a personal gift of £5,000 (Lockyer 2004).
The virginity dialogue in 1.1 also alters our impressions of Helen, as does the passage in 2.3
analysed by Nance. As Robert Boyle putit, ‘the arguments which have been advanced for a double
date have always received their chief support from the discrepancies in the drawing of Helen's
character’ (Boyle 1890, 418). All Middleton’s other adaptations of Shakespeare increase the size of
women’s roles, and alter their interpretation (Bourus and Taylor 2014; Taylor 2014a), including
Lavinia'’s in Titus Andronicus as shown in Chapter 5 in this volume. Without the virginity dialogue,
Helen’s first encounter with Paroles serves, almost entirely, to contrast an honest woman witha
braggart soldier: Helen puts down Paroles and his military pretensions, thereby raising issues
about male militarism and chivalry that will be important for the whole play. But the entrance
of Paroles, on his way to court, also transforms Helen’s attitude toward Bertram’s departure. In
her first soliloquy, immediately after Bertram’s exit, she had focused upon the emotional effect
of his absence: ‘There is no living, none,| If Bertram be away’ (1.1.72-3). “‘He’s gone’ she con-
cludes, and all she can do, in future, is to ‘sanctify his relics’ (1.1.85-6), as though he were dead,
and therefore completely unrecoverable. But Paroles reminds her that Bertram is not simply
‘away from her, but instead “There’ at ‘the court’ in the presence of other women: ‘a thousand
loves...that blinking Cupid gossips’ (1.1.140-9). The threat posed by those other women stimu-
lates Helen's idea of going there, Helen’s wish ‘that we, the poorer born... might... follow our
friends’ (1.1.156-7). That wish forms the foundation for her second soliloquy, which culminates
in the ungrammatical exclamation ‘the King’s disease’ (1.1.198). That disease initiates the agenda
of her subsequent scenes. Without Middleton's virginity dialogue, Helen moves from passive
romantic yearning and dejection, to jealousy, to a vision of movement, to a particular plan for
seeing Bertram again.
Helen’s trajectory, as Shakespeare seems to have written it, belongs unmistakably to the genres
of romantic heterosexual love. Although sexual consummation is implicit in such narratives, it
need not be foregrounded at the beginning of the romantic quest. But Middleton’s virginity
dialogue interrupts, transforms, and complicates the romantic narrative. Paroles forces Helen,
and the audience, to realize that her virginity is a perishable commodity, but also an asset, a
tool, that must be managed pragmatically. Like most modern critics and theatre-makers we
may applaud that complication as an infusion of materialist realism and psychological com-
plexity, or like most Victorian and Edwardian critics we may reject it as a debasement that
contradicts Shakespeare's original conception, disrupting this scene and haunting all Helen's
behaviour throughout the play. But these are simply two different ways of recognizing the fun-
damentally Middletonian character of the virginity dialogue, not only in its language but its
dramaturgy. Indeed, critical reactions to Middleton's added virginity dialogue in All’s Well split
along the same lines as reactions to Middleton’s added dialogue in the second scene of Measure
for Measure.
ALL'S WELL: TEXT, DATE, AND ADAPTATION — 365
The chapters in this volume have established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Middleton
added material to 1.1, 2.3, and 4.3 of Shakespeare’s original play. But most of the play has not yet
been thoroughly investigated. Although Shakespeare undoubtedly wrote the overwhelming bulk
of the text, and is undoubtedly present in every scene, Middleton may have contributed more
passages than have yet been identified. And even in the three scenes we have investigated, where
the authorship is mixed, it will remain impossible to establish who wrote every sentence, let alone
every word. Even at the level of attribution, much remains to be done. At the level of criticism and
interpretation, we have hardly begun.
Chapter 22
Shakespeare and Middleton:
A Chronology for 1605-6
ROGER HOLDSWORTH
N; other Thomas Middleton play is like A Yorkshire Tragedy." It is abnormally short, a third
the length of the Middleton average; it is his only play which dramatizes a topical murder;
and it departs to a unique degree from his habit of repeating verbal material primarily from his
own earlier work by lifting much of its dialogue, sometimes word for word, from the anonymous
pamphlet where the crime is described. This last feature has a use that scholars have missed.
Faithful as his copying of the language of the pamphlet generally was, Middleton made changes to
it as he shifted the focus of the narrative, converted the pamphlet’s prose into verse, turned
description into speech, and sought to energize its author’s pedestrian style.
The revisions have implications for the dates of other Middleton plays written around this time,
including Timon of Athens, which he co-wrote with Shakespeare, and The Revenger’s Tragedy, since
they share phrases and expressions with A Yorkshire Tragedy that originate in the pamphlet. These
were carried, modified in various ways, from the pamphlet into A Yorkshire Tragedy as Middleton
adapted his source, and then—in a manner typical of his tendency to borrow from his own earlier
work—reused in other plays in a form which incorporates the very same changes. The plays in
which these repetitions occur can thus be dated later than A Yorkshire Tragedy. The inclusion of
Timon of Athens in this group has a special importance, since as well as relying heavily on the
pamphlet, A Yorkshire Tragedy borrows several times from King Lear in passages to which, signifi-
cantly, the pamphlet has no equivalent. A Yorkshire Tragedy is therefore later than King Lear; and
since Timon of Athens is later than A Yorkshire Tragedy, Timon, too, must be later than King Lear.
The pattern of influence and indebtedness not only resolves particular questions of priority,
but establishes a month-by-month chronology for the plays which Shakespeare and Middleton
wrote between late 1605 and mid-1606. The following discussion sets out the evidence, treating
the plays concerned in the order in which I believe they were written.
King Lear
King Lear cannot be earlier than March 1603, when Samuel Harsnett’s A Declaration of Egregious
Popish Impostures, a source for Edgar’s mad speeches, was entered in the Stationers’ Register.
' Throughout this chapter, unless otherwise noted I assume the Middleton canon defined by the 2007 Oxford
Collected Works, and key references to its line numbering (Taylor and Lavagnino 2007a; 2007b). Quotations of
Middleton and early modern dramatists other than Shakespeare come from the early editions.
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 367
It cannot be later than 26 December 1606, when it was given at court. These are wide limits, but
they can, Gary Taylor has shown, be considerably narrowed. He assembles a variety of evidence
which points consistently to late 1605 as the play’s date of composition. Shakespeare was influ-
enced by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston's Eastward Ho!, acted between April
and August 1605 and printed in September, and by Wilkins’s The Miseries of Enforced Marriage,
acted no earlier than July. Gloucester is troubled by “These late eclipses in the Sunne and Moone’
(King Lear 2.90), and such eclipses occurred in September and October. Until November James's
two sons included in their titles the Duke of Albany and the Duke of Cornwall. These and other
factors which Taylor explores in detail lead him to the view that ‘composition probably began
before November’ and ‘was finished by some time in December 1605 or January 1606’ (Taylor
1982a, 412-13).
Attempts to challenge Taylor’s argument have not been impressive. R. A. Foakes, in the latest
Arden edition of Lear, pronounces it ‘not convincing’ but without saying why, beyond implying
that it rests entirely on a vague parallel involving ‘prodigal fathers’ in Eastward Hol!, a response
which seriously misrepresents the force and range of Taylor’s evidence (Foakes 1997, 108). Leeds
J. Barroll, preferring to date Lear well into 1606, and possibly later than Macbeth, points to the
performance at court at the end of that year: ‘if the play had been new and already in existence by
Christmas 1605, it would have been presented then at court and thus not presented again in
December 1606’ (Barroll 1991, 155).
But two factors conjoin to indicate why a play written late in 1605 would not have been selected
for performance at court at the year’s end. It was a well-established practice for the Master of the
Revels to make his choice of plays for the court from those which had proved themselves in the
commercial theatre in the preceding months; that way ‘the court could benefit from the selective
filter represented by the audience in the playhouses’ (Astington 1999, 216). Even if Lear had been
completed slightly earlier in 1605, it could not, in this particular year, have undergone such testing
on the professional stage, since plague closed the London theatres on 5 October, and they did not
reopen until 15 December (Wilson 1927, 125), too late for the play to qualify as a candidate on the
Master of the Revels’ list. This would explain why a play which so clearly spoke to James's desire at
precisely this time to unite his two kingdoms, and which may have been partly conceived with per-
formance before the King in mind, had to wait a year before that performance could take place.
I shall accept Taylor's date for the completion of Lear in or near December 1605 in the ensuing
discussion, for the above reasons, but also because my own evidence tends to confirm it, since it
concerns plays which borrow from Lear but were almost certainly all written no later than the
first months of the following year.
A Yorkshire Tragedy
There are grounds for supposing that Middleton wrote A Yorkshire Tragedy between mid-June
and the end of July 1605. On 23 April of that year, Walter Calverley, the Husband of the play,
murdered two of his children at the family home in Yorkshire. On 12 June, an account of the crime
and the play’s source, was entered in the Stationers’ Register as Two Most Unnatural and Bloody
Murders (hereafter Bloody Murders). At the beginning of August, Calverley stood trial at York,
refused to plead, and, as the law dictated when a felony was involved, was pressed with heavy
weights until he either entered a plea or died. (He chose to do the latter.) Bloody Murders no doubt
appeared within weeks if not days of its Register entry. The publisher would have wanted to mar-
ket the pamphlet before public interest waned, and the anonymous author makes no mention of
Calverley’s trial and execution, which he would surely have reported had they occurred. As the
play ends just where the pamphlet does, with the Husband's arrest, interrogation, and repentance
368 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
and the grief of his wife, one might assume that it too belongs to the period before the August
execution. ‘Few Elizabethan chroniclers, Baldwin Maxwell argues, ‘ever eager to underscore a
moral, would have deliberately omitted the wages exacted for such crimes’ (Maxwell 1956a, 177).
Maxwell's reasoning is cited approvingly by David J. Lake and the play’s Revels Plays editors, who
agree on a pre-August date (Lake 1975; Cawley and Gaines 1986).
It is, however, not right. If Lear belongs at the end of 1605, A Yorkshire Tragedy must be no
earlier than January 1606, for it echoes Shakespeare's play. Indebtedness to Lear is actually
claimed or suggested by both Lake and the Revels editors, but without reference to the mid-
1605 date for Middleton’s play which they simultaneously propose. Lake remarks that ‘thy
pleasant sins’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 4.55) ‘of course echoes Edgar’ who deplores ‘our pleasant
vices’ (King Lear 24.166); and in their note on ‘marble-hearted’ in A Yorkshire Tragedy the
Revels Plays editors remark that “This rare adjective may have been borrowed from Lear
(Cawley and Gaines 1986, 6.18n.) when Lear invokes ‘Ingratitude! thou marble harted fiend’
(King Lear 4.227).
Left thus, such isolated links are not enough to establish that one play has influenced the other,
let alone which is the debtor. However, more can be said about them, and further signs of connec-
tion can be added, and together they point firmly to Middleton, not Shakespeare, as the borrower.
The probable debts are as follows.
Link One showing King Lear > A Yorkshire
Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy
Hu[sband] Oh thou confused man, thy pleasant sins have undone thee
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 4.55)
This begins a long speech of self-recrimination by the Husband similar to those of other male vil-
lains in Middleton who suffer sudden rushes of guilt over moral, particularly sexual, lapses; one
might compare him with Penitent Brothel in A Mad World, my Masters 4.1, Sir Walter
Whorehound in A Chaste Maid 5.1, or Francisco in The Widow 3.2. Bloody Murders offers only a
cursory equivalent in ‘O, I am the most wretched man that ever mother received the seede of’
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B4r), and set free from the pamphlet Middleton fills the rest of the pas-
sage with material from his own earlier work, prose as well as plays (Holdsworth 1994, 17-19). In
this first line, however, he can be seen switching from the pamphlet to a brief recollection of
Edgar’s words to the dying Edmund about their father’s adultery:
The Gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us:
The darke and vitious place where thee he got,
Cost him his eyes.
Bast[ard] Thhast spoken right, ’tis true,
The Wheele is come full circle, I am heere.
(Folio text of King Lear 1623, sig. ss2v)
According to the online database Literature Online (LION), pleasant vice(s) occurs nowhere else in
drama to the end of the Jacobean period, and pleasant sin(s) occurs only once more, in Middleton's
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 369
‘The Widow of 1615, in the very speech of self-accusation by Francisco noted above which parallels
the Husband’s, and here it is again coupled with the word man: ‘what delight has man| Now at this
present, for his pleasant sin| Of yesterdaies committing?’ (The Widow 3.2.107-9).
On their own the similarity of the two phrases (our pleasant vices and thy pleasant sins) and
their rarity hardly prove that one was prompted by the other. What makes this virtually certain is
that Middleton echoes the same Lear passage repeatedly in The Revenger’s Tragedy, a full-length
play for the King’s Men which followed A Yorkshire Tragedy by at most a few months. Gloucester’s
‘darke and vitious place’ which “Cost him his eyes’ becomes the Duke's ‘fit place vaylde from the
eyes ath Court,| Some darkned blushlesse Angle’ (The Revenger’s Tragedy 3.5.13-14), where it is
put to the same adulterous use. “Th’hast spoken right; observes Edmund, and so does Middleton's
Hippolito: ‘y'ave spoke that right’ (The Revenger's Tragedy 3.5.66). “Ihe Wheele is come full circle’
is remembered as ‘this wheele comes about’ (The Revenger’s Tragedy 2.1.70). The Revenger’s
Tragedy contains many other recollections of Lear, but Edgar’s exchange with Edmund clearly
struck Middleton with particular force.
Links with a single passage in Lear in two Middleton plays written within months of each other
is evidence in itself that Middleton rather than Shakespeare is the imitator. Further proof is pro-
vided by the marginalia of the Geneva Bible’s Book of Job. It is well known that the Book of Job is
a pervasive presence in Shakespeare’s play, shaping its ideas, its plot, and details of its language,
and that he made use not only of the main text but of the marginal notes with which its editors
supplied the Geneva version of 1560 (Aberbach 1979; Burnet 1979). But it has not been noticed
that Edgar’s speech, including its ‘pleasant vices; is taken from notes f and g of Job 20, which has
the chapter heading “The plagues of the wicked’:
all vice at the first is pleasant, but afterward God turneth it to destruction... Jobs great
riches were not truely come by, & therefore God did plague him justely for the same.
The same chapter goes on to declare of the wicked man that ‘All darkenes shalbe hid in his secret
places’ (Job 20:26), so Lear’s ‘darke and vitious place’ had its origin here as well. A direction of
indebtedness from the Bible to Shakespeare to Middleton is thus clearly indicated, which puts
both A Yorkshire Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy later than Lear.
Link Two showing King Lear > A Yorkshire Tragedy
At this point in the pamphlet Calverley has just killed two of his children and wounded his wife.
A servant ‘of a very able body’ enters, demands, ‘Oh sir, what have you done?’ and attempts ‘to
attach his Maister’ (Bloody Murders 1605, Cir). They fight and the servant loses. Middleton begins
by following the pamphlet, but then blends it with a reminiscence of Lear:
Enter a lusty servant
SER[VANT]. Oh Sir what deeds are these?
HUS[BAND]. Base slave my vassail:
Comst thou between my fury to question me
SER[VANT]: Were you the Devil I would hold you sir,
HU[SBAND]. Hould me? Presumption [...]
Have I no power, shall my slave fetter me?
(A Yorkshire Tragedy, 5.29-35)
370 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
Middleton is remembering Shakespeare's opening scene, where a father maltreats his child, and a
subordinate attempts unsuccessfully to intervene. The Husband's ‘vassail:| Comst thou between my
fury to question me... presumption... Have Ino power’ draws on Lear's response when Kent tries to
quell his vindictive rage against Cordelia: ‘come not between the Dragon & his wrath... Vassall...
with straied pride,| To come betweene our sentence and our power’ (King Lear 1.107, 145, 151-2).
That Middleton and not Shakespeare is the borrower is indicated by the fact that whereas
Middleton is supplementing the pamphlet, Shakespeare is following his own main source, King
Leir, where Perillus (Kent) speaks out against Leir’s banishment of Cordella and is threatened into
silence. It is also noticeable that the Husband's use of Lear’s words produces some contextual strain,
due to imperfect recollection or differences in the situation which the borrowed phrases are now
required to fit. Shakespeare provides two objects or ideas for the complainant to be spoken of as
coming ‘between, Middleton illogically only one. Lear tells Kent not to come between him and his
wrath because that is what Kent is seeking to do: the enraged Lear is still in the process of disown-
ing Cordelia. In A Yorkshire Tragedy the children have been killed and the Wife wounded before
the servant enters, so the Husband’s charge that the servant is obstructing his fury is not wholly
appropriate. Lear’s ‘Vassall} with its association of feudal subservience, is a term one might expect
from an Ancient British king jealously asserting the absoluteness of his power; it comes oddly from
the mouth of a Jacobean landowner addressing a domestic servant, and despite much business
involving servants elsewhere in A Yorkshire Tragedy it occurs only here—at the equivalent point in
the pamphlet Calverley calls the servant ‘knave’ (Bloody Murders 1605, Cir). It is true that these
mismatchings of phrase and situation can be thought of as genuinely effective, in that they express
the Husband’s hysteria and demented self-regard; nevertheless, the direction of influence is clearly
indicated, for the choice as to which is the imitating passage is between one where the material in
question belongs straightforwardly to its context and one where it does not.
Link Three showing King Lear > A Yorkshire Tragedy
Fleeing the murder scene the pamphlet’s Calverley is ‘ceazde on by those, did both lament his fall,
and pitty his folly’ (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. Car). Middleton inserts a more admonitory speech
by one of the Husband’s apprehenders:
Unnaturall, flintie, more then barbarous:
The Scithians [or the] marble hearted fates,
Could not have acted more remorselesse deeds
In their relentlesse natures, then these of thine.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 6.17-20)
There is a double debt to Lear here. Just six lines before he warns Kent not to come between him
and his wrath Lear tells Cordelia that
the barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation
Messes to gorge his appetite,
Shall bee as well neighbour‘, pittyed and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter.
(King Lear 1.101-5)
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 371
Three scenes later he exclaims against ‘Ingratitude! thou marble harted fiend’ (King Lear 4.254).
Either parallel on its own might cause one to suspect a borrowing from King Lear. The cruelty
of Scythians was proverbial, but this is Middleton’s only mention of it, whereas Shakespeare had
already referred to it in 1 Henry VI, Edward III, and Titus Andronicus. Like King Lear, A Yorkshire
Tragedy calls Scythians ‘barbarous, and only four other plays up to 1625 do this: 1 and 2 Tambur-
laine (predictably, given the nationality of the protagonist), Titus Andronicus, and the later Fatal
Dowry by Philip Massinger and Nathan Field (1619). The King Lear reference was almost certainly
prompted by Titus Andronicus, which was constantly in Shakespeare's mind as he wrote King Lear
(Bate 1995, 306) and which begins and ends with the savage mistreatment of children. In the first
scene, as the Andronici seize one of Tamora’s sons and prepare to ‘hew his limbs; another son
cries, “Was never Sythia halfe so barbarous’ (Titus Andronicus 1.1.132-4). The Lear passage seems
to be conflating this with a memory of Titus’s finale, where children are turned into ‘messes’ for
their parent to eat. Middleton, writing his own play about child killing, echoes the Lear version,
offering two practisers of cruelty rather than one.
Middleton’s simultaneous use of marble-hearted puts indebtedness to Lear beyond dispute.
Only Lear and A Yorkshire Tragedy in the entire drama to 1625 employ this term, which
Shakespeare found, with some 100 other words and phrases, in John Florio’ 1603 translation of
Michel de Montaigne’s Essays (Taylor 1925, 62; Foakes 1997, 104-5). Given the subject matter
of Lear, it is not surprising that Shakespeare was led back to the particular essay in which
Florio coined the adjective: it is entitled ‘Of Cruelty, and concerns the nature and actions of
‘marble-hearted and savage-minded men.
There are other places in A Yorkshire Tragedy where Middleton supplements the pamphlet
with material which might come from Lear. ‘I am sorry for thee’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.139)
might have arrived from ‘I am sory for thee’ (King Kear 7.135). There are only six other examples
of the phrase in the drama to 1625, and of these two more, the earliest, are by Shakespeare (in
‘The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It). ‘I am sincerely sorry for thee’ occurs in Middleton's
The Puritan Widow (at 1.4.9) written later in 1606. The Wife's ‘Nothing will please him; until all
be nothing’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 3.87) inevitably recalls Lear’s ‘nothing will come of nothing’
(Folio text of King Lear 1623, sig. qq2v). The Wife's ‘It makes me eene forget all other sorrowes|
And leave part with this’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 8.49-50) sounds a little like Lear’s ‘It is a chance
which do’s redeeme all sorowes| That ever I have felt? (24.262-3). Katherine Duncan-Jones
thinks the Wife's lines ‘virtually a quotation from Lear’ (Duncan-Jones 2001, 212), which seems
an overstatement. The speech derives at least in part from the pamphlet, where it is said of the
Husband that ‘his wife would...intreate to be a willing partner in his sorrow (Bloody Murders
1605, sig. A3v).
How did Middleton come by his knowledge of Lear, which was not in print until 1608? Did he
merely attend the theatre as an ordinary playgoer when Shakespeare's play began to be performed
in or after December 1605? That might be enough, perhaps, to permit the detailed echoing of its
language that one finds in A Yorkshire Tragedy and, even more densely, in The Revenger's Tragedy.
Like King Lear, A Yorkshire Tragedy, Timon of Athens, and The Revenger's Tragedy were all King's
Men’s plays, written for, rehearsed at, and then staged at the Globe most likely between December
1605 and May 1606, before Middleton returned for a time to writing for the children’s companies.
He was thus in a position to attend rehearsals of other dramatists’ as well as of his own plays, and
to look at and perhaps advise on playscripts as they were prepared for production (Gurr 1992,
209-11). Even if Lear had passed the rehearsal phase by the time Middleton became involved with
the company, Shakespeare might easily have allowed Middleton sight of the text of his most
recently completed play just as the two of them began collaborating on his next one.
372 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
Whatever the truth of this, Lear clearly excited Middleton during these months, and helped to
shape his own creative endeavours. Perhaps fortunately for his own development as a dramatist
he thereafter distanced himself from the King’s Men and from Shakespeare's play. Echoes of Lear
continue in Middleton's later work, but with nothing like the frequency one encounters in this
early sequence of tragedies.”
Timon of Athens
A Yorkshire Tragedy was Middleton's first play for Shakespeare's company, and it was immediately
followed by a second, Timon of Athens, which he and Shakespeare wrote together. That the order
of composition was this way round is demonstrable from the borrowings. Sometimes Middleton
turns the pamphlet Bloody Murders into the play A Yorkshire Tragedy with hardly any adjustment
at all. When the Master of the College, where Calverley’s brother is a student, arrives to remon-
strate with him for allowing his brother to be imprisoned for Calverley’s debts, the only notice-
able change concerns alcoholic refreshment:
Maister Caverley...calling for a cup of beere, dranke to him, and bade him welcom: now
sir, quoth Maister Caverley, if you please but to walke downe and see the grounds about
my house, one of my men shal goe along with you, at your returne I wil give so sufficient
answer, that my brother by you shal be satisfied.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B3v)
Hu[sband}. Fil me a bowle of wine....
Enter [Servant] with wine.
Hu[sband]. Sir I begin to you, y’ave chid your welcome:
... Drink both.
Now Sir if you so please
To spend but a few minuts in a walke
about my grounds below, my man heere shall attend you: I doubt not but by that
time to be furnisht of a sufficient answere, and therein my brother fully satisfied.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 4.40-51)
One might speculate about ‘Fil me a bowle of wine. Was Middleton recalling, perhaps uncon-
sciously, the period’s most quoted villain, Richard III, another murderer of two little boys, who
makes exactly this request in his tent on Bosworth Field? The only other character to make this
demand in the entire LION drama database is Thomas Heywood's Edward IV in 1 Edward IV, which
is full of debts to Shakespeare's early histories. For what the Husband goes on to say, Middleton was
content to transmit the pamphlet’s report of his words with only minor alteration.
2 For example: The Bloody Banquet (c.1608) 1.1, where Taylor notes a parallel with Lear on the heath (Taylor 2001a,
7-8); ‘just to the girdle’ (No Wit/Help Like a Woman’: 7.37) like ‘But to the girdle’ (King Lear 20.117) and also
referring to female sexuality; ‘O she’s gone for ever’ (A Chaste Maid in Cheapside 5.3.88) like ‘she’s gone for ever’
(King Lear 24.255) and also a father’s response to the death of his daughter; ‘kinde and deer Princess’ (More
Dissemblers Besides Women 2.1.61) like ‘Kind and deere Princesse (King Lear 21.27); ‘thou well stewd Footman
(Hengist, King of Kent 4.4.24) like ‘a reeking Post| Stewd in his hast’ (King Lear 7.199-200); ‘He'll bring it out in time
(The Changeling 4.2.59) like ‘the time will bring it out’ (King Lear 24.159); and ‘blow the Luthrens cheeks, till they
cracke’ (A Game at Chess Q3 of 1624, 2.1.166) like ‘Blow wind and cracke your cheekes’ (King Lear 9.1).
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 373
But this by no means characterizes Middleton's entire approach. Although the pamphlet’s
author had an eye for detail—as in Calverley’s ‘eldest son being a childe of foure yeeres olde, came
into the gallery, to scourge his toppe’ (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B4r)—his lofty tone and mechan-
ical recitation of events did not lend themselves readily to theatrical adaptation, and Middleton
frequently made changes, retaining elements of the pamphlet’s wording but at the same time con-
juring it into lively, speakable stage dialogue. It is this process which is of value in the chrono-
logical ordering of his work. Middleton was the most self-imitative of all the Jacobean dramatists:
once he had coined unusual words, turns of phrase, images, and whole sentences he was liable to
use them again.
In that regard A Yorkshire Tragedy, notwithstanding the non-Middletonian origin of much of
its language, is like any other Middleton composition. Having entered the canon, it became a
source of supply for plays and other works that its author was yet to write. The crucial difference
here is that when the recycled words and phrases reappear they often do so in a form which is
recognizably the one they were given when Middleton took them from the pamphlet and modi-
fied them for the play, and the pamphlet version of them can be consulted to establish that this is
the case. As aresult A Yorkshire Tragedy can operate as a fixed chronological marker: a Middleton
work which is on the receiving end of this process of transference and re-transference cannot
pre-date this play.
Such a claim can be checked by involving a Middleton work whose post-dating of A Yorkshire
Tragedy is not open to doubt. Here is part of the pamphlet’s account of the murders:
The childe that was wounded, was all this while crying in the chamber, and with his
woful noise, waked as wofull a mother, who seeing one childe bleeding, the other lie on
the ground...she caught up the youngest... her husband comming backe, met her, and
came to struggle with her for the childe which shee sought to preserve with words,
teares, and all what a mother could do from so tragicall an end; and when he saw he
could not get it from her, he most remorcelesse stabbed at it some three of foure
times... but hee more crewell by this resistance, caught fast holde upon the childe, and
in the mothers armes stabd it to the heart: and after giving his wife two or three mortall
wounds, shee fel backeward, and the child dead at her feete.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B4v)
Scripting the passage for performance, Middleton divides it up into dialogue and stage
directions:
Enter husband with the boie bleeding.
Hu[sband] [to Maid] Whore, give me that boy, Strives with her for the
childe.
Son. Mother, mother, I am kild mother.
[Wife] Ha, whose that cride, oh me my children: Wife wakes.
both, both, both; bloudy, bloudy. catches up the youngest.
Hu[sband] Strumpet let go the boy...
Wi[fe] Good my hus-band,
Hu{sband] Doest thou prevent me still?
Wilfe] Oh god, Stabs at the child in
Hus[band] Have at his hart hir armes.
Wilfe] Oh my deare boy, gets it from hir.
374 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
Hu[sband] Brat thou shalt not live to shame thy howse,
Wilfe] Oh heaven shee’s hurt and sinks downe.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 5.7-27)
Middleton makes some changes to the action while staying close to the pamphlet’s wording. In
the play it is the Maid with whom the Husband ‘struggles’ or ‘strives’ for the child, in the pamphlet
it is the Wife, and the pamphlet’s Wife holds on to the younger child (‘he could not get it from
her’) while the play’s Wife fails to (he ‘gets it from hir’). But for the present discussion the signifi-
cant change is the addition of the remarkably horrible pun in “Have at his hart: This not only
adapts a term in swordfighting (have at you) but the standard cry in the game of dice when one
player announces the stakes or selects an opponent before a throw.’ As the Husband is bitterly
aware, and as the Maid has just pointed out, dice has destroyed his estate and beggared his
children: °Tis lost at Dice what ancient honour won,| Hard when the father plaies awaie the Sonne
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 5.4-5). Now his dagger will ensure that this last wager is one he will win.
Middleton's addition is created from the pamphlet: ‘he saw he could not get it from her...stabd at
it...stabd it to the heart’ (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B4v) produced the play’s ‘Does thou prevent me
still?... Have at his hart: Eighteen years later, during an attempted stabbing in A Game at Chess, the
Yorkshire Tragedy version of the Husband's words returns. Finding himself ‘lost of all hands’ the
Black Bishop’s Pawn tries and fails to kill the White Bishop’s Pawn: ‘have at his heart... Death,
prevented?’ (A Game at Chess 5.2.143-6). No other plays in the period contain have at his heart,
quite apart from the recurrence of prevent(ed). The nearest match is Spurio’s threat to kill Lussurioso:
‘if I misse his heart or neere about,| Then have at any’ (The Revenger's Tragedy 5.2.174-5). But evi-
dence of this kind is hardly needed. If we did not know the date of A Game at Chess, a comparison of
these three passages, plus the knowledge that one of the texts in question is a rewriting of one of the
others, would allow us to be confident that of the two plays A Yorkshire Tragedy was written first.
There are many verbal links between A Yorkshire Tragedy and Timon of Athens. As Middleton's
part in Timon is at most about 40 per cent of the whole, they occur with roughly the same fre-
quency as do those which connect A Yorkshire Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy, the Middleton
play with which A Yorkshire Tragedy shares most verbal material (Holdsworth 1994, 21-5). This
suggests that the three plays were not written far apart since, as one would expect, Middleton's
self-cannibalizing tendencies focus first and most often on recently completed work. Bloody
Murders helps to determine their order of composition.
Regarding Timon, there is one strikingly close parallel with A Yorkshire Tragedy which goes
back to Bloody Murders and which demonstrates as decisively as such evidence can that Timon is
the later play. In the pamphlet Calverley is berated by an unnamed Gentleman for mistreating his
wife. “Not induring to be detected; he responds by suggesting that the Gentleman is his wife's
lover, and they fight a duel:
both being soone inflamed, [they] fel to quarrelous tearmes, and in such heate, that
Maister Caverley did not spare to say, That he might be his wifes friend... The Gentleman,
not enduring to heare her reputation, but especially his owne to be touched, so aunswered
Maister Caverley, and agayne Maister Caverley him, that they both agreed to purge
themselves in the field, both mette, and after some thrustes chaunged betweene them,
Maister Caverley was hurt.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. Biv)
> Compare at all used repeatedly (with other variations) in the dicing scene in Your Five Gallants (2.4), and
‘Have at all’ in The Revenger's Tragedy (3.5.138).
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 375
In the play the fight happens at once, but other details, including verbal details, are retained:
Hus[band]. Ile not indure thee.
... Thou art her champion thou, her privat friend,
The partie you wot on.
Gent(leman]. Oh ignoble thought.
Iam past my patient bloode, shall I stand idle
And see my reputation toucht to death.
... They fight and the
Husbands hurt.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.152-63)
The outraged demand of Middleton’s Gentleman, ‘shall I stand idle| And see my reputation
toucht to death; renders and enlivens “The Gentleman, not enduring to heare her reputation, but
especially his owne to be touched’ in the pamphlet. The striking ‘toucht to death’ conflates the
pamphlet’s ‘touched’ and its report two paragraphs later that Calverley took out his defeat on his
wife: she was ‘blowne to death with this vehemencie of his wrath’ (Bloody Murders 1605, sig.
Bav). That Middleton had turned to this later passage to provide details of the fight is clear from
other phrases in the same sentence: the pamphlet’s ‘[she] fell at his feete... had not the power to
speak supplied the play’s “Husband falls down...am I leveld with the ground?... got downe?
Unable eene to speak?’ when the Gentleman wounds him (A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.168, 186).
In Timon of Athens, Middleton was entirely responsible for the scene where Alcibiades pleads
with the Senate to spare ‘a friend’ who has fought a duel, killed his opponent, and now faces exe-
cution. Writing Alcibiades’ description of the fight he remembered the encounter between the
Husband and Gentleman in the version he had created when he reshaped what he found in the
pamphlet. Alcibiades’ friend, ‘in hot blood’ and ‘past depth,
Seeing his Reputation touchd to death,
He did oppose his Foe;
Why do fond men expose themselves to Battell,
And not endure all threats...?
(Timon of Athens 10.19-43)
There are no other examples of touched to death in the entire LION database. But as with have at
his heart discussed above, one does not need such information to be sure that what we are dealing
with is a case of progressive imitation. It involves the use, revision, and reuse of the following
elements:
Bloody Murders not induring...friend...not enduring to hear her reputation... to
be touched...to death... fell... not the power to speak
A Yorkshire Tragedy not indure...friend...past...bloode...see my reputation toucht
to death... falls... Unable eene to speake
Timon of Athens Friend...blood...past...Seeing his Reputation touchd to
death. ..not endure
376 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
I think the only reasonable explanation of this sequence is that Timon was written after A Yorkshire
Tragedy, and therefore after King Lear.
Perhaps this is putting too much weight on a single reborrowed passage. If it is, the burden of
proof can be shared, as several more of the verbal links between Timon and A Yorkshire Tragedy
go back to Bloody Murders, and all of them point to Timon as the final rather than the intervening
text. Consideration of the four most substantial follows.
Link One showing Bloody Murders > A Yorkshire
Tragedy > Timon of Athens
he grew into a discontent...his wife would come to desire the cause of his
sadnesse...{she] never so much as in thought offended him, and making hir tears
parlee with her words, she thus intreated him: sir, maister Caverley, I beseech you by the
mutuall league of love which should be betwixt us, by the vowes wee made together... tell
me what I have done.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. A3v-A4r)
Sir (said she) God knows the words I speake have no fashion of untruth, my friends are
fully possest your land is morgaged, they know to whom, and for what, but not by me I
beseech you beleeve, and for...the morgaging of your land, I protest yet ther is no
occasion of suspect.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B2v)
I never yet
Spoke lesse then words of duty, and of love.
Good sir; by all our vowes I doe beseech you,
Show me the true cause of your discontent.
Oh heaven knows,
That my complaints were praises, and best words
Of you, and your estate: onely my friends,
Knew of your morgagde Landes, and were possest
Of every accident before I came.
If thou suspect it but a plot in me...
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.41-2, 58-9; 3.56-61)
Suspect still comes, where an estate is least.
That which I shew, Heaven knowes, is meerely Love,
Dutie...
(Timon of Athens 14.498-500)
The Steward’s words to Timon combine what in both Bloody Murders and A Yorkshire Tragedy are
two separate episodes in which Mistress Calverley (= the Wife) assures her husband of her loyalty. In
the first, her assertion in the pamphlet that she had ‘never so much as in thoght’ offended him, her
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 377
attempt to ‘parlee with her words, and her appeal to their ‘mutuall league of love’ were put together to
create the Wife's declaration in the play that ‘I never yet| Spoke lesse then words of duty, and of love’
The Wife’s wording was then carried into Timon, in the Steward’s “That which I shew...is meerely
Love,| Dutie. In the second, Middleton changed the pamphlet’s ‘God knowes’ to ‘heaven knowes, and
avoided its two uses of ‘land’ by changing one of them to estate: Both substitutions passed into Timon.
In A Yorkshire Tragedy the Wife's second speech of reassurance is in response to an exchange
with the Husband that is an addition to the pamphlet. She refers to ‘your kindnes to mee, and he
retorts that she is ‘subtiller then nine Devils’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 3.44-9). The Timon passage
seems to echo this as well, for the Steward’s speech is in reply to Timon’s asking ‘Is not thy
kindnesse subtle?’ (Timon of Athens 14.492).
Link Two showing Bloody Murders > A Yorkshire
Tragedy > Timon of Athens
his land is all, or the most part of it mortgaged, himselfe in debt to manie.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. A4v)
his morgadg’‘d lands, his friends in bonds,
Himselfe withered with debts.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 3.10-11)
Debts wither em to nothing, be men like blasted woods
(Timon of Athens 14.515)
Again the sequence is clear. ‘Himselfe withered with debts’ gives life to the pamphlet’s anemic
‘himselfe in debt to many, and the improved version is itself made more vivid in Timon by the
expansion of the metaphor. The result is a line which introduces a recurrent theme of the early
Middleton, the despoliation and selling-off of country estates by their debt-laden owners. It does
so by harking back toa specific instance of this in Michaelmas Term, where the Timon-like Master
Easy is befriended by the profligate Salewood and stalked by the predatory Blastfield. The entire
LION database offers no other plays which associate debt and wither.
Link Three showing Bloody Murders > A Yorkshire
Tragedy > Timon of Athens
I thanke you, both for your paines and good instructions.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B3v)
Both for your words and pains I thank you.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 4.35-6)
Your words have took such paines.
(Timon of Athens 10.26)
Middleton replaces the pamphlet’s ‘instructions’ with ‘words’ and switches the coupling round,
then repeats these changes in Timon.
378 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
Link Four showing Bloody Murders > A Yorkshire
Tragedy > Timon of Athens
Then sawe hee... the ruine of his antient house....Sir John Savill... knowing from what
ancessors hee was descended, did bewaile his fate.
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. B4r, Car)
Kni[ght] Ruinous man,
The desolation of his howse, the blot
Upon his predecessors honord name.
(A Yorkshire Tragedy 7.30-2)
Is yond despisd and ruinous man my Lord?
Full of decay and fayling? Oh Monument
And wonder of good deeds, evilly bestow!
What an alteration of Honor has desp'rate want made!
(Timon of Athens 14.443-6)
The pamphlet does not record Sir John Saville’s words as he bewailed Calverley’s fate. Middleton
supplied some by retrieving an earlier phrase, ‘the ruine of his antient house’ which had described
the ruination of the Calverley family name, and converting it to ‘Ruinous man,| The desolation of
his howse; so that Sir John could apply it directly to the Husband. The change releases some complex
wordplay: the Husband is a ruin of his former self, morally, financially, and perhaps physically; he
has ruined the ‘house’ of Calverley; and thanks to his crime the family home will stand empty and
become a literal ruin. Timon’s ‘ruinous man...Full of decay’ generates similar ambiguities, except
that Timon is without family or lineage, so the blotted honour of the Husband's ancestors becomes
Timon’s own Alteration of Honor, and the decaying monument will commemorate and symbolize
only him. Early modern (or later) drama has no other examples of ruinous man, a coinage Middleton
remembered in 1613 when he named a character Sir Ruinous Gentry in his and Rowley’s Wit at
Several Weapons. Timon’s ‘desp'rate want’ recurs only in Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girlas
‘desperate wants’ (11.76).
All the passages discussed above connect Bloody Murders, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and Timon, and
all quite independently of one another indicate that this was the order in which the three texts
were written. Although the forcefulness or otherwise of the evidence does not depend on an
acceptance of Middleton’s hand in Timon (or of his authorship of A Yorkshire Tragedy), it is
nevertheless the case that every one of the Timon passages is from a section of the play attributable
to Middleton on other grounds (Wells et al. 1987, 501-2).
How soon after A Yorkshire Tragedy was Timon? The answer seems to be almost immediately,
as there are phrases in Timon which come from the Bloody Murders, but do not appear in A
Yorkshire Tragedy and must therefore have been fresh in Middleton’s mind. In the duel between
the Gentleman and the Husband the pamphlet antagonists are ‘in such heate’ (Bloody Murders
1605, sig. Biv). Middleton omits this and instead has the Gentleman declare that he is ‘past my
patient bloode’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.162). In Timon Middleton seems to be recalling both
descriptions, for Alcibiades’ friend is ‘in hot blood...past depth’ (Timon of Athens 10.11-12).
Having been worsted by the Gentleman, the pamphlet’s Calverley, ‘looking upon his wounds,
thinks better of continuing the fight, since ‘he could get little by following him, but hurts’ (Bloody
Murders 1605, sig. Bar). Neither detail occurs in A Yorkshire Tragedy, but in the same scene in
Timon Alcibiades, his plea for clemency rejected by the Senate, concludes that he is ‘Rich only in
large hurts’ when he contemplates his ‘Captaines wounds’ (Timon of Athens 10.107-9).
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 379
Other scenes in Timon also have direct, unmediated links with Bloody Murders. The Steward
makes a thankless attempt to remind Timon of his ‘expence’ and laments Timon’s inability to
‘cease his flow of Riot; and prevent ‘the ebbe of your estate,| And your great flow of debts’ (Timon
of Athens 10.1, 3, 131-2). His warnings resemble the efforts of the pamphlet’s Wife to curb
Calverley’s extravagance: ‘although you care not for me, looke back a little into your estate, and
restraine this great floud of your expense’ (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. A4r). Jowett notes that the
pamphlet’s ‘this great floud’ is exactly matched in the first scene of Timon (1.42), and that another
phrase, ‘prodigal course, which occurs three times in the pamphlet but not at all in A Yorkshire
Tragedy, appears in Timon at 8.13 (Jowett 2004b, 1.42n., 8.13-14n.). LION’s databases contain no
other examples of either phrase between 1580 and 1650.* Later Middleton plays, including two,
‘The Revenger's Tragedy and The Puritan Widow, which were also written in 1606, repeat material
from A Yorkshire Tragedy, and some of it, as with Timon, can be shown to have originated in
Bloody Murders. But only A Yorkshire Tragedy and Timon, as far as I can discover, borrow from
the pamphlet directly. The natural conclusion is that Timon was the play Middleton turned to
after A Yorkshire Tragedy, and he began it within weeks or days, or with no break at all.
The Revenger’s Tragedy
‘The Revenger’s Tragedy was entered for publication on 7 October 1607. Composition is often
assigned vaguely to 1605-6, on the strength of the clear influence of Marston's satirical comed-
ies, but other evidence is available which fixes a more precise date. Hippolito’s delighted antici-
pation of the destruction of the ducal regime, ‘there’s gunpowder ith Court,| Wilde fire at
mid-night’ (The Revenger’s Tragedy 2.2.168-9), can hardly pre-date the Gunpowder Plot of
5 November 1605, foiled when guards found the gunpowder in a midnight search of the cellars
beneath the House of Lords. King Lear, if it was not completed before December 1605, moves the
lower limit further forward still, for its presence in Middleton's play is visible on every level.
Edmund reappears as Spurio, another villainous younger son obsessed with his bastardy, and
plotting against his father and stepbrother in order to avenge it. Lear's pretended non-recognition
of Goneril in ‘Are you our daughter?... Doth any here know mee?...I had daughters... Your
name faire gentlewoman?’ (King Lear 4.186-203) and later of Regan in ‘my daughter,| Or rather
a disease’ (King Lear 7.366-7) is copied in detail when Castiza uses the same tactic to signal her
revulsion at Gratiana’s attempt to corrupt her: ‘Lady I mistooke you,| Pray did you see my
Mother?... Doe you not know me...are you shee? ... make the Mother a disease’ (The Revenger’s
Tragedy 2.1.155-235). Vindice’s ventriloquized conversation with the skull of Gloriana in 3.5 is a
blackly comic expansion of Lear’s heartbreaking efforts to restore speech to Cordelia, as he
cradles her corpse. Gloriana stays silent, but one can readily imagine her surprising Vindice
with Lear’s words: “You do me wrong to take me out ath grave’ (King Lear 21.43). Did the idea for
‘The Revenger’s Tragedy begin here, when Middleton heard or read Lear’s question?
* The first scene of Timon, which has ‘this great flood; is mainly by Shakespeare, but Jowett cites evidence that
Middleton is also present (Jowett 2004b, 1.0.3n., 1.38.1N., 1.39N., 1.42N., 1.49-5on., 1.50n.). There are also close
parallels to an earlier and a later Middleton play: ‘PAINTER You are rapt sir, in some worke, some Dedication| To
the great Lord. port A thing slipt idlely from me..... How this grace| Speakes his owne standing!’ (Timon of Athens
1.19-31) resembles ‘to entertaine a Lord... ther’s a kinde of grace belongs toot, a kind of Art which naturally slips
from me... tis gon before ’me aware ont’ (A Mad World 2.1.59-62) and ‘from a woman a thinges quicklie slipt’ (The
Lady’s Tragedy 2.2.17).
380 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
Middleton’s play also contains verbal links with Lear, many of which have been noticed in pre-
vious studies (Schiicking 1916-17; Holdsworth 1990b, 105, 118 n. 1).° One well known one is worth
pausing over, since it rules out the idea that the imitator is not Middleton but Shakespeare.
Gloriana, Vindice reminds us, is not troubled by the weather:
Heres a cheeke keeps her colour, let the winde go whistle,
Spout Raine, we feare thee not, be hot or cold
Alls one with us.
(The Revenger’s Tragedy 3.5.61-3)
Lear, too, exhorts the elements:
Blow wind & cracke your cheekes,
... spit fire, spout raine,
Nor raine, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
(King Lear 9.1-14)
One shared two-word coupling here puts the reliance of one play on the other beyond question:
according to the databases spout rain occurs nowhere else in English literature. But it has not been
noticed that Shakespeare took his idea for the phrase, along with a great deal of other material in
Lear, from the Geneva Job. In Job 35, the headnote reads ‘God speaketh to Job, and declareth the
weakenes of man in the consideration of his creatures, which is reminiscent of Lear’s ‘is man no
more, but this consider him well (King Lear 11.81-2). God demands to know
Who hathe devided the spowtes for the raine? or the way for the lightening of the
thunders, To cause it to raine on the earth, where no man is, and in the wilderness where
there is no man? To fulfil the wilde and waste place... (Job 38:25-7)
This is the Geneva version's only association of spout(s) and rain, and no other Bible pairs the
words. (In the present passage the Authorized Version has ‘watercourse.) We can therefore be
sure that Shakespeare coined the phrase from his reading of Job, encouraged no doubt by the con-
textual coincidence of the ‘wilde and waste place’ where his Job-like protagonist was to utter it,
and Middleton took it from Shakespeare.
Its debts to Lear put The Revenger’ Tragedy no earlier than January 1606. The play must be later
than this, however, for while A Yorkshire Tragedy also borrows from Lear, The Revenger's Tragedy
borrows from A Yorkshire Tragedy, and probably from Timon. Since there is evidence that it is
earlier than The Puritan Widow, written between May and July 1606 (see below), the best date for
‘The Revenger’s Tragedy becomes March-May 1606.
As in Timon, there are exact repetitions of phrases which occur in A Yorkshire Tragedy, but
which have been coined in that play as Middleton reshaped his pamphlet source. In the pamphlet,
Calverley ‘would sit sullenly, walke melancholy, bethinking continually, and with steddy lookes
naild to the ground, seeme astonisht’ (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. A3v). The Yorkshire Husband,
° Among echoes that have hitherto escaped notice are: ‘Oh,| Now let me burst’ (The Revenger’s Tragedy
1.4.169-70) like ‘O that my heart would burst’ (King Lear 24.179); ‘Do's the Silke-worme expend her yellow
labours| For thee?’ (The Revenger's Tragedy 3.5.72-3) like ‘thou owest the worme no silke’ (King Lear 11.82); and
‘poysoned... Villaines all three’ (The Revenger’s Tragedy 3.5.152-3) like ‘poysoned...all three] Now marie in an
instant’ (King Lear 24.222-4).
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 381
gripped by ‘A fearefull melancholie; ‘sits and sullenly lockes up his Armes,| Forgetting heaven
looks downward’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.15-21). Changing ‘lookes naild to the ground’ to ‘looks
downward’ enabled Middleton to suggest that the Husband is not only downcast, but is already
looking down towards hell, ‘Forgetting heaven; in subconscious acknowledgement of his repro-
bate condition. Middleton then reused both phrases in a single scene in The Revenger’s Tragedy
where Vindice tempts his mother to ‘forget heaven’ and thereby aligns her with ‘those base-titled
creatures that looke downe-ward’ (2.1.118, 246).
Having killed his children, and being challenged by a servant, the pamphlet husband ‘did so
teare him with the rowels of his spurres’ that he is able to get away (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. Cir).
Middleton refashions the detail as a brutal joke, with which his Husband can accompany the
action: ‘now Ile teare thee, set quick spurres to my vassaile’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 5.17-18). Vindice
puts the expression to similar cynical purpose as he boasts of his corruption of Gratiana: ‘T...set
spurs to the Mother. Golden spurs’ (The Revenger's Tragedy 2.2.42-3) where ‘golden spurs’ puns
on spur-royal, the gold coin. In the drama to 1625 only one other play has set(s) spurs to:
Middleton’s Your Five Gallants, written in 1607 (3.1.91).
Several other cases of transmission from Bloody Murders to The Revenger’s Tragedy via
A Yorkshire Tragedy could be added, but they merely reconfirm what the two just noted put
beyond doubt: that The Revenger’s Tragedy is the later play.° A question less readily resolved is
whether it is also later than Timon. These two plays share a strikingly large number of distinctive
phrases and Middletonian usages, even for a highly self-imitative writer like Middleton; some are
indexed by Jowett (Jowett 2004b, 367). But while this might indicate that one followed closely on
the other, none of the repetitions allows one to decide which play gave them to which. The phrase
hollow bones, for example, with a suggestion of syphilitic infection, occurs in a Shakespeare
section of Timon in one of Timon’s misanthropic tirades ((Consumptions sowe| In hollow bones
of man...And marre mens spurring, Timon of Athens 14.150-2) and in Vindice'’s opening
denunciation of the Duke (‘stuffe the hollow Bones with dambd desires; The Revenger’s Tragedy
1.1.6). Since the phrase occurs nowhere else in early modern drama it is fair to assume that one
author is echoing the other, but it could as easily be Shakespeare—who would have read, and been
involved in the production of, The Revenger’s Tragedy—as Middleton, who would have looked
carefully at his collaborator’s contributions to Timon. Jowett believes that Middleton may have
written the Timon passage (Jowett 2004), 278), but the evidence is weak: spur(ring), for example,
is acommon sexual pun.
Two points, however, favour the view that Timon came first. Timon contains direct borrowings
from Bloody Murders while The Revenger’ Tragedy and later Middleton plays do not, which sug-
gests that details of the pamphlet were still in Middleton’s mind when he wrote his share of Timon,
and afterwards they were beyond recall. Also, since A Yorkshire Tragedy, a King’s Men’s play, was
part of a composite work, ‘One of the four Plays in one’ according to its first page, one of the other
contributing playwrights may well have been Shakespeare. Putting The Revenger's Tragedy last in
the sequence of Middleton's three earliest commissions for the King’s Men would then have a
special logic, as he can be seen as progressing from working alongside Shakespeare on a short
play, to working with him on a full-length one, to providing the company with a full-length play
of his own.
® They include: ‘leapt out after him for revenge (Bloody Murders 1605, sig. Bar) which becomes ‘Ime mad to be
revengd (A Yorkshire Tragedy 2.183). The phrase I’m mad to then reappears in The Revenger’s Tragedy and Wit at
Several Weapons and occurs nowhere else in early modern drama; and the words... pains collocation discussed
above, which occurs again in The Revenger's Tragedy at 2.1.129-31.
382 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
The Puritan Widow
There was just time for Middleton to write one more play before plague closed the London
theatres, for seven months, on 10 July 1606 (Wilson 1927, 124). With it he returned to comedy, and
to the Children of Paul’s, for whom he had written at least four comedies in 1604-5. The plague
closure, along with the fact that the Paul’s Boys cannot be traced after 30 July, fixes an upper limit
for the play’s composition, and it is possible to narrow the date from the other direction. The
Puritan Widow is yet another Middleton play which borrows from King Lear. The phrase good
bluntness (The Puritan Widow 2.1.34), which occurs also in The Revenger’s Tragedy (2.2.77), almost
certainly stems from ‘praysd for bluntnes’ (King Lear 7.82). These are the first three uses of
bluntness in English drama, there are only twelve others up to 1625, and of these four are by
Middleton, in More Dissemblers, The Nice Valour, The World Tossed at Tennis, and another in The
Revenger's Tragedy. Shakespeare had coined the word from King Leir, where Mumford boasts that
he is ‘kin to the Blunts’ and ‘the bluntest of all my kindred’ (Bullough 1973, 346).
‘The Puritan Widow is also certainly later than A Yorkshire Tragedy. The former’s ‘I thinke our
fortunes,| Were blest een in our Cradles’ (The Puritan Widow 3.2.2-3) is paralleled, uniquely in
English drama, by the latter’s ‘I think she was blest in her Cradle’ (A Yorkshire Tragedy 1.50); but
that in turn was supplied by the pamphlet’s ‘the discreetednesse of his wife from her very cradle’
(Bloody Murders 1605, sig. Biv). Another parallel points, less conclusively, to a date later than The
Revenger's Tragedy. The Widow’s son, delighted by the defeat of his mother’s suitors, declares that
‘all the knights noses are put out of joint, they may go to a bone setters now (The Puritan Widow
5.1.28-9). The comic suggestion of noses as penises is common, but the idea of bone setters as
pimps is not. Outside Middleton, Gordon Williams's exhaustive compilation of bawdy finds only
one late instance, from James Shirley’s The Gentleman of Venice (1639); he cites another from 1631,
but there the sense is merely of a husband (Williams 1994, 1: 130-1).
There is another Middleton example in The Revengers Tragedy when Vindice, offering his profes-
sional services to Lussurioso, assures him that he has been ‘A bone-setter... A bawde my Lord, one
that setts bones togither’ (1.3.42). Vindice’s joke contributes to a network of allusions in the play,
given visual form by his walking around with Gloriana’s skull, which combines the sexual and the
skeletal. In similar vein Gloriana is ‘the bony Lady’ from whom the Duke will learn that ‘age and
bare bone| Are ere allied in action’ (The Revenger'’s Tragedy 3.5.54-5, 121). Vindice is indeed one who
sets bones together: a pimp to his sister, but also on a mission to unite the ducal family with their
mortuary future. The term bone setter in The Puritan Widow is by contrast abruptly introduced,
unexplained, and immediately dropped. Its comparative lack of function invites the conclusion that
Middleton created or adopted the term in the tragedy to serve his larger conception of the play, and
then reused it in the comedy simply because it had become one of his stock of bawdy terms.
If The Puritan Widow is later than The Revenger’s Tragedy its date moves into May or June. This
fits with what Richard Dutton plausibly identifies as a swipe at the Act to Restrain Abuses of
Players of 27 May 1606 and with the reference to Tuesday 15 July as ‘today’ (The Puritan Widow
1.3.1-9, 3.5.241), which it was in 1606 (Dutton 2005). In choosing this date, Middleton would have
allowed for the time it would take for the play to reach the theatre. He was not to know that when
the date arrived all the theatres would be closed.
Macbeth
There are good reasons for dating Macbeth around the same time as The Puritan Widow, in or
near June 1606. It is sometimes assumed that the two plays are connected. In The Puritan Widow
SHAKESPEARE AND MIDDLETON: A CHRONOLOGY 383
Sir Godfrey announces ‘a banquet ready’ and promises that ‘in stead ofa Jester, weele ha the ghost
ith white sheete sit at upper end ath Table’ (4.2.349-56). This recalls ‘Banquet prepard’ and ‘Enter
the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeths place’ (Macbeth 15.0, 36), which in the first perform-
ances was presumably at the head of the table. The apparent allusion is often used as evidence for
dating The Puritan Widow and Macbeth, and has even guided directors in their choice of the
ghost’s costume. It should, however, be discounted. The ‘ghost ith white sheete’ in Middleton's
play is a character who has just been carried on in a winding sheet, and has seemingly been raised
from the dead. Coming round, he has been amazed to find himself ‘covered with Snow, and an
onlooker has already called him ‘a Ghost’ (The Puritan Widow 4.2.320, 333). Sir Godfrey’s remark
thus arises naturally from the action and dialogue of the scene in which it occurs, and no assump-
tion of a reference to a different play is required to make sense of it.
Moreover, Sir Godfrey’s speech, including the detail of the ‘upper end a’th Table’ on which the
notion of a Macbeth allusion really depends, is a tissue of recollections from two Middleton
pamphlets, The Black Book and The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary (both 1604), and yet
another case of his self-cannibalizing method of composition (Holdsworth 1990a). There is thus
no evidence which compels us to date Macbeth as the earlier play of the two.
We are on firmer ground with the influence on Macbeth of Marston's Sophonisba, entered for
publication in March 1606 and printed shortly afterwards (Clark and Mason 2015, 16-17), and
with the drunken Porter’s reference to the “Equivocator... who committed Treason enough for
Gods sake, yet could not equivocate to Heaven’ (Macbeth 10.6-9). The equivocator is almost
certainly Father Garnet, one of the Gunpowder Plotters who under interrogation notoriously
defended equivocation as a means of both avoiding lying and shielding his fellow conspirators.
If the identification is correct, Macbeth must be dated after 3 May 1606, when Garnet was
executed, as the Porter's ‘could not equivocate to heaven’ makes clear that the equivocator has
met his end. Internal evidence, in the form of metrical and colloquialism tests, corroborates a
mid-1606 date, as they place Macbeth after Lear and Timon, but before Antony and Cleopatra
(Taylor 1987c, 128-9).
Conclusions
The evidence assembled above suggests that Shakespeare and Middleton wrote the following
plays between autumn 1605 and summer 1606, in the following order and at the following dates:
Shakespeare King Lear in October-December 1605
Middleton A Yorkshire Tragedy in December 1605-January 1606
Middleton and Shakespeare Timon of Athens in February-March 1606
Middleton The Revenger’s Tragedy in March-May 1606
Middleton The Puritan Widow in May-June 1606
Shakespeare Macbeth in June-July 1606
This sequence has various implications, some of which disturb current thinking. The composition
of Lear can be detached from its December 1606 court performance: Shakespeare's play must
have been in existence a year earlier, otherwise there would not have been time for the three
Middleton plays which borrow from it to have been written by the summer. Edward Sharpham’s
comedy The Fleer, performed in the spring of 1606, can now be seen as indebted to Lear, and not
Lear to it. The writing of Timon after Lear makes a date for Macbeth earlier than June unlikely.
384 ROGER HOLDSWORTH
Received views about the origins and style of A Yorkshire Tragedy need to be comprehensively
rethought. The play was not rushed out in the summer of 1605 in order to cash in on the topicality
of the Calverley murder. If the text shows signs of haste, such as its failure to make clear the con-
nection of its first scene to the rest of the story, this was because Middleton was working with a
team of other dramatists to meet an agreed deadline, and was also under pressure because
of other commitments to the King’s Men to which he had immediately to turn. Middleton's
characters—Husband, Wife, Master of the College, Gentleman—are nameless not because he
wanted to protect the anonymity of the families caught up in the murders, but because he was
opting for the namelessness which is a feature of his form of drama. With A Yorkshire Tragedy’s
Wife, for example, compare the Jeweller’s Wife and the Wife of the earlier Phoenix and A Trick to
Catch the Old One, and the Wife of the later Lady’s Tragedy. So too with the placelessness of the
play’s setting. Bloody Murders has many reminders, in the form of references to Wakefield and
York, of where events are occurring. Middleton dropped these from the play. The setting is some-
where in England, but not London, with which one might compare The Revenger's Tragedy, set no
more specifically than somewhere in Italy. There is a conflict here with the play’s title, which the
placelessness of the play proper makes redundant. Perhaps Middleton's one and only choice of
title was All’s One, the title which heads the play’s first scene. The phrase, which means ‘it’s all the
same; or ‘it makes no difference; recurs in The Revenger's Tragedy (3.5.63).
The January 1606 date for A Yorkshire Tragedy also prompts a second look at the play’s conclu-
sion. It is commonly said that Middleton omits the Husband’s death because the pamphlet does,
and that this is further proof that Calverley’s fate had not been decided when he wrote the play.
But Calverley was long dead by early 1606, and the play’s final lines, for which the pamphlet has
no equivalent, may now be taken to acknowledge this, and indeed to glance at the details of his
end. The Master of the College announces: ‘I shall bring newes weies heavier then the debt:| Two
brothers: one in bond lies overthrown,| This, on a deadlier execution (A Yorkshire Tragedy 8.73-5).
The brother faces the execution of the Husband’s debts and the Husband faces penal execution.
Since in Calverley’s case this took the form of being pressed with heavy weights, the Master's
metaphor may imply and anticipate more than is usually assumed.
The post-Lear composition of Timon establishes that the play was not a preparatory explor-
ation of ideas which Shakespeare then articulated more completely in Lear, but what Samuel
Taylor Coleridge called the ‘after-vibration’ of King Lear, in which some of the ideas generated
by that play were receiving renewed attention (Coleridge 1930, 1: 238). In addition, the February—
March date for Timon suggests that the play was in part conceived to reflect contemporary anxie-
ties about credit, debt, and the lending of money which came to a head at precisely this time. In
February 1606 the Lords began to debate a bill entitled the ‘Act for the Further Repressing of
Usury’. It received its first and second readings on the 14th and 16th of the month, and was
reintroduced as ‘An Act to Enlarge the Statutes Now in Force Against Usury’ on 26 March. More
readings followed in April and May, the bill was ‘much disputed} rejected several times, then
passed on 1 May (Jones 1989, 176-8). If Timon is set in a society where ‘this is no time to lend money’
(5.35) it was also performed in one.
Middleton's schedule for 1606 up to the demise of Paul’s Boys and the closing the theatres is
now fully accounted for. This means that his other plays for the company—The Phoenix, A Mad
World, Michaelmas Term, A Trick—must all be no later than the previous year. Their early dates
have interesting consequences for Jonson and Volpone, which has detailed links with these
Middleton plays, including a pretend invalid visited in his/her sick room by characters hoping for
profit (A Mad World) and a schemer who overreaches himself by announcing his own death
(Michaelmas Term). The assumption has always been that Middleton was copying Jonson. In fact,
for all Jonson’s stated opinion of Middleton as ‘a base fellow’, the debts go the other way.
Chapter 23
The Versification of Double
Falsehood Compared to Restoration
and Early Classical Adaptations
MARINA TARLINSKAJA
as Lewis Theobald’s play Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers the remains of
Shakespeare and John Fletcher’s lost play Cardenio, or a counterfeit and a fraud? An editor
and admirer of Shakespeare, and a collector of antique manuscripts, Theobald declared that he
based Double Falsehood on several manuscripts of an otherwise unknown Shakespearean play.
This claim has been rejected by a line of critics stretching from the eighteenth century until, most
recently, Tiffany Stern (2011). Theobald’s claim has also been supported: from E. H. C. Oliphant
(1919; 1927, 282-302) to MacDonald P. Jackson (2012b), Richard Proudfoot (2012), John V. Nance
(2013), and Gary Taylor (2012a; 2013b). Brean Hammond endorsed an intermediate suggestion of
John Freehafer’s that Theobald perhaps worked from an earlier adaptation of Cardenio by William
Davenant in the 1660s (Hammond 2010, 95-6). Theobald claimed to possess three manuscripts
of the Shakespearean play, but showed them to no one. Might they have been Davenant’s? In this
chapter I address the riddles of Double Falsehood with the help of versification analysis, asking
whether the play was counterfeit Shakespeare, an adaptation of a Jacobean play, or an adaptation
of a Restoration adaptation of a Jacobean play.
Most English sixteenth- to nineteenth-century dramas are written in iambic pentameter. This
means that they are metrical texts where even-numbered syllables (2, 4, 6, and so on) tend to be
stressed, and odd-numbered syllables (1, 3, 5, and so on) tend to be unstressed. But there are per-
mitted variations and no text has all even syllables 100 per cent stressed, and all odd syllables 100
per cent unstressed. Particular deviations from the metre were more permissible during certain
epochs and less permissible during others, and the patterns of deviations vary depending on the
habits and tastes of the author. Thus versification analyses of poetic texts can be used for textual
attribution and chronology.
The research described in this chapter is a continuation of my work on verse in the period
1640-1740. Ten more Restoration and early Classical plays and adaptations have been added to
the set described in my Shakespeare and the Versification of English Drama, 1561-1642, throwing
more light on how adaptations relate to the plays they are based on (Tarlinskaja 2014). This helps
answer the question of whether, in putting together Double Falsehood, Theobald used an earlier
adaptation of Shakespeare and Fletcher's lost play. The conclusion that Double Falsehood had a
386 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
Shakespeare—Fletcher original rather than an adaptation of it would confirm the results of other
scholars, including those collected by David Carnegie, Terri Bourus, and Gary Taylor, and my
own previous conclusion (Carnegie and Taylor 2012; Taylor and Bourus 2013).
Syntactic Breaks
‘The analysis of versification presented here relies on several aspects of poetic writing that should
be explained for the non-specialist, the first of which is the syntactic break. We are interested in
the places within a verse line where there is a distinct break created by the word choices of the
poet as constrained by the syntactic rules of well-formed English. In a line of poetry containing
11 syllables, there may in principle be a syntactic break after any one or more of them, and we can
quantify this phenomenon by recording the syllable number (1, 2,...11) after which the break
falls. Regular iambic pentameter verse typically has ten or eleven syllables and they fall into a
repeated rhythm (the so-called iamb) of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. The
deviations from this rhythm are few, and the alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables is
repeated by the author and remembered by the reader. We say that the poet has used, and the
reader has figured out, the metre of the text: iambic pentameter. We can record the relationship
between the division into syllables and the location of the syntactic break(s), and when we do we
find that it correlates quite strongly with authorship and also, although less strongly, with collect-
ive habits of poetical preference that changed steadily over time.
The syntactical rules of English make certain adjacent words cohere in ways that are important
for the poet's choice of words and their ordering. In this study we recognize three degrees of such
cohesion: a strong link, an intermediate link (which is equally a break), and a strong break. The
strongest cohesion, which is here designated by a virgule (‘/’) between the words it joins, occurs
between a modifier and the modified noun, or a verb and a direct object. Thus in the part-line ‘a
living death I bear’ (Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock, 5.61) the modifier living coheres with
the noun death that it modifies and the verb phrase I bear coheres with its direct object a living
death. This pair of strong syntactic links we represent as ‘a living / death / I bear’.
Our intermediate degree of cohesion—a link that is also a medium break—exists between the
subject and predicate of a sentence or between any two adjacent words that have no strong link,
and it is designated here by a double virgule (‘//’). Thus, again from The Rape of the Lock, ‘One
died in metaphor, and one // in song’ (5.60). Here the virgule marks where the poet has omitted a
second occurrence of died (so logically the first does double duty), and this implied verb that is
modified by the adverb in song. The omission of the verb puts the subject one and the adverbial
modifier into a relationship that we count as having intermediate strength.
Our third category, the strong break (designated by ‘///’ here) exists between two sentences or
between the author's speech and reported speech. Thus, the line ‘““Those are made so killing’—
was his last’ (The Rape of the Lock 5.64) already has a dash inserted by Pope at the point where we
would identify a strong break, so in our system this is encoded as ‘“Those are made so killing” ///
was his last. David J. Lake has a more detailed classification of these phenomena, but the above
illustrations will suffice for our purposes (Lake 1975, 257, 261).
In identifying the placement of these links and breaks in verse lines I am using what is known
as the Russian School of verse analysis (Tomashevsky 1929, 438-82; Gasparov and Skulacheva2004,
chapters 2, 7-8). By contrast, Ants Oras in Pause Patterns in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama and
his follower MacDonald P. Jackson rely on punctuation, or the break between two speakers in a
play, and call the breaks ‘pauses’ (Oras 1960; Jackson 2012b, 138-9).
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 387
% of lines
NO
Oo
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Syllabic position the break falls after
BB Kyd The Spanish Tragedy
Webster The Duchess of Malfi
FIG. 23.1 The locations of the strong syntactic breaks in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and Webster's The Duchess
of Malfi. (Data for syllabic position 10 go off the scale.)
In dramatic verse before 1600, the most frequent word boundary and the most prominent
syntactic break fell immediately after the fourth syllable, dividing the line into two hemistichs:
one of four syllables followed (assuming ten syllables in all) by one of six syllables. In dramatic
verse after 1600, the most frequent word boundary and the most prominent syntactic break fell
after either syllable six or syllable seven, dividing the line into hemistichs of six-plus-four or
seven-plus-three, assuming ten syllables in the line.
Figure 23.1 illustrates this historical trend using as examples Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish
Tragedy (first performed 1585-9) and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (first performed 1612-14).
The horizontal scale represents the syllables 2 to 11 after which a strong syntactic break might
occur in a line, and the vertical scale represents the proportion of the play’s lines (measured as a
percentage of all lines) that have a strong syntactic break after that syllable. As the graph shows,
the earlier play has a preference for putting a break after the fourth syllable while the later has a
preference for putting one after the seventh syllable. Both plays have a large ‘spike’ for putting
a break after the tenth syllable, since of course most of the lines are more or less regular iambic
pentameters that typically also have a syntactic break at the end of the line.
Stressing
Aside from the syntactic break, this study also relies upon the better-known feature of poetic
writing called stress. By definition, in iambic pentameter verse all odd-numbered syllabic
positions are metrically weak (labelled W) and all evenly numbered syllabic positions are metric-
ally strong (labelled S). Using this as a norm (called metre) we can quantify how frequently the
verse lines in a particular text (say, a play) deviate from it, producing what is here called a stress
profile that records as a percentage of the total number of lines in the text the number that
388 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
conform to our expectation for weak (W) positions, and another stress profile can be constructed
for strong (S) positions.
Let us take as a concrete example the verse line ‘And ghosts emerge on dark and foggy days’.
Since the word emerge is conventionally spoken as an iamb (emERGE) and the word foggy as a
trochee (FOGGy), this line is easily made to conform to iambic pentameter: ‘And GHOSTS
emERGE on DARK and FOGGy DAYS: Pope’s The Rape of the Lock has a line somewhat like
this that cannot readily be spoken as an iambic pentameter: ‘And the pale ghosts start at the
flash of day!’ (5.52). If we try to speak this as an iambic pentameter we find ourselves trying to
stress the and at and not stressing pale and start. Ina moment we will codify the rules for stress-
ing monosyllabic words that are followed in this study, but for now it should be noted that
forcing Pope's line into iambic pentameter requires stressing words that seem unimportant and
failing to stress words that seem important. The syllabic positions where Pope has deviated
from the metre are two, three, six, and seven, and these are numbers we can put into our tabu-
lation of his verse habits.
There are other kinds of deviation from the iambic pentameter norm that a poet might make.
One is simply to omit a syllable but to otherwise retain the expected stresses as though all ten
syllables were present. Where the first syllable is omitted we call this a headless line, as in ‘Stay,
the King hath thrown his warder down (Shakespeare, Richard II1.3.118). Sucha headless line can
always be made regular by adding an exclamatory Oh to the beginning: ‘Oh STAY, the KING,
hath THROWN his WARDer DOWN. Where the omitted syllable occurs within a line, the line
is said to be broken-backed, as in “The curtained sleep. [ ] Witchcraft celebrates’ (Shakespeare,
Macbeth 2.1.51). Again, adding a simple monosyllable at the position where Shakespeare has
omitted it (marked here with square brackets) would restore the line to iambic regularity. In
this example from Macbeth the omitted syllable would occupy a weak (W) position, but the
omission can occur at a strong (S) position too: ‘Ay, Mistress Arden, [ ] this is your favour’
(Anonymous, Arden of Faversham 14.80). Here syllable six (on S) is omitted. Such an omitted
syllable may coincide with an opportunity for stage business—pointing a finger, passing a letter,
dropping a handkerchief—that is suggested by the dialogue but not explicitly called for by a
stage direction. Again, because we number the syllable positions, we can tabulate the rates of
occurrence of this phenomenon.
Another variation, especially common in the work of Jacobean playwrights Thomas Middleton
and Philip Massinger, is to place multiple syllables into a single weak (W) position. An example is
‘Such as my free acknowledgement that I am’ (Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts 5.1.75).
‘There are several ways that we might try to attribute stresses across this line, including assuming
that its norm is a twelve-syllable iambic line (an alexandrine) but with a missing monosyllable
between acknowledgement and that. Alternatively, this may be an iambic pentameter line with
two syllables, -ledgement, crammed into the weak position normally occupied by syllable seven:
‘Such AS my FREE acKNOWledgement THAT i AM’ Because there is considerable evidence that
playwrights anticipated their lines being spoken somewhat quickly, we assume wherever it is
plausible that cases such are this are iambic pentameters using crammed syllables rather than
longer lines using omitted syllables.
We have seen that when deciding where the stresses fall in a line there may be cases that admit
multiple solutions, particularly regarding monosyllables. The stresses within polysyllabic words
are generally agreed upon by today’s speakers, but even here there may still be small points of
difference, especially across national and cultural boundaries. In England, the words debris is
typically spoken as a trochee (DEBris) and research is spoken as an iamb (resEARCH) while in
America the reverse is usually true (deBRIS, REsearch); thus a modern speaker has a choice for
these words. Early modern speakers had choices over words that are now largely standardized.
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 389
The shared line ‘[cassto] The divine Desdemona. MONTANO What is she?’ (Shakespeare, Othello
2.1.74) was most likely spoken as a regular iambic pentameter: “The DIvine DESdeMONa WHAT
is SHE?’ Like divine, the word replied appears, unusually, to be stressed on the first syllable by
Percy Bysshe Shelley: “She REplied EARNestLY it SHALL be MINE (The Revolt of Islam 2.38.1).
Sometimes two polysyllabic words from the same root and with the same spelling will be differ-
entiated in pronunciation, so that in the verb form of to present we use an iambic stress (preSENT)
and in the noun form of a present we use a trochaic stress (PREsent).
Stressing of monosyllabic words creates a particular problem and unlike polysyllabic words
they may gain or lose accentuation almost at random. Almost at random, but not quite. Some
classes of monosyllables in connected speech are stressed more often than others, and we may
form a set of rules about them. For the purpose of attributing authorship, it matters more that we
apply these rules consistently to all cases than that the rules are indisputably correct in all cases.
In order to work out a consistent approach to the material, we follow V. M. Zhirmunsky (1925) in
dividing monosyllables into three categories. The first category is the lexical words—the nouns,
verbs, and adjectives—and these are usually stressed. The second category is the grammatical (or
function) words—the articles, prepositions, and conjunctions—and these are usually unstressed.
The third category is words that are sometimes stressed and sometimes not, such as personal,
demonstrative, and indefinite pronouns. Personal pronouns, for example, are considered always
unstressed in W positions, while in S positions they are considered unstressed if they are adjacent
to their syntactic partner, and stressed if they are separated from the syntactic partner by a phrase.
Thus in “My glass shall not persuade me I am old’ (Shakespeare, Sonnet 22.1), the pronoun I falls
onan S position but grammatically it is a subject that is immediately followed by its predicate (am
old) so by our rules it is considered to be unstressed. In the line “That I in thy abundance am suf-
ficed’ (Shakespeare, Sonnet 33.11), the subject I again falls on an S position but because it is separ-
ated from its predicate (am sufficed) by an intervening phrase we considered it to be stressed.
‘The only times these rules are overridden is when the rhetorical emphasis of a line indisputably
calls for different accentuation. For example, the rule that lexical words are generally stressed and
grammatical/function words are unstressed would ordinarily make us assume that the following
is a broken-backed line with an omitted syllable at the caesura (the comma) and an additional
unstressed eleventh syllable forming a feminine ending: ‘Makes me her medal, and makes her
love me’ (John Donne, Elegies 10.3). That is, we would ordinarily assume that the line ends ‘and
MAKES her LOVE me. However, in poetical context and because it is preceded by a string of pro-
nouns (her, I, she, my) it is clear that Donne means to stress the pronouns here in order to forma
contrast, and we should understand the line to be a regular iambic pentameter: ‘Makes ME her
MEDal AND makes HER love ME’ Necessarily this is a somewhat subjective judgement since
critics may differ on their interpretations of poetical context (Tarlinskaja 2014, chapter 1). If vari-
ants of oral rendition of a verse line are possible, we here favour the one closest to the metre as
established around the line in question (Tarlinskaja 2004b; Rokison 2009).
In iambic pentameter we would normally expect the tenth (final) syllable to be stressed, and it
is instructive to consider how playwrights vary in their departure from this expectation. Stress on
the final syllable may be omitted by placing there an unstressed syllable from a polysyllabic word
or by using an unstressed or weakly stressed monosyllable, the latter being particularly common
in late Shakespeare. An example of the former from early Shakespeare is ‘Madam, good hope: his
grace speaks cheerfully’ (Richard III 1.3.34), in which CHEERfully (not CHEERfullY) weakens
the final stress. An example of the latter from late Shakespeare is ‘And Cydnus swelled above the
banks, or for’ (Cymbeline 2.4.71), in which the monosyllabic for, being a grammatical/function
word, is unstressed despite appearing in an S position. We may track these phenomena across
Shakespeare's career. In All’s Well that Ends Well (1603-6), there are polysyllabic words creating
390 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
% of lines
2 4 6 8 10
Syllabic position
Wl Kyd The Spanish Tragedy
Webster The Duchess of Malfi
FIG. 23.2 The locations of the unstressed or weakly stressed syllables in S positions in Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy
and Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.
unstressed tenth syllables in 4.4 per cent of all lines and monosyllabic words doing this in 0.4 per
cent of all lines. In The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613-14) the proportions are 7.8 per cent and 8.9 per
cent, respectively. The total number of missing stresses on position 10 increased overall in
Shakespeare's late works and the proportion of monosyllables used for this purpose went up more
than twenty times.
We may also track the omission of expected stresses in the middles of lines at syllabic positions
2, 4, 6, and 8. In plays written before 1600, the commonest place we find the least-stressed S position
is position 6 but after 1600 this preference shifted to position 8. Figure 23.2 illustrates this using,
as before, data from Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy (first performed 1585-9) and Webster’s The Duchess
of Malfi (first performed 1612-14).
A dip on position 6 often coincides with symmetrical grammatical and rhythmic structures of
lines with a word boundary or even a syntactic break after position 5, as the following examples
from Shakespeare's Richard II show:
The CATerPILLars of the COMMonWEALTH (2.3.165, of unstressed)
To DIM his GLORy and to STAIN the TRACK (3.3.65, and unstressed)
The HEAVy ACcent of thy MOVing TONGUE (5.1.47, of unstressed)
We may illustrate the later preference—the shift of the dip to position 8—using the following
examples, all from Webster's The Duchess of Malfi:
You HAVE been LONG in FRANCE and you reTURN (1.1.2, you unstressed)
A VEry FORMal FRENCHman in your HABit (1.1.3, in unstressed)
How DO you LIKE the FRENCH court?—i adMIRE it (1.1.4, i unstressed)
Pure SILver DROPS in GENeral but if’t CHANCE (1.1.13, but unstressed)
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 391
In the last of these lines we assume that general is disyllabic and that the line is a regular iambic
pentameter, although trisyllabic pronunciation of general and stressed monosyllables in posi-
tions 10 and 11 is also a possibility.
Another parameter we can quantify is phrasal accentuation in adjacent word combinations
where the stressed syllable of one word (usually monosyllabic) occupies an S metrical position
while a potentially stressed monosyllable on W adjacent to S either precedes or follows the stress
on S, thus producing either an WS or an SW combination. In the first instance the phrase is called
proclitic and is said to lean to the right in the sense that the monosyllable in the W position some-
what attaches itself to the phonetically more dominant monosyllable in the S position that follows
it. In the second instance the phrase is called enclitic and leans to the left in that the monosyllable
in the W position attaches itself to the more dominant S that precedes it (Tarlinskaja 1987, chap-
ter 6). Thus in ‘But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes’ (Shakespeare, Sonnet 1.5) the phrase
bright eyes contains the potentially stressed lexical monosyllable bright in a W position. Because
bright eyes forms a distinct phrase this potential for stress is not necessarily fulfilled in declam-
ation: the WS combination makes bright eyes a proclitic, rightwards (or forwards) leaning phrase.
Six lines later the possessive pronoun phrase thine own is repeated in “Within thine own bud buri-
est thy content: This time, thine own is followed by a potentially stressed monosyllabic lexical word
bud on an W position. Because own bud forms a distinct phrase this potential for stress is not
necessarily fulfilled in declamation: the SW combination makes own bud an enclitic, leftwards (or
backwards) leaning phrase. It must again be noted that we are here referring to potential stress, and
that in declamation the lexical word on W may, at the speaker's discretion, be fully stressed, have a
weakened stress, or no stress at all.
Line Endings, -ed, -eth, -ion, Pleonastic do,
and Rhythmical Italics
We can usefully quantify what poets do with line endings, counting the number of syllables
before completion, the accentuation of the ending, and the relationship of the ending to the syn-
tax of the wider sentence. In iambic pentameter a regular ten-syllable line is said to have a mascu-
line ending, while a single extra syllable makes the ending feminine and two make it dactylic.
Masculine line endings can be stressed or unstressed, and the unstressed syllable on position 10
may be created by a polysyllabic word, as in ‘By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty’ (Shakespeare,
Richard III 1.3.105), in which the last word is MAjesty not MAjestY. (In that example, heaven is
assumed to be spoken as a monosyllable, as was often its pronunciation in Elizabethan verse.)
A masculine ending can also be made with a weakly stressed or unstressed grammatical mono-
syllable such as a preposition or a conjunction, as in “Of these thy compounds on such creatures
as’ (Shakespeare, Cymbeline 1.5.19).
A complicating factor here is that words such as heaven, spirit, power, and higher may be mono-
syllabic or disyllabic and no simple rule can be formulated for all cases. A simple feminine ending
adds a single unstressed syllable in position 11, as in “The same, the same. Meat’s cast away upon
him’ (Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts 1.2.43). A heavy feminine ending has a monosyl-
lable in position 11 that is required by the sense of the line to be stressed, as in “Why, thou unthank-
ful villain, dar’st thou talk thus?’ (Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts 1.1.23). In this last
example, the question is not whether Tapwell talks at all but whether he dares to speak in this
particular manner, hence ‘DAR’ST thou TALK THUS?’ A heavy dactylic ending begins with the
regularly stressed tenth syllable and adds two unstressed syllables after it, as in “Never a green silk
392 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
quilt is there i th house, Mother’ (Middleton, Women Beware Women 3.1.27), in which ‘HOUSE
mother’ forms a dactylic rhythm.
Syntactically, line endings can be end-stopped or run-on. Run-on lines (enjambments) are
connected to the following line by a medium or strong link. Quantifying this feature is relatively
straightforward. In this study we also calculate the rates of occurrence of syllabic suffixes -ed and
-eth (as in modern beloved and early modern speaketh) and pleonastic uses of the verb to do (as in
I do wait instead of I wait). We count also the disyllabic form of the suffix -ion used by some
Elizabethan and Jacobean poets, as in “Unquiet meals make ill digestions’ (Shakespeare, The
Comedy of Errors 5.1.75), where the last word has four syllables (di-ges-ti-ons) and “Whoever
misses in his function (Massinger, An Old Way to Pay Old Debts 1.2.4) where the last word has
three (func-ti-on). We count grammatical inversions and cases when deviations from the metre
appear to serve a rhetorical function, as when Richmond in his speech to rouse his men for battle
says that their enemy ‘Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough (Shakespeare,
Richard III 5.2.9). On the principle that lexical words are stressed and simple pronouns are
unstressed, this line must begin with a trochaic rhythm instead of an iambic: “SWILLS your warm
BLOOD. Richmond might easily have said something regularly iambic like “He swills your blood
like wash...’ We call such deviations that serve to highlight the meaning rhythmical italics. We
find that verbs of action appear particularly frequently in such cases of rhythmical italics. Where
we give rates of occurrence of all these features, the units will be stated, but most commonly we
standardize by giving the frequency of the phenomenon per 1,000 lines. Now that we have
outlined the features that we measure, we may turn to their appearance in the various canons
under consideration.
The Evolution of Shakespeare’s Versification
We may conveniently list here the main features of Shakespeare's changing style (Tarlinskaja 1987;
2014). Shakespeare went from a stressing dip on position 6 to a dip on position 8. A short
intermediate period, with an equal number of stresses on positions 6 and 8 occurred in 1601-4
and is witnessed in the plays Troilus and Cressida (first performed 1600-3) and Othello (first
performed 1603-4). A similar evolution took place in Shakespeare’s placing of strong syntactic
breaks, from this most frequently appearing after syllable 4 (or 5 if the first hemistich had a
feminine ending) to appearing after syllable 6. Fletcher and some other Jacobean poets went even
further towards the end of the line and placed the most frequent break after syllable 7: in Bonduca
(first performed 1611-14) a strong break after position 6 occurs in 23.9 per cent of all lines, and
after position 7 in almost 30 per cent.
What about Shakespeare's line endings? As has been widely commented upon, late Shakespeare
used numerous enjambments, which are found in 40 per cent of lines in The Winter's Tale
(first performed 1609-11), in 45.7 per cent of Shakespeare’s lines in All Is True/Henry VIII (first
performed 1613), and 52.8 per cent of Shakespeare's lines in The Two Noble Kinsmen (first per-
formed 1613-14). Most enjambments marked lines with masculine endings, and many of these
contained an unstressed monosyllable on position 10. This practice became a Shakespearean
signature rhythm.
In his feminine endings Shakespeare went through several stages. His early plays show numer-
ous feminine endings, for example appearing in 18.5 per cent of all lines in The Taming of The
Shrew (first performed 1582-93). Then came a four-year period of few feminine ending rates,
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 393
from Love’s Labour's Lost (first performed 1594-7) to 1 Henry IV (first performed 1596-7) and
including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (first performed 1594-7) with its mere 4.6 per cent of lines
having feminine endings. An exception to this is The Merchant of Venice (first performed 1596-8)
whose date we would be tempted to move a year later for just this reason. Beginning with 2 Henry
IV (first performed 1597-1600) the percentage of feminine ending lines rises; with Hamlet
(first performed 1599-1604) it reaches the twenties, and with Coriolanus (first performed 1607-9)
the thirties.
Shakespeare's rate of feminine endings never reaches the high proportion of his contemporar-
ies: in Fletcher’s Bonduca (first performed 1611-14) 66.9 per cent of all lines have feminine end-
ings. The reason is that Shakespeare's preference for enjambment suppresses feminine endings,
for the two devices are antithetical. Heavy feminine endings in which the tenth and eleventh syl-
lable are stressed—as in “How he determines further. As the Duke said’ (All Is True/Henry VIII
1.1.214)—never rise above 1 per cent of all lines even in late Shakespeare. By contrast, Fletcher's
plays heavy feminine endings reach almost 10 per cent of all lines, as in “Where nothing but true
joy is. That's a good wench’ and ‘How sick I am? The lean rogue, uncle. Look boy’ (Bonduca
4.4.108, 5.3.133).
Shakespeare favoured the pleonastic verb do and grammatical inversions throughout his
writing career, but he avoided enclitic phrases even in his late plays, as opposed to his younger
contemporary and collaborator Fletcher. The syncopated rhythm of enclitics in midline and at
the end of the line—a heavy feminine ending being also a kind of enclitic—perhaps jarred on
Shakespeare's ear. Late Shakespeare avoided the disyllabic form of the suffix -ion still used by
some Jacobean and even Caroline authors.
The Habits of Augustan Adaptation
Before turning to the versification of Double Falsehood we must consider representative Augustan
adaptations of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. It would be interesting to see if there are recurring
tendencies in the verse of adaptations that parallel the patterns that Carnegie (2012) discerns in
the alterations of plot structure and dramatic characters; the topic has hitherto been neglected.
With the Restoration the English stage acquired some of the neoclassical principles of the French
stage. In particular, there arose in respect of new plays and adaptations of pre-Commonwealth
plays a demand for drama to be pleasantly instructive with evil deeds punished and good
triumphant. A play should contain a fable, a moral conclusion, murders should be performed off
stage, and plays were expected to contain touching love scenes.
It is easier to spot changes to a play’s plot, tone, and scenic structure than it is to capture the
rhythm of an added or rewritten episode. For example, it is clear that Webster’s The Duchess of
Malfi ends tragically, while Theobald’s adaptation of it as The Fatal Secret (first performed 1733)
has a happy ending. Davenant in his The Rivals (first performed 1664), an adaptation of
Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen (first performed 1613-14), composed a sym-
metrical happy ending: the playwright marries Theocles to Princess Heraclia, and the rejected
rival Philander to Celania, the Provost’s daughter (a version of the Jailer’s daughter). In The Law
Against Lovers (first performed 1662) Davenant injects Much Ado About Nothing (first performed
1597-9) into Measure for Measure (first performed 1604) thus adding one more pair of lovers, the
sharp-tongued Beatrice and Benedick. At the end of the play, the Duke gives Isabella in marriage
to Angelo who, it turns out, had long loved her, and Beatrice agrees to marry Benedick. We not
394. MARINA TARLINSKAJA
only spot the new characters but also trace the changes in a personality, as when we compare
Shakespeare's Richard II (first performed 1595-7) to Nahum Tate’s adaptation. Tate strengthens
the contrast between Richard and Bolingbroke, the former a kind and loving though weak man,
the latter a cruel unscrupulous power-grabber.
But what happened to the versification of Jacobean plays in Restoration adaptation? Giving
lines to different characters does not change their rhythm, of course. Careless printing, on the
other hand, does. Since few Restoration adaptations are available as modern critical editions we
have for this study needed first to correct the clear mislineations found in late seventeenth- and
early eighteenth-century editions and in doubtful cases we discard the lines as unreliable evi-
dence. In general we would expect adaptation to reflect both the verse particulars of the original
and the features of the adapter’s own period. The closer is the adaptation to the original, the more
we expect it to reflect the versification of the original play, and the more radical changes are intro-
duced in the plot, the more changes we expect to the verse.
Davenant is a key figure for this analysis, since his life (1606-68) and career spanned the tran-
sition from Caroline to Restoration drama, from the peer-groups of Massinger and James Shirley
to those of John Dryden and George Etherege. As Hammond suggested in the Introduction to the
Arden edition of Double Falsehood, Davenant had probably been the first to adapt Shakespeare
and Fletcher's Cardenio, and it is distinctly possible that Theobald built Double Falsehood upon
Davenant’s adaptation (Hammond 2010).
We have seen in Figure 23.2 how, in general, the dip of unstressed or weakly stressed syllables
in S positions moved from position 6 in Elizabethan drama to position 8 in Jacobean drama. The
most notable feature of the stressing in Restoration drama is a reversal of that trend.
Figure 23.3 shows that whereas Shakespeare’s Macbeth of 1606-11 has the pronounced dip on
position 8 typical of Jacobean drama, Dryden's play The Conquest of Granada of 1670 shows the
Restoration phenomenon of a return to the Elizabethan dip on position 6. The graph also shows
that, when adapting Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Davenant was influenced by the Restoration trend
and while not making position 6 quite as prominenta dip as Dryden did, he lessened Shakespeare's
dip on position 8 to make positions 6 and 8 nearly equal.
The same kind of evening-out under the pressure of Restoration norms affects Davenant’s loca-
tion of the strong syntactic breaks when adapting Shakespeare.
Figure 23.4 shows that in Shakespeare's Macbeth there is a marked preference for a syntactic
break after position 6 with a break after position 4 being the next most common mid-line location
for this feature. Adapting Macbeth, Davenant smoothed out this distinction so that positions 4
and 6 are equally common locations for the syntactic break, which is the pattern we find common
in Restoration drama.
‘The rate of enclitic phrases in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is 40.7 per 1,000 lines and in
Davenant’s adaptation of Measure for Measure called The Law Against Lovers it is 57.9. In Shake-
speare’s Macbeth the figure is 40.3 and in Davenant’s adaptation of Macbeth it is 46.6. Thus we see
that Davenant’s adaptation made little difference to this feature of Shakespeare's rhythm. In this he
resisted the prevailing tendencies of the age. In Pope's The Rape of the Lock (published 1712) the rate
is 5.6, in Theobald’s dramatic opera Orestes (first performed 1731) it is 4.7, and in Pope’s Moral Essays
(published 1731-5) it is 17.8. We might say that Restoration and especially Augustan classicism, crit-
ical of the wild irregularity of earlier playwrights, avoided the enclitics of Jacobean plays because,
especially when accompanied by a strong mid-line syntactic break, they create a syncopated rhythm
that disrupts a smooth flow of the iambic line. Similarly, Davenant’s adaptation of Macbeth made
little difference to the numbers of lines with feminine endings and enjambments.
Davenant did, however, greatly reduce the feature we call rhythmical italics, of which there
are 194.7 per 1,000 lines in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and only 65.7 in Davenant’s adaptation of it.
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 395
95
90
85
80
% of lines
75
70
65
60
2 4 6 8 10
Syllabic position
Wi Shakespeare Macbeth
Davenant Macbeth
® Dryden The Conquest of Granada
FIG. 23.3 The locations of the unstressed or weakly stressed syllables in S positions in Shakespeare's Macbeth
(first performed 1606-11), Davenant's adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (first performed 1664) and Dryden's
play The Conquest of Granada (first performed 1670).
40
% of lines
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NO. oi
Syllabic position the break falls after
WB Shakespeare Macbeth
!) Davenant Macbeth
FIG. 23.4 Location of strong syntactic breaks in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (first performed 1606) and Davenant's
adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth (first performed 1664). (Data for syllabic position 10 go off the scale.)
396 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
A typical example is the couplet spoken aside that Macbeth speaks as he takes his leave of
Duncan in 1.4:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
(Shakespeare, Macbeth 1.4.52-3)
The phrases wink at and the eye are rhythmical italics since their meaning requires inversion of
the expected stress: WINK at, the EYE. Davenant rewrote Shakespeare to avoid this:
My eye shall at my hand connive, the Sun
Himself would wink when such a deed is done
(Davenant, Macbeth 1.30-1)
Davenant's version is perfectly regular iambic pentameter.
Shakespeare's Macbeth is available to us only in the form of Middleton's adaptation, and it is not
clear what Davenant knew of this although he clearly was working from a post-adaptation script.
With The Two Noble Kinsmen, however, Davenant was certainly aware that the play was a collab-
oration between Shakespeare and Fletcher—the 1634 quarto’ title page makes this plain—and in
Davenant’s comic adaptation of this play to make The Rivals (first performed 1664) we can see
how he responded to the situation. Episodes based on Fletcher’s portion of The Two Noble
Kinsmen come from that play’s scenes 2.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 4.1. Davenant completely omitted the play’s
Shakespearean first act and the remainder of the Shakespearean portion he heavily worked over.
Figure 23.5 compares the stressing of Fletcher's part of The Noble Kinsmen with the stressing of
Davenant’s reworking of those parts of the play in The Rivals and with rest the non-Fletcher-derived
parts of The Rivals.
In the parts of The Rivals derived from Fletcher there is a stressing dip on position 8 and
although it is not a strong as the dip on position 8 in Fletcher's original writing in The Two Noble
Kinsmen it is still distinct. This dip on position 8 is in clear contrast to the rest of The Rivals, that
is the parts not derived from Fletcher: in these the dip on positions 6 and 8 is about even, with
position 6 slightly lower. This is typical of Davenant’s own work and his accommodation to the
prevailing Restoration and its norm of returning to Elizabethan stressing.
In Fletcher’s part of The Two Noble Kinsmen there is an unstressed monosyllable in position 10
in just 0.1 per cent of the lines and in Shakespeare's part of it the rate is 8.9 per cent of lines. In
Davenant'’s adaptation of Fletcher's lines to make The Rivals the rate is 0.5 per cent of the lines and
in the rest of The Rivals it is 3.7 per cent of the lines. Thus Davenant raised Fletcher's rate of this
feature and lowered Shakespeare's rate, somewhat evening them out but by no means making
them equal.
Such a contrast also emerges between the Fletcher-derived and non-Fletcher-derived parts of The
Rivals with respect to enclitic phrases. There are 179.3 of these per 1,000 lines in the former and only
58.3 per 1,000 lines in the latter. In Fletcher's parts of The Two Noble Kinsmen the rate is 290.1 per
1,000 lines, so in adapting his writing Davenant preserved a significant feature of Fletcher’s versifi-
cation style and opposed the two groups of episodes. Likewise with heavy feminine endings: in
adapting Fletcher's lines of The Two Noble Kinsmen Davenant reduced the number of occurrences of
this feature, but in the non-Fletcher-derived parts of The Rivals the rate is much lower still.
Strong syntactic breaks also show a stark contrast between the parts of The Rivals derived from
Fletcher and those not (Figure 23.6). In the non-Fletcher-derived parts of the play the break most
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 397
95
% of lines
vA 4 6 8 10
Syllabic position
@ Fletcher's part of The Two Noble Kinsmen
™ Davenant's Fletcher-derived parts of The Rivals
@ Davenant's Non-Fletcher-derived parts of The Rivals
Fletcher's contribution
unstressed or weakly stressed syllables in S positions in
erial for part of his play
performed 1613-14), in Davenant's adaptation of that mai
_and in the rest of The Rivals not derived from Fletcher.
FIG. 23.5 The locations of the
to The Two Noble Kinsmen (first
The Rivals (first performed 1664,
% of lines
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Syllabic position the break falls after
@ Fletcher's part of The Two Noble Kinsmen
's Fletcher-derived parts of The Rivals
Davenan
's Non-Fletcher-derived parts of The Rivals
lB Davenan
FIG. 23.6 Location of strong syntactic breaks in Fletcher's contribution to The Two Noble Kinsmen (first per-
formed 1613-14), in Davenant's adaptation of that material for part of his play The Rivals (first performed 1664)
and in the rest of The Rivals not derived from Fletcher. (Data for Davenant’s preference for position 10 and
Fletcher's for position 11 go off the scale.)
398 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
frequently falls, as is the Restoration period preference, after position 4, while in the Fletcher-
derived parts it is closer to the end of the line at position 6, imitating Fletcher's versification but,
as it were, not quite getting there since Fletcher's preference is position 7.
Nahum Tate (1652-1717) is represented here by three plays. The first is his own composition
Brutus of Alba, or The Cruel Husband (first performed 1678), and the other two are adaptations:
one of Shakespeare’s Richard II called The Sicilian Usurper (first performed 1681), and one of
Webster’s The White Devil (first performed 1612) called Injured Love (not performed). Brutus of
Alba and The Sicilian Usurper have an equal number of stresses on positions 6 and 8, showing Tate
to be another author who represents the transition from the earlier periods to Augustan classi-
cism. Like the plays of early eighteenth century, Tate's contain numerous syntactically symmet-
rical lines emphasized by an omitted stress on position 6. Thus in “His Lust of beauty and my lust
of pow’ the word and falls on an S position but is unstressed and likewise for the same word in
“Their prayers are impious and their zeal rebellion (Tate 1678, B3r, B4v).
Tate’s Injured Love closely follows Webster’s The White Devil but omits Vittoria’s trial and self-
defence, and its stressing follows the original in having a dip on position 8. However, Webster
avoided unstressed monosyllables on position 10, while the adaptation has relatively many. Two
examples of this are the headless lines ‘See she comes—What reason have you to’ and ‘Feathers,
swoon in Perfumes, stifled ir’ (Tate 1707, sig. A8v, Bir).
A remarkable feature of phrasal stressing is the rate of enclitic phrases in Tate's adaptations
Injured Love (84.3 per 1,000 lines, down from Webster's 108.7) and The Sicilian Usurper (41.4, down
from Shakespeare's 52.5), compared to only 22.2 enclitics per 1,000 lines in Tate's own composition
Brutus of Alba. Like Davenant, Tate somewhat retained this feature of his pre-Commonwealth
originals in resistance to his period’s norms. The strong syntactic breaks in Injured Love fall equally
often after positions 6 and 7, while in Webster’s The White Devil on which it is based the peak is after
position 7, as with much Jacobean drama. Just as we saw with Davenant’s adaptation of Shakespeare
and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen to make his play The Rivals (see Figure 23.6), Tate as an adapter
pushed the strong syntactic break back a little, lowering the prominence of the spike after position 7.
We may usefully compare Tate's adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II (first performed 1595-7)
as The Sicilian Usurper (first performed 1681) with Theobald’s adaptation of the same play first
performed in 1719 and under Shakespeare's title (see Figure 23.7). In Shakespeare’s original, as in
all of his pre-1600 plays, the stress profile dips on syllable 6.
In Tate’s adaptation the stressing on syllables 6 and 8 is almost equal, giving us one more exam-
ple of an intermediate stress profile between the Jacobean-Caroline tendency for a dip on syllable
8 and the Restoration tendency to return to the Elizabethan preference for a dip on syllable 6.
Theobald’s adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II, composed almost forty years later, has a typical
stress profile of established classicism with a pronounced dip on syllable 6.
In Shakespeare's Richard II and both adaptations of it, the strong syntactic breaks fall most
often after syllable 4. This is characteristic of Elizabethan plays from the 1560s and plays from the
early eighteenth century. Theobald’s The Persian Princess (first performed 1708) and Orestes (first
performed 1731) have the most frequent break after syllable 4, and Tate even in his early play
Brutus of Alba frequently put the major break there. Tate's adaptation of Richard II as The Sicilian
Usurper has quite a number of unstressed monosyllables on position 10, while Theobald’s has far
fewer of them, and Shakespeare’s original has none; Richard II is typical of early Shakespeare in
this regard. Richard II has an entirely typical Shakespearean rate of enclitic phrases at 52.5 per
1,000 lines, while Tate’s adaptation has 41.4 and Theobald 32.2. We shall return to Theobald’s rate
of enclitics when considering the authenticity of Double Falsehood.
Tate and Theobald use pleonastic do and grammatical inversions less frequently than
Shakespeare. In Shakespeare's Richard I, grammatical inversions occur at the rate of 33.9 per
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 399
% of lines
2 4 6 8 10
Syllabic position
i Shakespeare Richard I!
i Tate The Sicilian Usurper
B® Theobald Richard II
FIG. 23.7 The locations of the unstressed or weakly stressed syllables in S positions in Shakespeare's Richard II
(first performed 1595), in Tate’s adaptation of Shakespeare's play as The Sicilian Usurper (first performed 1681), and
Theobald’s adaptation of Shakespeare's play (first performed 1719).
1,000 lines, while in Tate’s adaptation the rate is 17.3 and in Theobald’s it is 15. Shakespeare's play
has more occurrences of syllabic -ed suffixes than either adaptation: by the late seventeenth-cen-
tury syllabic -ed had disappeared along with the -eth suffix.
Finally, let us compare Theobald’s own play, the dramatic opera Orestes (first performed 1731),
with his adaptation of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (first performed 1612-14) as The Fatal Secret
(first performed 1733), which gives the play a happy ending. As we have seen (Figure 23.1),
Webster's play most often puts its strong syntactic break after syllable 7. In his own composition
Orestes Theobald conforms to his period’s norm and most often puts its strong syntactic break
after syllable 4, but in adapting Webster’s play he takes an intermediate position: the break falls
most frequently after syllable 6 and, next in frequency, after syllable 4 (Figure 23.8).
Regarding stressing, Theobald follows fully the prevailing norms of his age in his own compos-
ition and when adapting. Figure 23.9 shows that Webster's The Duchess of Malfi has the typical
Jacobean dip on syllable 8 while in Theobald’s own composition Orestes and his adaptation of
Webster's play to create The Fatal Secret the dip is on syllable 6. In adapting Webster's play,
Theobald removes two-thirds of the enclitic phrases, lowering the rate from the original’s 127.6
per 1,000 lines to 41.7. Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi has feminine endings to 27.7 per cent of its
lines, and Theobald adds some more so that the figure for The Fatal Secret is 37.7 per cent.
What does this all mean for our evaluation of the possibility that Theobald adapted a Davenant
adaptation of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Cardenio rather than, as has been suggested, creating it
ex nihilo as a forgery? From the above analyses we can sketch some general principles about how
adaptation affected versification. Most of the adaptations reflect both the verse particulars of the
original and the features of the adapter’s own epoch, but in varying proportions. The closer the
adaptation is to the original play in date and features such as plot and themes, the more alike they
400 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
% of lines
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Syllabic position the break falls after
Webster The Duchess of Malfi
™§ Theobald The Fatal Secret
B® Theobald Orestes
FIG. 23.8 Location of strong syntactic breaks in Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (first performed 1612-14), in
Theobald’s own composition Orestes (first performed 1731), and in Theobald’s adaptation of The Duchess of Malfi
as The Fatal Secret (first performed 1733). (Data for position 10 go off the scale.)
% of lines
2 4 6 8 10
Syllabic position
Hi Webster The Duchess of Malfi
M™@ Theobald The Fatal Secret
B® Theobald Orestes
FIG. 23.9 The locations of the unstressed or weakly stressed syllables in S positions in Webster's The Duchess of
Malfi (first performed 1612-14), Theobald’s adaptation of Webster's play to make The Fatal Secret (first performed
1733), and Theobald's own composition Orestes (first performed 1735).
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 401
are in versification, the later in time and more different in plot and themes, the more the versifica-
tion resembles that of adapter and his epoch. As we have seen, the effect is generally a kind of
intermediate state of versification, the adaptation’s features being part-way between those of the
original and the norms of the age in which the adaptation is created. I would not call such versifi-
cation features ‘simplification’ in the sense that Carnegie means regarding the plot structure and
the psychology of characters (Carnegie 2012). ‘Compromise’ and ‘going half way’ seem more
accurate descriptions of the processes in the verse form of adaptations.
Some adapters convey the features of the original more exactly than others. Davenant in
‘The Rivals (first performed 1664) reproduces Fletcher’s enclitic rhythm from The Two Noble
Kinsmen (first performed 1613-14) more exactly than did Theobald in his adaptation of Webster’s
‘The Duchess of Malfi (first performed 1612-14) to create The Fatal Secret (first performed 1733).
Here the greater time between original and adaptation probably played a role. Also, the closer
is the adaptation to the original text, the more the adapter preserves its particulars. Tate’s
adaptation of Webster’s The White Devil (first performed 1612) to create his Injured Love (not
performed) contains whole chunks of the original text. Tate even kept intact original lines
that in Webster’s time contained disyllabic -ion, such as ‘Might not a Child of good Discretion’
(Tate 1707, sig. B4v). Tate probably considered such lines iambic tetrameter with a feminine
ending. Theobald’s The Fatal Secret contains no examples of syllabic suffix -ed or disyllabic -ion,
although its source, Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, has 8.4 and 12.2 of these, respectively, for
every 1,000 lines.
An adapted text based on a play composed by two collaborators can, as it turned out, reflect the
versification style of the co-authors. An important example is Davenant’s adaptation of Shakespeare
and Fletcher's The Two Noble Kinsmen (first performed 1613-14) to make The Rivals (first performed
1664). Although Fletcher's scenes have been split, reshuffled, and rewritten, their versification is
recognizably Fletcherian and differs greatly from that found in the rest of the play, for example in
the 179.3 enclitics per 1,000 lines in the material drawn from Fletcher and only 58.3 in the rest of the
adaptation. The non-Fletcher-derived part of the adaptation lost its connection to Shakespeare's
share of The Two Noble Kinsmen and most likely reflects Davenant’s own style. Much depended on
the ear or the adapter and whether he tried to preserve the style of the original play, as it seems
Theobald did when adapting Shakespeare's Richard II.
A general feature of Augustan plays and poems, original compositions, and adaptations
seems to be an increasing passion for symmetry in plots and versification. In the plot structures
we almost invariably find symmetrical pairs of lovers, married, or planning to marry: Theocles
and Heraclia parallel Philander and Celania in Davenant’s The Rivals, Lord and Lady Macduff
parallel Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Davenant’s Macbeth, Angelo and Isabella parallel
Beatrice and Benedick in Davenant’s The Law Against Lovers, and Richard II and his queen
parallel Aumerle and Lady Piercy in Tate’s The Sicilian Usurper. In versification we find an
increasing predilection for symmetrical syllabic, accentual, and syntactic line composition.
A line of 5 + 5 syllables with an omitted stress on syllable 6 often has parallel syntactic patterns
in both half-lines, forming rhythmical-grammatical clichés. We may now apply our discoveries
to the problem at hand.
Cardenio and Double Falsehood
The first edition of Double Falsehood is divided by act and scene. Using the above data and
conclusions we may compare it with Shakespeare and Fletcher's plays, written solo and in collab-
oration, created around the time of the lost Cardenio. Those plays are Shakespeare's The Winter's
402 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
Tale (first performed 1609-11), Shakespeare’s The Tempest (first performed 1610-11), Fletcher’s
Bonduca (first performed 1611-13), Fletcher’s Valentinian (first performed 1610-14), and the
Shakespeare and Fletcher collaborations All Is True/Henry VIII (first performed 1613) and The
Two Noble Kinsmen (first performed 1613-14).
We begin with stressing. The first act of Double Falshehood has the typical early eighteenth-
century dip on syllable 6, as in:
Reflects the virtues of my early youth (of unstressed)
While fond Henriquez, thy irregular brother (thy unstressed)
Sets the large credits of his name at stake (of unstressed)
Will, by the vintage of his cooler wisdom (of unstressed)
And court opinion with a golden conduct (with unstressed)
Be thou a prophet in that kind suggestion! (in unstressed)
By importunity and straind petition (-ty unstressed)
But have his letters of a modern date (of unstressed)
He doth solicit the return of gold (the unstressed)
To know the value of his well-placd trust (of unstressed)
(Double Falsehood 1.1.13, 15, 16, 20, 22, 23, 27, 33, 3% 42)
The examples show the typical post-Restoration 5 + 5 syllable line structure created by omission
of a stress on syllable 6.
Pleonastic do occurs at the rate of 4.3 and 4.7 per 1,000 lines in Theobald’s own compos-
itions The Persian Princess (first performed 1708) and Orestes (first performed 1731) respect-
ively but at the rate of 16.2 per 1,000 lines in the first act of Double Falsehood. In Tate’s and
Theobald’s adaptations of Shakespeare’s Richard II, pleonastic do occurs at the rate of 25 and
27.7 per 1,000 lines respectively, while in Tate’s own composition Brutus of Alba (first per-
formed 1678) it is a mere 1.9. On this feature, then, the first act of Double Falsehood looks like
adaptation of Shakespeare.
A surprising feature of Double Falsehood’s Act 1 that also occurs twice in 3.3 is the disyllabic
suffix -ion at the end of an iambic pentameter line:
Mended with strong imagination
Have trusted me with strong Suspicions
Bought my poor Boy out of Possession
(Double Falsehood 1.3.7, 3.3.4, 3.3.29)
That these are iambic pentameters is made almost certain by their being surrounded by iambic
pentameters.
Another significant feature of Double Falsehood Act 1 is the frequency of rhythmical italics in
the sense of deviations from the metre to emphasize meaning. We count 133.6 of these per 1,000
lines, which is much higher than found in Davenant’s, Tate’s, or Theobald’s own compositions or
adaptations, but typical of Shakespeare's writing in his solo plays (Measure for Measure has 126.2,
‘The Winter’s Tale has 120.4) and in his parts of his collaborations with Fletcher (All Is True/Henry
Vill has 168.8, The Two Noble Kinsmen has 106.3). What happens to this feature in known adapta-
tions is instructive. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth there are rhythmical italics at the rate of 194.7 per
1,000 lines while in Davenant’s adaptation of this play the rate is 65.7, and in Shakespeare's Measure
for Measure the rate is 126.2, while in Davenant’s adaptation of this play as The Law Against Lovers
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 403
% of lines
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Syllabic position the break falls after
@ Fletcher's part of The Two Noble Kinsmen
™ Davenant's Fletcher-derived parts of The Rivals
B® Theobald Double Falsehood 5.1 and 5.2
FIG. 23.10 Location of strong syntactic breaks in Fletcher's scenes in Shakespeare and Fletcher's The Two Noble
Kinsmen (first performed 1613-14), in the Fletcher-derived scenes in Davenant’s adaptation of The Two Noble
Kinsmen as The Rivals, and in Double Falsehood scenes 5:1 and 5.2. (Datum for Davenant in position 10 goes off
the scale.)
the rate is 46.1. On this feature too, Double Falsehood Act 1 looks like Jacobean drama and late
Shakespeare in particular.
Acts 2-4 of Double Falsehood are unlike Act 1 in their stressing. In Act 2 and Act 4 the dip in
stressing on positions 6 and 8 is almost equal, as in Davenant’s adaptation of Shakespeare's
Macbeth and the non-Fletcher-derived parts of his adaptation of The Two Noble Kinsmen as The
Rivals (see Figures 23.3 and 23.5) and as in Tate's own composition Brutus of Alba and his
adaptation of Richard II as The Sicilian Usurper (see Figure 23.7). In Act 3 and Act 5 Double
Falsehood the strongest dip in stressing is on syllable 8, which is what we find in Jacobean drama
generally (see Figures 23.2, 23.3, and 23.5).
In Double Falsehood Acts 1 and 2 and in scenes 3.1 and 3.2 there are 36.4, 33.2, and 52.9
enclitics per 1,000 lines, respectively. In Double Falsehood 3.3, the rate jumps to 200 (close to
Fletcher’s rate in his play Valentinian, 247) and it stays high to the end of the play. In Webster’s
The Duchess of Malfi the rate of enclitics is 127.6 per 1,000 and in adapting Webster’s play to
make his The Fatal Secret Theobald brought this rate down to 41.7, which is still above
Theobald’s rate for his own compositions. By contrast, when Davenant adapted Shakespeare
and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen to make his play The Rivals he preserved their
differences. In Fletcher’s part of The Two Noble Kinsmen there are 290.1 enclitics per 1,000
lines and in Shakespeare’s part the rate is 89.2. While not quite preserving the high density,
Davenant preserved the distinction between his sources: in the parts of The Rivals derived
from Fletcher’s writing the rate is 179.3 and in the non-Fletcher-derived parts it is 58.3. The
same is true of rates of heavy feminine endings: Davenant preserved Fletcher and Shakespeare's
difference in rates of using this feature.
404 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
In Shakespeare’s Richard I, the rate of use of enclitics is 52.5 per 1,000 lines and in Tate's
adaptation of this play as The Sicilian Usurper the rate is 41.4 while in Theobald’s adaptation of this
play the rate is 32.2. The low ratio of enclitic phrases in Act 1 and Act 2 and scenes 3.1 and 3.2 of
Double Falsehood (36.4 to 52.9) might, then, be a sign of Davenant adapting Shakespeare, since we
know that when Fletcher’s writing was adapted by Davenant the high rate of enclitics preferred by
Fletcher was not so greatly reduced.
After 1600, Shakespeare markedly increased the number of unstressed or weakly stressed
grammatical monosyllables he put in position 10, particularly in his last plays. Fletcher, on the
other hand, avoided grammatical monosyllables in position 10 and his omitted stresses on 10 are
all caused by polysyllabic words. Davenant in his early play The Unfortunate Lovers (first per-
formed 1638) and in his adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure as The Law Against
Lovers (first performed 1662) frequently put unstressed and weakly stressed monosyllables in
position 10. In Davenant’s later plays this tendency decreased, but in his adaptation of
Shakespeare's The Two Noble Kinsmen as The Rivals there is a noticeable difference in the fre-
quency of this feature between the Fletcher-derived parts of the play, where 0.5 per cent of the
omitted stresses on position 10 are monosyllables, and the non-Fletcher-derived parts of the play,
where the rate is 3.7 per cent. Tate used few unstressed or weakly stressed monosyllables on 10,
and Theobald, as is typical of early eighteenth-century dramatists, virtually none. In Double
Falsehood scenes 3.1 and 3.2, the rate is 2.4 per cent and the obvious question is where they came
from. They might be a trace of late Shakespeare, or perhaps a sign of Davenant’s hand since in his
adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth the rate is 3.0 per cent.
In Davenant'’s plays and adaptations we see the transition from Jacobean-Caroline preference
for a strong syntactic break after positions 6 and 7 to the Restoration preference for returning to
the Elizabethan norm of this break falling after position 4. Davenant’s breaks either fall equally
often after positions 4 and 6, or occur only after position 4.
However, in Davenant'’s adaptation of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen as
‘The Rivals, the main break falls most often after position 6 in the Fletcher-derived parts of the
play, back from position 7 in Fletcher’s original writing (Figure 23.10), and next most frequently
after position 4. Double Falsehood has a remarkably similar profile, since positions 4 and 6 are
about equal on this feature. This is unlike early eighteenth-century dramatic writing and much
like Davenant’s habit when adapting Fletcherian rhythms.
Composing lines with symmetrical grammatical structure and an accentual dip on 6 was char-
acteristic of eighteenth-century poets and playwrights. We see numerous lines of this kind in
Acts 1, 2, and 3.1, 2 of Double Falsehood, such as ‘And secret triumph of his grateful heart’ (2.3.94),
but just one case in the remainder of the play. This is one more sign of Theobald’s heavy reworking
the first part of the play, but leaving the second part mostly as he found it.
We have seen that there are three occurrences of line ending disyllabic -ion, typical of
Elizabethan drama, in Double Falsehood, one in scene 1.3 and two in scene 3.3. In Jacobean and
Caroline drama, this marker appeared more often in a mid-line position and as a marker of the
elevated style of tragedy (Tarlinskaja 2014, 209, 216, 242-3, 250-2). Restoration and eighteenth-
century playwrights stopped using the disyllabic form of -ion which by then had become com-
pletely obsolete. A relatively frequent use of this feature is part of Fletcher's style, but not of late
Shakespeare. Theobald did not use disyllabic -ion in his own plays or his two adaptations ana-
lysed here. But Davenant did: ‘In their kind passion, or Poets in’ in The Unfortuate Lovers; ‘Or else
I shall betray my Passion in The Rivals; and ‘And there receive her approbation’ and “You have too
much mirth to have suspiciom in The Law Against Lovers (Davenant 1643, G3r; 1668, C3r; 1673,
Mmay, Nn3r).
THE VERSIFICATION OF DOUBLE FALSEHOOD 405
Like those in Double Falsehood, these lines of Davenant'’s containing disyllabic -ion appear
in the context of iambic pentameters and so are probably also iambic pentameters rather than
iambic tetrameters with feminine endings. The rate of 13.3 such disyllabic suffixes per 1,000 lines
in Double Falsehood 3.3 is typical of Fletcher, whose share of All Is True/Henry VIII has 13.9 per
1,000 lines. This is a strong indication of a Jacobean original for Double Falsehood. An eighteenth-
century counterfeiter would have required an implausibly sophisticated knowledge of Shakespeare
and Fletcher’s versification to falsify this detail.
Conclusion
What then follows from this analysis of the versification of Double Falsehood? Theobald’s claim
has been in large part justified: he had indeed worked from an existing older script. We can tell
this because the stressing dip vacillates between positions 6 and 8, whereas if it were an eighteenth-
century original the stressing dip would most often fall on position 6. Also, the most frequent
syntactic break falls after syllable 6, as in other adaptations of Jacobean texts by Davenant, Tate,
and Theobald himself. In an eighteenth-century original play, the most frequent break would
appear after syllable 4. Also, the numerous enclitic phrases and heavy feminine endings in scene
3.3 and the last two acts are unthinkable in an eighteenth-century original text. It is unlikely that
an eighteenth-century counterfeiter would be clever enough to insert enclitics only in the parts
of the play that seem to go back to Fletcher, especially if he was claiming, as did Theobald, that
his was a Shakespearean play. The disyllabic forms of the suffix -ion would not appear in an
eighteenth-century text, although it is conceivable that a clever counterfeiter would know to put
them in to lend a Jacobean colouring to his fake. More plausibly, Theobald overlooked them in
the manuscript he had.
But did Theobald have a Jacobean play manuscript, or the manuscript of a Restoration adapta-
tion of such a play? As we have seen, Acts 1 and 2 and scenes 3.1 and 3.2 differ from the rest of the
play. Scene 3.3 bears the most noticeable Fletcherian features: a jump in enclitic phrases and
heavy feminine endings created in the Fletcherian way. We saw an analogous difference between
the Fletcherian episodes and the rest of the play in Davenant’s The Rivals based on Shakespeare
and Fletcher’s The Two Noble Kinsmen. Davenant copied Fletcher's versification style, while
Theobald in his adaptation of The Duchess of Malfi ironed out Webster’s enclitic phrases. The high
ratio of enclitic phrases in Double Falsehood 3.3 suggests Davenant’s hand.
If Double Falsehood were an imitation of Shakespeare, we would expect more signs of the later
Shakespeare's style throughout the text. Theobald knew his Shakespeare well and were he faking
he would have scattered unstressed grammatical words in position 10 and enjambments through-
out the text. A counterfeit Shakespeare would not contain signs of an eighteenth-century rewrite
in the first half of the play and signs of Fletcher in the second half. Ifit were an eighteenth-century
forgery, as Stern thinks, its creator was remarkably skilful in thinking to use enclitic phrases and
heavy feminine endings at all, and impossibly subtle to think to put them in just half of the play,
the Fletcher scenes. The critical awareness of such matters in relation to Renaissance drama
emerged only in the twentieth century (Kokeritz 1953; Oras 1953; Dobson 1957; Oras 1960;
Tarlinskaja 1987).
‘Thus, a seventeenth-century manuscript was indeed in Theobald’s possession. It was probably
based on the lost Cardenio, a collaboration. From what we know of Shakespeare—Fletcher collab-
orations, one of the co-authors of the lost play was clearly Fletcher. The other is harder to identify
solely on internal evidence. There are few signs of Shakespearean verse style in Acts 1 and 2, but
406 MARINA TARLINSKAJA
his was in any case a style of versification—with its run-on lines and light feminine endings—that
was easy for either Davenant or Theobald to rewrite. There are numerous signs of Fletcher’s
idiosyncratic style. There are signs of an eighteenth-century author in Acts 1 and 2 and scenes 3.1
and 3.2. The versification suggests that what Theobald had in his possession was not the original
Jacobean manuscript but a later, post-Restoration rewrite, possibly by Davenant. Thus Double
Falsehood seems to contain three layers from different times: Shakespeare—Fletcher, Davenant,
and Theobald. The original text was probably the lost Cardenio.
Chapter 24
Using Compressibility as a Proxy for
Shannon Entropy in the Analysis
of Double Falsehood
GIULIANO PASCUCCI
[ 2010 the present author published an essay that delved into the Double Falsehood/Cardenio
quarrel and the related issues of authorship attribution (Pascucci 2012). At the time, the scope
of the enquiry was limited to discriminating the hand of Shakespeare from Fletcher’s and
the results were necessarily incomplete, although they were consistent with those achieved by
E. H. C. Oliphant (1919), Jonathan Hope (1994), and Brean Hammond (2010). In the present
chapter, Theobald’s controversial play is again analysed using digital tools and measured against
a control set comprising a number of Elizabethan and Jacobean works by several authors. The aim
is to see if more can be said about its likely authorship.
The existence of Cardenio, and its attribution to Fletcher and Shakespeare, was recorded in
1653 in the Stationers’ Register. However, no manuscript of that Jacobean play has survived;
we possess only the 1728 printed edition of Double Falsehood, which its self-proclaimed editor
and adapter, Lewis Theobald, attributed to Shakespeare. In Biographia Dramatica, Edmond
Malone attributed the Jacobean play to Philip Massinger; whereas Richard Farmer, in his
Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, attributed it to James Shirley (Gilchrist and Gifford
1812; Hammond 2010, 79-80). In more recent years, John Freehafer (1969) suggested the
idea that the original play, which he believes was written by Shakespeare and Fletcher, was
revised by William Davenant long before Theobald acquired it; while Harriet Frazier (1974),
Jeffrey Kahan (2004), and Tiffany Stern (2011) maintain that Theobald was a forger. More
recent investigators believe that his Double Falsehood was based on an older manuscript,
namely Cardenio.
In his introduction to the Arden edition of Double Falsehood, Brean Hammond ascribes the
paternity of the original play to Shakespeare and Fletcher and concedes, as does MacDonald P.
Jackson, that the work may have undergone revision during the Restoration, possibly by Davenant
(Hammond 2010, 53-4; Jackson 2012b). Jonathan Hope retains the idea of a Shakespeare—Fletcher
collaboration, a conviction reinforced by Gary Taylor, Stephen Kukowski, and others (Hope 1994,
91-100; Taylor 2012a; Kukowski 1991).
408 GIULIANO PASCUCCI
Attribution through Compression
Algorithms: LZ77 and BCL
In order to ascertain who wrote a literary text from internal evidence, it is essential to pinpoint
the characteristic features of its style that distinguish it from the writings of other authors. This
approach, which is at the core of stylometry, typically relies on occurrence, frequency, and dis-
tribution of collocations, function words, and other linguistic idiosyncrasies to identify the
authorship of a text of unknown origin. The present chapter introduces a new method in this
area and illustrates its application to the text of Double Falsehood.
Writing always contains a certain amount of redundancy, in the sense of repetitions of parts of the
text. This redundancy enables a text to be successfully transmitted (orally and in writing) despite
the noise (interference) it may encounter en route: the lost or damaged parts may be reconstructed
from the parts that arrive unscathed. Because of this redundancy, a message may also be com-
pressed, which is why various systems of shorthand and, more recently, SMS text-speak can reduce
the number of characters needed to convey it. There is, however, a limit to how much a message,
or the computer file containing it, can be compressed. Once all redundancy has been removed
and the message itself would have to be cut to make it any shorter.
In 1947, Claude Shannon, an engineer at Bell Telephone in America, developed a means for
quantifying the amount of information contained in a message in order to create efficient coding
schemes for digital transmission. His key insight was that the quantity of information in a message
is a way of stating how surprising it is to the recipient. In English, the letter u appearing after a q is
utterly unsurprising because q is almost always followed this way, whereas a u followed by another
u is most rare and surprising. (The words vacuum and continuum are the only ones in common
usage to contain uu.) Shannon realized that an efficient encoding scheme would use short codes
for common, unsurprising sequences such as qu and long codes for rare, surprising ones such as
uu. Languages already do this: the most common words in English tend to be short and rare words
tend to be long. Measuring the surprise factor of a message is the same as measuring its true infor-
mational content, or its Shannon entropy. This can be found by trying to compress the message to
encode most efficiently the frequently occurring repetitions of unsurprising sequences.
Eliminating redundancy is the task usually accomplished by compression algorithms such as
LZ77 and its variants—named for its creators’ last names and the year of publication—which are
the foundations of all compression software (or zippers) commonly found on personal com-
puters (Ziv and Lempel 1977). We will briefly illustrate how LZ77 works before turning to how the
Italian physicists and mathematicians Dario Benedetto, Emanuele Caglioti, and Vittorio Loreto
modified it to make the algorithm called BCL for the purpose of authorship attribution
(Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto 2002).
In order to perform compression, LZ77 scans the text to be compressed in a sliding window
and identifies the linguistic patterns that occur more than once in it. When it finds the repetition
ofa string of characters, it replaces the second occurrence with the pointer back to the first, which
pointer comprises two numbers: d, the distance (measured in characters) back to the previous
occurrence, and n, the number of characters forming the repeated sequence. The repeated matter
can be words, parts of words, spaces, or punctuation, but to illustrate the process we will use
words with the repeated strings highlighted in italics:
Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life,
it is naught (115 characters)
To compress this sentence we can replace each recurrence of a word or phrase with a parenthetical
d, n pair that points back to its predecessor:
USING COMPRESSIBILITY AS A PROXY 409
Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself it is a good life, but (45, 10) that (36, 7) (79, 8)’s (45, 5),
it is naught (82 characters plus 4 pointers)
‘The d, n pointers are recorded as a pair of 8-bit binary numbers equivalent in storage size to a
pair of alphabetic characters, so in all this message is now held as 90 characters instead of 115, and
with no loss of content.
Once the procedure has been applied to all redundant sequences of characters in the text,
compression is completed. To recover the original text, the decompression software—typically
part of the same zipper used for the compression—needs only to replace each pointer with the
string of preceding characters that it points to. We said that in the LZ77 algorithm the compression
process is performed by observing the strings that fall within a sliding window that traverses the
text. There are two reasons for working this way. In principle, we could consider an entire docu-
ment at once and replace a string near the end of it with a pointer to its predecessor near the
beginning, but with large documents this would make for large pointers. Using a moving window
keeps the pointers small. Secondly, the algorithm was created with a view to the compression
of continuous streams of data as they happen, as in broadcast video, for which the end of the
file is not available until after the transmission is complete. Thus the algorithm looks only at
the most recently received data that fall within its window and hence it can be used in real-time
data applications.
This sliding window procedure allows us to apply the algorithm to a problem that its creators
did not consider. As the window moves across the text the compression software maintains what
is called a dictionary, a list of the most recent substitutions of strings that it has performed and
may perform again in cases of further recurrence. If the document being compressed is literary
writing (as with our example above), then this dictionary represents the author’s personal habits
of repetition. If authors differ in their habits of repetition, then a dictionary compiled for one
author’s work will not be ideally suited to the compression of another author’s writing since it will
not contain the new author's favourite repetitions.
If we could make the software attempt to compress the second author’s work using a diction-
ary compiled for the first author’s work then the relative efficiency of compression—reflected
in the size of the compressed file—will reflect their differing habits of repetition. We could achieve
this by appending the second author’s work on the end of a document containing the first
author’s work and seeing how well LZ77 compresses this composite text. The algorithm’s
sliding window would pass over the first author’s work, creating a dictionary appropriate to
this author’s repetitions as it compresses them away, and then at the ‘join’ of the two texts it
would start to encounter the second author’s work and attempt to compress it using the dic-
tionary created for the first author's work. If this composite document ends up compressed just
as much as the sole-authored work of the first author, then the two writers’ habits of repetition
are alike.
The LZ77 algorithm as originally written has the disadvantage that it continually updates
its dictionary to reflect the latest repetitions falling within its sliding window, so that having
created a dictionary for the first author’s work it will start to rewrite this dictionary when it
encounters the second author’s work if this new writing contains different habits of repetition.
We could minimize the consequences of this behaviour by making the appended sample of
the second author’s work much smaller than the first author’s sample. This would allow the
algorithm little time to adapt to the second author's habits of repetition (by updating its diction-
ary) before the whole process is finished. But we can do even better than that by modifying
the algorithm.
410 GIULIANO PASCUCCI
Relative Shannon Entropy
For our experiments we use a modified version of LZ77 called BCL in which the learning process—
the rewriting of the dictionary—is made to stop once the algorithm encounters the second author's
text. Thus the algorithm is forced to compress the second author’s writing using only a dictionary
compiled to reflect the repetitions in the first author's writing. If the two writers are alike in their
habits of repetition, this compression will be as efficient as it would be if the whole document
were by one writer and the resulting file will be highly compressed. If the two writers are unalike
in their habits of repetition, the dictionary will poorly reflect the repetition habits of the second
writer, there will be fewer opportunities to insert d, n pointers to save space, and the resulting file
will be relatively large, reflecting inefficient compression. Thus we can take the size of the result-
ing file as an expression of the relative likeness of the two author’s habits of repetition, or what is
sometimes called their Shannon entropy.
If we find that the habits of repetition are good for discriminating different authors’ writings,
then this gives the basis for a new authorship attribution test. When an anonymous text is
appended to a number of different texts by different authors, BCL will yield a different compres-
sion ratio for each composite document. We measure and rank such results. If the assumption
that habits of repetition are a good proxy for authorship is correct, then the composite document
yielding the best compression should be the one in which both the anonymous text and the text it
is appended to are by the same author.
The Main Experiment: The Control Set and
the Limitations of Relative Entropy
For this study, we applied the above procedure by appending to each scene of Double Falsehood,
one at a time, samples of texts by several dramatists, compressing these composites, and ranking
them by how small they had become. To be meaningful, the control set must include the candi-
date author being tested since even a set that excludes the real author will yield a ranking based
on the non-author-specific similarities between the writings. Ideally, one would create a control
set that encompasses all the writers dating back to the time when the anonymous text was written,
on the assumption that all are potential candidate authors. However, previous scholarship has
created a list of the most likely candidate authors of Double Falsehood to which we may confine
our attention: William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, William Davenant, and
Lewis Theobald.
If it is true that Double Falsehood was written by Shakespeare and Fletcher, revised by Davenant
during the Restoration, and then adapted by Theobald, the present method should be able to tell
whose style of repetitions prevails in each scene of the play. To test the discriminatory power of
this procedure, we expanded the control set to include works by writers who have been generally
ruled out as authors of Double Falsehood: James Shirley, Francis Beaumont, and the team of
Beaumont and Fletcher. Shirley was in fact deemed a plausible candidate author by Farmer,
but this was soon debunked once his age at the time (16, if not younger) was taken into account.
Jackson has recently shown that Beaumont did not participate in the writing of the play (Jackson
2012b, 160). The complexly multi-authored and still uncertainly divided Beaumont and Fletcher
canon might well trick an attribution algorithm into yielding false positives. Our control set con-
tains some of Beaumont and Fletcher's works, not only to rule them out or in as possible co-authors
USING COMPRESSIBILITY AS A PROXY 411
once and for all, but also to help establish that the technique eliminates candidates who are for other
reasons quite implausible.
Texts for testing were acquired online according to availability. Most of them are from
the Literature Online (LION) database and the remaining ones are from the free electronic
text archive called Project Gutenberg. The plays used to represent each author’s canon are
listed here:
Shakespeare All’s Well That Ends Well; Cymbeline; Hamlet; The Tempest; The Winter's Tale;
As You Like It
Beaumont The Knight of the Burning Pestle
Fletcher Rule a Wife Have a Wife; Monsieur Thomas; The Humorous Lieutenant;
Valentinian; With Without Money; The Faithful Shepherdess
Beaumont and Fletcher A King and No King; Cupid’s Revenge; Philaster
Shirley The Lady of Pleasure
Massinger A New Way to Pay Old Debts; The Renegado; The Bond-Man; ‘The Bashfull
Lovers; The Unnaturall Combat
Davenant Albovine; The Distresses; The Cruell Brother; The Fair Favourite; The Just Italian;
‘The Rivals; The Unfortunate Lovers
Theobald Orestes; The Fatal Secret; The Happy Captive; The Perfidious Brother; The Persian
Princess
It has already been established that this kind of test is relatively immune to distortions caused by
the genre of the writing under consideration (Pascucci 2006); whereas word choice is strongly
shaped by subject, repetitions appear not to be. Date of composition, however, could be import-
ant and we have, where relevant, picked plays written around the time of Cardenio. Even where an
author is represented by only a small part of his canon (as with Shakespeare), the tests undertaken
here perform thousands of comparisons on small subsections of the text and have shown them-
selves discriminating of authorship despite reduced sample sizes.
For the purposes of this test, Double Falsehood was divided into scenes and each of the plays in
the above list was divided into sections of 32 kilobytes, which typically equates to around 5,000
words. Each play section was appended in turn to each scene of Double Falsehood. The effective-
ness of compression for each composite document was measured and ranked, on the principle
that the most effectively compressed documents will be those where a scene of Double Falsehood
(used to create the dictionary of repetitions) is followed by a section of writing from another play
by the same author and sharing its habits of repetition. The texts were all stored in Unicode UTF-8
encoding (equivalent to plain ASCII) with all their punctuation, line breaks, titles, and stage dir-
ections removed, and capital letters lowered. Most of this regularization was done by software
and then checked by hand and manually completed where automated conversion had failed.
Preliminary Experiments
As a first experiment to help to validate the method, it was decided to test known works by
Davenant and Theobald against other known works by Davenant and Theobald to see if the
procedure would correctly distinguish composites that were Davenant+Davenant and
412 GIULIANO PASCUCCI
Theobald+ Theobald from all other combinations. The division of the plays into sections pro-
duced the following testable materials:
Davenant Albovine (3 sections)
Davenant The Cruell Brother (2 sections)
Davenant The Distresses (2 sections)
Davenant The Fair Favourite (2 sections)
Davenant The Just Italian (2 sections)
Davenant The Rivals (2 sections)
Davenant The Unfortunate Lovers (2 sections)
Theobald Orestes (2 sections)
Theobald Plutus (2 sections)
Theobald The Fatal Secret (2 sections)
Theobald The Perfidious Brother (2 sections)
Theobald The Persian Princess (1 section)
Theobald The Happy Captive (2 section)
Total 26 sections
Each of these sections was appended in turn to each of the other 25 and compressed. The resulting
compression ratios for the composite documents were used to rank them to show which combin-
ations were most effectively compressed and which the least.
Here are the results for one of the rank-order lists, showing how compressible is a composite
made from fragment aa of Davenant’s The Cruel Brother onto which each of the other fragments
is appended in turn:
Most-to-least compressible when appended to Davenant’s The Cruel Brother section aa
#1 Davenant The Cruel Brother section ab
#2 Davenant The Just Italian section aa
#3 Davenant The Just Italian section ab
#4 Davenant The Unfortunate Lovers section aa
#5 Davenant The Unfortunate Lovers section ab
#11 Theobald The Fatal Secret section aa
#12 Theobald The Fatal Secret section ab
#24 Theobald Orestes section aa
#25 Theobald Orestes section ab
The rank order list cleanly divides into two halves, with Davenant’s works at the top and Theobald’s
at the bottom. Moreover, within each half of the table the sections from each play appear together,
suggesting that the test is capturing their coherence as works, and gratifyingly the writing that is
most like aa from Davenant'’s The Cruel Brother is the other fragment ab from the same play. All
the tested fragments provided similar results.
After proving that the algorithm can successfully tell Davenant from Theobald, we put together
a second set of experiments to measure Double Falsehood against their works. First we equalized
the canons by taking just five of Davenant’s plays to match the five of Theobald’s:
USING COMPRESSIBILITY AS A PROXY 413
Davenant The Rivals; The Distresses; The Just Italian; The Unfortunate Lovers; The Cruel Brother
Theobald The Fatal Secret; Orestes; The Perfidious Brother; Plutus; The Persian Princess
These 10 plays yield 18 sections and each was appended in turn to each scene of Double Falsehood
anda rank order of compressibility produced for each resulting composite.
The results attest to the presence of Theobald in Double Falsehood and limit Davenant to scenes
2.1, 2,4, and 3.1, as shown in these extracts from the tops of the rank-order tables:
Double Falsehood scene 2.1
#1 Davenant The Fair Favourite
#2 Theobald Orestes
Double Falsehood scene 2.4
#1 Davenant The Distresses
#2 Theobald The Fatal Secret
Double Falsehood scene 3.1
#1 Davenant The Fair Favourite
#2 Theobald The Fatal Secret
This test was confined to just the works of Davenant and Theobald so it is telling us only which of
those two is the more likely to be authorially present in each scene. If we were to apportion the
play to these two writers alone, the shares would be that Davenant left his fingerprint in 8 per cent
of the whole play (144 lines out of 1815), or 21.5 per cent if we judge by the number of scenes he
worked on (3 out of 14 in the whole play). As we will see when discussing the results of the main
authorship attribution experiment, this ratio increases significantly once all the plausible candi-
dates are included in the control set.
The Main Experiments
When Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto first tested their BCL modified version of LZ77 on texts by
Italian writers, they obtained a surprisingly high 93 per cent accuracy ratio in determining author-
ship (Benedetto, Caglioti, and Loreto 2002, 3). Before BCL was used to discriminate between the
hand of Fletcher and Shakespeare in All is True/Henry VIII it was tested on English literary works
from the eighteenth century to the modern age and found to produce an even more startling 100
per cent accuracy ratio in 2,000 experiments (Pascucci 2006). However, when dealing with texts
from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, the results produced by BCL were in some cases much
less reliable and the same occurred while testing Double Falsehood. This may be due to the effacing
of authorial distinctiveness that occurs in collaborative writing and/or subsequent adaptation, and
perhaps also because the greater variability of spelling in the earlier periods makes the algorithm
overlook some repetitions, thereby reducing the evidential base that the method relies upon.
Some of the scenes of Double Falsehood yield consistent results in which we repose consider-
able faith, and others do not. Let us illustrate this with extreme cases. When Double Falsehood
scene 1.2 has each of the sections in the full control set added to it, the top of the rank-order table
of compressibility for the resulting composites looks like this:
Double Falsehood 1.2
#1 Shakespeare All’s Well that Ends Well section aa
414 GIULIANO PASCUCCI
#2 Shakespeare Alls Well that Ends Well section ac
#3 Shakespeare All’s Well that Ends Well section ab
#4 Shakespeare Hamlet section aa
#5 Shakespeare As You Like It section ac
This consistent run of Shakespeare plays at the top of the table is a strong sign that Double
Falsehood 1.2 is by Shakespeare if it is by any of the authors tested, although of course it might also
have been altered in minor ways by subsequent adapters. By contrast, the results for Double
Falsehood 3.2 are much less clear:
Double Falsehood 3.2
#1 Theobald The Happy Captive section ap
#2 Shakespeare Hamlet section ay
#3 Shakespeare King Lear section aj
The problem, of course, is how to weigh the fact that Theobald comes out on top with the fact that
the next two closest matches are to Shakespeare.
Mathematically, the measurement of relative Shannon entropy is a logarithmic function,
so the significance of the rank order decreases rapidly as one moves down the table. Thus an
author occupying slot #1 means a lot more than his occupying slots #2 and #3. But we must also
try to factor in the substantial likelihood that Theobald was adapting existing writing by others
and hence that our results might reflect hybridity in the writing. Such hybridity might well
involve rewriting within particular lines so we cannot assume that by further dividing Double
Falsehood into units smaller than scenes we will eventually arrive at non-hybrid units of com-
position. One response to this problem is to see if changing the segmentation of the control set
sections makes any difference. We have been using relatively large sections of size 32KB (around
5,000 words), across which we necessarily average the authorial habits of repetition. What if we
use smaller sections?
We created three more groups of tests in which the control set of plays were divided into 16KB,
8KB, and 4KB sections. Together with the original test on 32KB sections this gives four rank-order
tables for each scene of Double Falsehood and we combine them by apportioning a weighting of
25 per cent to the author who occupies the #1 rank position in each table. For Double Falsehood
scene 1.1 the results are that Theobald occupies position #1 in the 32KB, 16KB, and 8KB section-
size tables, but Shakespeare occupies position #1 in the 4KB table. One way to interpret this is that
the scene is essentially 75 per cent Theobald’s because he heavily revised Shakespeare's original
writing which now represents only 25 per cent of the measurable style remaining in the scene.
Where the results suggest two authors of the same period, it is reasonable to assume that they
collaborated rather than that one revised the work of the other.
If we apply this reasoning to the whole of Double Falsehood we arrive at the following
scene-by-scene breakdown:
Double Falsehood scene by scene
1.1 Theobald heavily revised Shakespeare
1.2 Shakespeare
1.3 Theobald revised Davenant who revised Shakespeare
2.1 Davenant revised Shakespeare (Possibly slight revision by Theobald too)
2.2 Shakespeare and Massinger collaborated
2.3 Theobald revised Massinger
USING COMPRESSIBILITY AS A PROXY 415
2.4 Shakespeare and Fletcher and Massinger collaborated (Unreliable results)
3.1 Davenant revised Shakespeare
3.2 Davenant revised Shakespeare
3.3 Davenant revised Fletcher
4.1 Shakespeare and Fletcher collaborated
4.2 Theobald revised Shakespeare
5.1 Theobald revised Davenant
5.2 Shakespeare and Fletcher collaborated
Interpreting the Results
‘The part of this study that will most surprise those working on the Cardenio/Double Falsehood
problem is our claim for Massinger’s contribution. As in our previous studies, this method detects
Massinger’s style in Double Falsehood, and also in All Is True/Henry VII that most other investi-
gators attribute to Shakespeare and Fletcher alone. Jackson rightly pointed out that Double
Falsehood is littered with expressions typical of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Theobald and possibly
more authors (Jackson 2012b). However, we give much less of Double Falsehood to Fletcher than
have other recent investigators. Most importantly, we can say from this study that takes in
Theobald’s own compositions as well as those of Davenant and several pre-Commonwealth
authors that there is virtually no possibility that Theobald simply forged Double Falsehood. No
matter just who wrote which part, it is implausible that Theobald perfectly imitated the style of
the disparate list of authors whose presence in Double Falsehood we have discovered.
In his essay “Looking for Shakespeare in Double Falsehood, Jackson demonstrated that
Beaumont was not a collaborator of Shakespeare and Fletcher and our results confirm that
Jackson is right (Jackson 2012b, 160-1). Moreover, we found no scene in Double Falsehood
that tested like one of the collaborative works of Beaumont and Fletcher. The tests described
here strengthen the case made by Gary Taylor and John V. Nance that Double Falsehood com-
prises two layers of writing, one from the early seventeenth century and one from the early
eighteenth. In addition the experiments here presented provide evidence for the third layer of
writing—Davenant’s—claimed by Taylor and Nance. Charles Nicholl may not be far from the
truth in suggesting that Theobald’s manuscripts were copies of a Restoration adaptation by
Davenant, rather than Jacobean originals (Nicholl 2011, 84-101). Oliphant argued that from
Double Falsehood scene 3.1 a new voice becomes audible, contrasting with Shakespeare's in Acts
1and 2. Our results corroborate their idea that Fletcher took part in writing only the second half
of the play and contradict Robert Matthews and Thomas Merriam’s (1993) claim that Double
Falsehood is predominantly by Fletcher.
In Double Falsehood scene 1.1, Shakespeare's hand is detectable only in a small stretch of the
scene, possibly the first eight lines, as Oliphant (1919) and more recently Taylor (2013b, 137) have
suggested. Recently Nance argued that there are no traces of Fletcher in the prose at the end of
scene 1.2 and that a few expressions such as ‘insist in your, ‘I have formerly, and ‘cannot find a
may be those added by Theobald (Nance 2013, 117). If Theobald or anyone else retouched the
scene, his changes are too few and short to be taken into account in the overall assessment pro-
vided by our procedure. On the evidence presented here, Double Falsehood 1.2 is the only scene in
which Shakespeare survives nearly intact. Little of Shakespeare survives in 1.3. Oliphant thought
only lines 16-18 were his, while Jackson identifies the playwright’s hand in lines 53-6. Such small
proportions of surviving Shakespeare would be consistent with the results found here.
416 GIULIANO PASCUCCI
Double Falsehood scenes 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 are the ones that most divide attribution scholars. By
the standards for validation applied in these experiments, our attributions of 2.2 and 2.3 are rela-
tively reliable: we are confident of Massinger’s contribution here. For scene 2.4, on the other hand,
our results are equivocal, although notably there are no signs of post-Jacobean writing. Further
investigation of the relatively long scene 2.3 might benefit from dividing it into its prose and verse
strands, which may have detectably different origins. The results obtained here for Double
Falsehood scenes 3.1 and 3.2 show that both were so heavily revised by Davenant that they hardly
retain their original Shakespearean elements, which in 3.2 could well correspond to lines 39-43,
as Stephen Kukowski (1991, 88) suggested. Oliphant attributed scenes 3.2 and 4.1 to Theobald
alone, but conceded that both may retain fragments of the original writer. In our results,
Theobald’s antecedent was Davenant: no one else's writing can be identified in scene 3.2.
Although revised by Davenant, Double Falsehood scene 3.3 is the only one in which Fletcher's
hand is strikingly apparent, whereas in scenes 4.1 and 5.2 it emerges only in the 4KB-section tests.
This perhaps means that only a little of Fletcher's contribution to the writing of these scenes has
survived unaltered; this is a question that should be left to further discussion among Fletcher
scholars. Scene 5.2 of Double Falsehood seems to be mostly Shakespeare's and to a lesser extent
Fletcher’s. Our results sketch a slightly different scenario from the nowadays widely accepted
belief that Shakespeare's presence is limited to the first half of the play.
Conclusion
The method used here is replicable and highly independent of the investigator’s previous experience
or bias. (Unconscious bias remains a commonly wielded criticism of the entire field of authorship
attribution by computational stylistics.) It is important to note that the linguistic repetitions in
the texts are counted by our method, but their distributions across the texts are not. Moreover, the
method makes no distinction between repetitions of whole words and phrases, which may plaus-
ibly be conscious authorial style, and repetitions of smaller units, which most likely are not. The
method is automated and objective and uses a large number of string comparisons: over half a
million in all for the experiments described above. On the evidence presented here, the possibil-
ity that Theobald forged Double Falsehood is eliminated. Theobald had a manuscript of a play
containing contributions by Shakespeare and Fletcher, as many studies have shown, and, we
believe, contributions by Massinger too. The likeliest explanation, then, is that Theobald had a
manuscript of the lost play Cardenio.
Chapter 25
The Canon and Chronology
of Shakespeare's Works
GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
he following overview does not claim to set in stone any final word on the subject of
Shakespeare's canon or the chronology of his writing. Instead, it offers a comprehensive
synthesis of the current state of the art in studies of what Shakespeare wrote, when he wrote it,
and—where relevant—who else was involved in the writing. It also contains some new data and
some new arguments. But whereas the rest of this Authorship Companion is primarily focused on
new attempts to resolve disputed cases, most of this survey is devoted to describing the documents
(‘external evidence’) and data (‘internal evidence’) behind an existing consensus. In particular, it
pays much more attention to documentary evidence and to chronology.
Thirty years ago, Gary Taylor’s essay on Shakespeare's ‘Canon and Chronology’ was the only
treatment of authorship issues in the 1986 Oxford edition of the Complete Works or the 1987
Textual Companion (Taylor 1987c). This ‘Canon and Chronology’ chapter is instead one part of a
much larger collaborative investigation, including all the other chapters of this Authorship
Companion and a number of published books and articles by members of the New Oxford
Shakespeare team. But we retain the essential structure, and some of the prose, of Taylor's original
essay. Like his, ours begins with an introductory description of the different kinds of external and
internal evidence that are relevant to solving problems of authorship (first) and chronology
(second). That introduction is followed by succint entries which summarize the evidence specific
to individual works that are included in, or excluded from, The New Oxford Shakespeare. The
introductory section and the individual entries are interdependent: references to individual
works in the introduction assume the further information and detailed references in the entry to
that work, and the individual entries assume the explanation of methods and evidence in the
introduction. There is a similar interdependence between this summary essay and the individual
essays elsewhere in the Authorship Companion.
Authorship: External Evidence
The chief external evidence for the works of William Shakespeare is the folio volume of
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, published in 1623 and now commonly
known as the First Folio or just the Folio. This volume contains a dedication and an epistle (edited
by Francis X. Connor in Reference, 2: lxxi-Ixxii) signed by John Heminges and Henry Condell.
418 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Along with Richard Burbage (who died in 1619), Heminges and Condell were the only London
figures mentioned in Shakespeare's will (Brock and Honigmann 1993, 105-9). Both were mem-
bers of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later the King’s Men, the theatrical company of which
Shakespeare was a member from 1594 to the end of his career. The Chamberlain’s Men are first
mentioned in June 1594, in the records of the theatrical entrepreneur Philip Henslowe; the first
inkling of the company’s membership occurs in the Accounts of the Treasurer of the Queen's
Chamber, which records a payment on 15 March 1595 to William Shakespeare, William Kempe,
and Richard Burbage for two performances by the company during the preceding Christmas
season (reproduced in Schoenbaum 1975, 136). Notably, these three men were the company’s
leading actor and investor (Burbage), its leading clown (Kempe), and its leading playwright
(Shakespeare). Heminges is first named as a member of the company in a document of December
1596, and Condell in one of 1598; the plot of 2 Seven Deadly Sins, which has been conjecturally
dated in 1597-8, refers to an actor named ‘Harry, who might have been Condell (Wiggins #1065).
The company must always have consisted of more than the three men named on 15 March 1595 as
its representatives, and it has been widely and reasonably assumed that Heminges and Condell
belonged to the company from its beginnings. The 1623 Folio also includes prefatory material by
Ben Jonson—who knew Shakespeare by 1598, and who later said ‘I lovd the man, and doe honour
his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any’ (Herford, Simpson, and Simpson 1925-52, 8:
583-4)—and by Leonard Digges, the stepson of Shakespeare’s friend Thomas Russell (also
mentioned in his will).
Those associated with the 1623 edition thus possess exemplary credentials as witnesses to
Shakespeare's dramatic output from at least the middle of 1594 on. Moreover, no one at the time
objected to their choice of plays, in the way that Aston Cokayne complained in 1658 that the 1647
Folio collection of Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher did not
‘give to each his due’ (Wing C4894, 91-3, 117). Fletcher had been dead for more than twenty years
when that collection was published, and Beaumont for more than thirty. By contrast, Shakespeare's
plays were collected only seven years after his death, at a time when the theatres were still thriv-
ing; someone would probably have objected if the collection massively misrepresented his
achievements. We must assume, as the initial premise of any investigation of the Shakespeare
canon, that any play included in the 1623 Folio was written by Shakespeare wholly or at least in
part; equally, the claims of any play that Heminges and Condell did not include must be treated
with some scepticism.
We can evaluate the credentials of the 1623 edition in part because we know who was respon-
sible for its contents. A number of other individuals, about whom we know a good deal, confirm
the authenticity of particular plays. John Weever in his Epigrammes (STC 25224, sig. E6r) testifies
to Shakespeare’s authorship of Romeo and Juliet and of another play in which a character named
‘Richard’ featured prominently—presumably either Richard II or Richard III. Gabriel Harvey
(in a handwritten note of 1598-1612) attests to Shakespeare's authorship of Hamlet (Hirrel 2012). Ben
Jonson (1619) asserts Shakespeare's authorship of The Winter’s Tale and Julius Caesar (Herford,
Simpson, and Simpson 1925-52, 1: 138; 8: 584). Weever and Jonson certainly, and Harvey possibly,
attributed these plays to Shakespeare before any edition was published bearing his name. Leonard
Digges attributed to Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV, Much Ado, Julius Caesar, Twelfth
Night, and Othello; although the poem in which he makes these claims was not printed until after
1623, given his personal connection with Shakespeare he probably had access to sources of infor-
mation other than the First Folio itself. Likewise, a manuscript by Richard James which attributes
1 Henry IV to Shakespeare post-dates the Folio, but James clearly had access to unpublished infor-
mation about the play’s original composition, and so constitutes an independent witness to the
play’s authorship (Taylor 1987d).
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 419
The most important such witness is Francis Meres. His Palladis Tamia was entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 7 September 1598, and published in an edition dated 1598 (STC 17834).
Meres tells us that
the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare, witnes
his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends, &c.
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the
Latines: so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the
stage; for Comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Loue labors lost, his
Loue labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, & his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy
his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King Iohn, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo
and Iuliet. (sigs. Oo1v-Oo2r)
Meres must have relied upon independent sources of information, for at least six of the works he
mentions had not yet been printed in editions we now know about, and of those in print only five
named Shakespeare as author. Three of those five editions—Love’s Labour's Lost, Richard II, and
Richard II—were published in 1598, and therefore might post-date Meres’s testimony (Allen 1933).
It does not seem likely that Heminges and Condell were influenced in their choice of plays for
the 1623 collection by a knowledge of Meres’s comments, in an obscure book a quarter of a cen-
tury old, or by Weever’s equally old and equally unimportant poem, or by Harvey’s manuscript
jottings. These witnesses are apparently independent, and they corroborate one another. None of
them has any obvious motive for dishonesty. Such personal attributions—by Weever, Harvey,
Jonson, Digges, James, and Meres—ascribe to Shakespeare seventeen of the thirty-six plays
included in the Folio.
A third category of documentary evidence is less secure. Shakespeare’s name appears on a
number of editions of individual works before the collected edition of 1623. It first occurs in
print appended to the dedications of Venus and Adonis (1593) and Rape of Lucrece (1594).
Neither edition advertises the name on the title page—which suggests that the publisher did
not expect the author’s identity to increase sales. Shakespeare's name first appears on the extant
title page of a play in 1598, when it occurs in the three editions mentioned above, each a reprint
of an earlier text. In all, nineteen of the thirty-six plays included in the 1623 collection were
printed in separate editions before that date; those first printed after 1600 invariably named
Shakespeare as author. Those title page ascriptions are, however, of uncertain value. In the
1590s, his plays were usually published anonymously; in the 1600s, when he had become
famous (and play title pages began routinely to include writers’ names), printed plays were
frequently attributed to him, but those attributions might represent only the dishonest efforts
of publishers to exploit his name.
Such scepticism is justified by the fact that the 1623 collection does not include every play
attributed to Shakespeare in editions printed before that date: it excludes The London Prodigal,
first attributed to Shakespeare in the edition of 1605 (STC 22333; Wiggins #1443), A Yorkshire
Tragedy (1608; STC 22340; Wiggins #1484a), Pericles (1609), 1 Sir John Oldcastle (1619, falsely
dated 1600; STC 18796; Wiggins #1211), and The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England (1622;
STC 14647; Wiggins #824). These disparities increase our confidence in the 1623 collection, and
decrease our confidence in the testimony of individual editions before 1623. If Heminges and
Condell had included every work previously attributed to Shakespeare in a separate edition, we
might suspect that they merely accepted the assertions of earlier publishers. Their rejection of
several such items confirms the independent value of their inclusion of others. Noticeably, all the
420 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
works which they exclude were first attributed to Shakespeare early in the seventeenth century,
when his reputation in the theatre and the book trade created incentives to dishonesty (Erne 2013a,
66-89), and before the Folio itself temporarily stalled the market for such fraudulence by providing
the public with a reliable dramatic canon.
In evaluating the testimony of an early edition a great deal depends upon the evidence of
authorial involvement in the publication. Epigraphs, dedications, prefaces, and commendatory
poems by friends all demonstrate an author's active engagement in preparation of the work for
print; so does extensive correction and revision of the text in proof—as we find for instance in
editions of some of Ben Jonson’s plays, or in Barnabe Barnes's The Devil’s Charter (1607; STC 1466;
Wiggins #1523). But of works attributed to Shakespeare, only the narrative poems contain dedica-
tions signed by the author, and only the first of those sports an epigraph (which may be the
publisher's, not the author's); those two poems were also better printed than any other work
attributed to him, and presumably were proof-read with greater care than any of the editions of
his plays. The absence of such evidence of authorial presence deprives most of the early editions
attributed to Shakespeare of any commanding authority, and forces an investigator back upon the
testimony of the 1623 Folio. Of course, many of the attributions made in early editions are
confirmed by the Folio; but if the Folio did not exist, we could not distinguish—without resorting
to stylistic evidence—between the documentary testimony for King Lear (1608) and the docu-
mentary testimony for A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608): both look equally valid, and hence both are
equally worthless.
Finally, one category of documentary evidence must be mentioned only in order to lament its
absence. Theatrical companies kept records of their financial affairs, including the sums of money
paid to playwrights for composing particular plays; surviving records from the theatrical entre-
preneur Philip Henslowe establish the authorship of many plays, including 1 Sir John Oldcastle
(Foakes 2002). Shakespeare’s company must have possessed. similar records, and indeed the
ledger in which they were kept may have appeared on stage in performances of Philip Massinger’s
Believe as You List, which contains a stage direction calling for the use of ‘the great booke: of
Accomptes. If this book survived it would presumably solve all our problems in determining
what Shakespeare wrote, and when, from mid-1594 to 1616. Although Heminges and Condell
almost certainly had access to such a book when determining what to include in the 1623 collec-
tion, that source apparently did not survive beyond the interregnum. Nor did the records of
Sir Edmund Tilney or Sir George Buc, who were successive Masters of the Revels from 1579
to 1621, and who had to license every play before it could be performed. The only comparable
theatrical document which does survive (Public Record Office ‘Audit Office, Accounts, Various,
A.O. 3/908/13’), naming the authors of certain plays, is a manuscript from the Revels Accounts of
1604-5, which specifies Shakespeare as the author of Comedy of Errors, Merchant of Venice, and
Measure for Measure (Schoenbaum 1975, 200-1). This was once considered a forgery; its authen-
ticity was established, using chemical, microscopic, and palaeographical evidence, as well as
comparison with other early documents, by A. E. Stamp (Streitberger 1986, xxx—xxxi). It adds an
eighteenth play (Measure for Measure) to those in the Folio that are independently corroborated
by other reliable sources.
In practice, the 1623 Folio answers most of the canonical questions faced by Shakespeare's edi-
tors, and the attribution problems for his plays are small by comparison with those for the plays
of Thomas Middleton, Christopher Marlowe, or Fletcher. However, no document is an island; no
document stands alone, and even the Folio must be interpreted in the light of other literary and
theatrical records of the period. In determining the contents of the Shakespeare canon, modern
scholarly editors have acted upon two principles, which are logically distinct and should be
separated: (1) all works included in the 1623 collection should be included in any scholarly edition
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 421
of his plays, and (2) any work excluded from that collection should be excluded from any schol-
arly edition of his plays. The first principle commands more confidence and has in practice com-
manded more allegiance than the second. For the reasons outlined above, we can and indeed
must take the default position that any play included in the 1623 collection was written in whole,
orat least substantial part, by Shakespeare, and any such work must be represented in a responsible
edition of his complete works.
When the Folio speaks, we must echo it; but when the Folio is silent, its silence cannot be so
confidently interpreted or obeyed. ‘It is important to note, Peter Kirwan reminds us, ‘that the 1623
folio preliminaries make no explicit claims for completeness: the title suggests only that these are
“Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies’, while Heminges and Condell speak only of having “collected
and published them” without specifying the parameters that define the “works” being gathered’
(Kirwan 2015b, 22-3). Bibliographical analysis of the Folio has demonstrated that Troilus and
Cressida was initially omitted, apparently because of problems over publication rights; indeed,
when the first issue of the Folio was published, it contained only 35 plays (Blayney 1994).
Apparently as a consequence of the omission of Troilus and Cressida, the Folio compilers included
Timon of Athens, which may not have formed part of the original plan. All scholars accept that
both plays belong among Shakespeare's works. Pericles, likewise, has been accepted as genuine
since the late eighteenth century, though the Folio excludes it. In the twentieth and early twenty-
first century an increasing majority of specialists has accepted the evidence for Shakespeare’s
authorship of part of Two Noble Kinsmen, and of three pages in the manuscript of Sir Thomas
More, both excluded from the Folio. The Folio also omits two lost plays, Love’s Labour’s Won and
Cardenio, and a lost version of Sejanus, which there is good reason to believe that Shakespeare
wrote, in whole or part. Such exceptions, grudgingly accepted by the community of scholars over
three centuries, collectively demonstrate that the mere absence of a play from the 1623 collection
does not and should not irrevocably exclude it from the Shakespeare canon.
Nevertheless, the burden of proof rests upon any new candidate for inclusion in the dra-
matic canon. Of the exceptions catalogued above, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Two Noble
Kinsmen, Sir Thomas More, the original version of Sejanus, and Cardenio all appear to have
been collaborative works; only Troilus and Cressida and Love’s Labour’s Won were, certainly or
probably, entirely by Shakespeare. Of these, Troilus and Cressida was, after all, fitted in, though
at the last minute—a measure, surely, of the scrupulousness of the 1623 compilers. About the
sole remaining exception, Loves Labour’s Won, we know only two things: it was an early play,
and it was in print by 1603. Either fact might explain its exclusion. Possibly, the right to print
the play belonged to a stationer unwilling to relinquish it to the Folio syndicate; or, perhaps,
because the play had been written early in Shakespeare's career, Heminges and Condell could
not locate a manuscript.
Two factors can thus be reasonably invoked as an explanation for exclusion of a ‘Shakespearean’
play from the 1623 collection: collaboration or early composition. By the Jacobean period
Shakespeare's verbal style had become so distinctive that, in any extended passage, it should be
recognized. Although he could have contributed a few lines or a single speech to other men’s plays
without our being able to detect his presence, it seems highly unlikely that he wrote even as much
as a scene in any extant Jacobean play other than those included in the New Oxford Shakespeare
and long recognized by scholars as probable or certain examples of his work. In practice, then,
there seems little prospect of any significant addition to Shakespeare’s Jacobean dramatic canon.
But we cannot be so confident about the situation at the other end of his career. The authority of
Heminges and Condell diminishes the further back into the sixteenth century we go. Loves
Labour’ Won probably post-dates Love’s Labour’ Lost, and hence belongs to the mid-1590s;
nevertheless, it failed to find a place in the Folio. The Folio certainly does include plays which
422 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Shakespeare wrote before 1594, when the Chamberlain’s Men was formed; but we cannot be sure
that Heminges and Condell knew about every play that Shakespeare wrote in that earlier period,
or would have been able to secure copies of every play they remembered.
The plays that Shakespeare wrote for the Chamberlain's Men became and remained the
property of that company, which survived without interruption until the publication of the
1623 Folio (and for nineteen years after). But although that company clearly acquired some of
the scripts that Shakespeare wrote before the company’s formation, nothing in Elizabethan
theatrical practice guarantees that they would have acquired all of them. Without modern laws
of copyright, Shakespeare could not have claimed any ownership of what we now call intellec-
tual property. In sixteenth-century property law, his plays were primarily material objects
(manuscripts) which belonged to the acting companies who had bought them. Shakespeare
might not even have retained his own copies of such plays. He could not automatically bring
his plays with him when he moved into a new company, even if he had written them unaided.
His claim upon collaborative early plays would be even more tenuous. If Shakespeare were a
sharer in an earlier acting company which broke up, he might ask for his proportion of the
company’s remaining assets to be paid in playscripts; but we have no evidence that he was a
sharer in any early company. Shakespeare might well have written, early in his career, whole
plays or parts of plays, lost or extant, which were not included in the 1623 collection. For the
period as a whole, lost plays outnumber extant plays, and we do not possess printed or manu-
script texts of the overwhelming majority of plays written in the 1580s and early 1590s.
(The “Lost Plays’ database hosted online by the University of Melbourne is the repository of
scholarly knowledge about these plays.) Of the plays that do survive from that early period,
most were printed without identifying their author(s). Shakespeare’s so-called Lost Years
(1586-91) may have partly been spent writing what are now lost plays.
The Folio cannot be relied upon to contain all Shakespeare's co-authored plays, or all his dra-
matic work from the late 1580s and early 1590s. For the last three decades, Shakespeare's early and
collaborative work has been the primary focus of new attribution scholarship. The dramatic writ-
ings included in 2016 in The New Oxford Shakespeare that were not included in the 1986 Oxford
edition—Arden of Faversham, Edward III, and the Additions to The Spanish Tragedy—were
collaborations, and the first two clearly belong to the period before 1594; the third involves
collaborative additions to a play written by someone else before 1594. Notably, some of the pre-
1594 plays of Shakespeare that do make their way into the 1623 Folio were demonstrably carried
over into the early repertoire of the Chamberlain’s Men: Titus Andronicus, Taming of a Shrew, and
Hamlet were all named in the first record of the company’s existence. Others were revised or
adapted after the Chamberlain’s Men was created: this clearly seems to be true of the Folio texts of
the three Henry VI plays, and a similar hypothesis might account for some anomalies in Two
Gentlemen of Verona and Taming of the Shrew. In other words, an early play written or co-written
by Shakespeare may have made it into the Folio only if, for one reason or another, it made the leap
into the repertory of the Chamberlain’s Men in the mid-1590s. We cannot assume that all, or even
most, of his pre-1594 plays made that leap.
Nor can we assume that the Folio excludes all co-authored plays. In evaluating the authority of
the Folio in this regard we must answer two separate questions: did Shakespeare ever collaborate,
and, if so, did the Folio compilers on principle exclude such works? In the middle decades of the
twentieth century it was often assumed or asserted that Shakespeare did not collaborate at all
(often by the same people who assumed or asserted that Shakespeare did not revise his own work,
or other people’s). In a poem by Leonard Digges written between 1623 and 1636 and used to
introduce the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s poems (STC 22344), Shakespeare is praised for never
having collaborated:
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 423
looke thorow
This whole Booke, thou shalt find he doth not borrow,
One phrase from Greekes, nor Latines imitate,
Nor once from vulgar Languages Translate,
Nor Plagiari-like from others gleane,
Nor begges he from each witty friend a Scene
To peece his Acts with.
The ‘whole Booke’ to which Digges refers must be the 1623 Folio, or the 1632 reprint, and the last
line and a half of this passage therefore can be read as confirmation of Shakespeare’s authorship of
every word in the Folio. But, in context, this claim is the climax of a string of dubious hyperboles.
While it may be literally true that the Folio contains no phrases in ancient Greek, Shakespeare
certainly imitated Latin writers, most notably Ovid. And he certainly translated material from
modern ‘vulgar Languages’; he translated into English material he had read in French and Italian.
By modern standards of originality, he plagiarized Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles and Thomas
North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives and John Florio's translation of Montaigne’s Essays, to name
only the most conspicuous examples.
It is entirely possible that Digges’s encomium was initially written for inclusion in the 1623
Folio, but rejected precisely because of its inaccuracy, or because it implicitly insulted writers like
Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton, who are all present in the volume and who were all important to
the King’s Men in 1623. Of Fletcher one might reasonably say that he borrowed ‘from each witty
friend a Scene. But Shakespeare collaborated less frequently than Fletcher, Beaumont, Middleton,
or Massinger; by the standards of his time and his profession, he was unusually independent and
solitary (Knapp 2009; Sharpe 2014). Shakespeare deserved Digges’s praise. But Digges created an
absolute binary or ‘Art’ versus ‘Nature onely, of borrowing a scene from ‘each... Friend’ versus
never collaborating at all. The truth is less rhetorically tidy.
It has been estimated that ‘as many as half the plays of professional dramatists’ in the period
1590-1642 ‘incorporated the writing at some date of more than one mar (Bentley 1971, 119). This
formulation includes later adaptations of single-author originals. In the acting companies which
worked for Henslowe, the proportion is nearer two-thirds. According to contemporary docu-
mentary evidence, during Shakespeare's adult lifetime Robert Greene, Marlowe, Thomas Nashe,
and Thomas Lodge all collaborated on lost or extant plays; so did Jonson, Middleton, George Peele,
John Webster, Cyril Tourneur, George Chapman, John Marston, Thomas Dekker, Beaumont,
Fletcher, Massinger, William Rowley, Thomas Heywood, Michael Drayton, Henry Chettle,
Anthony Munday, Robert Daborne, Nathan Field, and indeed every professional playwright
about whom we know anything. Shakespeare was recognized from the beginning of his career as
a Johannes factotum (Latin for Johnny do-it-all, equivalent to Jack of All Trades in modern English),
so he seems intrinsically unlikely to have differed in this respect from his contemporaries. We
have no reason to believe that he shared Jonson’s elitist classical disdain of collaboration, and even
Jonson, who disdained it, continued to collaborate as late as Sejanus (1603) and Eastward Ho!
(1605). Those who advertised and those who bought the 1634 edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen
apparently found nothing odd in the suggestion that Shakespeare might work alongside another
playwright. Any objective perusal of Shakespeare's theatrical context strongly suggests that he
must occasionally have collaborated, even if such collaborations are all lost. Anyone who wishes
to assume otherwise must provide compelling evidence for that assumption, and no such evidence
has ever been delivered.
But the near certainty that Shakespeare collaborated tells us nothing about the Folio’s policy
toward such collaborations. The absence of Pericles, The History of Cardenio, and The Two Noble
424 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Kinsmen suggests that the Folio compilers generally excluded late collaborative romances.
Of course, such evidence is only relevant if one accepts that those plays were written in part by
Shakespeare. Scholars who deny that Shakespeare wrote any of those works, or that any was
co-written, cannot claim that the Folio excludes collaborations, for they have dismissed all the
potential examples of such exclusion. But if we accept the growing consensus favouring collabor-
ation in those three works, we must also accept that Heminges and Condell apparently excluded
some plays solely because Shakespeare was not their sole author.
It does not follow, however, that they excluded every play which had been written in collabor-
ation. One of the plays in which collaboration now seems certain, Timon of Athens, may have
been a stopgap addition to their original plan. Two others that have long been widely accepted as
collaborative—i Henry VI and All Is True—are chronicle plays, needed to round out the sequence
of Histories which forms one-third of the 1623 volume. Shakespeare's success in that genre distin-
guished him from most of the playwrights of the Jacobean period, and the Folio compilers might
reasonably have felt that Shakespeare’s survey of English history represented a distinctive and
coherent whole. The compilers were apparently willing to change the titles of plays in order to
present that section of the volume as a unified conspectus of the reigns of English monarchs; it
does not stretch the imagination to suppose that they were also willing to include plays in that
genre which Shakespeare had written in collaboration. At least, we cannot assert that such con-
duct would be unthinkable or irresponsible. Like Shakespeare, Heminges and Condell, as veteran
theatrical professionals, almost certainly did not regard dramatic collaboration as a crime against
art (Taylor 2014).
In the case of late plays, Heminges and Condell must have known whether Shakespeare worked
alone or hada partner. About early plays we can credit them with no such omniscience. Noticeably,
with the exception of Timon of Athens (a stopgap) and All Is True (the culmination of the sequence
of English history plays), all the Folio plays seriously suspected of dual or multiple authorship
were originally written before the formation of the Chamberlain’s Men: Taming of the Shrew;
Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3; and Titus Andronicus. The first versions of these plays all appear to pre-
date Greenes Groatsworth of Wit’s famous attack on Shakespeare as an ‘vpstart Crow, beautified
with our feathers’ (September 1592). None of the full-length extant plays that Shakespeare wrote
in the ten years following formation of the Chamberlain's Men, and none of the full-length plays
that certainly follow Greene’ attack in 1592, can be seriously suspected of multiple authorship;
but by early 1606 he was again definitely collaborating on a new play (Timon of Athens). This pat-
tern does not seem to us, or to Bart van Es (2013), to be fortuitous. Certainly, it would have been
difficult for any young playwright, trying to establish himself in the professional theatre of the late
1580s and early 1590s, to avoid writing collaborative plays. After a playwright had made his repu-
tation, he might—like Jonson, or Shakespeare—generally avoid collaboration; but an apprentice
could hardly afford such scruples. It therefore seems likely that some of Shakespeare's earliest
works, like some of his latest, were written in collaboration. The very period of his career in which
he was most likely to collaborate is also the period for which Heminges and Condell must have
had the least information and the dimmest memory.
On the other hand, the very period in which Shakespeare seems to have had the luxury of not
collaborating on new plays would have been a period in which, as the company’s resident drama-
tist, he might have been expected to lend a hand in revising or adapting old plays for revival. This
is a fundamentally different kind of collaboration. Shakespeare seems to have revised or adapted,
in the mid-1590s, all three of the plays that would be identified in the Folio as Henry VI Parts 1, 2,
and 3. Heminges and Condell might have been much more aware of these versions, ‘which oft our
stage hath shown (Henry V, Epilogue) than of the originals. On the other hand, Shakespeare's
additions to The Spanish Tragedy and Sir Thomas More constituted only a tiny part of each play.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 425
Even if Heminges and Condell had wanted to include them in the Folio, the publishers who were
paying the high cost of printing the volume might have objected to their inclusion.
Heminges and Condell themselves do not explicitly tell us what attitude they adopted toward
collaborative work; nor does any contemporary. We must therefore interpret their actions on the
basis of what we know about attitudes toward dramatic authorship in the period. Even in the case
of reputable editions of single plays, like The Patient Man and the Honest Whore (1604; STC 6501;
Wiggins #1431), the title page identifies only the main author (Dekker), though theatrical docu-
ments demonstrate that he had a junior partner (Middleton). The scholarship on Middleton's
many collaborative works provides a useful overview on the many different kinds of early
modern interactive playwriting and of the different ways publishers treated such collaborations
(Taylor and Lavagnino 2007b, 31-79, 335-443). But Shakespeare was less collaborative than
Middleton. He wrote, at a conservative estimate, at least 90 per cent of the words included in the
Folio. The remaining 10 per cent was shared out between two Jacobean dramatists (Fletcher and
Middleton) and at least three long-dead Elizabethans (Marlowe, Nashe, and Peele). Even in the
collaborative plays, Shakespeare tended to be dominant; the single Folio exception, 1 Henry VI,
was his revision of a play first performed in 1592, and all the original writers of that old play had
long been dead, and few of the original spectators could have known who they were. Taking as a
whole the first tetralogy (1, 2, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), Shakespeare was the dominant writer,
the only one present in all four plays, and the reviser who turned them into a coherent historical
and dramatic sequence. In the circumstances, no one would have objected to the title, or the cre-
dentials, of the Folio. We cannot say for certain, on the basis of the external evidence alone, that
Heminges and Condell did include some collaborations, or that they did not include any. They
might have included one or two collaborative plays in exceptional circumstances (Timon of Athens,
All Is True); they might also have included others from Shakespeare's early period, not being sure
of his sole authorship, but confident that he did write at least part of a play, and anxious ‘to lose no
drop of that immortal man’ (as David Garrick wrote in the Prologue to his adaptation of The
Winter’ Tale). Sometimes, as with 1 Henry VI, both motives might overlap.
If the Folios compilers did not automatically or consistently exclude wholesale collaborations,
they would be even less likely to eschew texts that had undergone minor theatrical adaptation.
The Folio text of Macbeth calls for a song after 3.5.33 and for another after 4.1.43; the two specified
songs appear in a manuscript of Thomas Middleton’s play The Witch (Bodleian Library “MS
Malone 12’). This manuscript contains a dedication by Middleton himself. Two reliable docu-
mentary witnesses therefore contradict each other as to the authorship of those two songs, and all
modern scholars agree that the songs are Middleton's. In Measure for Measure, the Folio prints
one stanza of a song at 4.1.1-6; the same song appears, with an additional stanza, in two independ-
ent editions of Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or, The Bloody Brother (1639, 1640: Wiggins #1841),
attributed on the title pages to Fletcher and others. Again, an appeal to external evidence cannot
determine who wrote the song, for the external evidence contradicts itself. Editors cannot solve
such problems by invoking the authority of Heminges and Condell, for the authority of Heminges
and Condell in such cases is the very point at issue. In Measure, the song and the passage of dia-
logue that links it to the rest of the play contain 196 words, out of 21,269: the suspect passage thus
represents less than 1 per cent of the text printed in the Folio. In Macbeth, again, the suspect pas-
sages in the two scenes that call for the songs represent less than 2 per cent of the Folio text. In
Timon of Athens, by contrast, Middleton wrote about one-third of the play. The Folio compilers
would be even more likely to accept adapted texts than collaborative ones.
In considering such possibilities the documentary evidence of the Folio itself must be inter-
preted in the light of other documentary evidence of theatrical practice in the period. We know,
from reliable witnesses, that songs were sometimes added to plays on the occasion of a revival; so
426 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
were epilogues and prologues (Bentley 1971, 235-63; Stern 2009). Other new additions might
expand the role of a clown, or introduce superfluous minor characters, or elaborate a scenic
effect. Generally, such adaptation did not interfere with the detail of the existing dialogue;
it worked instead by means of discrete and substantial chunks, with whole scenes or speeches or
characters added or transposed or cut (Kerrigan 1983, 195-205). The frequency of such adaptation
has sometimes been exaggerated (Knutson 1985). But the plays most likely to be adapted are ones
that were revived, and as the most popular playwright of the period Shakespeare was the writer of
more revived plays than anyone else (and continues to be). His plays may therefore have been
disproportionately likely to be adapted.
In summary, every play printed in the 1623 collection must be included in the Shakespeare canon;
but the external evidence does not warrant the assumption that Shakespeare wrote every word of
every play so included. Some allowance must be made for collaboration and for late theatrical adap-
tation. The number of texts in either category will probably be small, and in texts adapted by 1623
the number of lines not written by Shakespeare undoubtedly will be small. The 1623 collection
presumably includes every Jacobean play that Shakespeare wrote on his own; but it apparently
omits a number of collaborative plays, and it also apparently omits some dramatic material written
by Shakespeare before about 1594. Our capacity to confidently repair such omissions varies. Any
edition of a single play written after 1600 of which Shakespeare wrote a major share would almost
certainly have advertised the fact; consequently, the range of candidates for the Jacobean period
can be limited to anonymous manuscript plays, or to printed plays attributed to Shakespeare. In
both cases we are searching only for collaborative works. Within the range of works so defined,
Shakespeare's presence should be easy to identify on the basis of internal evidence, because of the
distinctiveness of his later style. But in searching for early dramatic work by Shakespeare, we face
severe handicaps. Compared to later decades, plays in the 1580s and 1590s were less likely to reach
print, and Shakespeare himself had not yet achieved a reputation which would especially encour-
age publication of his plays. His early work is more likely than his late work to have perished. Even
if such work survives, we might lack any external evidence linking it to Shakespeare. Plays
published before 1598 almost certainly would not have identified him as the author, for such
attribution occurs in none of his known plays printed before that date. Francis Meres is not known
to have resided in London before 1597, and he was in Oxford until at least 1593; he does not mention
four plays included by the Folio compilers, and all four—Taming of the Shrew and 1, 2, 3 Henry
ViI—apparently belong to the period before 1593. All four may be collaborative, too. Like Heminges
and Condell, Meres is most reliable for plays written after 1593. Such limitations in the documentary
record ensure that we will always know less, and be less confident of what we hypothesize, about
Shakespeare's beginnings than about the period of his artistic maturity.
Such limitations also ensure that our knowledge of the non-dramatic canon will always be less
secure than our knowledge of the plays. The 1623 collection of Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies,
Histories, & Tragedies does not include any of his narrative and lyric poems. The absence of a
collected poetry edition therefore forces an editor to rely upon potentially unreliable attributions
in individual editions and manuscripts. The authenticity of the two narrative poems can hardly
be challenged, given the clear evidence of authorial involvement in their preparation. But the
immediate and sustained popularity of the two narrative poems created in publishers an incentive
for dishonest attribution of poetry to Shakespeare before such an incentive existed for plays.
Strange as it may now seem, Shakespeare was initially more famous among the reading public as
a poet than a playwright. After the success of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, the next book of
non-dramatic poetry attributed to him almost certainly misrepresents the nature of his involve-
ment. The Passionate Pilgrim (published in 1599, or earlier) contains twenty poems ‘by William
Shakespeare, of which four are attributed to other poets in other, apparently more reliable,
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 427
documentary sources. Another three had already appeared in print in Loves Labour’ Lost, in an
edition attributed to Shakespeare printed in 1598; this leaves only two poems which are inde-
pendently ascribed to Shakespeare in later sources. In other words, four poems are misattributed,
and five correctly attributed (an error rate of 44 per cent); alternatively, we could say that only two
new poems are correctly attributed to Shakespeare (an error rate of 67 per cent). This external
evidence induces considerable scepticism about the authorship of the eleven completely anonym-
ous poems included in The Passionate Pilgrim. Shakespeare's name was again taken in vain in
1612, when an expanded edition of The Passionate Pilgrim added nine poems by Heywood, who
complained about the misattribution. According to Heywood, Shakespeare too was ‘much
offended’ by the misattribution:
Here likewise, I must necessarily insert a manifest iniury done me in that worke, by
taking the two Epistles of Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris, and printing them in a lesse
volume, vnder the name of another, which may put the world in opinion I might steale
them from him; and hee to doe himselfe right, hath since published them in his owne
name: but as I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage, vnder whom
he hath publisht them, so the Author I know much offended with M. laggard (that
altogether vnknowne to him) presumed to make so bold with his name.
(An Apology for Actors, 1612: STC 13309; sigs. G4r-v)
The publisher subsequently inserted a correction attributing the relevant poems to Heywood;
even so, Shakespeare’s name alone remained on the title page. In 1640, an edition of Shakespeare's
Poems (STC 22344) included the Heywood pieces as Shakespeare’s. Early in the Restoration, a
collection called Cupids Cabinet Unlock’t was published under Shakespeare’s name: it does not
contain a single authentic poem.
Obviously, the attribution of poems to Shakespeare in print after 1594 has little or no inde-
pendent value as evidence of his authorship. By contrast, manuscript attributions of poems to
Shakespeare have, potentially, much greater value. Manuscript attributions may be honestly
mistaken, but they need not be suspected of deliberate commercial fraud because the market for
scribal publications was small and well informed (Love 1996). The manuscript attributions seem
to be corroborated, in a satisfying number of cases, by biographical evidence: the miscellaneous
poems on Alexander Aspinall, the Stanleys, Ben Jonson, Elias James, and John Coombe all
involve persons Shakespeare knew personally or professionally, and most of those connections
cannot have been public knowledge in the 1630s. On the other hand, no exceptional knowledge of
Shakespeare was required in order to attach his name in the late 1590s to ‘sugred Sonnets’ written
on the theme of Venus and Adonis, his most popular printed work.
Until 1986, editions of Shakespeare's works routinely included The Passionate Pilgrim and
excluded the manuscript poems. In part, this tendency derives from the application to the
non-dramatic canon of habits acquired in editing the dramatic canon, which constitutes the bulk
of Shakespeare's work (and of a Shakespeare editor’s). As a class, dramatic works either reached
print, or they did not survive at all; few from the period of Shakespeare’s working life are extant in
manuscript. Of those few, only a small part of one (Sir Thomas More) is by Shakespeare, and even
in that case a decision must be based entirely upon internal evidence, for the manuscript itself
does not identify its authors. By contrast, the lyric poetry of the period circulated more freely in
manuscript than in print. The poetry of Philip Sidney, Walter Ralegh, John Donne, John Davies,
Beaumont, and many others was never published in a collected edition by the author, and most of
it was never printed at all until after the author's death. For Shakespeare's plays editors can rely
428 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
upon a pre-constructed canon which they may supplement cautiously from other printed
sources; for the poems they must, instead, retrospectively construct a canon, drawing entirely
upon scattered print and manuscript sources. Any editor will regret that situation, but this does
not relieve us of the necessity to survey the evidence and make choices as responsible as possible
in the circumstances. The 1986 Oxford edition departed from the editorial tradition in accepting
the manuscript poems but including only a fraction of The Passionate Pilgrim, printing together
‘Various Poems’ from manuscript and printed sources. The New Oxford Shakespeare handles the
problem differently. We print The Passionate Pilgrim as a typically collaborative early modern
miscellany, containing poems from a variety of authors, many of them anonymous. We distinguish
it from “Poems Attributed to Shakespeare in Seventeenth-Century Miscellanies; recognizing that
these are attributions that cannot, with current tools, be definitively confirmed or refuted.'
So far, we have considered only documentary evidence which explicitly attributes a work to
‘Willian’ (or “W’) ‘Shakespeare’ (in a variety of spellings). Such witnesses may be reliable or
not, but at least we know what they mean. More difficult to evaluate are attributions to
‘W. S? Shakespeare was not the only man of his time with those initials. William Stanley
(1561-16 42), the sixth Earl of Derby, maintained a company of players from 1594 to 1618, and had
written plays of his own by 1599 (E. K. Chambers 1923, 2: 127, 3: 495). The professional London
scrivener Wentworth Smith (born in 1571) pops up among the financial records of Henslowe in
April 1601; over the next two years Henslowe paid him for two plays, and for part of thirteen
others. Henslowe's identifications of playwrights stop in March 1603, but there are other records
of Wentworth Smith’s continued existence until 27 March 1614, when he is again identified as
‘scrivener’ (Kathman 2004d). None of William Stanley’s or Wentworth Smith's plays is known to
survive. In 1615 the title page of Hector of Germany (STC 22871; Wiggins #1707) tells us it was ‘Made
by W. Smith; identified by David Kathman (2004e) as the London merchant and herald William
Smith. William Warburton claimed to possess a lost manuscript play called St. George for England,
written by ‘Will Smithe, of uncertain date (Greg 1911a); Kathman suggests that this was the same
man who wrote Hector of Germany. Sir Henry Herbert licensed on 28 November 1623 a lost play
called The Fayre Fowle One by one ‘Smithe’ of unknown first name (Bawcutt 1996, 147). William
Sampson (born in 1599/1600) is known to have written the lost play The Widow’s Prize, completed
in 1625, and The Vow Breaker, printed in 1636 (STC 21688; Wiggins #2260); he also collaborated in
Herod and Antipater (STC 17402; Wiggins #1901), published in 1622 (Kathman 2004¢).
Dependent on its date, any play attributed to “W. S? might belong to any of these claimants, and
the initials cannot be taken as external evidence for Shakespeare’s authorship. Such attributions
might be honest, or might be half-hearted attempts to capitalize upon Shakespeare's reputation.
Some of the plays implausibly attributed to Shakespeare after 1623 might have been written by one
or another W.S., with the ambiguous initials later mistakenly, but understandably, interpreted as
a reference to the only famous playwright who shared them. No such excuse can account for the
‘W. Sh? added to the title page of the 1611 reprint of The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England
(STC 14646; Wiggins #824): the only playwright with those initials was William Shakespeare. The
most generous interpretation of those unmistakable initials is that they reflect a genuine belief
that this play about King John was the play about King John written by Shakespeare; alternatively,
it might be a cynical attempt to encourage or exploit that confusion. After 1600, any published
work actually written by Shakespeare would presumably say so unambiguously. The use of the
initials on title pages in 1602 (Thomas, Lord Cromwell; STC 21532; Wiggins #1290) and 1607 (The
' The Critical Reference Edition separates ‘Let the Bird of Loudest Lay’ from the other poems printed in miscel-
lanies, because its copy-text was printed in 1601 (and therefore belongs in volume 1), whereas the copy-texts for the
other miscellany poems are all posthumous (and therefore belong in volume 2). The Modern Critical Reference
edition prints all the miscellany poems together, in apparent chronological order of composition.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 429
Puritan Widow; STC 21531; Wiggins #1509) suspiciously suggests Shakespeare, without actually
perpetrating fraud. The Puritan Widow was written by Middleton, not Shakespeare or anyone
else with the initials “W. S’ (Taylor and Lavagnino 2007b, 358-60). However, the title page claim
that Locrine (1595; STC 21528; Wiggins #885) had been ‘Newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected,
by W.S.’is hard to explain as false advertising, because Shakespeare's full name did not appear on
the extant title page of a play until 1598. No play previously attributed to ‘W. S? or “W. Sh? was
included in the 1623 collection, and for the dramatic canon the initials do not have much
significance (Maxwell 1956a, 1-21).
For the poems, as always, matters are more complicated. One of the manuscripts of
Shakespeare’s second sonnet explicitly, and another arguably, attributes it to “W. S’ (Taylor 1985).
The initials must in this instance stand for “William Shakespeare, and they attribute the poem
correctly. Furthermore, the use of initials to indicate authorship occurs far more commonly in
manuscripts of poetry than on the title pages of printed plays. The initials therefore intrinsically
deserve more editorial attention when appended to a poem than when advertised at the front of a
play, and given the uncertainty surrounding Shakespeare’s non-dramatic canon, such texts
should be studied intensively and systematically.
As with the plays, so with the poems the initials “W. S? might conceal a number of artistic
personalities. William Smith wrote a sonnet sequence called Chloris, or The Complaint of the
Passionate Despised Shepherd, published in 1596 (STC 22872); his known works have been edited
by Lawrence A. Sasek (1970). William Strachey (1572-1621) wrote occasional poems from about
1604 to his death in 1621; what we know of his life and work has been collected by S. G. Culliford
(1965). William Strode, chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford and later a canon of Christ Church,
Oxford, was one of the most popular lyrical poets of the Caroline period; his poems circulated
extensively in manuscript, and were first collected and edited by Bertram Dobell (1907) and
then—more reliably—by M. A. Forey (1966). An extensive listing of the surviving manuscripts,
many of them autograph, is available online in the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts
1450-1700 (CELM). The playwright William Sampson (see above) had his long poem Virtus Post
Funera Vivit, or Honour Triumphing over Death printed in 1636 (STC 21687), while a second,
‘Love's Metamorphosis, or Apollo and Daphne; apparently disappeared without achieving publi-
cation. The Bodleian Library’s holdings include a manuscript poem by a William Snelling from
around 1650 and others by Walter Stonehouse perhaps from around 1656 (Crum 1969, N570,
H571, N316).
Most of the poems attributed to “W. S? can safely be attributed to a particular owner of those
initials. For instance, the card index of manuscript attributions in the Folger Shakespeare Library
catalogue includes 76 poems initialled “W. S’ in one or more manuscripts; but in three of those
(Folger manuscript ‘V.a.339;, folios 185v, 197, 197v) the initials are John Payne Collier forgeries,
appended to poems from The Passionate Pilgrim. Another 71 of those poems are attributed to
‘W. S? in one or both of two particular manuscripts with strong Oxford connections (Folger
manuscripts ‘V.a.170’ and ‘V.a.245’); almost all of the 71 can be confidently attributed, on the basis
of other external evidence, to William Strode, and since the compilers of both miscellanies clearly
used “W. S? to identify Strode we must take those initials as evidence that they thought (rightly or
wrongly) that the remainder were also by Strode (and not by any other poet with the initials “W. S’).
Thus, of 102 occurrences of the initials “W. S? in Folger manuscripts, only two may be regarded as
genuinely ambiguous. Neither, in fact, could be by Shakespeare. One of them (Folger manuscript
‘V.b.433; folio 16) was written by Strode (Crum 1969, G120) and the other (Folger manuscript
‘V.a.103, Part I, folio 22) is an epitaph on a man who died on ‘Aprill the 18 1622. Thus, on the evi-
dence of its card index, the Folger Shakespeare Library apparently does not contain a single poem
genuinely attributed to “W. S? which can be assigned to Shakespeare. In her index of Strode poems,
430 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Margaret Crum notes another 16 “W. S? attributions in the Bodleian or the British Library (B79,
B251, F508, 1430, L413, L415, M12, M333, P427, S215, $714, T2455, T2712, T2933, W1611); thirteen of
these, again, occur in only two manuscripts (“MS Eng. poet.e.g7’ and ‘MS Rawlinson poet. 199’).
All but two (T2712, T2933) are attached to poems also attributed to ‘W. S’ in Folger manuscripts.
Any particular manuscript attribution to “W. S’? must first be tested against the unambiguous
documentary evidence for the poetic canons of Sampson, Smith, Snelling, Stonehouse, Strachey,
Strode, and Shakespeare. The corpus of ambiguous ‘W. S? attributions could thus be whittled
down to a small number of cases where those initials constituted our only documentary evidence.
Those poems would then have to be compared, stylistically, with the known works of all contem-
porary ‘W. S? poets, in order to determine which canon (if any) should most probably receive it.
Even then, allowance would have to be made for the possible existence of other “W. S? poets about
whom we know nothing, or for the possibility that a playwright named William or Wentworth
Smith might occasionally write poems, as other playwrights certainly did. The final decision
would have to be based upon internal evidence; but, for reasons explained below, internal
evidence would probably not be able to arbitrate between the various candidates. The external
warrant of the initials “W. S’ at least provides us with an indication of poems which might merit
further investigation. The Bodleian Library, for instance, contains three poems attributed in
manuscript to “W. S? which Crum could not confidently assign, on the basis of other external
evidence, to a specific writer.
The sources we have mentioned account for eighty-two poems attributed to “W. S? in manu-
script. But it is already clear that, if we exclude the two manuscripts in the Folger Shakespeare
Library and the two in the Bodleian Library (which by any criteria represent a special case),
‘W. S? attributions of poems in miscellanies are not at all common, and genuinely ambiguous
cases are rare indeed.
Easier to locate than manuscript attributions are those which occur in print. The Short Title
Catalogues of A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave (1976-91) and of Donald Wing (1972-88) include
dozens of nondramatic works attributed to “W. S’ Most of those works were written too late or too
early, or their subject matter discourages attribution to Shakespeare; but at least one long poem
was published under those initials during his lifetime, and at least three short poems so attributed
occur in various collections. We have included a brief notice of all such printed attributions
known to us, and of the three ambiguous manuscript attributions in the Bodleian Library, among
‘Works Excluded:
Finally, it remains likely that some—perhaps many—of Shakespeare's poems survive in manu-
scripts, or even in printed collections, which do not attribute them at all. Most of the manuscript
texts of the sonnets, or of excerpts from the plays, do not identify their author. In general, most
manuscripts do not declare the authorship of most of the poems they contain. The law of averages
suggests that some of Shakespeare's poems, circulating in manuscript, survive only in such
anonymous contexts. On the evidence of those poems which did reach print, most of Shakespeare’s
non-dramatic writing comes from the early and middle 1590s. Some of that poetry must have
been lost, because it never reached print; some of it may have survived only in ambiguously
attributed (“W. S’) or anonymous texts.
Authorship: Internal Evidence
We are all part of a tribe, and we are all distinct from other members of our tribe. The music or the
poetry of one century can easily be distinguished from the music or the poetry composed one or
two centuries later. The distinctions between two writers of the same time and place are less
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 431
broad, but no less real. We realize that Shakespeare was an Elizabethan, that he was ‘of an age,
because he shared the sociolect of his contemporaries. But like anyone else, Shakespeare also had
his own idiolect, a core assemblage of ‘cellular and systemic linguistic habits which distinguish
him from other writers (Taylor and Nance 2015).
External evidence is a label attached to a literary product, identifying the mind in which it was
manufactured; labels can be attached to the wrong product, fraudulently or accidentally. Internal
evidence, by contrast, is inconspicuous but incorruptible. The title page of the second quarto edi-
tion of Midsummer Night’s Dream is external evidence; it states that the edition was ‘Printed by
Iames Roberts’ in “1600” But the study of internal evidence—of paper, recurring type, ornaments,
headlines—established that the edition was in fact one of several printed by William Jaggard in
1619. The bibliographer and the student of authorship want to know who composed a book, and
when; both recognize that title pages cannot always be trusted.
As an example of the importance of internal evidence, consider the fact that all modern edi-
tions of Shakespeare's works include Pericles; none includes A Yorkshire Tragedy. But the explicit
documentary evidence for Shakespeare's authorship is almost identical for the two plays.
A Yorkshire Tragedy was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 2 May 1608, attributed to “Wylliam
Shakespere’; a quarto text appeared later that year, claiming on the title page that the play had
been ‘Written by W. Shakspeare’ Pericles was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 20 May 1608;
the entry does not name Shakespeare. But the first edition, which appeared in 1609, assigned the
play to ‘William Shakespeare. Though omitted from the 1623 First Folio, both plays were among
the seven added to the second issue of the Third Folio (1664).
Both plays were thus explicitly attributed to Shakespeare during his own lifetime, at a period
when he was still actively engaged in London theatrical life. That attribution was never explicitly
denied. A Yorkshire Tragedy was described as Shakespeare's in the Register as well as on the title
page of the first edition; there is nothing irregular about the Register entry or the subsequent his-
tory of the play’s publication or the text published. By contrast, Pericles was printed (after some
delay) by a different publisher from the one who entered it. If we confine ourselves to documen-
tary evidence, A Yorkshire Tragedy has a better claim than Pericles.
We do not mean to deny that Shakespeare wrote most of Pericles. We do not mean to give credit
to Shakespeare for the extraordinary Yorkshire Tragedy, which was clearly written by Middleton
(Taylor and Lavagnino 2007), 355-6). We wish only to emphasize that the inclusion of one, and
the exclusion of the other, from modern editions of Shakespeare’s Complete Works depends upon
internal evidence. To almost all readers, parts of Pericles sound like Shakespeare, and like
Shakespeare only; A Yorkshire Tragedy does not. Such intuitions should be treated like a scientific
hypothesis, which can be articulated, quantified, and tested, in ways that confirm or deny the
intuition, or that complicate the initial hypothesis, and lead to the formulation of a better, more
sophisticated hypothesis. Such hypotheses include that Shakespeare wrote Pericles in collabor-
ation with George Wilkins, and that Middleton wrote all of what we would now call the one-act
play A Yorkshire Tragedy, but Shakespeare might have written one of the other lost three acts of
the King’s Men’s four-part play called All’s One.
But the complicated specifics of these two cases are less important than the general principle
they illustrate. If, on the basis of internal evidence, editors are willing to accept some documen-
tary claims (Pericles) and to reject others (A Yorkshire Tragedy), then such internal evidence must
be credited in other cases, too. One cannot concede that internal evidence distinguishes two
styles in Two Noble Kinsmen (thus confirming the documentary evidence) without also conced-
ing that the same kinds of evidence distinguish the same two styles in All Is True (thus challenging
or modifying the documentary evidence). One cannot accept the stylistic evidence when it
amplifies Shakespeare's achievement, and then reject it when the same scrupulous methods,
432 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
scrupulously applied, challenge traditional attributions of masterpieces like The Revenger's
Tragedy and Timon of Athens. Editors must either blindly accept all documentary attributions, or
they must accept the validity of internal evidence in evaluating external claims; and once the val-
idity of internal evidence is granted in even a single case, then its application to other cases cannot
be avoided. The issue is not whether to use stylistic evidence at all, but how to use it properly, how
to distinguish strong stylistic evidence from weak stylistic evidence.
These simple and obvious propositions must be articulated at the outset because, for most of
the twentieth century, mainstream Shakespeare criticism (epitomized by Schoenbaum 1966)
acidly dismissed the value of internal evidence. And there are still scholars who refuse to accept
the validity of attributions made on the basis of any kind of stylistic evidence. The New Cambridge
Shakespeare series (1984-2012) and the Folger Shakespeare Library series (1992-2010) are sys-
tematically sceptical about even the best-attested cases of collaboration and adaptation. Both
include Pericles but do not include A Yorkshire Tragedy, and yet both fail to realize or acknow-
ledge that their rejection of the value of internal evidence makes that distinction unjustifiable.
As Peter Kirwan writes, ‘the apparently objective criteria according to which the canons of early
modern dramatists are organised in the early twenty-first century rarely adhere even to their own
rules’ (Kirwan 2015b, 167-8). The same kinds of internal evidence that would make it possible to
prove that A Yorkshire Tragedy does not belong in the Shakespeare canon are needed to prove that
Pericles belongs there. But at the same time, the very kinds of evidence that establish that
A Yorkshire Tragedy is not by Shakespeare prove that parts of Pericles are not by Shakespeare,
either. Even if we could not confidently identify the author of the first eleven scenes of Pericles
(Acts I and II), we could and can still be confident that it was not the same person who wrote the
remainder of the play.
The New Cambridge Shakespeare Pericles, edited by Doreen DelVecchio and Antony
Hammond (1998), nevertheless insists that Shakespeare wrote every line of the play. This edition
is still available in paperback and as an electronic book, unaltered, perpetuating with all the
authority of one of the world’s great academic presses a hypothesis that was falsified long before
1998, and has been crushingly rebutted, again, by Brian Vickers (2002b), MacDonald P. Jackson
(2003a), Suzanne Gossett (2004), Hugh Craig and Arthur Kinney (2009d), and Marina
Tarlinskaja (2014). The Folger Shakespeare Library series, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul
Werstine, is the most popular Shakespeare edition in American high schools, and its edition of
Pericles (2005) likewise insists on the integrity of what it calls “Shakespeare's Pericles, as though
his single authorship of that play (excluded from the Folio) was as secure as his single authorship
of Romeo and Juliet or Venus and Adonis. Mowat and Werstine do not even mention Vickers’s
book with its devastating critique of DelVecchio and Hammond.
Mowat and Werstine acknowledge in the middle ofa “Textual Note’ that there is a long history
of denial of Shakespeare's sole authorship, and that ‘Recently, the preferred candidate has been
George Wilkins, as if to imply that the attribution to Wilkins were simply the latest fad, no more
plausible than other ‘claimants’ like “William Rowley, Thomas Heywood and John Day’ (Mowat
and Werstine 2005, liii). This is a bit like saying that ‘recently’ the preferred hypothesis is that the
earth circles the sun, or that the earth's climate is changing as a result of human activity. One can
make any empirical hypothesis look uncertain by pointing out that not everyone has always
agreed with it. Rowley, Heywood, and Day are no longer taken seriously by attribution specialists
as claimants, because a much stronger empirical case has been made for Wilkins.
Scholarship does not stand still. Reviewing the 1986-7 Oxford Shakespeare, Brian Vickers
(1989) criticized it for claiming that several of Shakespeare's plays were written in collaboration;
but in 2002 he defended the collaborative authorship of five plays (Titus Andronicus, Timon of
Athens, Pericles, All Is True, and Two Noble Kinsmen), and later (20074) he added a sixth (1 Henry
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 433
VI). Stanley Wells (1986) and Jonathan Bate (1995) formerly denied George Peele’s authorship of
the long first scene of Titus Andronicus; but Wells had changed his mind by the time he worked on
the revised Oxford Shakespeare (2005), and Bate had changed his by the time he worked on the
Royal Shakespeare Company Complete Works (2007). Gary Taylor (1987c) in the ‘Canon and
Chronology’ essay of the Oxford Shakespeare briefly dismissed the hypothesis that Shakespeare
had anything to do with Arden of Faversham, and did not even mention the Additions to
‘The Spanish Tragedy, the verses “To the Queen’ beginning ‘As the dial hand; or the possibility that
All’s Well that Ends Well might contain writing by anyone other than Shakespeare. This edition
reflects the specialists’ revised opinions on all these points. Such reversals are not proof that all
studies of internal evidence are worthless, because ‘scholars cannot agree’ Instead, such changes
of mind demonstrate that good empirical evidence can overcome the universal human tendency
to ‘confirmation bias; the ego's stubborn resistance to admitting that it was wrong.
But Mowat and Werstine do not acknowledge the march of scholarship. They instead rehearse
the well-known fact that Wilkins borrowed from Laurence Twine when he wrote his 1608 novel
‘The Painful Adventures of Pericles, and then object, ‘If Wilkins had authored the play or any large
part of it, it is odd that he would have had to engage in such borrowing. Not even Jackson can
refute this objection’ (Mowat and Werstine 2005, liv). This is the only reason they give for reject-
ing the idea of collaboration, or of Wilkins in particular, and for concluding, “The origins of Q's
text of the play remain, then, an intractable problem for Shakespeare scholars:
In fact, this allegedly insuperable objection had been raised by W. T. Hastings (1936). But
Hastings used it to contest the hypothesis that Wilkins had written the whole play, which
Shakespeare then revised throughout; he was not addressing the hypothesis that Wilkins wrote
only the first two acts. Mowat and Werstine thus misapply the objection to a different hypothesis
(that Wilkins wrote only the first eleven scenes and some of the brothel material). Moreover, in
the intervening sixty years the claim by Hastings had been repeatedly addressed and dismissed by
other scholars. Introducing a reprint of Painful Adventures, Kenneth Muir observed that Wilkins,
in writing his novel, relied
most obviously on the earlier novel [by Twine] in the opening chapter, describing events
before the beginning of the play; in the description of the statue, barely mentioned in
the play; in the description of the wedding, not dramatized; in Lychorida’s relation of
Marina's parentage, omitted in the play; in Marina’s song [not present in the play] and in
her conversation with her father; and in the final chapter, describing events after the end
of the play. (Muir 1953b)
In other words, Wilkins used Twine primarily for material not in the play. Is that ‘odd’?
J. C. Maxwell also rejected the Hastings objection, noting that ‘It is obviously easier to vamp up
a novel from an earlier novel than from a play, and even if Wilkins had written a play on the sub-
ject he would very likely not have had a manuscript to hand’ (Maxwell 1956b, xxi). Is it ‘odd’ that
a novelist finds it easier to plagiarize another novel than to plagiarize a play? It would be odd for a
modern writer not to have a copy of his own unpublished play; but it would not be at all odd for
an early modern playwright not to have a copy of the pages he had sold to an acting company.
Paper was very expensive, and the actors owned the play. It would be even less odd if what Wilkins
had written was not the whole play but just a part of it. S. Musgrove (1978) established that, in
writing Painful Adventures, Wilkins was familiar with all of the first eleven scenes (Acts 1 and 2)
but much less familiar with the second half of the play (except for the brothel scenes). In other
words, Wilkins remembered his own scenes well, but did not remember well the scenes written
by someone else. In Jackson’s words, “Wilkins drew more freely on Twine, plagiarising whole
434 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
paragraphs with little alteration, over that portion of his story corresponding to the play’s last
three acts’ (Jackson 20032, 26). Citing previous scholarship, Jackson had in fact answered the
objection raised by Mowat and Werstine. Indeed, Taylor had answered it too (1987¢, 557).
When Mowat and Werstine claim that “Not even Jackson can refute this objection, they imply
that Jackson is the only adversary of their position. More significantly, their criticism of the
Wilkins hypothesis is not a logical or empirical objection, and therefore, by its nature, no one can
refute it. They do not address the empirical stylistic evidence accumulated by Jackson (and a long
line of other scholars) against Shakespeare's authorship of the first eleven scenes, and in favour of
authorship by Wilkins. They do not demonstrate that there is anything inadequate about that evi-
dence. Instead, they complain that a particular narrative about past human behaviour seems to
them ‘odd’ Muir, Maxwell, Musgrove, and Jackson had explained that behaviour in terms of spe-
cific historical circumstances; but Mowat and Werstine do not say what is inadequate about those
historical explanations. Rather than examining in detail any empirical evidence, they rhetorically
set one narrative against other narratives. Literary critics are naturally interested in narratives,
and Mowat and Werstine prefer a narrative of Shakespeare's single authorship. But our scholarly
and critical narratives should follow from the data, which Mowat and Werstine do not even
pretend to examine.
Mowat and Werstine have made important contributions to our understanding of Shakespeare
and of early modern texts, and both are cited repeatedly and positively in The New Oxford
Shakespeare. But in their treatment of internal evidence they exemplify an illogical faith that the
Shakespeare canon can be easily established on the basis of external, documentary evidence
alone. Of course, the documentary evidence is essential, but it is not sufficient. Internal evidence
can be accumulated and evaluated only if one first accepts the validity and stability of a core of
work of unquestioned authenticity, established by reliable external evidence and by its own styl-
istic consistency. Around that radiant core circles a penumbra of less certain status. The individ-
ual works in that borderland (like Pericles and A Yorkshire Tragedy) are judged by criteria
established by the acknowledged central works. Those criteria are of different kinds, which
require different skills to establish and apply to particular cases.
Palaeographical evidence may be direct or indirect: direct when a work survives in manuscript,
indirect when the character of the handwriting of a manuscript is inferred by characteristics of a
printed text. Obviously, the former justifies more confidence than the latter, and when it is avail-
able, such palaeographical proofs are indisputable (see Taylor’s discussion of ‘I know the hand; in
Chapter 1 in this volume). The identification of the particularity or individuality of handwriting
in a specific time and place depends upon decades spent reading manuscripts written in many
different hands from that time and place, and few scholars possess that expertise; even outstand-
ing Shakespeareans and early modernists with historicist tendencies spend much more time
reading early modern printed books, which are more readily available and decipherable,
than manuscripts. For such evidence non-specialists must accept the consensus of recognized
(and usually veteran) palaeographers who specialize in early modern manuscripts. In the
Shakespeare canon, the only case where such evidence is decisive is Sir Thomas More.
Biographical evidence cannot often be found, but cannot easily be dismissed when present.
Shakespeare is the only early modern playwright who was a native of Stratford-upon-Avon, and he
and Michael Drayton are the only two from Warwickshire. Connections with Stratford-upon-Avon
tend to confirm Shakespeare’s authorship of parts of Taming of the Shrew (the Induction), 1 Henry
VI (Sir William Lucy), Richard III (Sir James Blunt), and Hamlet (Ophelia’s drowning). Venus and
Adonis and Lucrece were printed by Shakespeare's fellow Stratford native, Richard Field. Sonnet
145 apparently puns on the name Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife’s maiden name. Several of the
poems attributed to Shakespeare in seventeenth-century miscellanies are connected to people
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 435
he knew in Stratford or London. However, much of Shakespeare's biography remains conjectural,
and recent biographies (by Jonathan Bate, Stephen Greenblatt, E. A. J. Honigmann, René Weis,
and others) are full of biographical speculation. Such conjectures about the life cannot provide a
secure foundation for further conjectures about the work.
Theatrical provenance is a specific subset of biographical evidence, because we have docu-
mentary evidence of Shakespeare's association with a long-lived company of actors. Provenance
is sometimes established by title pages, or by theatrical documents of other kinds, but it can also
be conjectured on the basis of internal evidence: the presence of certain scribal hands, specifica-
tion of certain actors’ names, presumption of a certain size of cast, roles or spectacle character-
istic of certain actors or companies. For the almost two decades when we know that Shakespeare
was a sharer in the Chamberlain’s/King’s Men (1594 to at least 1613), attribution of a full-length
play to some other company would contradict its attribution to Shakespeare. The combined
external and internal evidence that The Puritan Widow was performed by a company of boys
reinforces other evidence that Shakespeare did not write it, and that Middleton did. But in other
disputed cases such evidence is inconclusive: The Spanish Tragedy, for instance, seems to have
belonged, at various times, to both the Admiral’s Men and the Chamberlain’s Men, and we have
no unambiguous proof of the theatrical ownership of Sir Thomas More. ‘The internal evidence
for theatrical provenance is in general less varied and less reliable than the internal evidence for
authorship itself, and conjectural provenance usually provides an insecure foundation for con-
jectural attribution. Because the documentary evidence of Shakespeare's theatrical affiliations
before 1594 is contradictory, such evidence cannot help us attribute early plays to him. However,
it is significant that the extensive repertory of Strange’s Men at the Rose in 1592-3 does not
include any plays certainly by Shakespeare, and only one (‘harey the vi’) that may be his in part:
this discrepancy strengthens other evidence that Shakespeare's small share of 1 Henry VI was
written later.
Metrical evidence has a longer history than any other kind of internal evidence: see Gabriel
Egan’s Chapter 2 in this volume, and, below, the discussion of metrical evidence for chronology.
Chronological evidence consists of the variety of internal evidence—discussed below—which
links a work, or part of a work, to a particular period of Shakespeare’s career. Gross disparities in
such evidence within a play, such as those between different parts of Timon of Athens and Pericles,
demonstrate either (a) that the work was written at one date, and that part of it was thoroughly
revised at another date, or (b) that it was written in collaboration. In practice, such ambiguous
evidence will almost always be seconded by other evidence which decisively favours composite
authorship (in Timon of Athens and Pericles), authorial revision (King Lear), or posthumous
adaptation (Titus Andronicus, Measure for Measure, All’ Well, and Macbeth).
Vocabulary can distinguish one writer from another, so long as attention focuses upon the
overall structure and distribution of vocabulary, rather than upon individual words. Thus, the
fact that the word palliament (Titus Andronicus 1.185) is recorded elsewhere only in the work of
George Peele cannot, by itself, be taken as reliable evidence that Peele wrote the first scene of Titus
Andronicus. Individual words might be imitated by other poets, but the whole complex pattern of
an author’s vocabulary could not be. As Egan notes in Chapter 2, MacDonald P. Jackson (1979)
was the first to extend to early modern drama the analysis of high-frequency function words such
as pronouns, prepositions, and articles. Jackson’s early experiment was, like all previous studies of
vocabulary, heroically done by hand. But in the same year as Jackson’s book, Baron Brainerd
published in Computers and the Humanities the first post-manual study of pronouns in the
Shakespeare canon, establishing that genre significantly influences pronoun use (Brainerd 1979).
Since 1986, the study of the whole vocabulary of an author and a period has been revolutionized
by the development of digital databases and easily acquired software for collecting and analysing
436 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
vocabulary. Hugh Craig pioneered the application of such techniques to Shakespeare by develop-
ing, over many years, an online system called the Intelligent Archive of early modern drama. Like
Brainerd, Craig (1991) first made use of this archive to analyse genres, and a variety of subsequent
studies have demonstrated a strong correlation between function-word frequencies and genre
(Binongo and Smith 1999; Burrows 2002a; Moretti 2009; Hope and Witmore 2010; Pennebaker
2011; Rybicki and Eder 2011).
But although genre strongly influences vocabulary, authorship has turned out to be, most
of the time, an even more powerful factor (Craig 2000; Pennebaker 2011; Craig 2016). Craig’s
book-length collaboration with Arthur Kinney (2009d) introduced such studies to a larger
Shakespearean audience, and his new essays in this Authorship Companion apply it to particular
case studies (Chapters 11 and 14), as does the new work here by Jack Elliott and Brett Greatley-
Hirsch (Chapter 9). These methods have been shown repeatedly to have a high degree of accuracy
in correctly identifying the authors of known works. Ina data sample of sufficient size (such as a
full-length play) they provide almost irrefutable evidence. As sample sizes shrink, they become
more susceptible to error. For the same reason, with these methods, playwrights with a large
database of many well-attested dramatic works (such as Shakespeare, Middleton, Fletcher,
Heywood, and Jonson) are easier to identify, or disqualify, than ones with a small database of only
one extant undisputed non-collaborative play (such as Nashe or Wilkins) or none (such as Thomas
Watson or Michael Drayton). Even when authors have a larger surviving body of non-dramatic
work, the influence of genre makes it harder to establish authorship of plays (or parts of plays) on
the basis of function-word use in poems, pamphlets, or translations. We cannot simply assume
that every author's peculiarities will remain the same across genres, and we cannot (as yet) predict
how a change of genres will change a particular author’s habits.
The potential of digital methods to process large amounts of different kinds of data is
illustrated in Figure 25.1, which visualizes a complex set of vocabulary evidence to establish
proximities between different early modern plays and poems (Arefin et al. 2014). English history
plays by different authors tend to form a loose network of their own, showing that genres some-
times matter more than authors. But the chief determinant of proximity is clearly authorship: six
of the seven extant prose plays of John Lyly form a tight, self-contained cluster. Other authors—
Chapman, Fletcher, Middleton, Jonson, John Davies, Ford, and Shakespeare—also produce
highly connected networks of texts. Within this textual space, a unique link between two works
is most likely to reflect shared authorship: that would explain the relationship between Kyd’s
Spanish Tragedy and the anonymous Soliman and Perseda (often suspected to be his, and dir-
ectly linked to no other work here). It would also explain the relationship between Shakespeare’s
Cymbeline and A Lovers Complaint (attributed to him in 1609, and directly linked to no other
work here). Indeed, the second pairing is stronger than the first: Spanish Tragedy and Soliman
and Perseda are both tragedies (also related in content), whereas Shakespeare’s play and the
poem attributed to him belong to different genres and do not share characters or significant
story elements.
Oaths and interjections constitute a well-defined sub-category of dramatic vocabulary. David
J. Lake (1975) and Jackson (1979) have demonstrated that some Jacobean playwrights (and espe-
cially Middleton) can be consistently distinguished by the type and frequency of oaths in their
plays (see also Loughnane, Chapter 17). Humans are currently better than machines in collecting
such evidence, because it depends on understanding just exactly what constitutes an oath, and
recognizing the many different spellings of such oaths, which are often contracted in ways that
defeat automated searches of variant spellings.
Linguistic evidence is another well-defined subset of vocabulary: Egan provides a history
and discussion of investigations of such evidence in Chapter 2. Jonathan Hope's (1994) more
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 437
sophisticated analysis of sociohistorical linguistic evidence focused on a small number of gram-
matically precise variables, especially the auxiliary do and relative markers such as which, that,
and who. Hope’s data for such variables successfully demonstrated that Shakespeare could not
have written many of the so-called ‘apocryphal’ plays (see “Works Excluded’). Cyrus Hoy’s ana-
lysis of linguistic evidence in All Is True had been hampered ‘by his lack of a positive indicator for
Shakespeare; which led him ‘to over-estimate Shakespeare’s presence in the play’ (Hope 1994,
150). Hope's evidence confirmed the traditional view that Fletcher was responsible for 2.1, 2.2, the
first part of 3.2, 4.1, and 4.2. Hope also proved that Shakespeare could not be the sole author of
Arden of Faversham, or the author of the play’s two longest scenes (scenes 1 and 14).
Stage directions are another well-defined subset of dramatic vocabulary, and they share with
linguistic evidence the advantage that they can easily be isolated and counted, and that their
peculiarities cannot be dismissed as the consequence of literary imitation. Alan C. Dessen and
Leslie Thomson's (1999) Dictionary of Stage Directions has provided a comprehensive survey of
stage directions in English professional plays from 1580 to 1642, which makes it easier to identify
idiosyncratic vocabulary. Unfortunately, most stage directions are formulaic, which limits the
number of idiosyncratic variables in any given play. But when such variables can be identified,
they may provide exceptionally reliable evidence (Maguire 2016). Roger V. Holdsworth (1982;
2012) has tabulated throughout the drama of the period occurrences of directions in the exact
form ‘Enter X meeting Y’ (where Y is not already onstage); this formula distinguishes Middleton
from all other dramatists of the English Renaissance to a degree that is statistically highly signifi-
cant, and relevant to authorship issues in both Timon of Athens and Macbeth (Taylor 2014b).
Except in Thomas Nashe’s Summer's Last Will and Testament and Act 1 of 1 Henry VI, ‘here’ (not
immediately followed by ‘enters’) is rare in stage directions in plays of the 1580s and early 1590s
(Taylor 1995b). By contrast, the combination of systematic ‘Here enters’ with mid-scene stage dir-
ections beginning with “Then’ distinguishes Arden of Faversham from every other extant play of
the period (discussed in Reference, p. 11). Shakespeare routinely uses aloft in stage directions,
where almost everyone else prefers the synonym above (Loughnane 2016). Theoretically, the
treatment of stage directions might be influenced by book-keepers or scribes, but such interfer-
ence cannot explain the sustained presence (or absence) of idiosyncratic forms in the work of one
playwright, or the concentration of such forms in one part of a play but not another.
Verbal parallels have been used, misused, and abused more often than any other species of
internal evidence. But Harold Littledale (1876; 1885) first made a persuasive case for Shakespeare’s
share of Two Noble Kinsmen on the basis of such parallels, and Roger V. Holdsworth (1982) convin-
cingly reinforced other evidence for Middleton's share of Timon of Athens by analysing systemat-
ically verbal parallels in both canons. What the investigations by Littledale and Holdsworth have
in common is relentless comprehensiveness. However, in both cases systematic results were made
possible by the fact that only two candidate authors were being considered. Truly comprehensive
tests of verbal parallels are only possible with digital databases that allow rapid searching of all, or
a large proportion, of surviving texts from a certain historical period and/or a certain genre. Such
searches are particularly good at looking for strings of words, sometimes called n-grams
(sequences of two, three, or four words having proven particularly useful), and for collocations of
content-words that are near one another (with nearness defined by a certain number of interven-
ing words). This volume contains case studies of the advantages and limitations of such methods
by Jackson and Taylor (who have both been using and developing such tests for fifteen years), and
by Francis X. Connor, Rory Loughnane, John V. Nance, Anna Pruitt, and Douglas Duhaime.
Control tests on samples have demonstrated that such methods, precisely defined, can success-
fully identify and differentiate known work by Dekker (Nance 2016a), Greene (Vincent 2008),
Heywood (Jackson 2001c; Nance Chapter 16), Jonson (Nance 2016a), Marlowe (Vincent 2008;
438 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Taylor and Nance 2015; Nance 2016b), Middleton (Taylor 2014a; Loughnane Chapters 17, 19;
Nance Chapter 20), Nashe (Vincent 2008), Peele (Vincent 2008; Taylor and Nance 2015), William
Rowley (Jackson 2001¢; Taylor 2002), Shakespeare (Jackson 2003a; Vincent 2008; Jackson 2013;
Taylor 2014a; Taylor and Nance 2015; Nance 2016b; Jackson Chapters 3, 8, and 10; Taylor and
Duhaime Chapter 5), Lewis Theobald (Taylor 2013b), Webster (Jackson 2001¢), and Wilkins
(Jackson 200384).
Image clusters might be described as a particular subset of verbal collocations. Caroline
E E. Spurgeon (1935), in the first systematic study of the imagery of Shakespeare, claimed that in
certain respects it differed consistently from the work of his contemporaries, for instance, in the
frequency of images of natural and rural life drawn from personal observation rather than simply
imitated from previous authors. Edward A. Armstrong (1946), who was not a literary critic but a
psychologist, refined Spurgeon’s work. Rather than count mere categories of image, Armstrong
observed the irrational associations between one image and another. Thus, a goose often appears
in Shakespeare’s acknowledged works as part of a chain of associated ideas including disease,
bitterness, culinary seasoning, and restraint. Such patterns of association can be identified as a
cluster of images, dependent upon an idiosyncratic process of imaginative reflex. The more
complex, irrational, tightly packed, and frequent the cluster, the greater its value as evidence of
Shakespeare's hand. Such clusters confirmed Shakespeare's authorship of parts of Two Noble
Kinsmen and Edward III, and of all of A Lovers Complaint. Several such clusters have been found
in Shakespeare’s share of Timon of Athens; none in the share attributed to Middleton. The
weakness of such clusters, as positive proof of Shakespeare’s hand, is that scholars have been more
assiduous in tracing their recurrence throughout Shakespeare's work than in systematically
surveying the work of his contemporaries for possible examples. Although we can say with
confidence that these particular clusters seldom occur outside the Shakespeare canon, we would
like to be able to say that they never occur elsewhere in early modern texts. Moreover, we would
like to know what idiosyncratic image clusters characterize the work of other playwrights, so that
the presence of a collaborator might be spotted not only by the absence of Shakespearean clusters
but by the presence of (say) Fletcherian or Middletonian clusters. Finally, in evaluating the
evidence of clusters one must beware of elastic definitions of the key terms of the cluster, and of
expansion of the field in which such terms occur; a field of ten lines obviously constitutes better
evidence than a field of 200. We may hope that new digital resources will confirm, or discredit,
the value of image clusters for determining authorship of some passages or scenes.
Chronology: External Evidence
The same categories of documentary evidence which establish authorship may also establish date
of composition. A play must have been written before it could be performed or printed.
Publication of a text, or even entry of a text in the Stationers’ Register, proves that at least one ver-
sion of it existed by that date. Explicit references to a play, or records of its performance, serve the
purpose equally well, so long as the play we mean is the play our informants meant, which is an
equation by no means always so evident as we would wish.
Such documentary evidence suffers from two abiding and insuperable weaknesses: paucity
and incompleteness. We do not have enough of it, and it tells us only half of what we need to
know. We can identify the first performances of only two plays, All Is True and 1 Henry VI, the
latter depending upon a disputable interpretation of the word ‘ne, combined with an equally
disputable identification of ‘harey the vi. If more theatrical records of the period had survived, we
would know on which day each play was completed by the author(s), handed over to the company,
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 439
and paid for; but the meagre documents in our possession in some cases do not even specify
which decade. Even when explicit references to a play do survive, they only fix one end of a
chronological continuum: a closing bracket, without an opening one. References to a play usually
only establish its existence, not its age. As a result, we can usually say ‘not later than’ more
confidently than we say ‘not earlier than.
Beyond these general weaknesses, particular species of external evidence create particular
kinds of difficulty. Titles, for instance, are sometimes mentioned in early documents, and then
appear later affixed to printed texts; one naturally assumes that the text attached to the title in an
edition is the text implied by that title in the documentary allusion. That assumption is usually
justified, but plays were sometimes adapted, and the published edition might represent a play in
its post-adaptation or pre-adaptation form. Alternatively, the same abbreviated title might be
affixed to more than one play of the period. We know that the Admiral’s Men in November 1595
performed a ‘ne[w]’ play which Henslowe’s records identify as ‘harey the v’; no one supposes that
it was the play on the same subject, written by Shakespeare, which was later performed by the
Chamberlain’s Men; but a reference to ‘Henry the Fifth, out of context, could refer to either.
Meres helps fix the chronology of the early dramatic canon as well as its contents. Palladis Tamia
(STC 17834), in which he mentions twelve of Shakespeare's plays by name, was entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 7 September 1598; hence, those twelve plays must have been written before
that date. Elsewhere in his book Meres mentions Edward Guilpin’s Skialetheia (STC 12504), entered
in the Stationers’ Register eight days after Palladis Tamia itself; scholars often take Meres'’s know-
ledge of Guilpin’s book as proof that his summary of Shakespeare’s canon was similarly up to date.
But the two cases are not similar: Guilpin’s book might have circulated in manuscript before its sale
to a publisher, but Shakespeare's plays would become known only through public performance.
Scholars dispute the significance of Meres’s omissions. For instance, he does not mention
Taming of the Shrew or the Henry VI plays, which all modern editors place early in Shakespeare's
career. Such gaps might be explained by the fact that Meres was still in Oxford in 1593 (when he
took his MA), and is first recorded as living in London in 1597. But Meres does mention other
plays which most modern scholars place in the same early period. In the list as it stands Meres
includes six comedies and six ‘tragedies’ (serious plays, including four based upon English chron-
icles); symmetry may have mattered more than comprehensiveness. But Meres could have added
Taming of the Shrew as a comedy, and Henry VI as a tragedy, without disturbing the balance of
his encomium. The omission of those plays may have more to do with their authorship than their
chronology. On the other hand, no one seriously doubts Shakespeare's sole authorship of Merry
Wives, Much Ado, As You Like It, or Julius Caesar, and no one believes that these plays were
written at the beginning of Shakespeare's career, and so Meres’s failure to include them must have
other causes. Honigmann proposed that the three comedies were new, and that Meres could not
find room for three more comedies without fatally unbalancing his symmetries (Honigmann1982a,
76). But, surely, anyone facing such a rhetorical dilemma would jettison an old play, never
remarkably popular, such as Two Gentlemen, in favour of a new, immediately, and perennially
successful play like Much Ado. We therefore suppose, as have most other scholars, that Meres
does not name Much Ado and its companions because he did not know them, and that he did not
know them because they had not yet appeared on the London stage.
Finally, the items Meres does mention create some ambiguities. We cannot be sure whether
Meres'’s ‘Henry the 4’ covers one play or two; ‘his sugred Sonnets’ may allude specifically to poems
of fourteen lines, arranged in a particular rhyme scheme, or more generally to ‘a short poem or
piece of verse; in early use especially one of a lyrical and amatory character’, which wider defin-
ition was common between 1580 and 1650 (OED sb. 2). Meres’s reference to ‘Loue labours wonne
probably identifies a lost play, but unrestrained conjecture has happily attached it as an alternative
440 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
title to almost every other comedy. Curiously, Meres enumerates the comedies in a sequence
which corresponds to our own chronological arrangement. We do not attach much significance
to that coincidence; but his catalogue of the non-dramatic poems also obeys what we know of the
chronological sequence, moving from Venus and Adonis to Lucrece to the Sonnets. On the other
hand, his list of “Tragedies’ cannot plausibly be wrested into any semblance of chronological
coherence. He begins with four English histories, followed by two foreign tragedies; the two tra-
gedies do, coincidentally or not, appear in the order in which all scholars would agree they were
written (which is Titus Andronicus before Romeo and Juliet). But the list of English chronicle
plays does not correspond with historical chronology or chronology of composition or even
alphabetical order: instead, it seems organized by an ordinal-numeral progression from ‘Richard
the second’ to ‘Richard the third’ to “Henry the fourth, with the numberless King John tacked on
at the end. Alternatively, the first three histories might have been listed in their order of publica-
tion, followed by the as yet unpublished King John. Whatever the logic that led Meres’s pen, it
cannot help us to determine the order in which Shakespeare composed his histories.
Meres, almost comprehensively, defines the boundaries of Shakespeare's early period, but he
does not map for us the territory within those boundaries: he collects, but does not arrange. This
deficiency is compounded by a peculiarity in the distribution of the other external evidence.
In the period after 1598, we have records of specific performances in Shakespeare's lifetime for
Twelfth Night (1602), Othello (1604), Measure for Measure (1604), King Lear (1606), Pericles
(1606-8), Macbeth (1611), Winter’ Tale (1611), Cymbeline (1611), Tempest (1611), Cardenio (1612-13),
All Is True (1613), and possibly Julius Caesar (1599). With the exception of Macbeth, all of these are
in a sequence which seems to reflect their chronology of composition; but the one exception
means that the sequence cannot in itself be taken as evidence that, say, Winter’ Tale precedes
Cymbeline. In some cases those performances took place several years after we believe that
Shakespeare finished the play, but in every case they preceded publication or any other explicit
reference to the play. By contrast, for works written before 1598 we know of such performances of
only four: ‘harey the vj (1592), Titus Andronicus (1594), Comedy of Errors (1594), and Loves
Labour’s Lost (15972). The interpretation of all four is disputed. For the later period, performance
records are plentifully and evenly distributed, creating in themselves a minimal chronological
gradation; for the earlier period, the same records are hard to find and hard to interpret.
The same lopsidedness afflicts the record of publication. Shakespeare was mentioned as a
player-playwright in 1592, and Arden of Faversham was published the same year (without naming
him or any other author). Whether or not he wrote part of Arden, Shakespeare can hardly have
begun his career later than 1591, and may well have begun it years before. If he was the author of
the original Hamlet, he had written at least one full-length play on his own by 1589. But the first
publication of a play later canonized in the 1623 collection did not occur until 1594 (Titus
Andronicus and a version of 2 Henry VI). Another dramatic publication followed in 1595 (a ver-
sion of 3 Henry VI), then four in 1597 (Romeo and Juliet, Richard I, Richard III, and a lost quarto
of Love’s Labour's Lost). Before the watershed year of 1598, although Shakespeare must have been
writing for at least seven years (and probably for at least a decade), only seven of his plays had
reached print, and mostly the recent ones. By contrast, after 1598, records of works published or
entered for publication multiply and diversify: 2 Henry IV (1600), Much Ado (1600), Henry V
(1600), As You Like It (1600), Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), Hamlet (1602), ‘New Additions’ to
The Spanish Tragedy (1602), Troilus and Cressida (1603), King Lear (1607), Antony and Cleopatra
(1608), and Pericles (1608). The list would be longer if we included works mentioned by Meres but
not published until afterwards. Such sources dry up again at the end of Shakespeare's career, but
the presence of performance records compensates for their absence. Indeed, by an uncanny feli-
city all too rare, in the second half of Shakespeare's career publication records almost invariably
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 441
plug the holes in performance records, and vice versa: every play after 1598, except All’s Well that
Ends Well, Timon of Athens, and Coriolanus, is covered by one sort of document or the other. No
such luck operated in preserving documentary references to his early work.
In those few records which do survive from the 1590s, two suffer from the apparent ambiguity
of ‘ne. Henslowe affixed those letters to the records of certain performances, and they have been
naturally interpreted as a spelling or abbreviation of the word new. However, this interpretation,
though it will satisfy the overwhelming majority of cases, is embarrassed by two occasions on
which the play in question appears not to be, in the usual senses of that word, new (Foakes 2002,
xxx-xxxi). It might, at such times, mean newly adapted or newly submitted to the censor or new
in this venue, in which case ‘ne’ would in fact on some occasions mean old. It contributes little to
the solution of chronological problems to be confidently informed that a play is either new or old.
However, the number of apparent exceptions to the straightforward interpretation of ‘ne’ has
been exaggerated, and few plays were heavily adapted for the purposes of revival (Knutson 1985).
We therefore incline to take ‘ne’ literally as meaning new. But for Henslowe, as for modern metro-
politan managements, new means new in London: a play that had been touring the provinces for
eighteen months might still be new to Londoners.
Adult acting companies regularly toured outside of London, and the Chamberlain’s/King’s
Men were no exception. Table 25.1 records all known performances away from London by the
company from its formation in 1594 until Shakespeare's death (23 April 1616); but records of this
kind survive only haphazardly, and the company undoubtedly travelled much more often.
Some of these performances outside London coincide with plague epidemics, which severely
disrupted theatrical activity in London. Shakespeare's lifetime was punctuated by several dev-
astating outbreaks (or ‘visitations’) of what was described in the period as pestilence. In 1604
the Privy Council issued a decree stating that if plague deaths exceeded thirty, the playhouses
were required to cease operations. But long before 1604 plague outbreaks had brought about
closures for significant periods of time. F. P. Wilson (1927) and J. Leeds Barroll (1991) provide
the most detailed surveys of the impact of the plague during Shakespeare's lifetime, noting also
how it limited performance; these accounts are supplemented by Rebecca Totaro’s (2010)
anthology of Elizabethan writings about the plague. Measures were first introduced against
plague-time play performances, as a type of public gathering, in 1563; the London order was put
into effect on 12 February 1564. Further prohibitions in London followed on 3 May 1583 (by the
lord mayor and aldermen). But the first extant order to affect Shakespeare’s career occurred on
3 February 1594 (by the Privy Council). On 19 March 1603, the Privy Council, in expectation of
Elizabeth I’s imminent death, issued a decree to various civic and legal authorities to ban ‘stage-
plays till other direction be giver’ (Barroll 1991, 101). The 1604 decree placed the first known
explicit limitation on performance based upon mortality rates. Middleton alludes to this
threshold in Your Five Gallants (1608; Wiggins #1528; STC 17907, sig. F2v) probably written in
1607: ‘’tis ee’n as vncertaine as playing now [up] now downe, for if the Bill rise to aboue thirty,
heer’s no place for players’ (Interim 2.27-9). A higher number appears in Lording Barry’s Ram
Alley (Wiggins #1573), probably performed in 1608: ‘For I dwindle. ..| Almost as much as a new
Player does | At a plague bill certified forty’ (1611; STC 1502, sig. F4v). This passage may indicate
that the decree was adjusted from thirty to forty between 1607 and 1608. But Wilson (1927, 55)
conjectured that civic authorities would have closed the playhouses long before mortality rates
reached such a high rate.
Using various primary sources, including surviving mortality bills (weekly and annual), let-
ters, diaries, and John Bell's London’s Remembrancer (1665; Wing B1800), Barroll (1991,
Appendix 2) supplied plague mortality figures in London for 1603-10, as well as noting other
times in Shakespeare's career when either official decree or high mortality rates would (or might)
442 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.1. Lord Chamberlain's Men and King’s Men, 1594-1616.
Date(s)
Venue and Location
Autumn 1594
Mar
borough, Wiltshere (G)
29 September 1594-28 September 1595
Guildhall,
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
1595
pswich, Suffolk (G)
1 January 1596
The Old Hall, Exton, Rutland
29 September 1596-29 September 1597
Gui
dhall, Faversham, Kent
17 April 1597-14 October 1597
Guildhall, Bath, Somerset
29 August-31 August 1597
Unkn
own Venue, Rye, Sussex
3 September 1597
Unkn
own Venue, Dover, Kent
11 September-17 September 1597
Guildhall, Bris
ol (city-county), Gloucestershire
1602-3
Shrewsbury, Shropshire (G)
1602-4
pswich, Suffolk (G)
19 May-31 October 1603
St. Mary’s Guildhall,
Coventry (city-county), Warwickshire
19 May-28 September 1603
Booth H
all, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
25 July 1603
Gui
Idhall, Bath, Somerset
29 September 1603-29 September 1604
Guild
hall, Oxford, Oxfordshire
2 January-23 March 1604
Town H
all, Bridgnorth, Shropshire
29 September 1604-28 September 1605
Guildhall, Barnstaple, Devon
29 September 1605-29 September 1606
Gui
dhall, Faversham, Kent
1605-6
Saff
ron Walden, Essex (G)
6 October 1605
Town Hall, Fordwich, Kent
9 October 1605
Guild
all, Oxford, Oxfordshire
2 November 1605-2 November 1606
Unknown Venue, Maidstone, Kent
28 July 1606
Guildhall, Oxford, Oxfordshire
30 August 1606
Unknown Venue, Dover, Kent
1606 Marlborough, Wiltshere (G)
7 September 1607 Guildhall, Oxford, Oxfordshire
1607-8 Marlborough, Wiltshere (G)
29 September 1607-28 September 1608 Guildhall, Barnstaple, Devon
29 October 1608
St. Mary's Guildhall,
Coventry (city-county), Warwickshire
9 May 1609
pswich, Suffolk (G)
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY
443
16 May 1609
Unknown Venue, Hythe, Kent
17 May 1609
Unknown Venue, New Romney, Kent
7 July 1610
Unknown Venue, Dover, Kent
5 August 1610
Guildhall, Oxford, Oxfordshire
4 September 1610
Unknown Venue, Oxford, Oxfordshire
5 September 1610
Unknown Venue, Oxford, Oxfordshire
October 1610
Dunwich, East Anglia (G)
1611-12
Winchester, Hampshire (G)
21 April 1612
Unknown Venue, New Romney, Kent
8 September 1612-8 September 1613
Unknown Venue, Folkestone, Kent
29 September 1612-29 September 1613
Guildhall, Oxford, Oxfordshire
1 November 1613-31 October 1614
St Mary's Guildhall, Coventry (ci
y-county), Warwickshire
1614-15
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire (G)
1614-15
Coventry, West Midlands (historical
ly part of Warwickshire) (G)
25 December-24 March 1615
Unknown Venue, Congleton, Cheshire
25 March 1615-25 March 1616
Unknown Venue, New Romney, Kent
24 April 1615-24 April 1615
Notice of
Hythe, Kent, t
are limited to two performances
performance regulations by the town officials in
hat players of nobles (i.e. including the King’s Men)
17 July 1615-17 July 1616
Unknown Venue, Oxford, Oxfordshire
Unmarked performances are taken from the online Records of Early English Drama (REED); those marked with ((G)’ are taken from
Andrew Gurr (2004).
have enforced closure. Gurr (1996b, 87-92), drawing on Barroll’s calculations (but interpreting
the later Jacobean evidence more conservatively), suggests the following periods of closure:
22 June-29 December 1592
1 February—27 December 1593
3 February—April 1594
22 July-27 October 1596
19 March 1603-9 April 1604
5 October—15 December 1605
July 1608-December 1609
There were also probably closures for shorter periods in 1606, 1607, 1610, 1611, 1612, and 1613.
Thus, throughout the ten years or so of Shakespeare's Jacobean playwriting life, actual or threat-
ened closure was an almost constant feature of the company’s planning.
444 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Dates of certain or suspected closure affect any conjectures about when a particular Shakespeare
play was first performed. The fact that there were only sixty-eight days of possible London playing
between 22 June 1592 and 3 February 1594 clearly led to Shakespeare investing in the writing of
narrative poems rather than many new plays. However, the Jacobean plague may not have had so
strong an effect on Shakespeare's composition of plays, because Shakespeare's circumstances were
different in 1603 than in 1592. Barroll conjectured that ‘Shakespearean production’ of new plays
was ‘greatly influenced by opportunities for playing’ and that Shakespeare only wrote new mater-
ial ‘when the theatre was available to him’ (Barroll 1991, 150, 208). But Barroll’s conjecture ignores
the centrality of court performances, established by Richard Dutton (2016). The beginning of the
Jacobean outbreak coincided with the beginning of direct royal patronage. In February 1604,
Richard Burbage was awarded £30 ‘for the maintenance and relief of himself and the rest of his
company in the time of play prohibition (Cook and Wilson 1961, 39; Barroll 1991, 114). Throughout
the Jacobean period, the King’s Men dominated court performance, and from at least 1594
Shakespeare's plays were more popular at court than those of any other dramatist. The King’s Men
could therefore have counted on the opportunity to perform at least two new Shakespeare plays
in every winter season at court, as they did in 1604-5, the first Jacobean season where we have a
complete list of the plays performed.
Although Barroll’s conjecture does not seem justified, it does usefully remind us that all chron-
ologies make some assumptions about Shakespeare's productivity. John Ward (1629-81), who was
vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon in the last twenty years of his life, recorded in a notebook from the
years 1661-3 that Shakespeare ‘supplied ye stage with 2 plays every year’ (Schoenbaum 1975, 155).
Although no examples have survived of a legal contract between an early modern acting com-
pany and their ‘ordinary poet’, or house dramatist, we know the details of two such contracts
between Richard Brome and the Salisbury Court theatre in 1635 and 1638. Each contract lasted
three years; each required that Brome should write no play, or part of a play, for any other acting
company; each required that he write three plays a year for the company (a rate of productivity he
was not able to sustain). Gerald Eades Bentley, citing legal disputes about Brome’s contracts and
the known long-term relationships between acting companies and other playwrights (James
Shirley, Philip Massinger, John Fletcher), shows that the rate of two plays a year (which Brome did
manage) seems to have been normal (Bentley 1971, 120-6). We do not know if Shakespeare had
such a contract, or a series of such contracts, with the Chamberlain's or the King’s Men, but Ward
or his informant may have been thinking in terms of such a contractual commitment.
Shakespeare may well have supplied two plays a year for some years, or most years, but he can
hardly have done so every year, and Brome suggests that authorial contracts were for a limited
period, and therefore might change from one period to another. However we arrange the evidence,
for the Jacobean King’s Men Shakespeare wrote fewer plays than he had for the Elizabethan
Chamberlain’s Men; five of the Jacobean plays he did write were collaborations, meaning that he
supplied only half a play, or one play and a half, in some years. A certain relaxation often enough
attends age and success; a corresponding superabundance of energy may accompany youth, indi-
gence, and ambition. Shakespeare seems to have been particularly industrious in the first years after
the Chamberlain's Men was formed, laying the foundations of the stability and prosperity of the new
company to which he had allied himself. The Admiral’s Men, who were ina similar position after the
reopening of the theatres, put on 21 new plays in 1594-5, 19 in 1595-6, and only 14 in 1596-7. A com-
parable bunching of new work in mid-1594 to 1596 can be seen in our proposed chronology (and
Martin Wiggins’s chronology) for Shakespeare’s plays. But the plays written in those years were,
besides being more frequent, also briefer: Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare’s shortest play,
Midsummer Night’s Dream the third shortest, and King John is the most compact of the histories.
Moreover, King John uncharacteristically takes over the plot of another play, scene by scene, which
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 445
is a labour-saving method of composition that Shakespeare employed, so far as we know, nowhere
else. As King John suggests, one way of quickly expanding the new company’s repertoire may have
been adaptation of older plays that had belonged to other companies. The evidence now points to
Shakespeare having adapted three older collaborative plays to create the new company’s Henry VI
trilogy. Adapting these plays and King John while writing Richard I and 1 Henry IV would also have
made more efficient use of his reading of many of the same historical sources.
Shakespeare's patterns of composition must have been influenced by the commercial needs of
his company, perhaps at all times, but especially after he became a leading member and ‘ordinary
poet’ of the Chamberlain’s Men. Those needs might have included, besides a certain number of
plays, different kinds of play. E. K. Chambers (1930), G. Blakemore Evans (1974), and indeed most
other scholars before 1986 assumed a sequence of four early history plays (the first tetralogy),
uninterrupted by comedies or tragedies. Andrew Gurr (1984) presumed that Richard IT immedi-
ately preceded the two Henry IV plays; most critics assumed that all four final romances belong to
an undisturbed chronological group. Such prolonged indulgence in a single genre seems unlikely.
We know that Henry V was separated from the other plays of the second tetralogy by four or five
years. In 1598-1600 we see a remarkable mixing of comedy, English history, and classical tragedy;
a similar variety proclaims itself in the so-called lyrical group—Love’s Labour’ Lost, Richard II,
Romeo and Juliet, and Midsummer Night’s Dream—which seem to belong to the same year or two.
Measure for Measure and Othello (or, The Moor of Venice) both seem to have been new in 1604.
Like actors, dramatists of the period were expected to turn their hands to any genre, depending
on the demands of the current repertoire. Consequently, although we have not wantonly dis-
rupted generic groupings when we find no reason to do so, we have not respected them when the
little evidence in our possession encourages an alternative order.
On at least one occasion, we know that Shakespeare did not have a new play available when the
company wanted one to perform at court. Walter Cope, ina letter to Robert Cecil endorsed ‘1604’
(Giuseppi 1883-1976, 16: 415), wrote that ‘Burbage ys come, & Sayes ther ys no new playe that the
quene hath not seene, but they have Revyved an olde one, Cawled Loves Labore lost, which for wytt
& mirthe he sayes will please her excedingly. And Thys is apointed to be playd to Morowe night at
my Lord of Sowthamptons. The 1604 date on this document is, in fact, like many other dates in the
period, ambiguous: devout Christians would not add one to the year number until 25 May (Lady
Day) while others did this (as we do) on 1 January. In this case, other documents resolve the ambi-
guity for us: the performance of Loves Labour's Lost, mentioned by Cope, apparently took place
between 8 and 15 January of what we would call 1605 (Chambers 1930, 2: 331-2). The Moor of Venice
(Othello) had been played at court on 1 November 1604, and Measure for Measure on 26 December
1604; otherwise, between November 1604 and February 1605 the King’s Men performed only old
plays at court (Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’ Lost, Merchant of Venice, Merry Wives, and Henry
V). We do not know what play they ‘provided And discharged’ on 3 February 1605. Othello and
Measure are the only named plays from this court season which could be new, and since it is likely
enough that Shakespeare might have supplied his company with two new plays during the year
since the last court season, it seems reasonable to assume that both were indeed brand new, which
in any case is a conclusion independently warranted by other evidence.
Cope’ letter, in conjunction with other documentary evidence, thus virtually establishes that
Shakespeare completed only two plays between the end of the previous court season (19 February
1604) and the beginning of January 1605. By fixing Shakespeare’s output for one year, Cope’s letter
and the fortuitously specific Revels Office records for the court season of 1604-5 together create a
chronological watershed, on either side of which the sevententh-century dramatic canon must
be distributed. Barroll (1991, 120-9) was the first scholar to appreciate the full significance
of Cope’s letter for our understanding of Shakespeare's entire chronology. With the exception of
446 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Shakespeare's small contribution to Sir Thomas More, every Shakespeare play which precedes
Othello in Taylor’s Oxford Complete Works chronology (Taylor 1987c), and the New Oxford
Shakespeare chronology, can be confidently fixed before February 1604. Of those which follow
Measure for Measure and Othello in Taylor’s 1987 chronology (and ours), only five might theoret-
ically precede February 1604: All’s Well, Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, Winter's Tale, and
Cymbeline. Of these five, only the first two seem at all possible as candidates for 1603 and neither,
in our judgement, is plausible. We do not know which plays the King’s Men offered the court in
their nine performances between 2 December 1603 and 19 February 1604, although Midsummer
Night’s Dream may have been one of them (unless Robin Goodfellow was a different play, as
Wiggins suggests). The fact that in the next court season the company had to reach back to a series
of plays written before 1600 suggests that in their first court season for the new monarch they
performed their most successful plays of 1600-3. But the 1987 Oxford chronology—like that of
Chambers—left 1603 empty of new plays. As Barroll realized, we cannot fit any known full-length
Shakespeare play into the gap between the completion of Troilus (before 7 February 1603, and
therefore at the latest belonging to 1602 and the last Elizabethan court season) and the comple-
tion of Othello and Measure in 1604 (in the second Jacobean court season). It is hard to attribute
this gap to the plague, which did not close the theatres until mid-May. In fact, the problem is
worse than Barroll realized. The only play that might belong to 1602 is Troilus and Cressida. This
evidence forces us to conclude that Shakespeare wrote only one play (Troilus and Cressida)
between Twelfth Night (no later than the end of 1601) and Othello (performed on 1 November
1604, and therefore written no earlier than February 1604). Wiggins solves this problem by treat-
ing Measure for Measure (#1399) as Shakespeare's first Jacobean play, and dating it to 1603; but he
acknowledges that this dating causes other problems, and we are not convinced by it.
The accession of James I meant that plays already seen by the old monarch could be shown
again to the new in the 1603-4 court season. But although there was a new royal family and some
new Scottish courtiers, most of the governing elite who attended court performances at the end
of Elizabeth's reign would also have attended at the beginning of the new reign. The bulk of the
audience would have recognized the difference between old and new plays, and would have
expected something new. It also seems to us (and to Wiggins) extremely unlikely that Shakespeare
would have done nothing new to celebrate the arrival of a new monarch. Between the death of
Elizabeth and the King’s Men’s first recorded performance for the Jacobean court on 2 December
1603, Shakespeare had more than eight full months to complete a new play or adapt an old one.
He and his company would have wanted to avoid giving the impression that they were incapable
of competing with the latest fashions, or that they were uninterested in creating new works
tailored to the new royal family. Four other companies performed for the royal family that winter
season, and the King’s Men, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Master of the Revels would all have
wanted to demonstrate that Burbage’s and Shakespeare’s company deserved the pre-eminent
status they had been granted. Richard Dutton (2016, 226-44) argues that the enlarged canonical
version of Hamlet was written specifically for that first Jacobean season, and Paulina Kewes
(2015; forthcoming) reaches the same conclusion on the basis of very different evidence. More
conservatively, Bourus (2014b) had proposed moving the canonical Hamlet to 1602, but her
arguments would be equally compatible with 1603.
There is one other play that might, alternatively or additionally, fill the 1603 gap: Ben Jonson's
Sejanus, performed by the King’s Men in 1603 with a text that included a ‘good share’ by an
anonymous writer, who has often been identified as Shakespeare (see entry for The Tragedy of
Sejanus, below). If Shakespeare was the ‘second Pen’ in Sejanus, it would have been his first col-
laboration on a full-length play since before the formation of the Chamberlain’s Men. The return
to full-scale collaboration, after a decade, might then reflect a problem that begins to be evident
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 447
early in the seventeenth century: Shakespeare was apparently not able or willing, after 1600, to
produce two or more new plays every year, as he had been doing since at least 1594. This slow-down
happens to coincide with the death of his father in September 1601. Perhaps he was depressed; per-
haps he could no longer count on others to deal with family business in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Whatever the explanation, beginning in 1601 Shakespeare could no longer predictably and reliably
turn out plays as rapidly as he had before. Some renegotiation of his written or oral agreement with
the acting company must have become necessary at some point after 1600. If Shakespeare did col-
laborate with Jonson, the experiment was not repeated. The same thing happened with his next two
experiments in collaboration: with Middleton on Timon of Athens, then with Wilkins on Pericles.
Not until 1612’s Cardenio did Shakespeare again find a partner, John Fletcher, with whom he could
work more than once. Collaboration with Jonson on Sejanus would therefore fit a larger pattern in
Shakespeare's career: a slowing rate of productivity, a return to collaboration, and repeated failures
to find the right collaborator among a younger generation of successful new playwrights.
Chronology: Internal Evidence
The internal evidence can be divided into two categories: extrinsic relationships (between the
canon and things outside it) and intrinsic relationships (within the canon itself).
Sources, when they can be securely identified, establish more clearly than any other evidence
the earliest date by which a work can have been written. All of Shakespeare's royal British histories
must post-date publication of Holinshed’s Chronicle (1587; STC 13569), and most scholars have
believed that the sudden popularity of the genre owes something to the swell of nationalism
associated with defeat of the Spanish Armada in August 1588. But intertextual relationships do
not always solve chronological problems. In some cases, we cannot be sure whether Shakespeare
was influenced by, or himself influenced, another work; in others, the books which Shakespeare
pillaged were written many years before the plays themselves, and hence provide only a distant
chronological boundary.
Theatrical provenance can help to establish a play’s date, if the company to which a play
belonged was formed or dissolved at a known time. Since after mid-1594 Shakespeare's plays were
all written for a single company, such evidence affects the chronology of his canon only (a) for the
early plays, or (b) when the name of his company changed, due to a change of patron, or (c) when
the text calls for a particular actor, known to have died, or to have left the company, or to have
joined it, at a particular time. But Shakespeare's early theatrical affiliations themselves remain
obscure and conjectural, and the movements of particular actors cannot always be traced with
the exactitude we would like. Nevertheless, significant differences in staging requirements might
suggest that different plays were originally written for different companies, or at different times.
More broadly, the dating of a single play within the canon of a single author needs to be situated
within a much broader theatrical context (as demonstrated by Roger Holdsworth in Chapter 22
in this volume). Most obviously, collaborative plays need to be situated in two (or more) chron-
ologies, not just one. One of the most useful resources available to us, which was not available in
1987, has been Martin Wiggins’s new chronological Catalogue of British drama from 1533 to 1642
(with Catherine Richardson), which to date is complete as far as the year of Shakespeare's death
(2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015a; 2015b). Unfortunately, although the Catalogue demonstrates an
extraordinary command of a vast field of primary materials, Wiggins often does not attend to
studies of internal evidence, for either authorship or chronology, and we differ from his dating
most often in relation to Shakespeare's collaborative plays.
448 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Topical allusions within the work to events outside the work create a presumption that the
passage in question was written after the event in question. In an effort to challenge the trad-
itional chronology of Shakespeare's Jacobean plays, Barroll (1991) denied the value of this whole
category of evidence, noting that Shakespeare shows less interest in current events than his con-
temporaries, and emphasizing that supposedly topical allusions remain intact in plays long after
they would have ceased to be topical. It would be more useful to think of such material as a kind
of source: not a book that Shakespeare read, but an event (or a series of events) that might have
inspired some detail of his writing. If the event has been well integrated into the literary text, it
will work whether or not audiences recognize it as an allusion to a recent event. Some passages
unmistakably refer to specific identifiable contemporary persons or events outside the text;
others unmistakably refer to such extra-textual matter, but the specifically intended referent
remains unclear, or cannot itself be confidently dated. In other cases, we cannot even be sure
whether the text alludes to anything outside its fictional world. Even when we can be sure of an
allusion, we can seldom fix a date by which it would have ceased to be topical, so the allusion
provides only a terminus a quo.
Quotations from a play, or unmistakable allusions to its characters or scenes, or parodies of it,
establish its existence as clearly as does explicit documentary evidence. However, scholars have
disagreed, and will always disagree, about what constitutes a genuine or unambiguous allusion;
there can be no universally agreed and consistent standard of validation. But it is now possible to
search digital databases to determine whether particular phrases or collocations are rare or com-
mon in the period. For instance, lurched near of the garland is so rare that it does seem legitimate
evidence of the date of Coriolanus.
Echoes can be roughly distinguished from quotations: authors assume or desire that readers
will recognize the source of a quotation or allusion, but authors either remain unconscious of an
echo, or consciously wish readers to remain unconscious of it. By definition, echoes are harder to
spot, and to the same degree easier to imagine. Again, new digital databases make it easier to test
claims about alleged echoes. For instance, in hugger mugger is so common than it cannot help us
date Hamlet, and a strange tongue is so common that it cannot establish that All Is True was writ-
ten earlier than The White Devil.
Memorial Reconstructions contain a particular kind of echo. A memorially reconstructed text
is one that has been transmitted partially or wholly through the memory of an actor or a note-
taker in the audience, rather than being copied from a manuscript. For most of the twentieth
century, there was a strong consensus among Shakespeare editors and textual scholars that many
early modern printed plays were transmitted memorially: the 1986 Oxford Complete Works iden-
tified memorial reconstructions underlying the first editions of 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, Richard
III, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Merry Wives, Hamlet, and Pericles. Since then, John Jowett (20004)
has proven that the first edition of Richard III cannot be based on a memorial reconstruction, and
the whole hypothesis of memorial transmission has been attacked by a number of scholars,
including Steven Urkowitz, Laurie Maguire, and Paul Werstine (Egan 2010, 100-28). Because
there is no longer any consensus about memorial reconstruction, alleged echoes in allegedly
memorial texts (of plays by Shakespeare or anyone else) cannot provide unambiguous evidence
that a particular work pre-dates the printing of that suspected text. More generally, all the alleged
echoes in such texts need to be tested in the same way that other alleged echoes are tested: by
using digital databases to determine whether they are rare (and therefore potentially evidential)
or common (and therefore meaningless).
The foregoing extrinsic categories of internal evidence usefully narrow the range of chronological
possibilities. But all require the exercise of judgement, and all can be abused. The same obvious
limitation applies to the intrinsic categories of internal evidence. Intrinsic evidence does not
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 449
determine a work’s date in relation to the calendar but instead defines an ideal order among and
between works, a sequence of relationships based upon measurements of affinity and dissimilar-
ity, charting the movement of a mind and the evolution of a style. Such studies have a value all
their own, beyond chronological utility, in alerting us to the detail and maturing of Shakespeare’s
art; they should interest us even if we knew the precise day and hour, place and weather, when
each of Shakespeare’s compositions was conceived or completed. But in the absence of such
certainties, they can, in compensation, offer probabilities, which can sometimes be calculated
more precisely than those generated by sources, echoes, and topical allusions.
As in problems of authorship, such stylistic evidence can usefully be applied to problems of
chronology only if we already possess a core of reliable external evidence. If we know the actual
relative order of some works, we can derive from them patterns of development, and then relate
works of unknown or uncertain date to those patterns. If we know the real historical dates of
A, C, and E, we can create a line of development, and fix onto that line the appropriate positions
for B and D; we may then conjecture that the stylistic pattern corresponds with a historical one,
and that B came between A and C in relation to the calendar, as well as the canon’s development.
In order for such reasoning to carry conviction, our anchor points in the external evidence
must be not only securely dated, but securely attributed. Since we are tracing patterns of stylistic
development in a single author, that pattern could be confused, or distorted, if the evidence
included matter from another mind. In fact, such stylistic evidence often helps us to isolate a col-
laborator’s contribution; but in establishing our initial profile of Shakespeare's habits, we must
first eliminate any material of dubious authenticity. This restriction, unfortunately, affects the
beginnings of the Shakespeare canon most severely.
After 1598, there are enough fixed points in the relative dating of Shakespeare's works for it to
take little effort to construct or to justify a skeletal chronology from which to derive stylistic
trends. Among the earlier works such fixed points are hard to find. In the following summary,
we have set out the minimum framework, established by external evidence and by convincing
‘extrinsic internal evidence, upon which must be stretched any stylistic analysis of Shakespeare's
early canon. Works of uncertain authorship are followed by a query; a group of works, all demon-
strably later (or earlier) than another, but of uncertain relationship to each other, is bracketed
together. Thus, 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI are collaborative, but both are certainly earlier than
Venus and Adonis, which is certainly earlier than Lucrece, which is certainly earlier than Richard
II or Henry IV.
1. (Arden of Faversham? 2 Henry VI? 3 Henry VI?) -> Venus and Adonis > Lucrece >
(Richard II, Henry IV)
2. Titus Andronicus? - Lucrece
3. (Arden of Faversham?, Titus Andronicus?, 2 Henry VI?, 3 Henry VI?, Taming of the
Shrew?, Comedy of Errors, Venus and Adonis) > (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant
of Venice)
Although the traditional assumption rests on precious little external evidence, it also seems prob-
able that 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III were written in a sequence which corresponds to
the historical sequence of their subject matter, and that this group of plays was followed by
another group, from Richard II to Henry V, also written in historical sequence. We might there-
fore add the following proposition:
4. 2 Henry VI? > 3 Henry VI? > Richard II - Richard II > 1 Henry IV > 2 Henry IV>
Henry V
450 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
If we accept this proposition, among the histories only the relative positions of 1 Henry VI, Edward
III, and King John remain uncertain.
The limited value of these conclusions should be obvious. Although we know the relative
position of most of the histories, that knowledge tells us little about their actual time of
composition, because so few of the individual histories can be confidently dated. We know that
the first two were written between 1587 and 1592, and that Richard II and 1 Henry IV were writ-
ten between 1595 and 1598, but that tells us only that Richard III comes between 1588 and 1595.
What is worse, this limited knowledge of the sequence of the histories cannot be related to the
sequence of the comedies and tragedies. The history sequence can be related chronologically to
the narrative poems, but that knowledge may not produce reliable internal evidence of stylistic
development, because differences of genre may distort the results. (As noted above, even the
frequencies of the most common words can be affected by genre.) Such disparities seem to
matter less in Shakespeare's later work, when his verbal style had settled down to a certain
assured homogeneity; but they can hardly be ignored in the early work, and they further
weaken our confidence in the little evidence we possess. The most confidently datable of all the
early works are the narrative poems, yet they also differ most obviously from all the others. (In
Figure 25.1, they are linked to nothing but Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and all three are in a cluster
that contains only two Shakespeare plays, both widely separated from each other and from
Shakespeare's Elizabethan poems.)
Given all these limitations, it should hardly surprise us that editors have, over the centuries,
disagreed radically about the distribution of the early canon: about the relative order of the early
comedies, about the relation between the composition of works in different genres, about the year
when Shakespeare began writing plays. Without the discovery of more external evidence, such
disputes will never end. Nevertheless, the nature of the problem is perhaps better understood
now than it has been in the past, and modern editors have at their disposal the gleanings of evi-
dence and ingenuity accumulated by their predecessors. Several categories of evidence and
reasoning have influenced the slightly adjusted chronology of the early plays proposed in the New
Oxford Shakespeare.
‘The Size of Cast envisaged by a script usefully divides Shakespeare's plays into two groups. The
Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, and the three plays on the reign of Henry VI all—even
with the doubling of roles normal in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre—presuppose casts sig-
nificantly larger than those required to perform the remaining plays. Different studies of casting
apply different rules to such practices as doubling and therefore get different results. Andrew
J. Power has applied a consistent set of rules throughout the New Oxford Shakespeare canon, and
similar results have been produced by other studies, for example of the repertory of Strange’s Men
(Manley and MacLean 2014). Noticeably, all five Shakespeare plays with large required casts can
be assigned, on reliable external evidence, to the period before 1594; all were performed in one
version or another, or at least might have been written in whole or part, before the closure of the
theatres in mid-1592. Such large casts are also presumed in some other plays of this pre-plague
period (McMillin 1989). It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that these plays were written at
atime when a playwright could count, as a matter of course, upon a company larger than the later
Chamberlain’s Men. This change in company structure cannot easily be dissociated from the
devastating effects on the London acting profession of the long interruption caused by plague. Of
course, not every play written before mid-1592 required a large cast. But it does seem to us signifi-
cant that Shakespeare's later histories and tragedies, though they dramatized similar sorts of
material, call for smaller casts than the demonstrably early histories and tragedies (Ringler 1968),
and we assume that those later plays therefore post-date the events of mid-1592. Honigmann
(1982a) wished to push Richard II and King John back to 1591, but we do not see why Shakespeare
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 451
should, in that year, suddenly have started writing history plays for a smaller company. It seems
more economical to relate the change of theatrical requirements to a change in theatrical
opportunities.
Cue burden is a feature of dramatic texts first analysed by Matthew Vadnais (2012) that refers to
the different ways in which play texts for the early modern stage tried to reduce the memory bur-
den on actors who had little rehearsal time, a large and rapidly changing repertory, and only the
text of their own lines and cues (rather than a copy of the entire play). From 1594 to the end of his
career, Shakespeare consistently solved this problem with a high proportion of two-player French
scenes combined with a high proportion of what Vadnais calls ‘speech stems’ (ten or more
speeches in which just one character speaks every other speech). Vadnais demonstrates that the
first editions of versions of Titus Andronicus, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and The Taming of a Shrew
(all associated with Pembroke’s Men) all adopt a different approach to this problem from
Shakespeare's later plays: they ‘limited cue burden primarily by limiting the number of speeches
assigned to individual players’ and the number of plays in their repertoire (Vadnais 2012, 141,
149). This evidence is important because it helps to establish that both A Shrew and The Shrew
belong to the same company, or same period, as the other pre-1592 plays. By contrast, plays writ-
ten for the Queen’s Men employed the very different structural patterns found in Two Gentlemen
of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, and Shakespeare's later plays. This evidence suggests that Two
Gentlemen of Verona was either originally written for the Chamberlain’s Men (in 1594 or after), or
that it was originally written for the Queen’s Men, early in Shakespeare’s career. It is not likely to
belong to the same years as the Pembroke plays.
Rhyme was actually the first stylistic feature to be proposed as a key to Shakespeare's chron-
ology. Edmond Malone (1778) believed that Shakespeare used rhyme most heavily in his earliest
plays. If we understand this proposition in relation to the canon as a whole, it is obviously true:
the plays with a high proportion of rhymed verse cluster conspicuously in the first decade of
Shakespeare's career. But it by no means follows that Shakespeare's earliest plays contain the most
rhyme. Indeed, that proposition seems to be self-evidently false, for none of the plays which can
be confidently placed before the 1592 interruption of London performances contains much
rhyme. Columns 2-4 in Table 25.2 give the proportions of rhymed verse to total verse in
Shakespeare's plays. Notably, the proportion of rhyme in Pericles, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, and
Measure for Measure is much higher in the parts of the play attributed to a collaborator than in the
parts attributed to Shakespeare.
Figure 25.2 displays visually the same data. What causes the sudden increase in the use of
rhyme in Shakespeare’s plays? Apparently, the event which immediately precedes that increase is
the composition of the 1,194 rhymed lines of Venus and Adonis, followed within a year by com-
position of the 1,855 rhymed lines of Lucrece (a total of 3,049 rhymed lines). Each of the Elizabethan
narrative poems contains more rhymes that any single Shakespeare play. The shorter poem,
Venus and Adonis, contains more rhymes than all the Folio tragedies put together (1,047) and
Lucrece contains more rhymes than all the Folio histories put together (1,587). At about the same
time as the narrative poems Shakespeare probably also began writing large numbers of rhymed
sonnets; Shakespeare’s Sonnets altogether contain 3,743 rhymed lines, so even if only a quarter of
them were written in 1592-4 they would add considerably to the rhyme total of those years.
The concentration of rhymed poetry in the years 1592-4 readily and naturally accounts for
Shakespeare's fondness for rhyme in comedies, histories, and tragedies, all most probably dating
from the years 1594-5. The composition of that large quantity of non-dramatic rhymed verse has,
in turn, a natural source and origin in the prolonged suspension of theatrical activity caused by
the London plague of 1592-4. The plague for a time made Shakespeare rhyme for a living, just as
it made him write plays for a smaller company for the rest of his career.
452 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.2. Figures for total verse lines and for rhymed lines.
SOLO Verse Lines Rhymed Lines Rhyme (%) Prose (%)
TGV 1,638 128 8 25
TS 2,022 151 7 18
R3 3,536 152 4 2
V&A 1,194 1,194 100 fe)
Luc 1,855 1,855 100 fe)
Err 1,533 378 25 12
LLL 1,734 1,150 66 32
R2 2,757 529 19 oO
R&J 2,567 466 18 13
MND 1,544 798 52 20
KJ 2,570 132 5 o
MV 2,025 142 7 23
1H4 1,683 76 5 45
2H4 1,492 72 5 52
Ado 720 76 n 72
H5 1,562 58 4 42
IC 2,301 32 1 8
AYLI 1,143 217 19 57
MWW 240 26 11 87
TN 938 176 19 61
T&C 2,251 186 8 30
Ham 2,579 135 5 27
Oth 2,631 103 4 19
KL (QF) 2,403 169 7 25
A&C 2,772 40 1 8
Cor 2,577 28 1 22
WT 2,166 59 3 28
cym 2,729 122 4 15
Tmp 1,509 64 4 20
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 453
CO-AUTHORED Verse Lines Rhymed Lines Rhyme (%) Prose (%)
Ard 3B
Ard (S: cenes 4-8) 1
Ard (rest of play) 15
Tit 2,482 130 5 1
2H6 2,611 96 4 16
3H6 2,901 128 4 fo)
£3 fe)
1H6 2,675 318 12 fe)
MM 1,666 89 5 39
AWW 1,482 279 19 47
Tim (S) 1,056 37 4
Tim (M) 617 123 20
Tim 1,673 160 10 23
Mac 1,800 64 4 7
Per (S) 803 22 3 [30]
Per (W) 802 197 25 [15]
Per 1,605 219 14 7
AIT (S) 1,160 6 1 1
AIT (F) 1,532 20 1 5
AIT 2,692 26 1 2
TNK (S) 1,074 24 2 5
TNK (F) 1,486 44 3 6
TNK 2,560 68 3 6
Taken from E. K. Chambers (1930, 2:397-408); they exclude verse which Chambers characterized as ‘external’ (prologues,
epilogues, choruses, interludes, masques, Pistol’s bombast, and the player's speech in Hamlet). Marvin Spevack's (1968-80) figures
for total verse lines include such material, and also count many incomplete verse lines separately, thus consistently producing
larger totals. By contrast, Spevack’s figures for prose are based upon the number of words of prose, a more accurate
measurement than the number of lines, since it is not affected by differences in page or column width. Percentages in brackets,
for parts of collaborative plays, are taken from Chambers; comparable Spevack figures are not available. We have added the
figures for prose in Arden of Faversham and Edward Ill ourselves, based on the New Oxford Shakespeare texts; word counts for
those plays are from Andrew J. Powers's work for this edition.
Prose also displays some chronological bias, but as with rhyme there is no steady progression.
Genre clearly affects the use of prose. The four plays with the highest percentages are all comed-
ies; in contrast, five plays have no prose at all, and they are all histories. Nevertheless, within each
genre the use of prose clusters chronologically. The four comedies with the highest proportions of
prose all belong to Shakespeare’s middle period, from Much Ado (late 1598?) to Twelfth Night
454 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Rhyme (%)
100 7
0 T T T T T T T T T I-A T T T T T T T T
T T T T T T T T T T T T T
Ged sy ab Be sh ao S N
OP ESS SY OS ee HH VM WW SL os PLS Fe & ee SE Lx ehs®
=<
FIG. 25.2 Visualization of the data in Table 25.2 (percentages of rhyme in plays entirely by Shakespeare and in
Shakespeare's conjectured share of collaborative plays).
(16012), all within a range of 57-87 per cent. The comedy with the lowest percentage of prose
(12 per cent) is Comedy of Errors, which might be because it immediately follows the two long
narrative poems. The history plays with the least prose all cluster in a chronological sequence from
3 Henry VI (1591?) to King John (15962). All those early history plays, except the collaborative
Edward III, are essentially tragic, and were identified as tragedies in the 1590s. The canonical tra-
gedy with the lowest proportion of prose is also the earliest (Titus Andronicus), which would fit it
into the pattern of early tragic history plays. Likewise, in Arden of Faversham the material most
likely to have been written by Shakespeare (all or most of scenes 4-8) contains no prose but the
twenty-three words of the letter from Greene (8.57—-61), and the use of prose for letters is a theatrical
convention common in Shakespeare and most of his contemporaries. (By contrast, a letter in 1 Henry
VI 4.1 is written in verse; that scene has for other reasons been identified as non-Shakespearean.)
Less than 1 per cent of Shakespeare’s share of Arden is prose, in contrast with 15 per cent in the rest
of the play. The only anomaly in the use of prose among early histories and tragedies is the high
figure for 2 Henry VI, and most of that prose was probably not written by Shakespeare.
In contrast with the early tragedies and tragic histories with little or no prose, the history plays
with the highest proportion of prose are essentially comic, and cluster in the late 1590s: 1 Henry IV
(15972), 2 Henry IV (15982), and Henry V (15992), all within a range of 42-52 per cent. This cluster
of prose-heavy comic histories slightly precedes, but overlaps with, the cluster of comedies with
an even higher proportion of prose (late 1598-16012). The three tragedies with the most prose
(Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, and King Lear) all seem to belong to a short period from 1602 to
early 1606. Although comedy as a genre always had more prose than history plays or tragedies,
high proportions of prose (40 per cent and above) apparently moved into comical history first,
then into romantic comedy, and then into tragedy (where prose never accounted for more than
30 per cent). Falstaff led Shakespeare into his heaviest investments in prose.
Rhetorical evidence supports the same arrangement of the early canon. Studies of internal evi-
dence have generally been confined to vocabulary (which words the author uses) or to metre
(the verse forms into which he fits those words); but an author’s style is also shaped by rhetoric
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 455
(the tropes by which he arranges words). Wolfgang H. Clemen, in a study instantly recognized
as a classic, described The Development of Shakespeare’s Imagery (1951), and in a series of investi-
gations of early plays Marco Mincoff (1976) worked out in detail some of the chronological
implications of Clemen’s analysis, tracing Shakespeare's use of extended similes, compound
adjectives, and other rhetorical schemes. Such studies—and Harold F. Brooks’s related discus-
sion, in his edition, of the style of Midsummer Night’s Dream (1979b) and the other so-called
lyrical plays—demonstrate in detail that Shakespeare did not begin his career writing rhetoric-
ally and artificially and then by a steady and uninterrupted progression become increasingly
naturalistic. Rather, in certain respects, the verse in Shakespeare’s middle plays is more artifi-
cially and self-consciously patterned than anything we find in the earlier work. Comedy of
Errors, Love’s Labour’ Lost, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, and Midsummer Night’s Dream are, like
the narrative poems, displays of verbal virtuosity.
By such interrelated criteria, combined with the existing external evidence and the ‘extrinsic
internal evidence, we can define two distinct groups of early plays: Arden of Faversham, Titus
Andronicus, the first versions of Hamlet and 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, and Taming of the Shrew,
on the one hand, and on the other Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’ Lost, Richard II, Romeo and
Juliet, and Midsummer Night’s Dream (Jackson 2015b). Richard III seems clearly to belong between
the two groups; only Two Gentlemen and King John remain—on the basis of the evidence so far
described—ambiguous. Unfortunately, we still cannot discern with the same confidence the
chronological relationship between the items in each of these two groups.
Vocabulary may indicate chronology, if a writer’s usage of certain words follows a predictable
pattern. One might hypothesize, for instance, that works composed at about the same time will
have more words in common than works composed at widely separated times. This hypothesis
was tested, and confirmed, in the late nineteenth century by Gregor Sarrazin (Sarrazin 1897; 1898),
using words which occur in the canon only two or three times. The first sophisticated statistical
analysis of Shakespeare's vocabulary in relation to chronology was the study by Brainerd (1980),
which tested 120 lemmata (dictionary headwords) for their correlation with what we know of the
sequence of composition. Twenty such lemmata—including related forms of certain words—had
chronological correlations with an absolute value greater than 0.4. (A correlation of o denotes a
purely random association between two events or entities and a value of 1 denotes perfect correl-
ation between the two: where we see one we always see the other.) By combining these twenty
lemmata with certain other chronological variables Brainerd produced an ‘omnibus predictor of
date of composition. His test suffers, however, from questionable assumptions about the dating of
certain plays in his control sample. He dates Two Gentlemen in 1594, As You Like It in 1599, and
Cymbeline before Winter’s Tale. Proponents could be found for all these dates, but they can hardly
be considered certain, and we believe that all of them are wrong. A stylistic test can hardly help us
to determine the relative dating of Cymbeline and Winter’ Tale if we select data on the assump-
tion that the former precedes the latter; the test will simply return us the answer that we have
already stated as a premise.
Sarrazin’s method was tested much more systematically by the psychologist Eliot Slater, who
surveyed words of up to ten occurrences in the canon. Slater carefully defined what he meant by
a word, and evaluated the results statistically, first in a series of individual articles (1975a; 1975b;
19773 1978a; 1978b) and then in the published version of his Ph.D. thesis (1988). Slater compiled
tables demonstrating a relationship between (a) the numbers of rare words shared by pairs of
Shakespeare plays and (b) their degree of chronological proximity (Slater 1988, 158-96). Focusing
on Slater’s words that occur in at least two plays but not more than six times altogether, Jackson
(2015b) recalculated Slater’s misleading ‘expected’ figures for numbers of links between plays,
according to a mathematically more appropriate formula. (Jackson’s methodology is discussed
456 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.3. Rare vocabulary links.
Title Observed Expected Chi-Square
TGV
R3 35 217 8.15
1H6 34 21.36 7.48
Tit
3H6 56 28.16 34.04
2H6 66 35.18 30.46
R& 4O 27.66 12.34
Per1-2 16 8.12 7.65
R3 48 33.13 6.67
1H6 47 32.61 6.35
TS. 36 24.82 5.04
2H6
3H6 83 34.43 68.52
1H6 82 42.92 35.58
Tit 67 35.47 28.03
R3 64 43.6 9.55
H5 66 45.76 8.95
R2 50 34.5 6.96
3H6
1H6 81 31.62 7712
2H6 84 34.11 72.97
Tit 52 26.14 25.58
R3 52 32.13 12.29
TS
be 46 26.25 14.86
1H6 49 29.91 12.18
Tit 38 24.76 7.08
R3
3H6 55 32.35 15.86
R2 52 32.42 11.83
1H6 60 40.33 9.59
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 457
Tit 51 33.34 9.35
2H6 62 43.51 7.86
AIT 42 28.53 6.36
Err
MWW 25 15.61 5.65
MND 24 15.58 4.55
LLL
R&J 52 29.36 17.46
TS 44 26.35 11.82
Ado 34 22.02 6.52
R2
1H6 50 31.69 10.58
R3 48 32.2 775
3H6 36 25.42 44
2H6 46 34.19 4.08
1H6
3H6 86 31.83 102.68
2H6 85 42.81 41.58
R3 62 40.31 11.67
R2 47 31.9 7.15
Tit 48 32.8 7.04
Per 1-2 18 9.88 6.63
R&J
LLL 54 29.34 20.73
Tit 46 27.68 12.13
KJ 43 2737 8.93
MND 35 23.75 5.33
MND
AYLI 33 21.14 6.65
Err 24 15.65 4.46
K]
R& 38 27.34 4.16
(continued)
458 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.3. Continued.
Title Observed Expected Chi-Square
MV
Ham 54 39.58 5.25
AYLI 30 20.4 4.52
1H4
2H4 65 38.18 18.84
TS 51 30.15 14.42
Hs 56 42.23 4.49
2H4
MWW 45 27.16 11.72
1H4 59 38.14 11.41
Ado
2H4 37 24.04 6.99
LLL 32 21.85 472
Hs
2H6 62 45.74 5.78
TEC 68 52.78 4.39
JIC
2H4 29 19.15 5-07
T&C 35 24.73 4.26
AYLI
MWW 35 21.23 8.93
LLL 39 26.16 6.3
MND 32 21.18 5.53
MWW
2H4 48 26.93 16.49
AYLI 34 21.19 7-74
Ham 56 41.12 5.39
™N
Oth 38 25.51 6.12
AYLI 33 22.65 4.73
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 459
Ham 58 43.95 4.49
T&C
Mac 60 4112 8.67
Ham
Oth 81 50.68 18.14
Tim 56 40 6.4
MWW 56 42.18 4.53
Mac 63 48.99 4.01
Oth
Ham 83 49.65 22.4
TN 39 25.59 7-03
MM
WT 48 29.52 11.57
AWW 39 25.88 6.65
T&C 55 39.46 6.12
AWW
T&C 55 40.08 5.55
MM 37 25.83 4.33
KL
Tim 45 28.16 10.07
Mac 51 34.5 789
Timp 40 27.53 5.65
cm 55 41.29 4.55
TN 43 31.69 4.04
Ham W 61.5 3.91
Tim
KL 50 27.81 17-71
Ham 54 38.94 5.82
T&C 43 32.93 5.08
Per 3-5 16 9.8 3.92
Mac
(continued)
460 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.3. Continued.
Title Observed Expected Chi-Square
KL 62 34.24 22.51
T&C 62 40.55 11.35
Ccym 45 32.19 51
A&C
Tmp 34 20.01 9.78
Mac 37 25.07 5.68
Oth 37 25.94 472
WT 39 28.28 4.06
Ccym 41 30.01 4.02
T&C 50 378 3.94
Per 3-5
cym 16 9.49 4.47
WT 16 9.7 4.09
Cor
cym 52 35.79 734
WT 47 33-73 5.2
WT
MM 45 29.58 8.04
Cor 49 33.75 6.89
cym
Imp 47 25.83 17.35
Cor 52 35.88 7.24
WT 50 36.5 4.99
KL 55 41.2 4.62
Tmp
cm 45 25.55 14.81
AIT [all]
MM 35 22.3 7.23
MND 29 19.72 4.37
The first column of figures gives the ‘observed’ number of word links shared by two plays; the second gives the ‘expected’
number of link words that two plays should share by chance alone; the third, using the ‘observed’ and ‘expected’ figures, gives the
chi-square value to approximate the association between pairs of plays. For a full discussion of the methodology, see Jackson
(2015b). The table records only chi-square figures that reach or exceed 3.84 (which corresponds to the 95% probability typically
but arbitrarily used as the threshold of statistical significance); a chi-square of 6.635 would correspond to the more rigorous 99%
threshold, and we print chi-square numbers that high or higher in bold type.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 461
in detail in his article.) We reproduce Jackson's figures in Table 25.3, but reorder the plays to follow
the New Oxford Shakespeare chronological order. As Jackson notes, the higher the chi-square value,
the ‘more secure the association. But the highest correlations are between the early collaborative
plays: the extraordinary high links of the three Henry VI plays with each other, and to a lesser but
still significant degree with Titus Andronicus. This cannot be due just to chronological proximity.
Instead, it is almost certainly good evidence that much of their vocabulary is unShakespearean:
those plays are linked to each other more than any of them is linked to plays of Shakespeare's undis-
puted authorship. Among plays that are entirely or overwhelmingly by Shakespeare, the strongest
associations are (in descending order): Macbeth with King Lear, Othello with Hamlet, Romeo and
Juliet with Love’s Labour’ Lost, 1 Henry IV with 2 Henry IV, and Hamlet with Othello. (Slater’s data do
not include the added Middleton songs in Macbeth.) In these top rankings, only Hamlet and Othello
are reciprocally hyperconnected. That association would seem to support the hypothesis that the
canonical Hamlet was written/revised at about the same time as Othello.
The Jackson-Slater evidence of associations will often be noted below in the discussion of
works included in this edition, because it is the best evidence we have of vocabulary overlap. But
its limitations must be recognized. In the first place, other factors besides chronology influence
the proportion of shared vocabulary. For instance, five of the six plays with strong links to Richard
IJ are history plays; all four plays with strong links to Richard II are history plays. Both of the
plays with strong links to Comedy of Errors are comedies; the same is true of Midsummer Night's
Dream and As You Like It. Particularly in the first half of Shakespeare's career, genre is often more
important than chronology. But King John has a statistically significant excess of links with only
one other play, Romeo and Juliet. That strong unique overlap cannot be due to genre, and would
be hard to explain if King John had been written before 1591.
Slater divided Pericles into the two traditional parts, and his data confirm the presence of two
authors. But he did not take account of the possibility of collaboration in the three Henry VI plays,
Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew, Timon of Athens, or All Is True, and he left out Two Noble
Kinsmen, Arden of Faversham, and the passages of Sir Thomas More commonly attributed to
Shakespeare. As with all other stylistic tests, reasonable conclusions about chronology can only
be reached if we are first reasonably sure about authorship. Likewise, although Slater separately
investigated the rare vocabulary in the poems (1975a), he did not include the poems in his larger
survey of the canon, and the data of the two separate investigations cannot be easily or simply
combined. By contrast, investigations of datable vocabulary preferences by others have provided
useful new evidence for the chronology of composition of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Hieatt, Hieatt,
and Prescott 1991; Jackson 1999a; 2001f; 20024; 2005; 2012C¢).
Verbal parallels are a subset of vocabulary, and as evidence they have the advantage of applying
equally well to prose and verse. E. K. Chambers prematurely dismissed the possible value of such
parallels in constructing a chronology. He objected that no scholar ‘can claim the gifts of observation
and memory required to assemble out of thirty-six plays all the parallels of thought and senti-
ment for which verbal clues are lacking’ (Chambers 1930, 1: 255). We may accept the pragmatism
of this claim, in regard to the canon as a whole; but it loses much of its force when applied to spe-
cific cases. Such parallels for the three disputed pages of Sir Thomas More were exhaustively accu-
mulated by R. W. Chambers (1931), and they support other evidence in suggesting that the passage
belongs to the early seventeenth century. The key issue here is the size of the data sample and the
tools necessary for systematic searching. If a verbal parallel is strictly and arbitrarily defined as
the repetition of two or more words in conjunction, then such parallels can legitimately be treated
as convertible counters of uniform value. Such parallels—like proud insulting (3 Henry VI 5.168,
6.84, 1 Henry VI 1.3.117), or insulting tyranny (1 Henry VI 4.7.19, Richard III 2.4.51)—are more
frequent than most people realize; and, as these examples suggest, their distribution does
462 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
correspond strongly with what we know about the chronology of Shakespeare’s works. We could
also limit an investigation to rare collocations—those occurring no more than, say, ten times in
the canon—thereby discounting commonplaces, just as we do when studying rare vocabulary.
Taylor (1995b) published a preliminary survey of such parallels in the passages of 1 Henry VI he
attributed to Shakespeare, and (using a looser definition of a parallel) in the two versions of
Sonnet 2 (1985). But much more research would be needed in order to establish the general reli-
ability of such data across the whole canon.
‘The Lengths of Speeches is, like vocabulary, a feature of all plays, and therefore has advantages
over more restricted analysis of the development of verse. Hartmut Ilsemann (2005) generated an
automated count of the number of words in every speech in Shakespeare’s canonical dramatic
works. By doing so, he was able to identify the most frequently used speech length in individual
plays, and discovered that there was a correlation between speech length and chronology:
Shakespeare moved from a most-frequent speech length of eight or nine words to a most-frequent
norm of just four words. Ilsemann suggested that the shift occurred around 1599 and was related
to the move to the Globe. But Jackson (20072) used Ilsemann’s web-based data to further inspect
this correlation, showing that the change to greater numbers of short speeches was not so sudden,
but gradual and continual over Shakespeare's career. Subsequently, Ilsemann published revised
figures (2008), from which Jackson has recalculated the correlations. Jackson’s revised index is
published, for the first time, in Table 25.4.
For Pericles, Jackson completed a hand-count of speech lengths for the material most firmly
attributed to Wilkins: Acts 1 and 2 (scenes 1-11 in the New Oxford Shakespeare edition) and short
sections of the brothel scenes (scenes 19, 22, 23). His calculations gave a figure of 52.8 per cent,
which would place it between 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV in the rankings of the third column.
Thus, if the supposed Wilkins scenes were in fact written by Shakespeare, they would not belong
to the beginning of his career (as some scholars have conjectured) but to the middle. For the
Shakespearean remainder, Jackson calculated a figure of 63.7 per cent, which would place it
between Othello and King Lear. This figure is still lower (hence earlier) than we would expect,
which suggests either that Wilkins is present in some additional material currently attributed to
Shakespeare, or that Shakespeare’s own habits have in Pericles been somewhat affected by the
style of his collaborator. More generally, Jackson’s work on Pericles demonstrates that Ilsemann’s
number for a whole play is unreliable as a chronological index when the play is co-authored. Also,
although there is a broad correlation with chronology, speech length may not help resolve issues
about the position of individual plays: for instance, Much Ado About Nothing (not mentioned by
Meres) has a lower (earlier) figure than Love’ Labour's Lost or Two Gentlemen of Verona or 1 Henry IV
(all mentioned by Meres).
Metrical tests have been used since the nineteenth century to try to provide a simple quantitative
key to the chronology of Shakespeare's verse; Egan traces that history (Chapter 2 in this volume).
In the twentieth century, the first important new contribution was Charles A. Langworthy’s (1931)
analysis of the relationship between grammatical units and verse units, which showed an increas-
ing divergence between the sentence and the verse line (Table 25.5). We have reordered these
figures to follow the New Oxford Shakespeare chronology, with figures for non-Shakespearean
sections of plays in bold.
In response to complaints about the deficiencies within and contradictions between individual
tests of different verse features, Karl P. Wentersdorf (1951) created a ‘metrical index’ which com-
bined rates of feminine endings, alexandrines, extra mid-line syllables, extra syllables, overflows,
extreme overflows, unsplit lines with pauses, and split lines. However, John G. Fitch (1981)
cogently objected that the treatment of pauses, in the tests upon which Wentersdorf draws, was
‘open to serious statistical objection: It depended upon the assumption that the frequency of
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 463
Table 25.4. Index of speech length.
SOLO
TGV 8 45.2 14
TS 8 377 10
R3 9 34.6 7
Err 9 24.8 3
LLL 9 48.3 15
R2 9 34.7 8
R&Y 9 39 nN
MND 9 32.5 5
KJ 9 36.2 9
MV 8 43.2 12
1H4 6(9) 52.5 18
2H4 6 53.2 19
Ado 6 44.3 13
Hs 6 53.3 20
IC 4 56.8 23
AYLI 6 52.2 17
MWW 8 51.2 16
TN 4 55.9 22
T&C 4 62.4 25
Ham 4 68.4 34
Oth 4 63.5 28
KL 4 64 29
A&C 4 69.9 37
Cor 4 67 33
WT 4 65.9 31
Cym 4 68.4 35
Tmp 4 65.2 30
CO-AUTHORED
Tit 9 26.3 4
2H6 9 34.6 6
3H6 9 14.6 1
(continued)
464 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.4. Continued
1H6 8 19 2
MM 4 62.4 26
AWW 4 54.5 21
Tim 4 62.5 27
Mac 4 693 36
Per 4 579 24
AIT 3(4) 667 32
TNK 4 70.8 38
The second column of figures gives the most frequently used speech length in terms of number of words in speech; the third
column gives speeches of 3-6 words as percentage of all speeches of 3-10 words; and the fourth column gives the position of
the play in order of size of figure in the previous column (with ties broken by taking the calculation of percentages to more
decimal points). We have changed the sequence of plays to follow the New Oxford Shakespeare chronological order, and
separated solo from co-authored works.
Table 25.5. Index of sentence/verse correlation.
1H6 1.6
TGV 2.4
TS 2.4
3H6 25
Err 29
R3 3
2H6 31
Tit 3.4
LLL 3.4
Per (Scenes 1-11) 4.2
MND 6.8
R&J 7
R2 77
KJ 8.5
MWW 9.1
Ado 9.6
IC 10.7
TN 15
1H4 12
AYLI 13.9
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 465
2H4 14
Oth 15
MV 15.5
Hs 15.6
T&C 15.6
Ham 19.2
MM 20.1
Tim 24.5
KL 25.4
Per (Scenes 12-28) 30
AWW 32.2
Mac 34.6
AIT (Fletcher) 35.1
A&C 46.3
Cor 51.8
Tmp 56.8
Cym 62.1
WT 68
AIT (Shakespeare) 73-5
pauses remains constant from play to play; in fact, the frequency fluctuates considerably: Romeo
and Juliet has, in Fitch's count, approximately 71 sense-pauses per 100 lines, as against only 63 in
As You Like It. “The only satisfactory method, therefore, is to express the number of sense-pauses
occurring within the line as a percentage of the total sense-pauses for the play’ (Fitch 1981, 299).
Unfortunately, Fitch provided such figures for only eight plays. His figures usefully place Romeo
and Juliet between Richard II and King John, and As You Like It after Henry V; but for most of the
canon they leave us in the dark. Consequently, Taylor (1987c) simply removed ‘unsplit lines with
pauses’ from Wentersdorf’s test, and recalculated the metrical index. The revised Wentersdorf
results can be seen in column 2 of Table 25.6 (where we have again separated co-authored plays);
Fitch’s figures for eight plays are in column 3. As with other tests, the results are easier to interpret
after 1 Henry IV, when we can see a fairly consistent progression. Wentersdorf’s figures for the
early plays are such a jumble that little useful information can be derived from them.
Fitch invalidated without replacing previous tests of the frequency of mid-line pauses; but
Ants Oras (1960) supplied a measurement, not of the simple frequency of such pauses, but of
their relative distribution within the verse line. The character of a verse line is determined not
only by the number of pauses within it, but also by where they fall: after which of the first nine
syllables of a pentameter. Using three separate criteria—all pauses (Criterion A), strong pauses
(Criterion B), and change-of-speaker pauses (Criterion C)—he tabulated all the works of
466 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.6. Verse tests.
Metrical Index Metrical Index Sense pauses
(Wentersdorf) (revised) (Fitch) Oras A Oras B Oras C
Solo
TGV a 12 64.1 65 66.7
TS 13 10 68.2 65.9 59
R3 12 12 19.7 62.5 64.3 vA)
Err 12 10 61.6 57.1 58.3
LLL 10 9 62.2 63.5 735
R2 13 12 23.2 60.2 57.8 63.3
R&J 13 9 30.9 62.1 62 48.5
MND nN 8 60.6 57.9 53.8
KJ 1 9 28.2 587 59.8 60
MV 7 16 51.7 58 375
1H4 12 13 53-5 53 46.9
2H4 15 14 56.1 50.5 36.7
Ado 18 17 54 43.9 40.7
Hs 16 16 32.1 49.4 43.5 46.2
JIC 7 16 51.8 43.1 46.9
AYLI 18 7 35.7 52.5 477 34.5
MWW 19 19 56.2 52.3 61.5
TN 19 17 46.2 42.6 477
T&C 23 22 54.6 51.9 52.1
Ham 22 20 478 42. 42.3
Oth 26 24 49.2 50.9 43.9
KL (QF) 29 27 39.1 33 26.8
A&C 35 33 64.1 29.6 23.9 18.9
Cor 35 34 66.3 29.8 22 14.6
WT 35 32 31.2 253 20.2
cym 38 34 30 23.9 20
Tmp 36 34 33.6 24.6 19
Co-Authored
2H6 9 9 63.6 64.5 63.6
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 467
3H6 9 8 673 66.5 58.3
1H6 7 7 67.6 72.9 46.7
MM 25 24 42.2 36.8 31.9
AWW 28 26 34.5 26.8 22.5
Tim 28 26 39.1 313 28.5
Mac 31 29 35.3 277 oT
Per (S) 28 24 31.4 278 25
Per (W) 507 56.8 29.4
AIT (S) 37 34 25.2 20.4 14.8
AIT (F) 32.6 23.5
TNK (S) 25.8 15.7 15.7
TNK (F) 32 22.8
Shakespeare and many by his Elizabethan and Jacobean contemporaries (columns 5-7 of
Table 25.6). These figures not only differentiate Shakespeare from many other poets of his time,
but also reveal a clear development in his own usage. Jackson (2002b), working from Oras’s fig-
ures for ‘all pauses (Criterion A); used commercially available software called the Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to create a matrix of Pearson product moment correlation
coefficients between pairs of plays. In his article, Jackson included a table that recorded for each
play the five highest correlations with other Shakespeare plays (Jackson 2002b, 39). These figures
are reproduced in Table 25.7, though the plays are reordered to follow the New Oxford Shakespeare
chronology.
Marina Tarlinskaja provided two new and more precise measurements of the rhythms of blank
verse, and she later extended this analysis (1987; 2014). One measurement is an index of the place-
ment of stressed syllables within the line, set out in her table for frequency of stresses
(Tarlinskaja 2014, table B.1). Jackson, working from her 1987 book, noticed ‘a progressive decrease
in the percentage of syllables stressed within positions one and four, and a progressive increase in
the percentage of syllables stressed within positions three, six, and nine.... We can calculate an
overall index that combines the figures for each of these five syllabic positions by totalling the
percentage for syllables stressed in positions one and four, and subtracting from this total the per-
centage of syllables stressed in positions three, six, and nine’ (Jackson 20038, 69). In Table 25.8,
Jackson has updated his index on the basis of her revised 2014 data, with plays given in decreasing
numerical order.
Tarlinskaja also provides percentages for the placement of strong syntactic breaks in standard
ten-position blank lines (Tarlinskaja 2014, table B.3). For the present chapter, Jackson has devised
a means to identify any correlation between the placement of strong syntactic breaks in the verse
line and the chronology of Shakespeare's plays. To do so, he totalled, for each Shakespeare play,
the percentage of breaks after positions six, seven, eight, and nine, and divided this total by the
total of breaks after positions two, three, four, six, eight, and nine (omitting five), and then multiplied
Table 25.7. MacDonald P. Jackson's (2002b) correlation coefficients between Shakespeare's plays, derived from Ants Oras’ figures for mid-line pauses.
Two Gentlemen 2H6 0.9879 Tit 0.9870 R3 0.9838 Err 0.9807 3H6 0.9748
Titus Andronicus TS 0.9930 2H6 9912 3H6 0.9894 R3 0.9882 TGV 0.9870
2 Henry VI Tit 0.9912 TGV 0.9879 R2 9874 3H6 0.9867 R3 0.9832
3 Henry VI Tit 0.9894 2H6 0.9867 TS 0.9858 LLL 0.9768 TGV 0.9748
Taming of the Shrew Tit 0.9930 LLL 0.9921 R& 0.9911 3H6 0.9858 R3 0.9832
Richard III Err 0.9977 R2 0.9906 Tit 0.9882 R& 0.9860 2H4 0.9844
Comedy of Errors R3 0.9977 R2 0.9924 2H4 0.9908 R&J 0.9856 K] 0.9840
Love’ Labour’ Lost R&J 0.9965 R2 0.9928 TS 0.9921 K] 0.9870 Tit 0.9853
Richard II R&J 0.9947 LLL 0.9928 Err 0.9924 R3 0.9906 2H4 0.9898
1 Henry VI TS 0.9813 R3 0.9758 MND 0.9746 KJ 0.9726 R&Y 0.9711
Romeo and Juliet LLL 0.9965 R2 0.9947 TS 0.9911 KJ 0.9872 R3 0.9860
Midsummer Night's Dream KJ 0.9957 R& 0.9820 LLL 0.9774 1H6 0.9746 Err 0.9721
King John MND 0.9957 R& 0.9872 LLL 0.9870 Err 0.9840 R2 0.9814
Merchant of Venice 1H4 0.9940 Ado 0.9894 Hs 0.9894 JC 0.9887 AYLI 0.9700
1 Henry IV MV 0.9940 Ado 0.9935 H5 0.9902 JC 0.9872 2H4 0.9785
2 Henry IV Err 0.9908 R2 0.9898 R3 0.9844 Ado 0.9807 T&C 0.9803
Much Ado JC 0.9946 1H4 0.9935 AYLI 0.9900 MV 0.9894 Hs 0.9890
Henry V 1H4 0.9902 MV 0.9894 Ado 0.9890 JC 0.9850 TN 0.9819
Julius Caesar Ado 0.9946 AYLI 0.9913 MV 0.9887 1H4 0.9872 Hs 0.9850
As You Like It JC 0.9913 Ado 0.9900 TN 0.9871 Ham 0.9807 Hs5 0.9777
Merry Wives T&C 0.9906 R2 0.9820 AYLI 0.9759 2H6 0.9754 LLL 0.9725
Twelfth Night Ham 0.9880 AYLI 0.9871 Hs 0.9819 JC 0.9793 Ado 0.9733
Troilus and Cressida MWW 0.9906 R2 0.9845 Oth 0.9820 2H4 0.9803 2H6 0.9788
Hamlet TN 0.9880 Oth 0.9844 AYLI 0.9807 MM 0.9774 Hs 0.9764
Othello Ham 0.9844 T&C 0.9820 MWW 0.9648 TN 0.9644 MM 0.9621
Measure for Measure KL 0.9861 AWW 0.9858 Mac 0.9818 Tim 0.9807 Ham 0.9778
All's Well Mac 0.9860 MM 0.9858 Tim 0.9854 Per 0.9840 KL 0.9805
King Lear MM 0.9861 Mac 0.9852 AWW 0.9805 Per 0.9741 Tmp 0.9584
Timon of Athens AWW 0.9854 MM 0.9807 Tmp 0.9782 KL 0.9759 Ham 0.9701
Macbeth Per 0.9863 AWW 0.9860 KL 0.9852 MM 0.9818 A&C 0.9698
Antony and Cleopatra Tmp 0.9916 Per 0.9897 Cor 0.9879 Cym 0.9823 TNK 0.9797
Pericles A&C 0.9897 Cor 0.9869 Mac 0.9863 Tmp 0.9854 AWW 0.9840
Coriolanus Tmp 0.9888 A&C 0.9879 Per 0.9869 Cym 0.9847 TNK 0.9756
Winter’ Tale cym 0.9942 Cor 0.9728 Tmp 0.9695 A&C 0.9636 TNK 0.9582
Cymbeline WT 0.9942 Cor 0.9847 A&C 0.9823 Tmp 0.9790 TNK 0.9765
Tempest A&C 0.9916 Cor 0.9888 Per 0.9854 Cym 0.9790 TNK 0.9718
All Is True TNK 0.9936 Cor 0.9733 A&C 0.9684 Cym 0.9639 Tmp 0.9601
Two Noble Kinsmen AIT 0.9936 A&C 0.9797 Cym 0.9765 Cor 0.9756 Tmp 0.9718
470 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.8. Index of stressed syllable placement.
Play Title 2014 1987
TS 35.9
Ard (scenes 4-8) 35.6
2H6 (Sh) 33
3H6 (Sh) 32.6
R3 32.2 32.11
R&Y 31.2
Err 31 32.9
TGV 29 28.9
KJ 28.9
MND 28.8
E3 (1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 4.4) 271
JC 26.4
LLL 25.7
1H6 (2.4, 4.2, 4.5) 25.4
R2 25
1H4 22.5
MV 21.2
T&C 19.8 19.6
Hs 19.6
Oth 17.6
Span Addition 74
MM (all) 173
Ham 16.4 16.5
Per (Acts 3-5) 11 11.3
Mac (all) 9.4 9
AWW (all) 7A 6.9
KL 6.8
A&C 5.4
Cor 4.2
Cym 09
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 471
WT 0.6 -0.4
TNK (Sh) -0.8
AIT (Sh) -21 03
Tmp -5.6
The second column records the updated percentage figures derived from Tarlinskaja’s most recent book (2014), and the third
column records any deviation from these figures in Tarlinskaja’s earlier book (1987). In the data on which this table is based
Tarlinskaja omits Merry Wives, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado because of their high prose to verse ratio, which may
distort the figures for the actual verse. She also omits Timon of Athens. Jackson has supplied index figures for these plays based on
the data in her 1987 book.
by 100 to obtain a percentage for each play. The results are given, in increasing numerical order, in
Table 25.9.
Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) published a new chronology, based on an excep-
tionally sophisticated statistical analysis of Tarlinskaja’s data. Their collaboration clearly repre-
sents a direction that the field needs to pursue. Only by the combined efforts of professional
Shakespeareans like Bruster (who know the limitations and complexities of the data) and profes-
sional statisticians like Smith (who know the limitations and complexities of the mathetmatical
interpretation of data) can we expect to do better than our predecessors in arriving at some
reasoned hypothesis about the gradations of Shakespeare's stylistic development.
Nevertheless, we have not accepted all the details of Bruster and Smith's new chronology.
Despite its sophistication, it is based on Tarlinskaja’s raw data, rather than Jackson's more reliable
recalculations. More fundamentally, it rests upon a simple assumption about the development of
Shakespeare's verse style: that it moves always in one direction, from the beginning to the end of
his career. This assumption is not justified a priori, and we have good reason to doubt its validity,
when it places Cymbeline (seen by Simon Forman in early 1611) much later than All Is True
(said to be a new play in mid-1613). In fact we can demonstrate that, in Shakespeare’s case at least,
their assumption of one-way drift is wrong.
Bruster and Smith, who concentrate on verse, do not include George T. Wright's classic study
(1982) of the figure of speech called hendiadys, which occurs in verse and prose. Wright was not
primarily interested in chronology or authorship, but in an appendix he counted every example
in the traditional Shakespeare canon. Wright’s data are reproduced in Table 25.10 with play
titles given in alphabetical order. In Table 25.11, we rearrange his data to display them in the
chronological order of the New Oxford Shakespeare. Table 25.12, in contrast, is organized on
the assumption of Bruster and Smith of a simple progression, from the least frequent to the most
frequent occurrence of this stylistic feature. All three tables give both the raw data (the number of
examples of hendiadys in each play) and the relative frequency in each play (measured in terms
of one hendiadys per x number of lines).
Figure 25.3 visualizes what the Shakespeare chronology would look like if we assumed, as
Bruster and Smith do, a simple positive, stable, rising correlation between a certain stylistic fea-
ture (in this case the frequency with which hendiadys is used) and the date of composition. Either
in terms of raw data or number of lines per hendiadys, Hamlet would be Shakespeare’s last
full-length single-author play (and would have to be assigned to 1614), preceded by Othello (1613).
We know that these results cannot be correct, because the fullest extant text of Hamlet was
published in 1604-5, and Othello was performed at court in 1604. The other end of this putative
chronology would be equally absurd, with The Winter’s Tale preceding Richard III (printed in
1597) and The Tempest preceding Much Ado About Nothing (printed in 1600).
472 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.9. Index of strong syntactical breaks.
Ard (scenes 4-8) 28.2
Tit (Sh) 31.5
2H6 (Sh) 32.3
3H6 (Sh) 33.1
TS 34.3
R3 36
TGV 36.2
£3 (1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 4.4) 36.2
R& 36.5
Err 373
1H6 (2.4, 4.2-4.5) 38.5
MND 39.6
LLL 40.7
R2 40.9
KJ 42.8
2H4 49.1
MV 49.2
1H4 49.8
Hs 50
JC 517
T&C 52.9
Ham 53-7
Oth 54.9
MM 61
KL 64.1
Per (Acts 3-5) 67
Mac 69.6
AWW 70.2
A&C 70.8
Tmp 71.9
Cor 73:3
WT 74
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 473
TNK (Sh) 75-6
Cym 76.1
AIT (Sh) 77
In the data on which this table is based, Tarlinskaja omits Merry Wives, As You
Like It, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado because of their high prose to verse ratio,
which may distort the figures for the actual verse. She also omits Timon of
Athens. Jackson has supplied index figures for these plays based on the data in
her 1987 book.
Table 25.10. Rates of hendiadys for plays listed in alphabetical order.
Play Hendiadys Every __ lines
All Is True 6 47O
All's Well 9 330
Antony and Cleopatra 8 383
As You Like It 10 286
Comedy of Errors 2 889
Coriolanus ¥ 487
Cymbeline 4 835
Hamlet 66 60
1 Henry IV 7 454
2 Henry IV 7 492
Henry V 15 225
1 Henry VI 1 2677
3 Henry VI fe) [2904]
2 Henry VI 1 3162
Julius Caesar 8 310
King John 7 367
King Lear 15 222
Love's Labour’ Lost 1 2789
Macbeth 18 17
Measure for Measure 16 176
Merchant of Venice is 532
Merry Wives of Windsor fo) [3018]
Midsummer Night's Dream 2 1072
Much Ado About Nothing 3 942
(continued)
474 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.10. Continued.
Play Hendiadys Every __ lines
Othello 28 118
Pericles 4 597
Richard II 6 459
Richard III 3 1206
Romeo and Juliet 5 610
Sir Thomas More (Additions) 2 83
Taming of the Shrew fo) [2649]
Tempest 2 1032
Timon of Athens 3 791
Titus Andronicus 3 841
Troilus and Cressida 19 184
Twelfth Night 13 207
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1 2294
Two Noble Kinsmen 4 704
Winter's Tale 2 1538
Table 25.11. Rates of hendiadys for plays listed in New Oxford Shakespeare, chronological order.
Play Hendiadys Every __ lines
TGV 1 2294
Tit 3 841
2H6 1 3162
3H6 fo) [2904]
TS fe) [2649]
R3 3 1206
Err 2 889
LLL 1 2789
R2 6 459
1H6 1 2677
R&J 5 610
MND 2 1072
KJ 7 367
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 475
MV 5 532
1H4 7 454
2H4 v 492
Ado ce 942
Hs 15 225
JC 8 310
AYLI 10 286
MWWw fe) [3018]
TN 13 207
T&C 19 184
Ham 66 60
STM (Additions) 2 83
Oth 28 118
MM 16 176
AWW 9 330
KL 15 222
Tim 3 791
Mac 18 117
A&C 8 383
Per 4 597
Cor 7 487
WT 2 1538
Ccym 4 835
Tmp 2 1032
AIT 6 470
TNK 4 704
These absurdities do not reflect a merely random distribution of hendiadys, as can be seen if we
instead look at Figure 25.4, which visualizes the hendiadys data as a function of the chronology of
‘The New Oxford Shakespeare. Beginning with Henry V (15992), Shakespeare wrote a succession of
plays where the rate of use of hendiadys remains consistently higher than one for every 300 lines
inall genres until Macbeth (1606). One exception is Merry Wives, the most prosaic of Shakespeare’s
plays; its complete absence of hendiadys is matched only by the much earlier Taming of the Shrew
476 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Table 25.12. Rates of hendiadys for plays listed from lowest to highest.
Play Hendiadys Every __ lines
3H6e fc) [2904]
TS fo) [2649]
MWWw re) [3018]
1H6 1 2677
2H6 1 3162
TGV 1 2294
LLL 1 2789
Err 2 889
MND 2 1072
WT 2 1538
Tmp 2 1032
STM (Additions) 2 83
R3 3 1206
Tit 3 841
Ado 3 942
Tim 3 791
Per 4 597
cym 4 835
TNK 4 704
R&J 5 610
MV 5 532
R2 6 459
AIT 6 47O
KJ 7 367
1H4 7 454
2H4 7 492
Cor 7 487
JC 8 310
A&C 8 383
AWW 9 330
AYLI 10 286
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 477
TN 13 207
Hs 15 225
KL 15 222
MM 16 176
Mac 18 117
T&C 19 184
Oth 28 118
Ham 66 60
and 3 Henry VI, making it anomalous to any chronological scheme. In Timon of Athens, the rate
plummets to one per 791 lines; this low figure almost certainly reflects Middleton's co-authorship,
but unfortunately Wright did not divide the play by authors, or list where in this play (or others)
all the examples of hendiadys occurred, so his data do not enable us to separate the shares of the
two authors. In All’s Well that Ends Well (apparently adapted by Middleton), the rate drops to one
per 333 lines, which is not so remarkable an outlier; the smaller discrepancy here might well
reflect Middleton’s much smaller contribution to All’s Well. In any case, after Macbeth, the rate
falls, in Antony and Cleopatra, to a figure comparable to King John, then in Coriolanus to a figure
lower than Richard II and 2 Henry IV. The three single-authored romances are all lower still, with
frequencies not seen since the mid-1590s. Thus, in at least one striking stylistic feature,
Shakespeare after 1606 began moving backwards, toward his earlier work. This should not sur-
prise us. Critics have often noticed the turn toward old-fashioned dramatic techniques in the late
plays. But we can now see that the macro-dramaturgical reversion is accompanied by at least one
micro-stylistic reversion.
Hendiadys (lowest to highest)
0 Ln a SS SS SS SL ee ee ee
& ww 4 Vs dD dof S
se “s we wee yy & OX ge & Sy KE Qe oe OS Vs By Bares Re es ~ BLY SS ad aS KS
FIG. 25.3 Visualization of the data in Table 25.1 (rates of hendiadys from lowest to highest).
478 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Hendiadys (New Oxford Shakespeare chronology)
Oth
MM
AWW
KL
Tim
Mac
A&C
Per
Cor
WT
Ccym
Tmp
AIT
TNK
STM (additions)
FIG. 25.4 Visualization of the data in Table 25.11 (rates of hendiadys for plays listed in New Oxford Shakespeare
chronological order).
Further evidence against the hypothesis that Shakespeare's stylistic habits drifted in just one
direction across his career is provided by the proportion of rhymed verse, which we discussed
earlier (Table 25.2, column 4). If we posit a constant one-way progression, as Bruster and Smith
do, then the percentage of rhyme in the normal dialogue of a play should decline from a peak at
the beginning of Shakespeare’s career to a low at the end. That assumption would produce a
chronological slope like that in Figure 25.5.
Although the graph in Figure 25.5 does group some relatively early plays near the beginning
and some relatively late ones at the end, it also produces evident absurdities. Julius Caesar looks
later than all the late romances; Richard III looks much later than Twelfth Night and Hamlet;
Henry V looks later than King Lear. Perhaps most significantly, The Taming of the Shrew and Two
Gentlemen register as significantly later than Twelfth Night and All’s Well. None of those results
can be right. In different ways, the distributions of rhyme and of hendiadys demonstrably dis-
prove the assumption that a single simple vector governs the chronological distribution of all
stylistic features, especially when treating the late and the early plays. There must be bumps in
Shakespeare's stylistic development, and those bumps do not necessarily coincide or overlap.
Linguistic evidence demonstrates a pattern similar to those discernible in hendiadys and
rhyme. Linguistic evidence can be applied to problems of chronology as well as authorship, and it
has the same advantages and limitations in both cases. Herman Conrad (1907) drew attention to
a chronological progression in Shakespeare's use of obsolescent syllabic -ed inflections in verse,
Estelle Taylor (1969; 1987a) documented a similar progression in the use of -eth inflections,
and Frederick O. Waller (1966) tabulated similar fluctuations in the use of a number of other
linguistic variables. Gary Taylor (1987c) combined and supplemented this evidence to produce a
colloquialism-in-verse test for the 1987 canon, which we have here revised as Table 25.13.
In evaluating the suitability of a particular colloquialism, Taylor simply determined whether it
occurred much more or much less frequently in works composed before As You Like It, or works
composed after. As You Like It usefully falls almost exactly in the middle of the canon, and scholars
widely agree about which plays come before and which after it. Only Merry Wives has been dated
by different scholars on either side of that divide, and in the initial selection of features Taylor
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 479
Rhyme (%)
100 4
90 4
80 4
70 4
60 4
50 4
40 4
30 4
20 4
0
FI IS GE TP SE PIG CON PS PP PE oP FHM S OE
WY
FIG. 25.5 Visualization of the data in Table 25.2, column 4 (rate of rhyme) reordered from greatest to least.
simply ignored that play. Although the Folio text of Merry Wives has less verse than any other
play, the colloquialism quotient for the verse it does contain would agree with the post-1599
dating, which we now accept. It would actually situate the play later than 1600, thus perhaps
providing some slight support for Dutton’s (2016) suggestion that the Folio represents a 1604
revision for court performance.
The counts of all features which significantly increased after As You Like It were assigned a
positive value (headings 1-21); the counts of features which decreased were assigned a negative
value (headings 23-6). The sum of the negative subtotal (heading 27) and the positive subtotal
(heading 22) produces a colloquialism total (heading 28), which is subdivided by the number of
words of verse in each work (heading 29), to produce a colloquialism quotient (heading 30) that
takes account of the differing word counts for each work.
As in studies of authorship, such linguistic evidence might be affected, occasionally, by an
interfering compositor or scribe. We have found no clear instance of such systemic and biasing
high-handedness with these particular colloquialisms in the Shakespeare canon, although
Taming of the Shrew might be an example. Alternatively, as Frederick. G. Fleay supposed on met-
rical grounds, it might be another early collaborative play (see Egan's discussion of Fleay in
Chapter 2 of this volume, and the entry for Taming of the Shrew in “Works Included’ herein). We
would in any case predict that the presence of a second author could distort the figures, and such
distortions can be seen in Timon of Athens, 1 Henry VI, and to a lesser degree All Is True and Two
Noble Kinsmen.
As can be seen in Figure 25.6, a visualization of the Colloquialism-in-Verse quotient from
Table 25.13, for most of the canon the quotient produces a bumpy upward curve which can be
Table 25.13. Colloquialism-in-verse test.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 7 18 19 20 21 22 23. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
t ith’ oth’ th’ em Il rt re d/'Id It/t st/ve I’m as_ this’ a/ha’ a’ 0’ s(us, his) s(is) has does positive eth ion other ed negative total words ratio
TGV 5 3 n 2 1 1 7 1 1 32 io on 2 28 51 -19 12,692 -1.5
TS 15 1 1 2 ‘ly? 2 2 1 1 2 4 4 5 6 63 20 8 12 28 68 -5 16,736 -0.3
R3 6 10 4 1 21 18 24 9 vA) 126 -105 27,862 -3.77
V&A 2 2 3 2 17 72 -70 9,730 7.19
Luc 7 7 34.3 72 109 -102 14,548 -7.01
Err 1 1 3 12 1 1 3 1 1 24 5 4u 2 34 52 -28 12,712 -2.2
LLL 7 1 7 6 1 4 2 1 2 31 8 5 27 40 -9 14,278 -0.63
R2 5 1 7 3 4 1 21 13.10 5 4B vA -50 21,809 -2.29
R& a 7 15 8 8 49 9 #11 10 7 103 -54 20,796 -2.6
MND 4 1 2 1 1 1 20 8 10 4 41 63 -43 12,859 -3.34
KJ 7 1 7 6 1 1 4 1 28 11. 30 7 84 132 -104 20,386 -5.1
MV 3 1 2 9 1 1 2 19 19 14 4 43 80 -61 16,167 -3.77
1H4 3 1 8 1 1 3 7 9 26 7 33 75 -58 13,064 -4.44
2H4 2 1 1 3 1 8 7 27 2 26 62 -54 12,388 -4.36
Ado 2 1 6 1 10 2 8 5 9 24 -14 5,748 -2.44
Hs 3 Py 22 1 18 2 3 51 2 24 5 56 87 -36 14,879 -2.42
JG 6 1 4 6 13 1 1 1 1 3 3 4 44 7 21 7. 37 72 -28 17,668 -1.58
AYLI 2 2 5 13 3 2 27 4 7 1 14 26 1 9,082 O11
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 7 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 «425 26 27 28 29 30
t ith’ o'th’ th’ em Il rt re d/'Id It/t st/ve I’m as this’ a/ha’ a’ o’_ s(us, his) s(is) has does positive eth ion other ed negative total words ratio
MWW 1 2 2 9 1 1 1 17 2 6 8 9 2,647 3.4
TN 9 1 1 5 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 8 34 3 3 n 7 17 -7,427—-2.29
T&C 11 4 18 18 1 5 1 1 1 9 2 4 vhs 4 13 3 22 42 33 «17,948 1.84
Ham 61 8 1 42 12 1 1 2 1 3 3 3 4 3 22 167 4 4 4 44 56 1 21,433 5.18
Oth 83 4 6 23 15 5 7. 1 2 2 26 6 12 192 3 6 5 30 44 148 20,972 7.06
KL(Q) 37. 12 5 12 2 14 8 1 2 1 1 1 10 19 4 10 149 2 1 4. 40 47 102 18,155 5.62
A&C 76 24 18 34 3 24 5 2 2 ps 2 n 20. 21 29 273 3 4 3 23 33 240 21,777 11.02
Cor 56 31 13,103 «12 34 1 4 10 dl 2 2 1 24 1 19 13 7 14 358 1 9 4 16 30 328 20,732 15.82
WI 90 16 21 36 2 20 4 12 2 3 16 14 18 22 276 4 1 10 15 261 17791 14.67
Cm 68 20 36 52 1 31 8 8 2 1 1 1 20 23 6 8 286 2 4 1 14 21 265 22,878 11.58
Tmp 31 13,20 24 ~ «16 8 2 1 2 13 6 12 148 1 2 1 12 16 132 12,812 103
Tit (S) 4 2 8 1 2 9 5 SS Nn -60 14,122 -4.57
Tit (?) 4 5 8 2 6 13 29 -24 5,910 -4.06
2H6-— 25 1 1 5 19 1 4 1 57 13. 20 4 50 87 -30 20,656 -1.45
3H6 7 3 27 1 ‘l 6 a a 47 18 13 8 47 86 -39 23,277 -1.68
£3 1 8 3 12 4° «4 1 56 75 -63 19,533 -3.23
1H6 4 4 18 1 5 32 34 «17 6 89 146 -114 20,454 -5.57
1H6 (S) 1 9 1 an 2 4 1 8 15 -4 3,846 -1.04
1H6(?) 4 3 9 1 4 21 32 «13 5 (8 131 -110 16,608 -6,62
STM 3 1 4 1 1 3 977 3-07
(continued)
Table 25.13. Continued.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
t ith’ oth’ th’ em Il rt re d/Id It/'t st/ve I’m as this’ a’/ha’ a’ o’ s(us, his) s(is) has does positive eth ion other ed negative total words ratio
MM 27 5 1 23 9 1 3 5 1 1 2 2 18 2 4 104 1 4 1 30 36 68 13,077 5.2
AWW 30 6 19 1 3 2 1 4 4 20 10 13 123 1 25 26 97. ~+11,997_ 8.09
Tim (S) 24 1 8 23 2 9 2 2 3 3 1 3 14 4 6 105 1 2 21 24 81 9,453 8.57
Tim (M) 20 2 5 9 2 2 4 3 3 1 8 13 12 84 1 2 3 6 78 4,303 18.13
Mac 40 14 13 31 5 3 1 2 1 1 5 15 16 21 178 1 3 1 17 22 156 15,344 10.17
Per(S) 17 3 10 1 9 1 3 2 1 3 1 3 2 7 63 1 24 25 38 7.674 4.95
Per(W) 11 2 13 1 2 2 1 1 1 18 5 3 60 6 6 nN 23 37 7,073 5.23
AIT(S) 36 15 20 41 18 8 7 1 1 1 1 9 8 32 13 211 10 15 25 186 16,613. 11.2
AIT(F) 11 3 4 4 39 fj 12 2 6 4 3 1 2 1 9 4 112 13 2 15 97. 6,684 14.51
AIT 47 18 24 45 57 15 19 3 6 4 3 1 2 3 9 9 41 7 323 23 8 17 48 275 22,743 12.09
TNK (8) 28 9 21 220«:15 3 . 1 5 13 15 6 140 1 7 8 132, 8355 15.8
TNK(F) 27. 10 9 14, 37-32 6 1 1 2 5 1 29 7 191 2, 4. 12 18 173, 13,707 12.62
TNK 55 19 30 36 52 35 8 2 1 2 10 24 44 13 331 2 5 19 26 305 22,062 13.82
Differences in spelling (such as o’th and a’th’, em and ‘um, and so on) and the absence of apostrophes in contracted forms are ignored. Heading 1 omits of ‘tis, ‘twas, and ‘twere. Heading 6 omits I'll. Heading 19 ignores
contractions of is after here, there, where, what, that, how, he, she, and who. These excluded contractions, common throughout Shakespeare's career, display no significant chronological bias. Heading 25 tabulates the frequency
of obsolescent pronunciations of unaccented syllables for metrical purposes, comparable to the disyllabic pronunciation of the suffix -ion (heading 24), as in trisyllabic ocean, patient, marriage, and so on.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 483
ratio
R&J MND K} MV 1H4 2H4 Ado HS JCAAYLI MWWTn T&C HamSTM OthKL (Q)Tim A&C Per Cor WT CymTmp AIT TNK
(Sh) (Sh) (Sh) (Sh) (Sh)
TGV Tit
FIG. 25.6 A visualization of the Colloquialism-in-Verse quotient from Table 25.13.
easily interpreted. From King John to Coriolanus Shakespeare's verse becomes increasingly collo-
quial, in a trend clearly related to what we think we know about the dating of individual plays and
poems. After Coriolanus we must assume a bend in the curve, like the one we have already seen in
rhyme and hendiadys, and which is also visible in Langworthy’s analysis of the relationship
between sentences and verse lines (shown in Table 25.5). Shakespeare's reversion to an antiquated
dramatic form apparently coincides with some reversion to a less colloquial poetry. The final col-
laborations with Fletcher disturb this movement, but even so Shakespeare's share of All Is True
(here defined by Hoy’s (1962) more conservative estimate of Fletcher’s share) remains less collo-
quial than Coriolanus. For the final period as a whole we see a large dip in the curve, from
Coriolanus to Shakespeare's share of Two Noble Kinsmen.
The dip in the curve at the end of the canon creates no difficulties of interpretation, because the
other external and internal evidence makes the pattern easy enough to understand. We can also
see that some bending must be assumed at the beginning of the canon: no one supposes that King
John and 1 Henry IV are earlier than all the other plays mentioned by Meres, or all the others
which precede them in the New Oxford Shakespeare (and other modern chronologies). King John
is the least colloquial single-authored play in the canon; although it abandons the high propor-
tion of rhyme characteristic of the lyrical period, it carries forward and even extends certain other
features of the consciously poetic style of those plays.
Ideally, King John should represent the low point of a tidy curve. It does not. Once again, the
earliest part of the chronology is the most problematic. But the test works better now than it did
in 1987, because we now recognize that all three Henry VI plays are collaborative and that
Shakespeare's share of 1 Henry VI postdates 1592. Likewise, genre is clearly affecting the figures in
the early plays: Merchant of Venice is the low point in the comedies, with Midsummer Night's
Dream a close second, and no one believes that these are Shakespeare's earliest comedies. The dif-
ferences between genres mean that, once again, we cannot relate the order of composition of the
early comedies to that of the early histories. However, we do get a steady progression of non-
comedies from a low point with Shakespeare’s share of Titus upward through Richard III to
Richard II (and Shakespeare’s late additions to 1 Henry VI), then downward through Romeo and
Juliet to King John. We also get a steady progression if we assume—as the graph suggests—that the
484 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
four lyrical plays were written in the order Love’ Labour's Lost, Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, and
Midsummer Night's Dream. We possess no evidence which would contradict this order.
We must not overstate the value of this test. Shakespeare's style, as measured by this evidence,
does not display the uniformity of development a mathematician would prefer. Like metrical
tests, it only measures verse; unlike some metrical tests, it does not depend upon debatable deci-
sions about scansion or versification, but it may be subject to some distortion by agents of trans-
mission. This test simply gives us a little more information about Shakespeare's style, which may
be of value when (as often) we have nothing better.
More generally, although many features of Shakespeare's style have been proven to change over
time, no single feature serves as a infallible key to the chronological relationship of each work to
every other. Nor have we yet developed a reliable method to weight the various kinds of internal
evidence for chronology or authorship. Nor do we have an equal array of internal evidence for the
chronology of Shakespeare's collaborators, which would allow us to date more precisely the inter-
section of two chronologies in a single play. Much more research is needed.
Works Included in this Edition
The last sustained synthesis and assessment of evidence for authorship and chronology through-
out the Shakespeare canon was undertaken by Gary Taylor (written in the summer of 1986 and
published late in 1987) in a Textual Companion to the Oxford Complete Works. Almost all the
external evidence, and much of the internal evidence, summarized there remains the same, and
has been only lightly modified or left unaltered here. Most of the substantial work on problems of
chronology and authorship since then has occurred in scattered notes and articles, or in editions of
individual plays. We have not attempted to provide here a complete bibliography of such studies,
but have mentioned any which seem to us significant. For each entry, our header date gives the
year (or years) to which we can most confidently assign the work, our Date Range gives the dating
limits for when the work could have been written, and our Best Guess represents the period of the
year in which we think the work was most likely written. Entries on Passionate Pilgrim, Cupid’
Cabinet Unlocked, and individual poems attributed to Shakespeare in seventeenth-century miscel-
lanies (including “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay’) were prepared by Francis X. Connor.
Chronological List of Works Included
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1588), Lucrece (1594), p. 509
Pp. 485-7 The Comedy of Errors (1594), pp. 509-10
Arden of Faversham (1588), pp. 487-90 Love’s Labour's Lost (1594), pp. 510-11
Titus Andronicus (1589; adapted 1616), Love’s Labour's Won (1595), pp. 511-12
Pp. 490-3
Richard II (1595), pp. 512-13
2 Henry VI (1590; adapted 1595), pp. pp. 493-6
3 Henry VI (1590; adapted 1595), pp. 496-9
1 Henry VI (adapted 1595), pp. 513-17
Romeo and Juliet (1595), pp. 517-18
‘The Taming of the Shrew (1591), pp. 499-503 ‘Shall I die?” (1595-6), pp. 518-19
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596),
Richard III (1592), pp. 506-8 pp. 519-21
Edward III (1592), pp. 503-6
Venus and Adonis (1593), p. 508 King John (1596), pp. 521-2
‘Shakespeare upon a pair of gloves’ (1592-4), The Merchant of Venice (1596),
pp. 508-9 p. 522
1 Henry IV (1597), pp. 522-3
2 Henry IV (1598), p. 523
Much Ado About Nothing (1598), p. 524
“To the Queen’ (1599), pp. 524-5
‘The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), pp. 525-6
Henry V (1599), pp. 526-7
Julius Caesar (1599), pp. 527-8
Additions to The Spanish Tragedy (1599),
pp. 528-31
As You Like It (1600), pp. 531-2
‘The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600),
PP. 532-4
‘Let the bird of loudest lay’ (1601), p. 534
Twelfth Night (1601), pp. 534-5
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 485
Measure for Measure (1604; adapted 1621),
PP. 554-7
All’s Well that Ends Well (1605; adapted 1622),
PP. 557-9
King Lear (1605; revised 1610), pp. 559-61
Timon of Athens (1606), pp. 561-4
Macbeth (1606; adapted 1616), pp. 564-8
Antony and Cleopatra (1607), pp. 568-9
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1608), pp. 569-71
Coriolanus (1608), pp. 571-3
Sonnets (1609), pp. 573-5
A Lover’s Complaint (1609), pp. 575-7
The Winter’s Tale (1609), pp. 577-9
Cymbeline (1610), pp. 579-81
“When God was pleased’ (1610),
pp. 581-2
The Tempest (1611), pp. 582-3
Verses on the Stanley Tomb at Tong (1602),
pp. 000-00
Troilus and Cressida (1602), pp. 536-7
‘The History of Cardenio (1612), pp. 583-5
All Is True (1613), pp. 586-8
‘Master Ben Jonson and Master William
Shakespeare’ (16022), p. 537
Hamlet (original 1589; revised 1602-03),
pp. 542-8
‘The Tragedy of Sejanus (1603), pp. 538-42
The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613), pp. 589-90
“Ten in the hundred’ (1614), pp. 590-1
‘Howeer he lived, judge not’ (1614),
Additions to Sir Thomas More (1603-04), p. 591
Pp. 548-53 ‘Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear’ (1616),
Othello (1604), pp. 553-4 pp. 591-2
The Two Gentlemen of Verona 1588
Date Range: 1586-98
Best Guess: early 1588
Text: Reference Pp. 1591-638
Mentioned by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834); published in 1623. The play is demonstrably
indebted to the idiosyncratic prose style of John Lyly, and to his early plays. One passage in par-
ticular—‘she hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults’
(3.1.330-1)—seems to be a dramatic expansion of a passage in Lyly’s bestseller Euphues (‘of more
wit than wealth, and yet of more wealth than wisdom’). Euphues was first published in 1578, so
there can be no doubt of the direction of influence. Shakespeare mocked Lyly’s style in 1 Henry IV;
it seems unlikely that Two Gentlemen’s enthusiastic imitation of Lyly could be later than 1596.
It is often claimed that the larger context for this passage, a catalogue of a woman's vices
(3.1.286-3 43), is indebted to a similar catalogue, also in a dialogue between two servants, in Lyly’s
Midas, 1.2.19-67. Such indebtedness could result from witnessing performance (around 1589-90)
or reading the first edition (1592; STC 17083; Wiggins #835). The two wider passages, Shakespeare’s
and Lyly’s, do seem to be related. “Which came first?’ Roger Warren asks, and answers, “The evi-
dence is not decisive’ (2008, 20). The catalogue, discussed by two servants, looks like a comic
486 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
theatregram, which both writers could have borrowed and improved from one of the many lost
English plays of 1576-90. The classical setting and the two pages in Midas are typical of Lyly, and
of plays by children’s companies generally; in contrast, the Italian setting and two apparently
adult servants in Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Lance in particular, are characteristic of
Shakespeare and the clowns of adult acting companies. There is considerable evidence that the
great English comic actor Richard Tarlton regularly performed with a dog, and Warren (2008,
24-5) makes a plausible case for Lance being written specifically for Tarlton. Tarlton died on 3
September 1588, so this would place original composition not later than mid-1588.
As early as Edmond Malone, some scholars have considered Two Gentlemen Shakespeare's
earliest play (1821, 4:7). For Malone, ‘earliest’ meant 1591, but Malone's influential assumption of
such a late start has been dismantled by Terri Bourus (2014, 137-44). Stanley Wells (1963) showed
that in respect of a number of features of basic dramatic technique the play is more naive than
anything else in the Shakespeare canon. Martin Wiggins notes that the play’s structure ‘might
support a very early date’ (#970). On the basis of its ‘primitive dramatic technique, its brevity, and
its small cast, Warren conjectured that it might originally have been written for amateur per-
formance in Stratford-upon-Avon as early as 1583; alternatively, or additionally, it might have
been written, or expanded, after Shakespeare (conjecturally) saw Tarlton perform in Coventry in
November 1585, or after he (conjecturally) saw him perform in Stratford in December 1587. The
idea that the Folio text might represent a revised version of the play, containing two or more
layers of composition, has received some tentative corroboration in stylometric work by Gabriel
Egan and Brett D. Hirsch (2014). It is therefore entirely possible that the extant text isa composite,
containing both early and later work; but the structure and most of the material seem to belong to
an early stage of Shakespeare's development as a playwright.
Several passages are influenced by Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet
(1562; STC 1356.7). This source pre-dates Shakespeare's birth; logically, it cannot tell us anything
about the play’s date. Nevertheless, this influence has often been taken to suggest composition at
about the same time as Romeo and Juliet, which Wiggins calls the ‘closest cousin in the Shakespeare
canon to Two Gentlemen (which he dates to 1594, but gives a date range of 1587-94; #970). Two
Gentlemen does resemble Shakespeare’s romantic later comedies, and scholars have been divided
about where to place it. But in dramatic technique the enormously successful and ever-popular
Romeo and Juliet does not seem close to Two Gentlemen. Shakespeare sometimes made use of the
same sources at widely separated periods, and appears to have been familiar with Brooke at least
as early as the composition of 3 Henry VI (26.1-31), which everyone dates earlier than the mid-
1592 closure of the theatres. Moreover, scholars who believe that the first quarto of Romeo and
Juliet is the original version of the play (rather than being a bad quarto) sometimes date its com-
position in 1591. (See entry for the play below.)
Independently of Wells, Clifford Leech persuasively argued, on the basis of the relative density
and sophistication of comparable dialogues, that Two Gentlemen is earlier than Comedy of Errors
(Leech 1969, xxxii-xxxiv). Marco Mincoff noted that ‘no writing in The Comedy of Errors is so flat
and apparently imitative as we meet with in some scenes’ of Two Gentlemen (Mincoff 1976, 74-5).
He regarded Lance as a greater comic creation than the comic servants in the other early comedies;
but he admitted that Lance is at bottom a static and undramatic figure, a stand-up comic minim-
ally integrated into the plot (Mincoff 1976, 75, 80). Leech indeed thought that Lance could easily be
a late addition to the play’s structure. Honigmann regarded the play as Shakespeare's first comedy,
preceded only by Titus Andronicus, and conjecturally dated 1587 (Honigmann 1985a, 128).
In rare vocabulary—MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Eliot Slater’s figures—Two
Gentlemen has most links with Richard III and 1 Henry VI (see Table 25.3); its colloquialism figure
(see Table 25.13) is closest to 2 Henry VI. Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith’s initial analysis
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 487
(2014), which relies upon Ants Oras’s figures for mid-line pauses, gives a date of early 1593
(1593.08), but their adjusted date (taking into account theatre closure because of plague) is mid
1594 (1594.2). Jackson’s reworking of Oras’s figures (2002b) associates it most closely with (in des-
cending order) 2 Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, Richard III, Comedy of Errors, and 3 Henry VI (see
Table 25.7); in our chronology, all of these plays were substantively written before the reopening
of the theatres in June 1594, and some many years before. In the index of stressed syllable place-
ment (drawn from Marina Tarlinskaja’s data, see Table 25.8), the play falls between the figures for
Comedy of Errors and King John; for ‘strong metrical breaks’ (see Table 25.9), it falls between
Richard II and scenes attributed to Shakespeare in Edward III. Barron Brainerd unwisely chose
Two Gentlemen as one of his ‘unambiguously dated’ test plays, assuming a date of ‘1594’; however,
of the nineteen plays in his control set, Two Gentlemen proved anomalous in both checks on the
stability of his data (Brainerd 1980, 225-6). The obvious conclusion, which Brainerd failed to
draw, is that he had misdated the play to begin with.
It is probably impossible to date Two Gentlemen exactly, but its inception and at least the bulk
of its execution seem to us earlier than Titus Andronicus or the ‘1589’ Hamlet. That puts it close
enough to Tarlton’s death to make composition with Tarleton in mind a serious possibility.
Moreover, the small cast—the smallest in the entire Shakespeare canon, requiring only eight
men, two boys, and a musician—would make sense for a text possibly designed to be used by one
of the touring branches of the Queen's Men. We know that the Queen’s Men did divide on tour as
early as 1583, and their plays Clyomon and Clamydes and Old Wives Tale had casts this small
(McMillin and MacLean 1998, 44, 192-3).
Arden of Faversham 1588
Anonymous and William Shakespeare
Date Range: 1587-92
Best Guess: late 1588
Text: Reference pp. 21-80
Arden of Faversham (Wiggins #846) was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 3 April 1592 and
published later that year. Martin Wiggins gives the date range as 1587-92, and his best guess is
1590, which is possible, but hard to prove. The play dramatizes a murder that occurred in 1551, but
it departs in significant details from the local legal records of the crime and its perpetrators, and
hence is almost certainly dependent on later historical sources that contain similar mistakes. The
most widely available text that could have served as its source is the 1577 first edition of Chronicles
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, edited by Raphael Holinshed and others (STC 13568). The ‘1587’
earliest-possible date given by Wiggins comes from M. L. Wine, who argued (1973, xl-xli) that the
play was influenced by several additions in notes in the margin of the 1587 edition of Holinshed;
that is possible, but the evidence is too shaky to inspire confidence. Moreover, in significant
respects, including the spelling of ‘Fevershame, the play is closer to an undated manuscript
account of “The history of a most horible murder comytyd at Fevershame in Kent; which has sur-
vived among the papers of the prolific London chronicler John Stow (1504/5-1605), now in the
British Library (“Harley MSS 542; folios 34a-37b).
Theoretically, the Stow manuscript might have been the basis for a printed text now lost. On
1 July 1577, Edward White entered in the Stationers’ Register his rights to a text titled ‘A Cruell
Murder Donne in Kent’ (Arber 1875-94, 2: 314, 1 July 1577); although no known edition of that
work survives, Richard Bradshaw (1996) has suggested that it might have been a pamphlet
describing Arden’s murder, and hence the real primary source of Arden. This might be true, but
488 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Joseph H. Marshburn (1949) argued that the entry refers to a more recent 1573 ‘murder donne in
Kent. But whatever the contents of the text that White intended to publish, it would still leave a
date of composition of Arden of Faversham no earlier than 1577. That hypothesis is supported by
Michael's letter (3.3-14), which is clearly a parody of the euphuistic style, created and made fash-
ionable by John Lyly’s best-selling Euphues (1578: STC 17051), and then by Lyly’s sequel and his
voguish plays of the 1580s. Two other literary echoes point to a date in the late 1580s. Franklin’s
question as he enters, “What dismall outcry cals me from my rest?’ (4.87) probably echoes two
related, and famous, lines in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy: “What out cries pluck me from
my naked bed’ (2.5.1) and ‘I heare| His dismall out-cry’ (4.4.108-9). Wiggins’s best guess for the
date of Kyd’s play (#783) is 1587, but it was possibly performed as early as 1585 or as late as 1591.
Scenes 1 and 10 appear to have been influenced by the first three books of Edmund Spenser's
Faerie Queene (1590); but Spenser’s manuscript was in selective circulation as early as 1587. If we
accept these echoes as evidence, then the earliest plausible date for Arden is 1588. Wiggins also
believes that Arden echoes the anonymous Elizabethan play King Leir (#838); his best guess for
that play is 1589, but the range is 1586-94. If we accept the connection between the two plays and
also accept the direction of influence, this confirms that Arden is very unlikely to have been writ-
ten before late 1587. MacDonald P. Jackson notes an apparent allusion to John Lyly’s Endymion,
performed at court on 2 February 1588, and to a scandalous rumour about Robert Dudley, Earl of
Leicester, which is unlikely to have been permitted on stage before the Earl’s death on 4 September
1588 (Jackson 20148, 15).
This leaves a gap of three and a half years between the earliest possible date and the Stationers’
Register entry. Marina Tarlinskaja (2014), on the basis of the verse style, suggests that ‘earlier’ than
1590 would be more convincing. Terri Bourus (2016b) plausibly proposes that the unusually
demanding role of Alice was designed for Richard Burbage when he was still young enough to
play female roles. Burbage was born on 7 July 1568, and apparently began his acting career in early
1584, at the age of fifteen (Edmond 2004); some ‘boys played female roles until they were twenty-two,
but twenty or twenty-one was a more usual terminus (Kathman 2005). This would make 1590 barely
possible, but 1588 or 1589 more likely: no acting company would want to make the success of a play
entirely dependent on the exceptional memory of a boy actor who already was nearly too old for
female roles. Since Tarlinskaja and Bourus, using very different kinds of evidence, both recommend
a date earlier than 1590, we here suggest the last quarter of 1588, when Burbage would have just
turned twenty, and might be expected to continue playing females for another 12-18 months.
The early editions of the play do not name an author. W. W. Greg demonstrated that, in a cata-
logue appended to The Old Law (1656), bookseller Edward Archer almost certainly intended to
attribute Arden to ‘Will. Shakespeare; but that some accidental misalignment, such as disrupted
other entries, frustrated his intentions (Greg 1945). However, although Archer showed ‘occa-
sional signs of rather unexpected knowledge; his frequent blunders make him a highly unreliable
source of new ascriptions. It was more than a century later that the Faversham antiquary Edward
Jacob, ignorant of Archer’s list, proposed anew that Shakespeare was the author of Arden, offering
in support ofhis belief only a few insignificant verbal parallels between the play and Shakespearean
works (Jacob 1770).
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several scholars and critics, most notably
the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1880), concluded that Shakespeare was wholly respon-
sible for the domestic tragedy, while others thought that he contributed a few scenes, passages, or
lines. The chief alternative candidates who emerged were Thomas Kyd and, later, Christopher
Marlowe, with E. H. C. Oliphant (1926a) arguing that the play was the product of collaboration
between those two dramatists, who are known to have shared lodgings in 1591. A useful survey of
the early authorship debates is given by Anne Lancashire and Jill L. Levenson (1973). But it is only
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 489
quite recently that adequate techniques of authorship attribution have been applied to the prob-
lem. These have established solid ground for concluding that Shakespeare cannot have written
scene 1 or scene 14 (Hope 1994), and that he was the sole or main writer of scenes 4-8 or 4-9 (Act 3
in old editions). Jackson (20144) outlined the essential evidence within a single volume.
Jackson’s own research concentrated on scene 8, in which Alice and Mosby quarrel, and on
Arden’s narrative of his dream in 6.6-31. He searched Literature Online (LION) drama of
1590-1600 for phrases and collocations that these Arden passages shared with no more than five
plays. Links to Shakespeare plays overwhelmingly dominated the results and those to his early
collaborations were concentrated, to a statistically significant degree, within his shares, as these
had been determined by other scholars. For example, 22 out of 28 links to 3 Henry VI congregated
within the approximately three-fifths of the play assigned to Shakespeare by Craig and Burrows
(2012). Only one whole non-Shakespearean play (Yarrington’s Two Lamentable Tragedies)
afforded as many as nine links. A control test, using the same methods, rightly showed Marlowe
to be the probable author of two famous passages in Doctor Faustus. Peter Kirwan (2015b, 149-52)
accepts Shakespeare’s authorship of scene 8, and so do Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, who
include an edited text of the scene in the online supplement to their Royal Shakespeare Company
edition of the Complete Works (2007).
Jackson also outlined and endorsed the findings of computational stylistics reported by Arthur
E Kinney (2009a). The attribution tests—which had correctly classified, with 98 per cent accuracy,
1,287 blocks of 2,000 words as by Shakespeare or by other dramatists—led Kinney to conclude
that ‘Shakespeare was one of the authors’ of Arden and that his portion ‘lies within’ scenes 4-9. He
relied on (a) lexical words and (b) function words that appear at higher or lower rates in
Shakespeare texts than non-Shakespeare texts. It must be stressed that his initial lexical testing
of Arden’s individual scenes—of wildly differing lengths—was purely exploratory, to discover
whether further research was warranted. Since scenes 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and the extremely short (21 lines)
scene 16 came out as potentially Shakespearean, he amalgamated scenes into large segments,
more suitable for testing: scenes 1-3, 4-7, 8-9, 10-end. The 4-7 segment was classified as
Shakespearean on both the lexical and function-word tests, 8-9 as Shakespearean on the
function-word test: on the lexical test it fell on the non-Shakespearean side of a divider line but
close to it and within an area into which some known Shakespeare blocks also strayed.
Marina Tarlinskaja’s (2014) exhaustive prosodic analyses of a wide range of early modern
English dramatic verse led her tentatively to assign Arden, scenes 4-8, to Shakespeare. Jackson's
statistical analysis of her data confirms that, in terms of her counts of diverse metrical features,
scenes 4-8 are almost invariably closer to Shakespeare than to non-Shakespeare scenes of his
early collaborations, whereas the rest of Arden is not; moreover, scenes 4-8 are nearly always
closer than the rest of Arden to Shakespeare’s share of the collaborative plays (Jackson 2016).
Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza, with their Claremont Shakespeare Clinic, have also
addressed the question of Arden’s authorship. Their approach is to find features that occur within
a certain range of incidence in most blocks of known Shakespeare text and outside that range of
incidence in many blocks of known non-Shakespeare text. These ‘exclusionary’ methods left
them supposing that Arden 4-7 ‘could be’ by Shakespeare. Scene 8 failed two of the thirteen of
their tests that were considered suitable for texts of that size. According to their rules, this is too
many but it is the same number as failed by Edward III, scene 12 (4.4), which has been widely
judged Shakespearean.
All the above investigations thus agree in finding Shakespeare's writing within scenes 4-7;
most also agree that scene 8 is his. Scene 9, taken alone, is rejected by Tarlinskaja and by Elliott
and Valenza, but appeared marginally Shakespearean on the exploratory Kinney lexical test and,
combined with scene 8, proved unequivocally Shakespearean on Kinney’s function-word test. So
490 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
a reasonable interpretation of these various results is that most of 4-8 and perhaps at least some
of scene 9 are by Shakespeare.
Two chapters in the present volume further strengthen the case for Shakespeare's hand in the
play, though the investigation by Jack Elliott and Brett Greatley-Hirsch (Chapter 9) complicates
matters by giving him the bulk of it. Testing Arden against a database of 34 well-attributed solo-
authored plays first performed within the period 1580-94, they performed several sophisticated
analyses, applying the Delta, Zeta, Nearest Shrunken Centroid, and Random Forests techniques,
which they describe in detail. ‘Collaboration with an author or authors who are absent or under-
represented in our authors-corpus’ may, they suggest, have affected their results, which they
nevertheless judge to be ‘impossible to reconcile... with a belief that Shakespeare had no hand in
Arden of Faversham’ Jackson’s supplementary lexical test (Chapter 10 in this volume), though
simpler, counts the incidence in all LION plays of 1580-1600 of those words for which
Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean rates of usage are most sharply differentiated. The out-
come supports the verdict of Kinney.
In addition to supporting the case for Shakespeare’s authorship of the middle of Arden, the
aforementioned studies by Kinney, Elliott and Greatley-Hirsch, Jackson, and Tarlinskaja all dem-
onstrate that Kyd could not have written any significant part of the play. The case for Kyd as sole
author was revived by Brian Vickers as part of his proposed expansion of the Kyd canon (2008).
His methods in the Kyd attributions generally have been shown to be unreliable by Jackson (2008)
David Hoover (2012), and Gary Taylor, John V. Nance, and Keegan Cooper (2017), and by three
essays in this Authorship Companion (Gabriel Egan in Chapter 4, Jackson in Chapters 3 and 8), and
we do not repeat here the arguments advanced in those essays and chapters.
A second alternative to the proposal that Arden is a collaborative work, by Shakespeare and an
anonymous playwright, has been offered by Wiggins (2008, 285-7), who argued that the play
was written by a single ‘enthusiastic amateur’ This claim has been contested by Jackson (20144,
104-11), Kirwan (2015b, 148), and Bourus (2016b).
The hypothesis of collaborative professional authorship, and the identification of Shakespeare
as the junior collaborator, are now supported by extensive, independent, interlocking evidence.
Like Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (2013), we are convinced that Arden of Faversham is one
of Shakespeare's collaborative plays, belonging to the pattern of early apprenticeship also evident
in the three Henry VI plays, Titus Andronicus, and Edward III. But Shakespeare's senior collabor-
ator has not been identified with the same confidence as Thomas Nashe, George Peele, or Marlowe
in those early collaborations. Indeed, the existing scholarship has effectively ruled out all play-
wrights with even a single extant early play of uncontested single authorship. Jackson (20144,
118-20) identifies four authors who might be plausible candidates: two older playwrights (Thomas
Achelley and Thomas Watson) and two men not confidently associated with the commercial
playhouses until the late 1590s (Michael Drayton and Richard Hathway). Taylor (2016b) demon-
strates that Achelley, Drayton, and Hathway are extremely unlikely, and that Watson is a plausible
candidate, on circumstantial grounds. Because Watson has not previously been considered as a
candidate, and because Taylor’s identification has not been published or subjected to collective
scholarly critique, we identify the chief author simply as Anonymous. More research is needed,
and that research will have to find new techniques for identifying the dramatic work of a play-
wright whose only surviving undisputed early works are non-dramatic.
Titus Andronicus 1589
William Shakespeare and George Peele, with an added scene (by Thomas Middleton?)
Original Date Range: 1584-94
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 491
Original Best Guess: late 1589
Addition Date Range: 1608-23
Addition Best Guess: 1616
Text: Reference pp. 145-213
Gary Taylor (1987c) supported the attribution of at least the long opening scene to George Peele or
an imitator of Peele, noting that it is otherwise difficult to explain the fact that Peelean parallels
cluster at the play’s beginning. Alan Hughes (1994, 11), citing a single ‘recent’ article by G. Harold
Metz (1979), rejected the idea of Peele as co-author. Jonathan Bate claimed that the probability of
Peele’s involvement was ‘less than one in ten thousand milliom (1995, 83). Bate has more recently
accepted Peele as co-author and so did the revised 2005 Oxford Shakespeare (Bate and
Rasmussen 2007; Wells et al. 2005). Brian Vickers’s comprehensive survey of previous scholarship
demonstrated that over 80 years, twenty-one separate tests had identified Peele’s hand in the play
(2002b, 148-243). Vickers followed some other scholars in ascribing 4.1 (scene 6) to Peele, but
William W. Weber (2014) and Anna Pruitt (in chapter 6 of the present volume) convincingly iden-
tify Shakespeare as the author of that scene. Peele’s presence is now confined to scene 1 (in other
editions, 1.1, 2.1) and possibly scene 2 (2.2). Taylor and John V. Nance (2015) demonstrate that imita-
tion cannot explain the stylistic variation in the play (or in 1 Henry VI). Rory Loughnane (2016)
argues that Shakespeare took over and lightly edited Peele’s work in the opening scene.
The Folio text of Titus Andronicus includes an additional so-called ‘Fly Scene (3.2) not present
in any of the three early quartos. Taylor (1983a) argued that the scene was written later than the
rest of the play; Taylor (without access to databases) thought it impossible to identify the scene’s
author, concluding that it was ‘safest’ to assume that Shakespeare wrote it (1987c). However,
Taylor and Duhaime (Chapter 5 in the present volume) demonstrate that the scene must have
been written in 1608 or later, and that Shakespeare cannot have written it; comprehensive lexical
tests identify Thomas Middleton as the most likely candidate. It may allude to the self-starvation
and madness of Lady Arbella Stuart between summer 1613 and her death in September 1615
(although the lexical tests make no such assumption); this would support composition soon after
Shakespeare's death in April 1616.
Peele died in late 1596 following an extended period of illness, but his known plays for the pro-
fessional theatre were written in 1588-92. Peele may have begun the play and cast it aside, or this
break could simply represent the division of authorship. All of the major characters are intro-
duced in the opening scene, and Taylor (2014c) notes that Titus Andronicus fits a larger pattern:
Shakespeare did not write the opening scenes of any of his Elizabethan collaborations.
Although the attribution issues surrounding the original text now seem to be resolved, evi-
dence for the dating of the original play is more complicated. A play which Philip Henslowe in his
Diary identified as ‘titus & ondronicus’ (and marked ‘ne’) was performed by the Earl of Sussex’s
Men on 24 January 1594 (Foakes 2002). John Danter entered in the Stationers’ Register two weeks
later, on 6 February, ‘a booke intituled a Noble Roman Historye of Tytus Andronicus’ and also
‘the ballad thereof’; Danter published an edition of the play dated 1594. Bate (1995) takes the ‘ne’
description literally to mean that Titus Andronicus was new in January 1594, though at the same
time he admits the possibility that it was a newly revised version of an early play by Shakespeare
and another. We find it implausible that the 1594 performances were the first, because the 1594
title page indicates that the play had belonged to three different companies: ‘As it was Plaide
by the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex their Seruants’? (Derby’s Men
were also known as Strange’, and are so identified, for clarity, throughout this discussion of
chronology.) We also find implausible Bate’s suggestion that the title page reference to the three
492 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
separate companies, each associated with noblemen, is in part a marketing ploy, meaning that the
new company performing this new play is made up of servants from each of these three compan-
ies, especially since the January performance entry records the Sussex’s Men alone. Martin
Wiggins (#928) also rejects the Bate hypothesis, as do Lawrence Manley and Sally-Beth MacLean
(2014). (Wiggins’s best guess for the play is 1592, but he gives a date range of 1584-94.) Like most
scholars, we interpret the 1594 title page to mean that the play had passed through the hands of
three different companies. This process of transfer must have taken some time. Pembroke’s Men
broke up in August 1593, and the last known appearance of Strange’s/Derby’s Men was in early
December 1593. Sussex’s Men thus could be the last of the three companies to acquire it, and the
play can have been first performed no later than August 1593; and that date presumes that it pre-
miered in the provinces. The earliest possible London date would then be pushed back to the brief
spurt of performances in January 1593 (by some company other than Strange’s Men).
An apparent allusion to Titus Andronicus occurs in A Knack to Know a Knave (Wiggins #930),
first performed by Strange’s Men on 10 June 1592 according to Henslowe's Diary:
as welcome shall you be...
As Titus was unto the Roman senators,
When he had made a conquest on the Goths,
That in requital of his service done,
Did offer him the imperial diadem.
Unfortunately, our earliest text of Knack (Stationers’ Register 7 January 1594; STC 15027) is pos-
sibly a memorial reconstruction, and hence this allusion (sig. F2v) might theoretically result from
a 1594 memory rather than a 1592 one (Bennett 1955a; 1955b; Proudfoot 1963). Laurie Maguire
(1996), who admits that memorial reconstruction is a possibility, suggests that the explanatory
note of ‘near London in reference to ‘Finsbury Field’ indicates that the printed playtext could be
associated with provincial performance. (London audiences no more needed to be told where
Finsbury Fields is than today’s Broadway audiences need to be told where Brooklyn is.) If that is
the case, then the allusion to Titus Andronicus most likely recollects a performance of 1592 or
before. Moreover, Wiggins (#928) notes that Knack was entered in the Stationers’ Register ‘more
than two weeks before the first Sussex’s Men performance of Titus Andronicus at the Rose; so the
play cannot have been as “new” as Henslowe said it was. It may have been new to the acting
company, or new to the venue.
The play is not recorded in the 129 performances of Strange’s Men at the Rose in 1592-3. The
Knack allusion must therefore originate from memorial confusion in the 1594 text, or indicate
that the story of Titus Andronicus was well known to London audiences by mid-1592. The latter
seems to us the more plausible scenario. It is hard to explain why Strange’s Men did not perform
the play in 1592-3, unless it had at that time already passed to another company. Pembroke’s Men
performed at court on 26 December 1592 and 6 January 1593, and are otherwise traceable only in
the provinces. However, they can hardly have sprung from oblivion into the accolade of two court
appearances, and since the London theatres were closed that summer and autumn we can prob-
ably assume that they had a London base in the first half of 1592, and again for the month of play-
ing in January 1593. So there is no difficulty explaining how and when Pembroke’s Men might
have performed Titus Andronicus. But when did Strange’s Men perform it? Any explanation must
be speculative, but we are persuaded by Manley and MacLean’s argument that ‘the several
Shakespearean plays with attribution to Pembroke’s Men [including Titus Andronicus] were
originally written for and played by Lord Strange’s Men, possibly in Shoreditch in 1590’ (Manley
and MacLean 2014, 58).
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 493
This early date is supported by Ben Jonson’s Induction to Bartholomew Fair (1614; Wiggins
#1757): Hee that will sweare, Ieronimo, or Andronicus are the best playes, yet, shall passe
vnexcepted at, heere, as a man whose Judgement shewes it is constant, and bath stood still,
these fiue and twentie, or thirtie yeeres’ (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 4: 280,
Induction Il. 79-81). Scholars dispute the degree of precision which should be accorded
Jonson's statement, especially given his motives, in this context, for exaggerating the age of
The Spanish Tragedy and Titus Andronicus. If taken literally, Jonson would date Titus
Andronicus between 1584 and 1589; E. A. J. Honigmann placed it in 1586, as Shakespeare's first
play (1985a, 128). Even if we do not credit Jonson with pedantic precision here, his numbers
associate both plays with the 1580s.
Stanley Wells (1997b) observed that violence is less well integrated into Titus Andronicus than
in the three parts of Henry VI, and placed Titus Andronicus just after Two Gentlemen as
Shakespeare's earliest works. Wells did not consider co-authorship as an explanation of this pat-
tern, but he cites from scenes universally attributed to Shakespeare in all four plays. Moreover, his
evidence—of the way that dialogue does not anticipate and reflect upon episodes of physical vio-
lence—is unaffected by the scenario of a co-authored play. We therefore regard this as good
dramaturgical evidence that Titus Andronicus was written before 2 Henry VI.
Other internal evidence persuades us the play belongs to the earlier period. The large size of its
cast associates it with the pre-plague plays (Henry VI and Taming of the Shrew). Stylistic evidence
supports this, though we add the caveat that the co-authorship of Titus Andronicus and some of
the early plays may skew their overall value. Jackson's revision (2015b) of Slater’s vocabulary test
links the whole of Titus most strongly with (in order) 3 Henry VI and 2 Henry VI (see Table 25.3);
Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s figures puts the whole play closest to (in order) Taming of the
Shrew, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, Richard III, and Two Gentlemen (see Table 25.7). Though Peele’s
quarter of the play may be skewing these results, both tests strongly connect Titus Andronicus to
the pre-plague period of Shakespeare's career, and both link it more closely to 2 Henry VI than to
Richard III. Marina Tarlinskaja’s strong metrical breaks place the Shakespearean scenes before
2 Henry VI, and after only one play, Shakespeare’s portion of Arden of Faversham (see Table 25.9).
Henry VI, part two 1590
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and another (?); revised by Shakespeare
Original Date Range: 1587-91
Original Best Guess: 1590
Revision Date Range: 1594-97
Revision Best Guess: 1595
Text: Reference Pp. 2483-558
The play exists in two substantive alternative versions. The first was entered in the Stationers’
Register on 12 March 1594 and published in an edition dated 1594 (STC 26099). The title page
reads: “The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster...’
(hereafter, Contention). Another text, about one-third greater in length, was first printed in the
Shakespeare Folio of 1623, and that longer version has been the foundation of all subsequent col-
lections of Shakespeare's complete plays or complete works, including our own Reference and
Modern editions. Whether the quarto represents that original version accurately, or is a highly
corrupt memorial reconstruction, remains a matter of dispute. From Peter Alexander (1929) to
the 1987 Textual Companion, there was almost unanimous agreement among editors on the
494 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
theory of memorial reconstruction, but there is no longer such consensus. Steven Urkowitz rejected
Alexander's hypothesis on critical grounds (1988; 2001) and Laurie E. Maguire concluded that it was
‘not’ a memorial reconstruction (1996, 237-38). Richard Dutton (2016, 200-10) also argues that the
quarto represents a legitimate early version later expanded by Shakespeare for court performance.
The relationship between Contention and the Folio text is discussed at length in the Textual
Introduction to Contention in Alternative Versions. But whatever the status of the quarto, for the
purposes of this discussion we accept that the play was revised after the formation of the Chamber-
lain’s Men, and that the new version is represented by the Folio text. Our dating of the play here, as
with all plays, relates to when Shakespeare contributed most substantively to the text, and in this case
the bulk of Shakespeare's writing seems to have been completed before the March 1594 Stationers’
Register entrance. Christopher Marlowe's part authorship of the play—discussed below—pushes
back the terminus ad quem another ten months, as he died on 30 May 1593.
Plague closed the London theatres for all but a month from 23 June 1592 to January 1594.
Therefore the play presumably dates from 1592 or earlier. All scholars agree that its composition
preceded that of 3 Henry VI (see below), and many believe that both plays preceded composition
of 1 Henry VI (see below). Our chronology presumes that 2 Henry VI was the first written of the
three plays. E. A. J. Honigmann (1985a, 128), who has Shakespeare writing plays from 1586, dated
this play in 1589. Most critics would accept that it post-dates Marlowe's Tamburlaine (Wiggins
#784; composed 1586-72), which by its great success seems fortuitously to have initiated a fashion
for two-part plays on historical themes. It also seems indebted to Edmund Spenser’s Faerie
Queene, Books 1-3 (STC 23080; Stationers’ Register, December 1589, in print by January 1590);
Patrick Cheney (2008, 155) discusses Shakespeare's ‘acute engagement’ with Spenser in 2 Henry
VI, but those parallels he identifies are all drawn from the Folio text. (Cheney attempts to focus
on parts of the play where he believes Shakespeare’s authorship is not in doubt; oddly, he seems to
think all of the Cade scenes are ‘not in dispute’ (2008, 152)). Thus the Spenserian parallels are
ambiguous in relation to dating the play; this material could date from an early or later genesis
of the text. Although some parts of Spenser’s poem were circulating in manuscript as early as
1587-8, we think it unlikely that Shakespeare, a relatively unimportant actor and at best a fledg-
ling playwright, with no known personal connection to Spenser or his circle, would have seen the
poem in manuscript. However, that possibility cannot be conclusively ruled out.
Philip Henslowe’s Diary records a performance of ‘Harey the vj at the Rose Theatre on 3 March
1592, marked as ‘ne’ (Foakes 2002). Henslowe’s regular practice was to identify the later part but
not the first part for multi-part plays (Knutson 1983). Henslowe’s practice may rule out either 2 or
3 Henry VI for this recorded performance. 1 Henry VI is now generally regarded as a prequel writ-
ten after parts 2 and 3. And, as argued below, Shakespeare’s contribution to 1 Henry VI was prob-
ably added at a later date, after the formation of the Chamberlain’s Men. Thus substantive versions
of 2 and 3 Henry VI were most likely written before 3 March 1592. Our best guess assumes that
these plays were written consecutively rather than concurrently, that market demand for a second
play about the beleaguered king followed performances of 2 Henry VI, and that market demand
for both of these plays encouraged the authorship of a prequel. That assumption would push
completion and first performance of 3 Henry VI back to late 1591, at the latest. However, we do not
have to assume that the latest possible date is also the correct or necessary one. If Titus Andronicus
belongs to 1589, then 2 Henry VI might belong to 1590. Given Marlowe's contribution, this date
also accords neatly with what we know of that dramatist’s canon and chronology: in Martin
Wiggins'’s Catalogue no play is assigned to Marlowe in 1590. Wiggins’s best guess for 2 Henry VI
(#888) is 1591, but he gives a date range of 1587-92; he attributes the play to Shakespeare alone.
The play is first attributed to Shakespeare in the unauthorized 1619 Thomas Pavier reprint of the 1594
version, and then (with more authority) in the 1623 Folio. Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834) does not
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 495
include any of the three Henry VI plays among Shakespeare’s works. The omission may be fortuit-
ous, but many scholars have doubted Shakespeare's authorship of the whole play. H. C. Hart
(1909a), largely on the basis of verbal parallels, believed that the play was a collaboration by
Shakespeare, Marlowe, George Peele, Robert Greene, and possibly Thomas Nashe or Thomas
Lodge, and that it was later thoroughly revised by Shakespeare, in whole or part. John Dover
Wilson (1952b) argued that Shakespeare revised a text by Greene, Nashe, and perhaps Peele.
Wilson saw little evidence of Shakespeare's hand in scene 2, scene 4.24—end of scene, scene 6.1-53,
scene 7, or scene 8. He found scenes 9-12 (identified in most modern editions as Act 3) the most
clearly Shakespearean. Marco Mincoff, beginning with a presumption of Shakespeare's author-
ship of the entire play, was nevertheless forced to recognize scenes 9-12 as ‘a remarkable achieve-
ment in dramatic verse; quite unlike most of the rest of the play; along with Young Clifford's
speech at scene 24.31-65, it seemed to him explicable only if it belonged to an entirely different
period of Shakespeare's writing (Mincoff 1976, 88). Barron Brainerd (1980) found 2 Henry VI stat-
istically deviate relative to his ten tested variates, which strongly suggests that it was not written
by Shakespeare alone (Brainerd 1980, 227). Frederick O. Waller (1966) noted the anomalously
high frequency of ye: 20 occurrences, but only one in scenes 9-12/Act 3.
The Chamberlain’s Men most likely revised the play after their formation in 1594, as discussed
at length in the introduction to the play in Reference and by Lawrence Manley (2008) and Richard
Dutton (2016, 200-10). The names “Beuis’ and ‘Iohn Holland’ in the Folio text appear to refer to
actors. Holland’s name occurs in the plot to Part 2 of Seven Deadly Sins; Wiggins (#1065) gives a
range of dates of 1590-7 for that play, but his best guess is 1597. The Folio text also includes a num-
ber of stage directions which suggest that the play has been annotated for later performance.
Finally, a reference to ‘wild Onele} present in Contention but absent in the Folio text, might have
been removed for a revival in the mid-1590s, especially from mid-1595 onwards when Hugh
O’Neill’s rebellion in Ireland expanded.
In recent years, the hypothesis for the play’s co-authorship has gained greater support and is
approaching acceptance. Paul Vincent (2001) notes a significant discrepancy in the distribution
of the forms O and Oh in parts of the play. Taylor and Jowett (1993) established that uses of O and
Oh could help distinguish between dramatists. Vincent (2001) notes that uses of O or Oh in
2 Henry VI cross compositorial shifts (the play’s setting was divided between Compositors A and
B, according to twentieth-century scholarship), with the greatest number of Ohs clustering in
scenes 9-12 (Act 3). In total O and Oh are used 44 times. Of the 18 times Oh is used in the play,
12 occur in scenes 9-12 (all occurring in scenes 10-11); of the 26 times O is used it occurs only once
in scenes 9-12. The absence of any uses of O or Oh in scene 9 (the second longest in the play) may
be explained by the sudden outcropping of the interjection Ah, which occurs seven times in this
scene. But, overall, the co-occurrence of Oh (in 10-1 especially) and the almost complete absence
of O cannot be explained as compositorial preferences. For the same set of scenes, 9-12, Vincent
notes a similar discrepancy in the distribution of compound adjectives. (Vincent restricts
his count to compounds formed by the conjunction of a noun, adjective, or preposition with a
present or past participle.) He records 23 instances of compound adjectives of this type in scenes
9-12 (all occurring in scenes 9-11). The other 23 scenes in the play include only 25 compound
adjectives. Perhaps more tellingly, these forms occur only 11 times in scenes 1-8, at a rate of one
every 104 lines; there are eight of these forms in scene 9, with six occurring within 74 lines. Finally,
discussing classical allusions in the play, Vincent observes two errors made in the same speech in
scene 11 (11.88-92 and 11.116-18). The only other error in classical learning occurs at 13.137-40;
the play’s twelve other classical allusions are all correct. As Vincent notes, the other dramatists
proposed as co-authors of the play, Greene, Nashe, Peele, and Marlowe, all educated at Oxford or
Cambridge, are much less likely than Shakespeare to have made such errors.
496 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Thus, linguistic, poetic, and biographical evidence all point towards Shakespeare as author of
some or all of the scenes in the middle of the play. Hugh Craig’s (2009c) statistical analysis of the
distribution of function words and lexical words in the play also helps to confirm the pattern set
out by such evidence. In his study, which compares 2,000-word segments of text within the play
with equivalently sized segments from plays of undoubted solo authorship, he found scenes 3-7,
9-13, and to a lesser extent, scenes 23-7 to be ‘closest’ (in ‘distance’ of segments) to Shakespeare's
unaided work. Scenes 1-2 and 14.160-end of scene 22 were most distant from Shakespeare's
solo writing. Craig identifies Marlowe as the most likely author of a significant portion of the
Cade rebellion scenes (scenes 14-22). His statistical study shows that 14.160-89 is the ‘least
Shakespearian’ and most Marlovian portion of that scene. Craig noted, however, that the earlier
part of the scene did not indicate Marlowe's authorship. Developing upon Craig’s work, Marina
Tarlinskaja (2014) demonstrates that the versification features (stressed syllable placement, place-
ment of strong syntactic breaks) are significantly different in passages identified by Craig as either
most Shakespearean or most Marlovian. Though agreeing that the play is co-authored, she rejects
the identification of Marlowe as co-author of the portion assigned by Craig. More recently, how-
ever, and confirming and expanding upon Craig's identification of Marlowe as co-author, John V.
Nance (2016b) demonstrates that the prose in 14.121-89 lexically and dramaturgically indicates
Marlowe's authorship. Most recently, working act-wise, an entirely new and independent attribu-
tion method based on function-word adjacency gives the first act to Marlowe and the rest to
Shakespeare, although Act 4 is almost as Marlovian as it is Shakespearean (Segarra et al. 2016).
The same method can be recalibrated to give scene-wise verdicts, using fewer data in each case, so
benefiting less from the law of large numbers but avoiding the unfortunate cancelling out
that occurs when an act contains scenes by different writers. Scene-wise, this method gives
Shakespeare scenes 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 (= 1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 3.25 3.3, 3-4
4.2, 4.4, 4.6, 4.8, 4.9, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5) and Marlowe scenes 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 17, 19 (=1.1, 1.3,
1.4, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 4.1, 4.3, 4.5, and 4.7).
More research is required to determine the identity of Shakespeare's co-authors in 2 Henry VI,
and the extent of their respective shares. But for now we feel confident in attributing most, if not
all, of scenes 9-12 and Young Clifford’s speech at scene 24.31-65 to Shakespeare (who also prob-
ably wrote scene 13 and the beginning of 14); in the remainder of the play, Marlowe is most clearly
present at the beginning of the play and in the scenes of Cade’s rebellion, beginning with the
entrance of the Staffords at 14.121.
Henry VI, part three 1590
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and another (?); revised by Shakespeare
Original Date Range: 1588-91
Original Best Guess: late 1590
Revision Date Range: 1594-97
Revision Best Guess: 1595
Text: Reference pp. 2573-642
This play on the end of the reign of Henry VI is extant in two substantive alternative versions
(Wiggins #902). The first, considerably shorter, was printed in octavo in 1595 and bears the title
‘The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (hereafter Richard, Duke of York); the second, The third
Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Duke of Yorke, was printed in the 1623 Folio, placed
third in the sequence of plays about the life of Henry VI. Our dating of the play builds on recent
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 497
work in this volume and elsewhere that proposes that Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe
were co-authors of the original play (Craig and Burrows 2012). Whether the octavo represents
that original version accurately, or is a highly corrupt memorial reconstruction, remains a matter
of dispute. From Peter Alexander (1929) to the 1987 Textual Companion, there was almost unani-
mous agreement among editors on the theory of memorial reconstruction, but there is no longer
such consensus. Steven Urkowitz rejected Alexander’s hypothesis on critical grounds (1988; 2001)
and Laurie E. Maguire concluded that it was definitely not a memorial reconstruction (1996,
319-20). Richard Dutton (2016, 200-10) also argues that the octavo represents a legitimate early
version later expanded by Shakespeare for court performance. The relationship between the two
texts is discussed at length in Alternative Versions. But whatever the status of the Richard, Duke of
York, for the purposes of this discussion we accept that the play was revised after the formation
of the Chamberlain's Men, and that the new version is represented by the Folio text
(Martin 2001; 2002). We position the play in late 1590 (representing the bulk of Shakespeare's
work on the play) rather than 1594-5 (the revision or adaptation, containing a smaller amount of
new Shakespearean writing).
The play is first attributed to Shakespeare in Thomas Pavier’s unauthorized 1619 reprint of the
1595 octavo, and then (more reliably) in the 1623 Folio. Its presence in the Folio establishes that
Shakespeare was, at the very least, part-author. By contrast, Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834) does
not name any of the three Henry VI plays as Shakespeare's . This omission may be fortuitous, but
since the eighteenth century many scholars and critics have doubted that Shakespeare wrote all of
3 Henry VI. H. C. Hart (1909b), largely on the basis of verbal parallels, believed that the play was
originally a collaboration of Christopher Marlowe with Shakespeare, subsequently revised by
Shakespeare. John Dover Wilson (1952c) argued that Shakespeare revised a text by Robert Greene
and possibly George Peele; an attribution of non-Shakespearean scenes to either Greene or Peele is
rejected by Hugh Craig and John Burrows in the present volume (Chapter 11). Wilson saw little or
no evidence of Shakespeare’s hand in scenes 10.41-109, 13, Or 14-21 (= 2.6.41-109, 3.3, or Act 4). The
speech directions in scene 13 (for example, ‘Speaking to Bona’, 13.59) are certainly uncharacteristic
of Shakespeare. Barron Brainerd (1980, 227) found 3 Henry VI statistically deviant regarding his
ten tested variates, strongly suggesting that it is not entirely by Shakespeare.
Recent work by Craig and Burrows identifies Marlowe as co-author of the original play, which
attribution we accept in the New Oxford Shakespeare. Craig and Burrows (2012) tested five candi-
date authors (Shakespeare, Greene, Marlowe, Peele, and Thomas Kyd) and 54 play texts of undis-
puted solo authorship (including 31 by the 5 candidate authors, and 16 by Shakespeare). Via the
Delta method (see Chapter 9), they were able to identify sixteen scenes that could be assigned to
Shakespeare; they classified as non-Shakespearean twelve scenes (equal to thirteen as divided in
this edition). In the scenes not assigned to Shakespeare, Marlowe had less mixed results than the
other candidate authors. In the present volume Craig and Burrows build significantly upon these
findings. They rule out Peele and Greene as candidates, and, despite the difficulty in confirming
or rejecting Kyd’s authorship (given his small surviving canon), also determine that he can most
likely be excluded from consideration. They conclude that Marlowe is the best of the contenders
for the non-Shakespearean scenes.
Craig and Burrows attribute most confidently to Shakespeare sixteen scenes: scenes 3, 4, 5, 6, 8,
9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29 (= 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 3.1, 3.2) 4.1, 5-1, 5-3) 5-45 5-5» 5-05
and 5.7). Marlowe is most likely the primary author of the remaining thirteen scenes: scenes 1, 2,
7, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 24 (= 1.1, 1.2, 2.3, 3.3, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, and 5.2).
Craig and Burrows’ study was primarily based on the 1623 Folio text. But they found that, if they
divided the material in the same way in the 1595 octavo text, Marlowe was again the most likely
author of the non-Shakespearean portion.
498 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Testing act-length chunks of text, an entirely new and independent attribution method based
on function-word adjacency, gives the first act of the Folio version (scenes 1-4) to Marlowe and
the rest to Shakespeare (Segarra et al. 2016). However, the attribution by individual scenes shows
a different pattern: four of the eight scenes in Act 4 (4.2, 4.7, 4.8, 4.9) are identified as Marlowe's,
and 4.3 is given to Shakespeare by a wide margin, which is probably responsible for skewing the
overall figures for Act 4. Scene-wise, this method gives Shakespeare 1.2-4 (scenes 2-4); this
makes sense, because 1.4 must be by Shakespeare (because of the allusion by Greene), and the
long first scene by Marlowe could have skewed the figures for the Act as a whole. The method
also gives Shakespeare 2.1, 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 4.3) 4.4, 4.6, 5.1, and 5.3-6. Scene 14 (4.1) is a close
tie between the two authors; this might be because it is actually by a third author, or contains
mixed writing.
These two independent statistical methods agree in giving Shakespeare the Folio text of thir-
teen scenes: 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 23, 25, 26, 27, and 28 (= 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, 3.1, 3.2, 5-1, 5.3) 5-45
5.5, and 5.6). They also agree in giving Marlowe three scenes: the long first scene, and the shorter
scenes 7 and 24 (= 1.1, 2.3, and 5.2). But the methods do not agree on 14 scenes: 2, 3, 8, 13-22, 29
(= 1.2, 1.3, 2.4, 3.3-4.9, and 5.7). This includes a long stretch of 790 lines (scenes 13-22), containing
all of the traditional Act 4 and the scene that precedes it. The disagreement could be explained
by mixed writing, resulting from Shakespeare's revision of a Marlovian original, or from the
presence of a third (as yet unidentified) author, or from a combination of both. Notably, Philip
W. Timberlake’s (1931) comprehensive analysis of feminine endings shows very high percentages,
uncharacteristic of Marlowe, in scenes 13-24 (3.1-5.1). This includes five long scenes (100 full
verse lines or more), which are more reliable for attribution of these features. Even more reliable
are the figures for entire acts, and in this case the high proportion is maintained for two consecu-
tive acts: 14 per cent Act 3 (11-13), 17 per cent Act 4 (14-23), and 15 per cent for the entire sequence
of 1,147 full verse lines (11-24). Timberlake establishes that the Folio use of feminine endings is
significantly higher than the percentages for True Tragedy, and he takes this as evidence that
Shakespeare (in the Folio) revised the earlier version of the play. Notably, in the three scenes
attributed to Marlowe by both statistical tests (1, 7, 24), the comparable ratio is only 6 per cent
(22 feminine endings, using Timberlake's ‘strict count, in 366 full verse lines). That lower ratio
would be perfectly compatible with Marlowe's practice elsewhere.
Clearly, more research on authorship is needed. But the presence of both Shakespeare and
Marlowe has been established by a variety of tests. Moreover, it seems clear that Shakespeare's
share in 3 Henry V1is larger than his share in 2 Henry VI.
No one doubts that the original writing and performance of the play must post-date the ori-
ginal writing and performance of 2 Henry VI (see above) and must pre-date the original writing
and performance of Richard III (see below). It seems most likely that it pre-dates the original
composition and performance of 1 Henry VI (see below). The play must be later than 1586, for it
clearly draws upon the revised version of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587). Marlowe died
on 30 May 1593, giving us a latest possible date for his active co-authorship. A performance of
the prequel, ‘Harey the vj (the early unrevised version of 1 Henry VI—see below), on 3 March
1592 helps narrow the date range further. The external and internal evidence for 2 Henry VI
suggests a date around 1590. Several verbal parallels, some occurring in both versions, suggest
an original date of composition of 3 Henry VI shortly thereafter. A line from the play (4.138),
present in both the 1595 and the 1623 texts, was parodied in Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit (STC
12245; entered in the Stationers’ Register on 20 September 1592, and allegedly written shortly
before Robert Greene’s death on 3 September 1592). As the theatres were closed between 23
June and the composition of the pamphlet, the allusion almost certainly dates performances of
3 Henry VI before June 1592.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 499
The play seems to echo Books 1-3 of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (published in January
1590): see 2 Henry VI, above. E. A. J. Honigmann (19822, 80) collected alleged echoes of 3 Henry
VI in the 1591 first edition of The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England, which he regarded
as a memorial reconstruction. Wiggins #824 gives a date range of 1587-91 for the writing and per-
formance of Troublesome Reign, and a best guess of 1589. Although we agree with Honigmann’s
dating of 3 Henry VI in 1590 (1985a, 128), it is difficult to be sure of its relationship to Troublesome
Reign, given the interlocking uncertainties about the textual origins and authorship of the various
texts of both works. In our chronology, the first version of 3 Henry VI could hardly be much later
than late 1591, but fits better in late 1590 or early 1591; Wiggins does not assign any dramatic
writing to Marlowe in 1590. Wiggins’ best guess for 3 Henry VI (#902) is 1591, but he gives a date
range of 1587-92, and he names only Shakespeare as author.
Shakespeare's revision of the text most likely occurred soon after the formation of the
Chamberlain’s Men in June 1594 (Taylor 1987d; 1995b). The names ‘Gabriel, ‘Sinklo, and
‘Humphrey’ probably refer to the actors Gabriel Spencer (killed in a duel by Ben Jonson in 1598,
and imprisoned the year before in the Isle of Dogs affair), John Sinclair or John Sinklo (named in
the plot for 2 Seven Deadly Sins, which is of disputed date and provenance, but certainly from the
1590s), and Humphrey Jeffes (named in the plot of Battle of Alcazar), who were all active in the
mid-1590s. The fact that three superfluous names fit actors of the 1590s seems unlikely to be a
coincidence, especially as one of those names is the very rare Sinklo. Spencer and Jeffes are both
associated with the Admiral’s Men by 1597, so this evidence, if accepted, suggests a date earlier
than 1597.
The Taming of the Shrew 1591
Date Range: 1582-93
Best Guess: late 1591
Text: Reference pp. 1935-92
A play called The Taming of a Shrew was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 2 May 1594 and
published in an edition dated 1594 (STC 23667; Wiggins #955). The relationship between this text
and the text entitled The Taming of the Shrew, first published in 1623 (Wiggins #916), remains
uncertain, but it may safely be assumed that one text in some way imitates or derives from the
other. (The relationship between the two texts is discussed at length in Alternative Versions.) It has
generally been assumed that either title might be used for either play; this cannot be proven, but
the obvious possibility makes it difficult to evaluate the documentary allusions. Philip Henslowe
recorded a performance of ‘the Tamynge of A Shrowe’ on 11 June 1594, at Newington Butts, in a
short season by ‘my Lord Admeralle men & my Lorde Chamberlen men’ (Foakes 2002).
Henslowe’s carelessness about titles makes it difficult to repose complete confidence in his use of
the indefinite article, and we cannot even be sure who performed the play, because his ambiguous
head-note may refer to joint or to alternating performances by the two companies.
In either event, the date of A Shrew is important to the date of The Shrew. Lines present in
A Shrew but not The Shrew seem to be satirized in Robert Greene's Menaphon (1589; STC 12272)
and in Thomas Nashe’s prefatory epistle to that work; but since A Shrew lifts whole passages from
other plays, one cannot determine whether the lines satirized in Menaphon are themselves
original to A Shrew, or plagiarism from some earlier work now lost. The title page of the 1594
edition claims that A Shrew belonged to Pembroke’s Men, a company last heard of in August 1593,
when they were bankrupt. It has been plausibly suggested that the ‘Simor’ inexplicably listed in a
stage direction at scene 3.21 of A Shrew was Simon Jewell, an actor buried on 21 August 1592
500 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
(Edmond 1974; McMillin 1976). If accepted, this identification pushes composition of A Shrew
back another year. On the other hand, A Shrew must be later than Christopher Marlowe's Doctor
Faustus, which it quotes several times. Wiggins (#810) gives Marlowe's play a date-range of 1587-9,
with a best guess of 1588; we see no reason to challenge those dates. Between the composition of
Faustus and the death of Jewel, A Shrew could have been written no earlier than 1587 and no later
than mid-1592.
‘The Shrew must be later than Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (Wiggins #783), which it quotes;
unfortunately, the date of The Spanish Tragedy is even less certain than that of Doctor Faustus.
Kyd’s play could have been written as early as 1585 or as late as 1591, but we think (as does Wiggins)
that some time in 1587 is most likely (and almost certainly before the Spanish Armada in August
1588). If we disregard the allusions to The Taming of a Shrew as being of uncertain reference, the
earliest explicit allusion to the Folio title occurs in S. Rowlands’s Whole Crew of Kind Gossips
(1609; STC 21413): “The chiefest Art I haue I will bestow, | About a worke cald taming of the Shrow’
(sig. E1r). But as William H. Moore (1964) first observed, The Shrew must be earlier than 1593, in
which year Antony Chute published his poem Beauty Dishonoured, Written Under the Title of
Shore's Wife (1593; STC 5262; Stationers’ Register 16 June 1593). Chute’s line, “He calls his Kate, and
she must come and kisse him’ (sig. C3r) can refer to either of the last two scenes of The Shrew, where
the kissing is explicit and climactic. A Shrew contains nothing comparable. Since the theatres
closed (after a brief reopening) in February 1593, Chute must have seen the play before then.
Moreover, this evidence is supported by several echoes in A Knack to Know a Knave (1594; Wiggins
#930), first performed in June 1592 (Foakes 2002). These parallels, collected by G. R. Proudfoot
(1963) and Ann Thompson (1982), echo a number of passages common to A Shrew and The Shrew,
which could be used for dating either; but Knack twice echoes passages only present in The Shrew.
Whether these echoes belong to the original 1592 text of Knack or to a later conjectured memorial
reconstruction (Maguire 1996, 274-6) which lies behind the 1594 publication, they establish the
existence of The Shrew before the closure of the theatres after the brief season in January 1593, and
probably before June 1592. Eric Sams, in order to deny this evidence, has to imagine that the
passages extant in The Shrew once belonged to A Shrew, but were cut from the published text
(Sams 1985b)—a procedure which could explain anything. By such reasoning one could, for
instance, assert that The Shrew pre-dates Menaphon.
If the two texts are evaluated independently of one another, they occupy an almost identical
range: from 1587 to mid-1592. It is by no means clear why Shakespeare should have reworked
someone else's play so soon after its first performance. More objectively, A Shrew clearly imitates,
or plagiarizes, other plays, so it seems reasonable to assume that it might also plagiarize the plot
of The Shrew. We have therefore based our dating of The Shrew on the (admittedly debatable)
assumption that it pre-dates A Shrew. We are not persuaded by Eric Sams, who—dismissing the
Chute allusion—argues that The Shrew dates from around 1604, a date impossible by every stylis-
tic criterion (discussed next). Nor are we persuaded by Brian Morris (1981), who regarded The
Shrew as the earliest of Shakespeare’s comedies, and perhaps his earliest play; his hypothesis relies
excessively on the Warwickshire allusions in the Induction, which need not indicate composition
soon after Shakespeare left Stratford. More convincing is evidence of the use of John Florio's 1591
Second Frutes (entered in the Stationers’ Register on 30 April 1591). Martin Wiggins—whose best
guess for the date of The Shrew is 1592, but who gives a date range of 1589-92— acknowledges that
there is ‘a remote possibility of pre-publication access through personal contact with the author
(#916); but even pre-publication access to a manuscript is likely to have been close to completion
of the book and its sale to a stationer.
In MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s pause test The Shrew is most closely
associated with (in descending order) Titus Andronicus, Love’s Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet,
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 501
3 Henry VI, and Richard III (see Table 25.7); Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith's (2014) initial
analysis before they factor in theatre closures gives a date in early 1591 (1591.08). For rare vocabu-
lary—Jackson’s reworking of Eliot Slater's data—The Shrew’s strongest links are with Loves
Labour's Lost, 1 Henry VI, and Titus Andronicus (see Table 25.3). Taming of the Shrew’s strong links
to Love’ Labour's Lost in both of these measures might be taken to support composition in 1594-5,
just after the publication of A Shrew: E. K. Chambers (1930) dated the play 1594. However, as
elsewhere with the early plays these figures may be skewed by genre, illustrating no more than
the play’s links to Shakespeare's other early comedies. More significant, therefore, is the fact that
both tests link The Shrew to the early tragedy, Titus Andronicus. Marco Mincoff (1976) points to a
number of more specific verbal features suggesting stylistic immaturity, especially in relation to
Comedy of Errors; like Morris, Mincoff regards The Shrew as Shakespeare's earliest play. The size of
its cast associates it with the other plays originally written before the 1592 plague outbreak (Titus
Andronicus, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and 1 Henry VI).
Marina Tarlinskaja’s analyses of metre support an early date: in the index of stressed syllable
placement, Taming of the Shrew gives the highest figure (35.9) and is closest to the Shakespeare
scenes in Arden of Faversham, 2 Henry VI, and 3 Henry VI (see Table 25.8); for strong metrical
breaks, it is closest to the Shakespeare scenes of 3 Henry VI and to Richard LII (see Table 25.9). The
play’s frequency of dramatic hendiadys (in keeping with the three parts of Henry VI and Two
Gentlemen) again supports an early date, though two later comedies, Loves Labour’s Lost and
Merry Wives, have similar rates of usage (see Table 25.10). Mincoff’s (1976) analysis of imagery
and rhetoric places it in the same period as 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI. Even the colloquialism-
in-verse test (see Table 25.13), which is thrown off by an anomalously high proportion of has and
does, puts The Shrew earlier than 1599. (Has and does appear fourteen times in the play, of which
eleven are in verse, but no play before Julius Caesar has more than six.) Although this stylistic evi-
dence does not pinpoint the play’s composition precisely enough to determine the direction of
influence between A Shrew and The Shrew, it does establish that the play must have been in exist-
ence by 1598, when Francis Meres published his list of Shakespeare plays. The cumulative stylistic
evidence, pointing primarily towards Shakespeare’ earliest works, suggests a date for The Shrew
before Shakespeare's composition of Richard III and the two narrative poems. Our best guess of
some time in late 1591 fills a perceived gap between Shakespeare's contributions to 2 and 3 Henry
VI and authorship of Richard III; it is, of course, also possible that The Shrew was written during,
between, or before his contribution to the histories.
Sams (1985b) does, however, usefully insist upon the real difficulty created by the Lord of the
Induction recalling that one of the visiting players previously performed the role of Soto (1.80-5).
This allusion seems to fit the circumstances of John Fletcher’s Women Pleased (1620; Wiggins
#1965). The visiting player said to have acted Soto has the speech-prefix ‘Sincklo, which appears
nowhere else in this play. The actor John Sinklo is named in other dramatic documents, some of
which may date as early as the late 1580s, another as late as 1604, so the name in itself cannot help
in dating The Shrew. However, we are made suspicious by the unique appearance of the name in a
passage which (a) is utterly superfluous and (b) topically alludes to a Jacobean play—a play, more-
over, written by John Fletcher. Fletcher also wrote a sequel or response to The Shrew: The Woman's
Prize; or, The Tamer Tamed, for which Wiggins (#1609) gives a range of dates, 1607-11, and a best
guess of 1609. Noticeably, the text of Shrew would be perfectly intelligible if the lines were omitted
(‘So please your lordship to accept our duty.—Well, you are come to me in happy time’). Of the
seven suspect lines, two are metrically irregular. It is possible, then, that the Soto allusion may
have been inserted for a Jacobean revival of The Shrew, planned to coincide with performances
of The Tamer Tamed, and accordingly touched up for the occasion. (The high frequency of
has and does, mentioned above, also suggests that the text may have been altered in some
502 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
respects at a later date, and the actor’s name suggests that the Folio text derives from a playhouse
manuscript.) If we consider the Soto allusion as evidence of interpolation, rather than of original
composition, it could be much later than the rest of the play. The traditional dating of Women Pleased,
based on the list of actors in the 1679 Beaumont and Fletcher Folio text of the play, is 1620; however,
that date is uncertain, and seems too late for Sinklo, otherwise last heard of sixteen years before. The
possibility that the play was altered after its original performances needs further investigation. Wells
and Taylor (1987) argued that the Folio text showed signs of revision; the incomplete act-divisions
may be related to these other problems. ‘In some respects’, Wells concluded in his 1987 textual intro-
duction, ‘Shrew is the most problematic play in the canon, textually’ (Wells et al. 170).
Meres (1598; STC 17834) does not include The Shrew or A Shrew in his 1598 list of Shakespeare's
works, and it was first attributed to him by inclusion in the 1623 Folio. E. K. Chambers is only the
most respected of several scholars who have regarded the play as collaborative (1930, 1: 322-8). As
Gabriel Egan observes (Chapter 2), Frederick G. Fleay identified two distinct metrical styles in
‘The Shrew, and his claim was supported by subsequent scholarly investigations of other aspects of
the play’s metre. On the basis of ‘a general stylistic impression from which I cannot escape;
Chambers followed that earlier scholarship in giving the Bianca subplot to a collaborator, and
assigning to Shakespeare only the Induction scenes, 5.1-38, 5.109-312, scene 7, 8.22-123, scene 9,
scene 11, scene 14, 15.1-177, and possibly 4.1-107. This view has never been discredited by dispassion-
ate consideration of the empirical internal evidence; instead, it was simply dismissed and ignored
in the general wave of scepticism about co-authorship that dominated the middle of the twenti-
eth century. Asserting Shakespeare's sole authorship, Brian Morris (1981) approvingly cited essays
by E. P. Kuhl (1925) and Karl P. Wentersdorf (1954; 1972); but of these Kuhl had not succeeded in
persuading Chambers, while Wentersdorf’s first effort depends upon the play’s use of isolated
imagery which could be paralleled in other Elizabethan dramatists, and his second finds the
clearest example of an idiosyncratic cluster of Shakespearean imagery in scene 9, a scene already
attributed to Shakespeare by Chambers. Mincoff concluded that ‘if one were compelled to prove
Shakespeare's authorship of the play on the basis of the style and poetry alone, one would be very
hard put to it’ (Mincoff 1976, 156). The metrical tests that indicate more than one hand in The
Shrew are the same kinds of evidence that identified collaboration in other plays, from Titus
Andronicus to Two Noble Kinsmen, where it is now widely accepted that Shakespeare was a
co-author. Indeed, Taming of the Shrew is the only play accepted by Chambers as collaborative that
has not yet entered the ‘canonical’ list of co-authored plays.
Those metrical anomalies were independently reinforced by Ahmed Shamsul Arefin, Renato
Vimieiro, Carlo Riveros, Hugh Craig, and Pablo Moscato (2014) in their study of word frequency
profiles in 256 plays and long poems of the period (see Figure 25.1). Taming of the Shrew was not
the focus of their research, and is not even mentioned in the article. But it is the only work of
Shakespeare's that appears in Cluster 2; indeed, it is the only work of Shakespeare’ isolated in a
single cluster. Five of his works appear in Cluster 1; seven of his history plays in Cluster 4; the great
majority of his works are linked together in Cluster 3. Their global analysis produced ‘an astonish-
ing predominance of authorial affinities in the corpus’ demonstrating that ‘authors’ characteristic
styles are very powerful factors in explaining the variation in word-use, frequently transcending
cross-cutting factors like the differences between tragedy and comedy, early and late works, and
plays and poems (Arefin et al. 2014, 1, 11). In their analysis, Taming of the Shrew is anomalous, and
the anomaly cannot be explained by genre or chronology.
‘The presence of someone other than Shakespeare is also supported by the uncharacteristic dis-
tribution of linguistic evidence (Table 25.13). Overall, The Shrew has the highest concentration of
has in verse before Othello, the highest concentration of does in verse before Twelfth Night, and
the highest concentration of both together in a comedy until All’s Well. Its two examples of em in
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 503
verse are the only ones before Henry V and Julius Caesar; its two contractions involving 7t (for
‘art’ or ‘wert’) are not matched until Timon of Athens; its two examples of contractions involving
‘re (for ‘are’) have no parallel frequency before Measure for Measure. Any one of these outliers
might be dismissed as a coincidence, but their combination makes Taming of the Shrew anomalous.
Moreover, the anomalies cluster. The two scenes of the Induction, and the consecutive scenes
8.22-123 and Sc. 9 (all attributed to Shakespeare by Chambers) contain no examples of has or
does; the Sly material, and those two later scenes, together constitute 550 lines of the play. By
contrast, the highest frequency of those two forms occurs in scenes 3-4 (Act 1) (514 lines), which
has four examples of has. Three examples occur between 16.35 and 16.60. That same short passage
also contains one colloquial abbreviation of ‘he’ (‘A’) and another of ‘have’ (‘ha): no play before
Hamlet has so many (Table 25.13, column 15). Thus, a passage of only 202 words (in a scene that
Chambers regarded as mixed writing) contains five lexical markers that indicate a date later than
1600. Likewise, both occurrences of the contraction thou’t in verse (4.58, 12.17) occur in scenes
that Chambers did not confidently attribute to Shakespeare; so does the unique occurrence of the
contraction thoudst (4.56); so does one occurrence of the contraction youTe (5.60), and the sec-
ond occurs in the final, apparently mixed scene (16.130). The colloquial markers suggest that
some parts of the Folio text were written later than 1600, or that they were written by a different
author (or both). Some of Tarlinskaja’s metrical evidence also points to two different periods. She
suggests that the play as a whole may be ‘earlier’ than 1591; but its ratio of syllabic -ed and -eth verb
endings is lower than any play before Troilus and Cressida, and its frequency of pleonastic ‘do’ is
the lowest in the canon (Tarlinskaja 2014, Tables B.4, B.5).
Finally, work-in-progress by John V. Nance shows that there are similar anomalies in n-grams
and collocations: three passages identified by Chambers as ‘Shakespeare’ produce radically differ-
ent results than three passages identified by Chambers as ‘not Shakespeare’.
It seems to us extremely likely that Taming of the Shrew is the work of Shakespeare and another
author or authors. However, as our own work goes to press there is no peer-reviewed consensus
about this re-emergent hypothesis. More research from multiple angles, and more debate, is
needed.
Edward III 1592
Date Range: late 1588-95
Best Guess: early 1592
Text: Reference pp. 289-354
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 1 December 1595, and anonymously published in an edition of
1596 (STC 7501), which states only that it ‘hath bin sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London’.
First attributed to Shakespeare in Richard Rogers and William Ley’s ‘An exact and perfect Catalogue
of all Playes that are Printed’ published at the end of Thomas Goffe’s The Careless Shepherd (Wing
G1005, sig. L4r), which in the same place assigns to him Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and
Thomas Heywood’s Edward IV. Shakespeare's authorship was first seriously proposed by Edward
Capell (1760). Taylor (1987c) wrote that if ‘we had attempted a thorough reinvestigation of candi-
dates for inclusion in the early dramatic canon, it would have begun with Edward LIT. He noted how
the reference to King David of Scotland in Henry V (1.2.160-2) follows Edward III in a unique
historical error, which shows that Shakespeare was certainly familiar with the play.
Wells and Taylor (1991) later regretted their failure to include it in the canon, and it was sub-
sequently added to their Complete Works (Wells et al. 2005). That change reflected a growing
scholarly consensus that Shakespeare wrote at least some of the play. His responsibility for all or
504 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
part of Edward III has been supported by studies of the size and shape of vocabulary by Alfred
Hart (1943a; 1943b); of imagery and structure by Karl P. Wentersdorf (1960), Inna Koskenniemi
(1964), V. Osterberg (1929), and Kenneth Muir (1953a; 1960); of rare words by Eliot Slater
(1981; 1988); and stylometrics by M. W. A. Smith (1991a). Earlier arguments are conveniently sum-
marized in the old-spelling edition by Fred Lapides (1980) and in G. R. Proudfoot’s lecture (1986);
Will Sharpe (2013, 663-70) supplies a more recent survey.
The extent of Shakespeare’s involvement in the play is disputed, however. Jonathan Hope's
sociolinguistic study showed that Edward III was compatible with Shakespeare’s authorship,
but did not observe any discernible difference between the Countess scenes and the rest of the
play (Hope 1994). Countering this, using function and lexical word tests, Timothy Irish Watt
(2009b) concluded that the Countess scenes were by Shakespeare but he could not identify
the other hand. Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza (2010b) gave Shakespeare the Countess
episode (scenes 2-3) and five consecutive battle scenes (scenes 13-17). Jonathan Bate and Eric
Rasmussen include the Countess scenes in their online supplement to their 2007 edition of
the Complete Works. Likewise, Peter Kirwan (2015b, 157-61) accepts Shakespeare’s authorship
of the Countess scenes; he acknowledges that scene 12 (4.4) is ‘Shakespearear in various ways,
but challenges whether it was written ‘by Shakespeare. Like most attribution scholars, the
New Oxford Shakespeare confidently attributes the Countess scenes to Shakespeare; he may or
may not also be responsible for some or all of the battle sequence (scenes 12-17). More research
is needed.
But Shakespeare is definitely not the author of the rest of the play. The identity of his possible
collaborator remains debated. Marlowe, George Peele, Robert Greene, and Thomas Kyd have all
been suggested. Thomas Merriam (1999) has argued for Marlowe as co-author and Brian Vickers
(2014) proposes Kyd’s candidacy. Through the use of anti-plagiarism software, Vickers identified
common word sequences between Edward III and two plays by Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy and
Cornelia. But Vickers’s methods—and particularly his use of anti-plagiarism software and his
expansion of the Kyd canon—have been frequently criticized; see chapters in this volume by
Gabriel Egan, MacDonald P. Jackson, Anna Pruitt, and Gary Taylor. Furthermore, the identifica-
tion of parallel collocations in both Edward III and Cornelia is complicated by the fact that the
latter text is a translation of Robert Garnier’s Cornélie. James F. Gaines and Josephine A. Roberts
(1979) observed 400 ‘amendments’ that Kyd made in his loose translation; they describe Kyd’s
reworkings as a ‘second text. This number is not insignificant but, of course, a second layer of
authorship—not only a reworking, but also a translation—creates uncertainty about the play’s
value in attesting authorship. Gary Taylor, John V. Nance, and Keegan Cooper (2017) demon-
strate that unique n-grams and collocations in a passage of known authorship can correctly iden-
tify Kyd as its author, despite the small size of his canon; they then test the mariner’s messenger
speech (4.137-83), which was the focus of Vickers’s case for Kyd’s authorship, and show that it
cannot have been written by Kyd, but could be by Marlowe. Of course, Kyd might have written
other parts of the play, but Vickers does not provide reliable evidence for such an attribution. We
do not yet feel confident enough of the identity of Shakespeare's collaborator(s) to name one. This
uncertainty about the other hand(s) in the play makes it difficult to be more certain of the exact
details of Shakespeare’s involvement. Marlowe's involvement would indisputably place the play
before his death in May 1593, and at about the same time Kyd was arrested and tortured so badly
that he was significantly disabled for the short remainder of his life; Greene’s involvement would
place the play before his death in September 1592.
The play clearly post-dates the defeat of the Spanish Armada (August 1588) and pre-dates its
entry in the Stationers’ Register (December 1595) by enough time to allow for performances in
various venues within the City of London. Most of the internal evidence used by previous scholars
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 505
to date the play is unreliable. One of the play’s possible sources, Petruccio Ubaldini’s Discourse
Concerning the Spanish Fleet Invading England, was first entered on the Stationers’ Register on
15 October 1590 (Wentersdorf 1960). Ubaldini makes frequent reference to a ship called the Non
Pariglia (that is, Nonpareil, see 4.177) and discusses the Spanish fleet’s ‘moon crescent’ formation
(see 4.71-2). Although Wentersdorf considers Ubaldini’s account pre-eminent in the period, he
notes that various other reports were also available after the Spanish Armada battle, and word of
mouth also cannot be dismissed as a ‘source’ for so famous an event. A German academic play
about King Edward III and the Countess of Salisbury might have been prompted by an English
play on the same theme, performed by English actors on tour in Gdansk at some time in or before
1591 (Limon 1985). Such evidence—which is accepted by Lapides—would place Edward III
around 1589-90, making it perhaps earlier than any of the Henry VI plays.
Francis Oscar Mann (1912) proposed that Thomas Deloney’s ballad ‘Of King Edward’ derives
largely from Edward III; W. L. Godshalk (1995) noted that the ballad was first published in The
Garland of Good Will (entered in the Stationers’ Register on 5 March 1593), thus suggesting a date
of between 1589 (after the Spanish Armada) and 1592. The verbal parallels observed are persuasive,
but the priority of the two texts is uncertain. Martin Wiggins (#953) notes that the ballad could
have been added to the Deloney collection at any time before the first extant edition (1631). The
Edward III ballad is included in Part 3 of the edition, placed after a ballad about the “Winning of
Cales’ (that is, the Capture of Cadiz) in 1596 and before a ballad first entered on the Stationers’
Register on 11 June 1603, making it extremely unlikely that the Edward III ballad was included in
the first printing of Deloney. Wentersdorf (1960) argues that the metrical tests support an early
dating; but in the colloquialism-in-verse test (see Table 25.13), Edward III’s figure places it closest,
among the history plays, to Richard III. But all three Henry VI plays are collaborative, and we lack
reliable metrical tests that could establish the chronology of the portions of the early collaborations
most confidently attributed to Shakespeare. Jackson (1965a), on the basis of alleged echoes in
apparently memorial texts, concludes that the play belonged at some stage to Pembroke’s Men.
But few scholars now believe that all the allegedly memorial texts are really memorial.
Giorgio Melchiori (1998) suggests that Edward III was originally written in late 1592 or in 1593
for Pembroke’s Men or Lord Strange’s Men, and revised in 1594-5. This first date is grounded on
the relatively small cast needed and the lack of any explicit directions for walls, gates, or the
above space; he adduces that this evidence implies that the play was written during the plague
closures of 1592-3, when it was uncertain when the stage spaces at the Rose or other public
theatres would be next available. Yet Melchiori admits that the beginning of scene 2 demands
the use of the upper stage, which makes performance before the plague closures more likely.
Moreover, Arden of Faversham also does not use walls, gates, or the above space, and it must
have been written before June 1592. In Andrew J. Power's systematic analysis of casting require-
ments for the whole Shakespeare canon (in the Reference volumes of this edition), Edward III's
demand for adult males is closest to 3 Henry VI (in either text), which would place it in or near
1591, and certainly before the significantly smaller cast of Richard III (in either text). Melchiori
hypothesizes that the Countess scenes based on Jean Froissart’s narrative were added later,
replacing an earlier version of that scene derived from William Painter’s translation of Matteo
Bandello. But this hypothesis is built in part upon unconvincing bibliographical evidence. (See
Rory Loughnane’s Textual Introduction to the play in Reference, esp. pp. 280-1.) Wiggins (#952,
who dates the play to 1593) suggests that several pre-1594 plays were revised by Shakespeare for
the Chamberlain’s Men after their 1594 formation, but the title page does not link the play to any
specific company, and it has no documented association with the Chamberlain’s Men. If it were
revised by Shakespeare for the Chamberlain’s Men, we might expect it (like the other histories so
revised) to have been included in the Folio. The hypothesis of revision seems weaker here than
506 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
in the Henry VI plays, because Shakespeare's apparent share of the play is significantly larger
than the revisions in those other texts.
The allusions to Lucrece (3.191-4) and to Hero and Leander (3.150--4), and the presence of a
line (2.619) that also occurs in the Sonnets (94.14), have been cited in support of a rather later
date. However, work on at least some of the sonnets could have begun in the 1580s. There are
references to Hero and Leander in The Forrest of Fancy and The Vale of Venus (both 1579), John
Lyly’s Euphues and his England (1580), Thomas Watson’s Heatompathia (1582), the anonymous
play Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune (Wiggins #734; performed 1582, printed 1589), Greene's
Mamiillia (1583), and other works; no reference to the Marlowe poem familiar to modern critics
need be assumed. References to Lucrece in the period are even more common. Further support-
ing the later date, Roger Prior (1990) observes possible topical allusions to the Turkey-Hapsburg
Empire war, which was declared in 1593. Osterberg’s analysis of parallels favours composition
around 1592-4 (1929). But Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith’s (2014) initial analysis of
scenes attributed to Shakespeare, based on Ants Oras’s figures for mid-line pauses, predicts a
date of late 1591 (1591.88). Philip W. Timberlake's study of feminine endings (1931) supports attri-
bution of the play to at least two playwrights, and identifies one as Shakespeare, but is of little
help in dating the play.
Kenneth Muir’s comparison (1960) of the Countess scenes with Edward IV’s wooing of Lady
Elizabeth Gray (3 Henry VI scene 12) also suggests that Edward III is the more mature, and there-
fore later, achievement. The earliest possible dating depends upon acceptance of the (shaky)
Gdarisk evidence; but even if we take that to imply an English play on the subject, Edward III might
easily have inspired more than one play in the patriotic post-Armada period. (Compare the three
or four plays on Henry V from the 1580s and 1590s.) Also, if we accept Ubaldini’s Discourse as a
source, as Wiggins does, this creates, as he notes, an ‘implausibly tight timeline’ for the authorship
and performance for both the English and German plays (Wiggins and Richardson 2013, 952).
In use of rhyme for those scenes most confidently attributed to Shakespeare (scenes 2, 3, and
12), we count 107 rhymes in 998 lines of verse, which is a rate of 10.7 per cent (see Table 25.5). This
is much lower than the figure for plays that clearly belong to the lyric period: Comedy of Errors
(25 per cent), Love’s Labour’s Lost (66 per cent), Richard II (19 per cent), Romeo and Juliet (18 per
cent), and Midsummer Night’s Dream (52 per cent). Rather, the rate of rhyme is close to Titus
Andronicus (5 per cent) and Richard III (4 per cent), and even closer to the early comedies (Two
Gentlemen of Verona 8 per cent, Shrew 7 per cent); unlike the other early histories, Edward III is
fundamentally comic, and the Countess scenes (most confidently attributed to Shakespeare)
have many similarities to his romantic comedies. Tarlinskaja’s data for strong syntactic breaks,
revised by Jackson (Table 25.9), place it in the period after Taming of the Shrew and Shakespeare's
shares of Titus Andronicus, 2 Henry VI, and 3 Henry VI, but before Errors and the four lyrical
plays. So it seems unlikely that the Shakespeare scenes of the play post-date Venus and Adonis
and Lucrece. We place it in early 1592 on the basis of Bruster and Smith’s analysis, our own
colloquialism-in-verse test, the size of the cast, and the use of the upper space (suggesting
composition without plague travelling in mind). Moreover, once we recognize Shakespeare's
small and probably later contribution to 1 Henry VI, there is plenty of time for Shakespeare to
have written his share of Edward III in late 1591 or early 1592.
Richard III 1592
Date Range: 1590-6
Best Guess: mid- to late 1592
Text: Reference pp. 2655-742
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 507
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 20 October 1597, and printed in an edition dated 1597; men-
tioned by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834), and attributed to Shakespeare in the reprint of 1598.
The play makes use of the 1587 edition of Holinshed, and at 4.5.14 it alludes unhistorically to ‘Sir’
James Blunt: the Blunt family owned land in Stratford, were related by marriage to Shakespeare’s
acquaintances the Coombes, but James Blunt was first knighted in 1588 (Shanker 1948). The play
can therefore be confidently dated in the period 1589-96. Like the plays on the reign of Henry VI,
it is indebted to Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (Brooks 1979a); if we accept that this influence
would probably only have occurred after Spenser’s poem reached print, then Richard III cannot
have been written before January 1590.
Critics have always agreed that the play post-dates 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI; it builds upon
material in the latter, and, as Marco Mincoff (1976) and others have argued, there is a remarkable
difference in dramatic power and stylistic control between Richard III and these other plays.
MacDonald P. Jackson's reworking of Ants Oras’s figures for mid-line pauses links it most strongly
with Comedy of Errors (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith's (2014) initial analysis,
which also relies on Oras’s data, puts it in early 1594 (1594.16), which they adjust to 1595 because of
the theatre closures. But the play’s low ratio of rhyme to verse (see Table 25.2) places it before the
narrative poems and lyrical plays. Jackson's (2015b) revision of Eliot Slater’s figures identifies the
play most closely with 3 Henry VI, as do the adjusted figures for stress placement (see Table 25.3).
For strong metrical breaks, Richard III is closest to Two Gentlemen of Verona for solo-authored
plays (see Table 25.9). In the colloquialism test (see Table 25.13), Richard III is closest, among the
early histories and tragedies, to Titus Andronicus. Supporting the external evidence above,
the stylistic tests thus largely place Richard III in the early 1590s.
The Groatsworth reference securely places the first performance of 3 Henry VI before 20
September 1592 (see above), or, necessarily, before the theatre closures that began on 23 June 1592.
Mincoff argued that Shakespeare draws on the Senecan detail and dramatic structure of Titus
Andronicus in composing Richard III. Although we date Titus Andronicus to late 1589, this residual
influence still seems plausible; after all, it seems likely that Titus Andronicus was performed
frequently between its composition and 1592 (see above). Richard III differs from Titus Andronicus,
3 Henry VI, and Taming of the Shrew in that no documentary evidence, or certain allusion, dates
it in the pre-plague period, which silence seems to us remarkable, given the play’s evident later
popularity and impact. The stylistic evidence suggests that it cannot have been written in the
period of the plague-period poems, so we would suggest it was written leading up to, or not long
after, the theatres closed in June 1592.
E. A. J. Honigmann, collecting and adding to previous discussions, persuasively argues that the
treatment of Derby in Richard III rearranges history in order to flatter Derby’s descendant,
the patron of Strange’s Men (Honigmann 1985a, 63-4). However, as John Jowett (2000b) notes, the
play also includes a eulogistic treatment of the ancestral family of another theatrical patron, the
Earl of Pembroke. Jowett observes that this seems to rule against composition after the formation
of the Chamberlain’s Men in 1594; as Andrew Gurr (1996b) notes, Henry Cary, the son of the Lord
Chamberlain, was involved in ‘hostile wrangles with Pembroke from the autumn of 1593 until
1595 (272). The references to Pembroke may represent late augmentations to the text; in 5.4, in
particular, there is unnecessary material about Pembroke (expanded in the Folio text) that was
possibly added to gratify the patron. Jowett concludes that Shakespeare may have been hedging
his bets by including praise of the patrons of two theatrical companies, but also notes other pos-
sibilities: the manuscript underlying the Folio text could represent a pre-performance text, or the
Pembroke material could have been added later as a gift to the Earl or in preparation for a possible
delayed first performance by Pembroke’s Men or a revival. In any case, the quarto text seems
to represent a play initially written with Strange’s Men in mind and then augmented to make it
508 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
suitable for Pembroke’s Men. Our best guess for dating assumes that the outbreak of plague either
interrupted or preceded composition. The play differs from many of the pre-plague plays in
demanding a smaller cast. Shakespeare could not have known that the interruption of playing
that began in June 1592 would last as long as it did. But the smaller cast size and uncomplicated
dramaturgy means it could have been first performed on tour in the provinces. If the remission in
plague deaths in December 1592 enabled the reopening of the theatres, it may have been first per-
formed in London at that time. If Dutton (2016) is right about long texts representing scripts
for court performance, Richard III might have been written in the second half of 1592 specifically
for the court winter season of 1592-3. The late 1592 hypothesis accords well with the supposition,
reasonable though not demonstrable, that publication of the anonymous True Tragedy of Richard
the Third (1594; Wiggins #839) was designed to exploit the success of Shakespeare's play.
Venus and Adonis 1593
Date Range: 1592-3
Best Guess: early 1593
Text: Reference pp. 95-124
Entered in the Stationers’ Register by Richard Field (a native of Stratford-upon-Avon) on
18 April 1593 and published in an edition dated 1593, with a dedication signed “William
Shakespeare. Most scholars agree that it was written during the enforced idleness which
followed closure of the theatres in June 1592. It would not have been immediately obvious, to
Shakespeare or anyone else, how long that interim would last; composition of Venus and Adonis
is unlikely to have begun in earnest before autumn 1592. The dedication’s description of the
poem as ‘the first heire of my inuention’ has sometimes been taken to imply composition in
the 1580s, before any of the plays; but ‘heire’ probably means legitimate offspring, contrasting
the poem favourably with the bastard products of his theatrical career. If Shakespeare had
intended to imply priority of composition, one would have expected him to say ‘first fruits’
(which are traditionally offered up to a protector/deity): compare for instance the preface to
T. H’s Oenone and Paris (1594; STC 12578.5), which describes that poem as ‘the first fruits of my
indeuours and the Maiden head of my perm In any case, it would be odd to advertise that one’s
offering to a patron was an immature work dredged up from the past. Our positioning of the
poem in 1593 reflects the date of first publication.
In MacDonald P. Jackson's revision (2015b) of Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary test Venus and
Adonis is linked, among the plays, most closely to Midsummer Night's Dream, Two Gentlemen, and
Titus Andronicus (see Table 25.3). These associations may be of limited chronological significance,
however, since they could be due to shared classical or sexual subject matter: chronologically,
they stretch from the late 1580s to the mid-1590s.
‘Shakespeare upon a pair of gloves’ 1592-4
Date Range: 1592-1629
Best Guess: July 1593-October 1594
Text: Reference p. 3652
The poem appears to have been written to accompany a pair of gloves given by Alexander
Aspinall, a Stratford schoolteacher, to his future wife Anne Shaw. If this is the case, it was presum-
ably composed between the death of Shaw’s previous husband in July 1592 and her marriage to
Aspinall on 28 October 1594. The only text of this poem, from a commonplace book of Francis
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 509
Fane compiled about 1629, attributes it to Shakespeare. The attribution may result from the
Stratford connection between Aspinall and Shakespeare; however, Fane records it among other
lyrics attributed to Shakespeare (including his epitaph and the exchange with Ben Jonson), and
the line “The will is all’ is a plausibly Shakespearean pun. The range of dates for this poem largely
overlaps with a period in which the London theatres were closed because of plague, and when
Shakespeare might therefore have been spending more time than usual in Stratford. We arbitrar-
ily place it here, assuming that courting did not begin until the expiration of a full year of mourn-
ing for Anne’s husband.
Lucrece 1594
Date Range: 1592-4
Best Guess: late 1593-early 1594
Text: Reference pp. 229-73
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 9 May 1594 and published in an edition dated 1594, with a
dedication signed “William Shakespeare’. This edition was printed by the same stationer and dedi-
cated to the same patron as Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece is generally taken to be the ‘graver
labour’ promised in the dedication to the earlier poem. It is probable that composition of the
Sonnets began before or in the interim between the two narrative poems (see below), and possible
that Shakespeare worked on one or more plays during this period. Our positioning of the poem
in 1594 reflects its date of first publication.
In MacDonald P. Jackson's revised figures (2015b) for Eliot Slater’s rare words vocabulary,
Lucrece is linked most closely to Titus Andronicus, 1 Henry VI, Romeo and Juliet, and Richard LI
(see Table 25.3). The associations are clearly influenced by genre: Titus, Romeo, and Richard II
were all identified on first publication as tragedies, and Titus overlaps with the poem in its clas-
sical setting and its interest in rape. Notably, both narrative poems are linked most closely to Titus
Andronicus. The links to 1 Henry VI are hard to interpret, because most of that play is not by
Shakespeare, but the scenes most clearly identified as Shakespeare's are all tragic. The Slater evi-
dence thus tells us only that the poem is linked to Shakespeare's other tragic writing between 1589
and 1595. It is possible that Shakespeare did some dramatic writing in the interval between Venus
and Adonis and Lucrece, but if so it is impossible, on the basis of external or internal evidence, to
determine what play(s) might fill that gap. We have therefore placed the poems together.
The Comedy of Errors 1594
Date Range: 1589-94
Best Guess: mid-late 1594
Text: Reference pp. 1803-44
Performed at Gray’s Inn on 28 December 1594; mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598 (STC 17834), but
not published until the First Folio in 1623. The play has often been treated as the first of Shakespeare's
works, but such a dating has little to do with external or internal evidence; it reflects a judgement
that the play’s classical and farcical character is uncharacteristic of Shakespeare's mature comedy,
and a prejudice that Shakespeare should logically have moved from imitation of classical models to
development of his own ‘romantic’ forms. Indeed, the play’s sophisticated classical structure departs
from the perceived unevenness of plot in Shakespeare's earliest comedies (Two Gentlemen and
Taming of the Shrew), and the play’s Plautine plot seems particularly suitable for the learned audi-
ence at Gray’s Inn. The play’s only certain topical allusion (3.2.118-120) must have been written
510 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
after 1584, but such allusions persist for several years after the truce of July 1593. Another, less
certain allusion may exist in Dromio’s comparison of the kitchen maid to a terrestrial globe
(3.2.111-133): Emery Molyneux’s globes, the first to be made in England and the first made by an
Englishman, were put on the London market in 1592, and immediately became both popular and
famous (Wallis 1951). Although continental globes existed before 1592, the passage in Comedy of
Errors would certainly be especially appropriate in or after 1592.
None of this evidence for dating the play is very secure, and we date it as late as we do largely
because we ‘find it difficult to believe that the gentlemen of Gray’s Inn would have entertained
their guests on a grand night in 1594 with a play staled by five years on the public stage’
(McManaway 1950, 24). In this connection, it is worth recalling that Richard I, which can hardly
be earlier than 1595 (see below), was regarded as an ‘old play in January 1601; indeed, it was con-
sidered so old that the Essex conspirators had to pay the Chamberlain’s Men to revive it for one
performance at the Globe. Martin Wiggins’s best guess for The Comedy of Errors is 1592 (#944),
but he gives a range of dates of 1589-93; he suggests that the role of Pinch may have been written
specifically for the actor John Sinklo (he compares other roles for actors with an emaciated physical
appearance in Romeo and Juliet and 2 Henry IV). Although 1593 is possible, it seems to us unlikely
that the Chamberlain's Men would perform three much older plays (Titus Andronicus, Hamlet,
and Shrew) in June 1594 if Errors was available.
In rare vocabulary, Comedy of Errors is most closely linked to Taming of the Shrew (which
we regard as the previous comedy), Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet (see Table 25.3); the two
latter associations, which cannot be explained by similarity of genre or theme, seem the more
significant chronologically, and are difficult to account for on the assumption that Comedy of
Errors belongs to the 1580s. Its colloquialism-in-verse figure (see Table 25.13) associates it
most closely with later plays, and especially Richard I. Charles Langworthy’s (1931) percent-
ages of divergent line-types places Errors (2.9) closest to Richard III (3.0), among the plays of
single authorship. In Jackson’s reworking of Tarlinskaja’s data for stressed syllables, Comedy of
Errors (31) is closest to Romeo and Juliet (31.2) and Richard III (32.2) among single-authored
plays (see Table 25.8). Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith’s initial analysis places it in mid-
1593 (1593.45); their final date of mid-1594 (1594.4) reflects an adjustment to allow for the theatres
being closed (Bruster and Smith 2014). The play’s heavy use of rhyme, at a much higher rate
than the early comedies, Two Gentlemen and Taming of the Shrew, suggests composition in
the lyrical period initiated by Venus and Adonis (see Table 25.2). Marco Mincoff (1976) places
it after the first tetralogy, Titus Andronicus, and Taming of the Shrew, but before Love’s Labour's
Lost; he is less confident of its relation to Two Gentlemen. The adjusted Eliot Slater figures
place it closest to Merry Wives and Midsummer Night’s Dream, suggesting a date later than
is historically possible (see Table 25.3). All of these measures suggest a date later than 1592,
and close to its first known performance. We also place it as the first of the post-plague
plays because, like the two narrative poems, it explicitly and conspicuously displays Shakespeare's
classical learning.
Love’s Labour's Lost 1594
Date Range: 1594-7
Best Guess: late 1594 early 1595
Text: Reference pp. 467-531
Mentioned by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834), cited in Robert Tofte’s Alba (1598; STC 24096), and the
remuneration joke from 3.1 is retold in I. M., The Servingman'’s Comfort (entered in the Stationers’
Register on 15 May 1598). The first extant edition (which attributes the play to Shakespeare) is dated
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 511
1598, but the 1598 title page makes it clear that an earlier edition has been lost, and a private-
library catalogue dates it to 1597 (Freeman and Grinke 2002). We can therefore be reasonably
confident that the play is earlier than 1597. This supposition is corroborated by the title page dec-
laration that the play ‘was presented before her Highnes this last Christmas, which almost cer-
tainly refers to the Christmas season of 1596-7. In Martin Wiggins’s Catalogue, his best guess for
the play (#1031) is 1596, but he gives a date range of 1594-7; for stylistic reasons and topical allu-
sions, we think it is on the earlier end of that date range.
Stylistically, there has been widespread agreement that the play is earlier than Midsummer
Night’ Dream and Romeo and Juliet. Ants Oras’s pause test would place it after Richard III (see
Table 25.7). In MacDonald P. Jackson’s (2015b) revision of Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary it is linked,
predictably, with other comedies, Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado, but it is most strongly
linked with Romeo and Juliet, which cannot be explained as the consequence of genre (see
Table 25.3). The heavy use of rhyme, the highest of any play in the Shakespeare canon at 66 per
cent, suggests composition in the lyrical period initiated by Venus and Adonis (see Table 25.2).
Using Jackson’s interpretation of Marina Tarlinskaja’s metrical data (see Table 25.8), the play is
linked most closely to the Shakespeare scenes of 1 Henry VI (see below). Douglas Bruster and
Geneviéve Smith’s (2014) initial analysis places it in late 1593 (1593.83) and after adjustment for
theatre closure they settle on the second half of 1594 (1594.8). David Wiles (1987) suggests that the
clown role of Costard was written for Will Kempe, who joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in
1594. Joan Ozark Holmer (1994) suggests that the specific foreign jargon for fencing may have
been borrowed from Vincentio Saviolo’s fencing manual, first published in 1595 (see Romeo and
Juliet, below). This is possible, but, as Holmer concedes, Shakespeare could have heard such
terminology among expatriate Italian fencing instructors, who were living in London since at
least 1590.
Innumerable topical allusions have been discerned in the play. We find most plausible the sug-
gestion that the masque of Muscovites (scene 9/5.2), and Biron’s remarks at 5.2.464-6, allude to
the Gray’s Inn revels of the Christmas season of 1594-5 (see Comedy of Errors, above). Since both
these links come late in the play, its composition may have been already well advanced by the end
of 1594. Geoffrey Bullough argues plausibly that the King of Navarre would be an unlikely subject
from July 1593 to autumn 1594, the period of greatest English annoyance with him (Bullough 1957,
428-9); but the play could have been composed on either side of this range, and its satire of
Navarre’s perjury favours the later date. After his release from prison in 1604, Southampton
entertained the royal family at his house with a performance of the play, and it seems plausible—
though not certain, or necessary—to associate the play’s composition with the period of
Shakespeare’s known intimacy with Southampton.
Love’s Labour’s Won 1595
Date Range: 1595-8
Best Guess: early 1595
See: Reference p. 1099
A play by this title is included by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834) among Shakespeare's works. No
text of this play is known to survive, but a bookseller’s catalogue compiled in August 1603 demon-
strates that an early edition was printed. The same catalogue makes it clear that “Love's Labour's
Won cannot be simply an alternative title for Taming of the Shrew, as has sometimes been proposed.
No other comedy by Shakespeare survives from the period before 1598 to which the title could
be applied, but various candidates have still been suggested: Much Ado about Nothing, As You
512 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Like It, and All’s Well that Ends Well. Of all the candidates, As You Like It has perhaps the greatest
number of links with Loves Labour's Lost, and Richard Knowles (1977) catalogues various con-
jectures which have linked that play with Meres’s title. But the difference in titles remains diffi-
cult to explain, as does the fact that As You Like It was entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1623
among ‘plays never before printed, even though a play with its alleged alternative title (Love's
Labour’s Won) had definitely reached print. We therefore interpret Meres’s allusion as a refer-
ence to a play now lost.
This lost play could belong to any year from the beginning of Shakespeare's career to 1598; it
seems more likely that Shakespeare first used the alliterative Loves Labour’s Lost, and that the
non-alliterative Love’s Labour’s Won is the sequel. Glynne Wickham (1989) notes the repeated
emphasis, at the end of Love’s Labour's Lost, upon completion of the story after a ‘twelvemonth’; he
suggests that this would fit well with a performance of the first play at the Inns of Court, with the
promise of a sequel during the next year’s holiday season. This ‘twelvemonth argument could also
be connected to Richard Dutton’s general thesis about the importance to Shakespeare, and the
Chamberlain's Men, of the annual winter season at court (Dutton 2016). Drawing on the dating of
2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, Roslyn L. Knutson (1985b) suggests that Love’s Labour’s Won was most
likely written soon after Love’s Labour’s Lost, as an experiment in a comedy sequel, after the suc-
cess of history and tragedy sequels. Martin Wiggins (#1109) offers a range of dates from 1594 to
1598, but suggests early 1598 for date of composition. He notes that Robert Allot’s England’
Parnassus includes excerpts from all Shakespearean plays printed up to and including 1599 that
bear Shakespeare's name on the title page; for Wiggins, this suggests that the play was probably
not printed before 1600. This cannot be proven and we do not know if (a) the lost first edition of
Love’s Labour's Lost also bore Shakespeare's name on the cover, which might suggest that a lost
printing of Love’ Labour’s Won did the same, or (b) whether or not Allot’s selection of extracts
only from copies bearing Shakespeare's name was merely coincidental. In the absence ofa text, we
cannot date the lost play precisely, and therefore simply place it adjacent to Love’s Labour's Lost.
Richard II 1595
Date Range: 1595-7
Best Guess: mid-1595
Text: Reference pp. 512-13
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 29 August 1597, and published in an edition dated 1597;
listed by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834), and attributed to Shakespeare in the 1598 edition. The
play must be later than Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587), on which it draws. It has usually
been assumed that the play is referred to ina letter of 7 December 1595 by Sir Edward Hoby to Sir
Robert Cecil (in Hatfield “MS xxxvi.60’): ‘Iam bold to send to knowe whether Teusdaie may be
anie more in your grace to visit poor Channon rowe where as late as it shal please you a gate for
your supper shal be open: & K. Richard present him selfe to your vewe’ (Chambers 1930, 2:
320-1). This interpretation of the letter has been challenged (Kittredge 1941; Shapiro 1958;
Bergeron 1975) but a new play still seems more likely than an old one (Richard III), or a book, or
a painting. Andrew Gurr (1984) and Charles R. Forker (2002, 186n., 191n.) proposed that the
anonymous Woodstock was a source for Richard II; their analyses assumed that the play underlying
the extant manuscript of Woodstock was composed in the early 1590s. David J. Lake (1983) has
demonstrated that the hand in the manuscript post-dates 1600, and MacDonald P. Jackson
(2001d), analysing the play’s metre and vocabulary, has now shown that Woodstock is much
more likely to be a seventeenth-century play.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 513
On the other hand, most scholars do accept that the play was influenced by Christopher
Marlowe's Edward II, performed by Pembroke’s Men (so before the autumn of 1593), and first
printed in 1594 (Wiggins #927). And it is generally accepted that Richard II draws on Samuel
Daniel’s The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (STC 6244). This work was entered in the Stationers’
Register on 11 October 1594, and published in an edition dated 1595. A second issue of the work
was printed later that year. A letter written by Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sidney, dated
3 November 1595, refers to Daniel’s work as available for sale in London (Gurr 1984). Some
connection between the two works seems indisputable, and the case for Shakespeare as the bor-
rower was confirmed by George M. Logan (1976). In his revised 1609 edition, Daniel is evidently
indebted to Shakespeare's play; he seems unlikely to have demonstrated this debt in his revisions
if he had consulted the play before writing his original composition. The best evidence for
Shakespeare's borrowings are in the final act, so it is possible that he read Daniel’s poem late in the
process of composition. We are also in part swayed by a suspicion that, in this period of their
respective careers, a professional playwright like Shakespeare was more likely to borrow from a
prestigious courtly poet like Daniel than vice versa.
In its use of rhyme and its lyrical style, Richard II seems to belong to the period of Love’
Labour’ Lost, Romeo and Juliet, and Midsummer Night’s Dream, but such affinities cannot inform
us whether it belongs to the end, middle, or beginning of that group (see Table 25.2). MacDonald
P. Jackson’s revision of Eliot Slater’s rare words analysis links it most closely to the other early his-
tory plays: in order of association, 1 Henry VI (again suggesting the later date of Part One), Richard
III, 3 Henry VI, and 2 Henry VI (see Table 25.3). The colloquialism index (see Table 25.13) supports
an order which would place it after Loves Labour’s Lost but before Romeo and Juliet and
Midsummer Night's Dream; the metrical tests, though less certain, can also support that interpret-
ation (see Table 25.6). The adjusted metrical data of Marina Tarlinskaja place it closest to the
Shakespeare passages of 1 Henry VI (see Table 25.8). Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith's
(2014) initial analysis gives a date of late 1594 (1594.77), but their adjusted date (taking into
account theatre closure) is mid-1595 (1595.5). In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it
seems best to accept these several indications (which also have the merit of separating Richard II
from the stylistically very different later histories). Martin Wiggins (#1002) also proposes a date
of 1595 for the play.
1 Henry VI 1595
Thomas Nashe, Christopher Marlowe, and another (adapted by Shakespeare)
Original Date: March 1592
Shakespeare Adaptation Date Range: 1592-9
Shakespeare Adaptation Best Guess: 1595
Text: Reference pp. 513-17
Francis Meres (1598) does not mention Henry VI, and most editors since Lewis Theobald have
doubted that Part One is the unassisted work of Shakespeare. Barron Brainerd (1980, 227) found
1 Henry VI statistically deviant relative to his ten tested variates, which strongly suggests that
Shakespeare is not the sole author. Gary Taylor (1995b) argued that the spelling of unusual proper
names and of the exclamation Oh, the erratic marking of scene divisions, the frequent and pecu-
liar use of here in stage directions in Act 1, the distribution of feminine endings, parentheses,
mid-line pauses, compound adjectives, and ye all indicate the presence of more than one author.
On this basis, he assigned to Shakespeare 2.4/scene 12 and 4.2-7 (scenes 23-28). Taylor also attributed
most or all of Act 1 (scenes 1-8) to Thomas Nashe, an attribution that had been supported (on the
514 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
basis of different evidence) by Archibald Stalker (1935), R. B. McKerrow (1937-9), John Dover
Wilson (1952a, xxi-xxxi), and Joachim Thiele (1965). Marco Mincoff (1976), in a purely stylistic
literary analysis, had also distinguished Act 1 from the rest of the play, without identifying its
author. Since 1995, the identification of Nashe as the author of Act 1 has been strongly confirmed
by Paul Vincent (2006; 2008) and Brian Vickers (20074). The statistical methods of Hugh Craig
(2009c) cannot convincingly identify Nashe on the basis of his single surviving play, and for the
same reason Segarra et al. (2016) exclude Nashe from the authors they survey, but both studies
demonstrate that Act 1is anomalous. Although we cannot be certain that Nashe wrote every line,
scene, or sub-scene of Act 1, he is clearly the primary author of Act 1.
Vincent and Vickers challenged Mincoff’s and Taylor’s attribution of so much of the
Bordeaux sequence to Shakespeare (4.2-4.7). Both contrasted the scene traditionally labelled
“4.5 (Shakespearean) with 4.6 (not so clearly Shakespeare, or at least clearly inferior to ‘4.5’). Both
accepted E. Pearlman’s (1996) argument that ‘4.5’ was intended to replace 4.6. This indeed seems
possible; but we find more plausible John Jowett’s argument that the Folio scenes traditionally
labelled ‘4.4 and “4.5’ were accidentally transposed by the printer or the scribe (Reference
pp. 2393-5). But either conjecture, Pearlman’s or Jowett’s, undermines the assumption that 4.6
was written by the same author at the same time as the scene traditionally labelled “4.5 (called 4.4
in the New Oxford Shakespeare). On its own, 4.6 (scene 22) is not convincingly Shakespearean.
Vincent accepts Shakespeare’s authorship of the beginning of 4.7 (on the basis of strong verbal
parallels), but Vickers does not. Vincent argues that both 4.3 and “4.4’ (= our 4.5) contain mixed
writing. This leaves only 4.2 and the traditional “4.5” (= our 4.4) as scenes entirely by Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's authorship of 4.2 has been confirmed by Gary Taylor and John V. Nance (2015),
using a comprehensive examination of n-grams, but no such study has yet been completed for the
disputed scenes in the Bordeaux sequence. At this time, we can say with confidence only that
Shakespeare is present in 2.4 and some, but probably not all, of the Bordeaux scenes.
More fundamentally, both Vincent and Vickers challenge the evidence for Taylor's 1995b
hypothesis that the non-Shakespeare and non-Nashe scenes of the play were written by two add-
itional (unidentified) dramatists. They clearly demonstrate that Taylor’s evidence for distinguish-
ing the alleged third and fourth authors was much shakier than his distinction between
Shakespeare, Nashe, and the rest of the play. Vickers contends that ‘the rest’ was all written by
Thomas Kyd, but that hypothesis is based on the same defective methodologies and evidence as
his more general massive expansion of the Kyd canon critiqued elsewhere in this Authorship
Companion. Vincent, by contrast, does not commit himself to a named third author. His compre-
hensive search of rare Literature Online (LION) parallels in the work of five authors (Robert
Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Nashe, George Peele, and Shakespeare) clearly rules out all five, if
as he believes only one playwright wrote all the scenes not already attributed to Nashe or
Shakespeare. However, those same tests seem to support the presence of at least two other authors.
They identify Greene as the most likely author of two scenes, 3.1 and ‘5.5’ (= our 5.8); but Marlowe
is much more prominent, being identified as the most likely author of ‘1.3’ (= our 1.4), ‘1.4’ (= our
1.5, 1.6), 2.3, 3.3 (= our 3.7), 4.1, ‘5.2’ (= our 5.3), ‘5.2’ (= our 5.3), and ‘5.3’ (= our 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6).
In Vincent's figures, Marlowe is tied with Shakespeare in ‘3.2’ (= our 3.2-3.6), which might suggest
mixed authorship in that stretch of text (whether one long scene or five short scenes). Hugh Craig
(2009c) identifies Marlowe as the author of the Joan la Pucelle scenes (our 1.3, 1.8, 2.1, 3.2-3.6, 5.1,
5.3) 5-45 5-5, 5.7). Segarra et al. (2016) identify Marlowe as the author of 1.1, ‘1.5-6 (= our 1.7, 1.8),
°3.2’ (= our 3.2-3.6), 3.4 (= our 3.8), 4.2, 5.1 (= our 5.2), and ‘5.2’ (= our 5.3). Gary Taylor and John
V. Nance (2015), in a more focused study of Joan’s final battle sequence (our 5.4 and 5.5), clearly
identify it as Marlowe, in striking contrast to 4.2 (clearly Shakespeare).
Obviously, more research is needed. Nance and Taylor rule out Kyd and Greene for the author-
ship of 5.4 and 5.5, but either might be present elsewhere. However, neither can be the author of
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 515
all the non-Nashe and non-Shakespeare scenes. Marlowe's presence in some scenes has been
supported by four very different studies: Vincent’s LION searches of five candidates, Craig’s inves-
tigation of function words, the analysis of function-word proximities in Segarra et al., and the
comprehensive n-gram search of Taylor and Nance. To this may be added a fifth category of evi-
dence: scene divisions. Vincent rightly challenged Taylor’s use of scene divisions to attribute all of
Act 3 and all of the traditional Act 5 to a single author. In a play with act divisions, the first scene
of any act will always be identified, implicitly or explicitly; the Folio’s “Actus Primus. Scena Prima,
and similar labels for 2.1, 3.1, and 4.1 do not necessarily tell us anything about the authors of those
scenes. More significant, potentially, are mid-act scene divisions, which occur only five times in
the Folio: the traditional editorial divisions ‘3.2’ (“Sceena Secunda = our 3.2-6), ‘3.37 (Scaena
Tertia = our 3.7), 3.4 (Sceena Quarta’ = our 3.8), ‘5.2’ (‘Sceena secunda = our 5.2), and ‘s.3°
(‘Sceena Tertia’ = our 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6). As Taylor noted (1995b, 178), only three printed plays from
1580-95 provide parallels for such scene divisions: Marlowe's Tamburlaine Part Iand Tamburlaine
Part I, and the anonymous Locrine (Wiggins #885).
Because multiple independent studies by different means converge on the same conclusion, we
have identified Marlowe as one of the play’s co-authors. Taylor’s 1995b attribution of all of Acts 3
and 5 to a single author was mistaken, and the pattern of evidence uncovered by subsequent inves-
tigators has suggested a division not by acts but by scenes (and not necessarily the scenes identified
in the Folio, or by the editorial tradition). These confusions about structural units in the play, and
uncertainty about the number of collaborators or candidates that should be searched for, make it
more difficult to compare the results of these various studies. More generally, reducing the size of
the data sample increases the margin of error in any investigation. Nevertheless, these tests agree
in finding Marlowe most often in all or most of our 3.2-8 (°3.2; “3.3, and ‘3.4’) and in all or most of
the beginning of the traditional Act 5 (particularly our 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5). Those scenes already
account for more of the text than can be plausibly attributed to Shakespeare. The different units
into which investigators have divided Acts 1, 3, and 5, in assessing their data, probably account for
some of the differences in their conclusions, reflecting incommensurability between the experi-
ments, rather than fundamentally conflicting evidence about the pattern of collaboration.
There are related uncertainties about dating. 1 Henry VI makes use of the 1587 edition of
Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles. Nashe clearly alludes to the play in Pierce Penniless (entered in
the Stationers’ Register on 8 August 1592): ‘How would it haue ioyed braue Talbot (the terror of
the French) to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred yeare in his Tombe, hee should triumphe
againe on the Stage, and haue his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand specta-
tors at least (at seuerall times), who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they
behold him fresh bleeding’ (McKerrow and Wilson 1958, 1: 212). Since London theatres were
closed because of plague from 23 June until January 1593, Nashe’s allusion dates the first performance
no later than June 1592. Philip Henslowe's Diary identifies a “Harey the vj, first performed at his
Rose Theatre on 3 March 1592, and marked as ‘ne’ (Foakes 2002). Henslowe’s regular practice,
when referring to multi-part plays, was to identify the first part simply by the main title, indicat-
ing the part number only when referring to subsequent parts (Knutson 1983). Thus, “Harey the vj’
could be 1 Henry VI, but could not be the play that the Folio identifies as 3 Henry VI (which seems
originally to have been called The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York); it also seems unlikely to
be the play which the Folio identifies as 2 Henry VI, which was either the first part of The
Contention or the second part of Henry VI, but which we have no reason to believe was ever called
the first part of Henry VI. Henslowe’s play, belonging to Strange’s Men, was performed thirteen or
fourteen times during the spring and early summer, to exceptionally large audiences; most critics
accept that Nashe alludes to the same play which Henslowe records (Born 1974). Wilson (1952a)
pointed to a number of departures from the play’s historical sources which coincide with features
of the English campaigns in Normandy in the winter of 1591-2; most subsequent critics have
516 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
accepted the evidential value of those parallels. B. J. Sokol (2000) has strengthened Wilson's
evidence by showing that the Temple Garden scene (2.4) was probably inspired by a major reno-
vation of the gardens in 1591. We therefore accept, as did virtually all critics before Peter Alexander
(1929), that Henslowe’s ‘harey the vj’ is, either in its entirety or at least for the most part, the
1 Henry VI of the Shakespeare Folio.
Internal evidence has suggested to most editors that Part One assumes an audience's familiarity
with 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, which in turn require no familiarity with Part One. Eliot Slater’s
rare vocabulary analysis of whole plays, revised by MacDonald P. Jackson, links Part One most
strongly (in order) with 3 Henry VI, Richard II, Titus Andronicus, and Two Gentlemen (see
Table 25.3). More precisely, Marina Tarlinskaja’s metrical data, interpreted by Jackson, place
Shakespeare's scenes closest to Love’ Labour's Lost and Richard II, suggesting a later date (see
Table 25.8). Rare phrasing—verbal collocations of two or more words, which occur less than
eleven times in the canon—links 2.4 and 4.2-4.7 most closely with Venus and Adonis, 3 Henry VI,
Richard III, and Titus Andronicus (Taylor 1995b).
But none of the foregoing evidence establishes that Henslowe’s ‘harey vj’ was identical to the
text printed in 1623. Since 1995, several investigators (Pearlman, Vincent, and Vickers) have
focused on evidence of revision in the Bordeaux sequence (4.2-4.7), which Taylor in 1995
assigned to Shakespeare in its entirety. Given the brevity of Shakespeare’s contribution to the
extant text, it is certainly possible that his scenes represent a retrospective adaptation of the
original Henslowe play. This hypothesis would fit the theory that the Folio texts of 2 Henry VI
and 3 Henry VI contain material added after formation of the Chamberlain’s Men, as part of the
creation of a trilogy or a tetralogy out of what had originally been unrelated plays (see above).
In particular, the material most convincingly connected to Shakespeare does not contain any of
the passages most closely linking the play to Lord Strange (or Lord Strange’s Men). The clearest
allusion to the Strange family occurs after Talbot’s death (5.1.28-39 in our edition; 4.7.60-71 in
most modern editions). Lawrence Manley and Sally-Beth MacLean (2014, 282-90), attempting
to link Shakespeare to Strange’s Men, attribute that scene to Shakespeare, but in doing so they
misrepresent Taylor’s 1995b essay, which suggested only that Shakespeare might have substi-
tuted the name ‘Sir William Lucy’ for the anonymous English herald of the scene as originally
written. Vickers has written a more general critique of Manley and MacLean’s argument against
revision (2015c).
Taylor’s conjecture about the change from ‘Herald’ to ‘Lucie, Vincent's arguments for mixed
writing in 4.3 and the traditional ‘4.4’ (= our 4.5), and the apparent change of title, are all reminders
that a revision or adaptation may sometimes affect small units of the text. Such small changes can
be clearly visible in a manuscript (as the work of a different hand, or written in a different ink),
but they are usually impossible to verify in a printed text. Many exact details of Shakespeare's
alterations of the original ‘harey the vj’ will remain uncertain, even when larger chunks of added
text can be attributed confidently. It is therefore safer to say ‘adapted by Shakespeare’ than ‘with
added scenes by Shakespeare’.
One feature of the Shakespeare scenes pointing to a date later than early 1592 is the amount of
rhyme. Almost everyone agrees that Shakespeare wrote 2.4, 4.2, and the traditional ‘4.5’ (our 4.4):
these three scenes have 54 rhymes in 242 full verse lines (22.3 per cent). If Shakespeare wrote the
entirety of 4.3 and the traditional ‘4.4’ (our 4.5), the proportions would rise to 80 rhymed lines to
341 full verse lines (23.5 per cent). If Shakespeare wrote all the Bordeaux material up to Talbot's
death (as proposed by Taylor in 1995b), the proportion would rise to 166 out of 428 (38.8 per cent).
All of these figures are much higher than the percentages of rhyme in plays that are most confi-
dently placed before the composition of Venus and Adonis (see Table 25.2). Compared to
Shakespeare's histories and tragedies, these percentages most closely resemble (but exceed) the
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 517
proportion of rhyme in Richard II. This evidence supports the hypothesis that Shakespeare’s
scenes in 1 Henry VI belong to a revision, written after completion of Venus and Adonis and
Lucrece. We therefore assume that the revised versions of all three Henry VI plays occurred at the
same time, as part of the process of creating a unified tetralogy for the Chamberlain’s Men. But
whereas Shakespeare seems, in the case of 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, to have been an original
collaborator as well as a later adapter, in 1 Henry VI he does not seem to have been part-author of
the original, and so we place 1 Henry VI later in his chronology.
Romeo and Juliet 1595
Date Range: 1593-6
Best Guess: late 1595
Text: Reference pp. 679-759
The play was mentioned by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834), and appeared in an edition dated
1597. The fourth edition (undated) is the first with a title page which attributes the play to
Shakespeare. John Weever’s ‘Epigram 22: Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare’ in Epigrammes (1599; STC
25224, sig E6r), like Meres (and perhaps following him), states that the play was Shakespeare's.
His authorship has never been doubted.
‘The title page of the 1597 edition claims that it was ‘Printed by Iohn Danter; and that the play
had ‘been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right Honourable the L. of Hunsdon
his Seruants. Shakespeare’s company ceased to be known by that name on 17 March 1597
(Hanabusa 1999). Danter’s shop was raided at some time between 9 February and 27 March 1597;
his presses were seized (and later destroyed). Although Danter printed only the first four sheets
(A-D), these facts establish that printing of those sheets must have been completed, and the tra-
gedy ‘often plaid; no later than 27 March 1597. It would be difficult, in this scenario, for Shakespeare
to have finished the play any later than December 1596 (Lavin 1970). Martin Wiggins (#987) dates
the play to 1595, giving a date range of 1593-6. J. W. Lever (1953) plausibly argues that two passages
(3.5.1-7, 19-22) are indebted to poems by Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas published in John Eliot’s
Ortho-Epia Gallica (1593; STC 1574); Brian Gibbons (1980) and G. Blakemore Evans (2003) note
several parallels suggesting the influence of Samuel Daniel’s Complaint of Rosamund (1592; STC
6243.2). These parallels suggest a date in 1593 or later. Joan Ozark Holmer (1994) proposes that
Shakespeare relied on Vincentio Saviolo’s fencing manual, first published in 1595, for some of the
specific fencing terms found uniquely in Shakespeare’s canon in Romeo and Juliet (punto reverso,
hay, alla stoccata), and observes several other possible verbal and thematic borrowings from the
manual. Such indebtedness to Saviolo is plausible, but, as Holmer concedes, Shakespeare could
have heard such terminology among expatriate Italian fencing instructors, who were living in
London since at least 1590. The first quarto may preserve Will Kempe’s name in the dialogue (sig.
Iir). The second quarto (1599; STC 22323) specifies a part for Kempe (21.127.2). Kempe joined the
Chamberlain’s Men in May 1594, but either reference to Kempe could reflect a later addition.
Andrew Gurr (1996a) proposes that the play’s staging demands indicate that Shakespeare had
performance at the Theatre in mind when writing the play, and the company did not leave that
venue before March 1598. Gurr suggests a range of dates from 1592 to 1596, and analogizes the
demand for aloft space and trapdoor in Titus Andronicus, which inclines him towards an earlier
date. But it is not clear why the demand for these two features should be specific to a short period
of early modern staging. Amy J. Riess and George Walton Williams (1992) note a number of links
between the Pyramus and Thisbe scenes of Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet
(including the wall, common stanzaic forms and diction, the play and playlet’s titles, and the
518 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
seeming deaths of Juliet and Thisbe), suggesting to them that Romeo and Juliet is the earlier play
of the two.
The Nurse specifies that “’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years’ (4.24, 36), and her insist-
ence upon both the earthquake and its timing has led scholars since the eighteenth century to
suspect a topical allusion. The only two earthquakes to which this might reasonably refer are
those of 1580 and 1584; the earlier of these was the more significant, but Shakespeare himself may
have had a special interest in the latter (Thomas 1949; Dodson 1950). If the passage is an allusion,
then the play was composed either in 1591 or 1595, and the apparent parallels with Eliot and Daniel
favour the later date. So do two links, noted by M. C. Bradbrook (1978), between the play and the
family of the Earl of Southampton, with whom Shakespeare developed an association between
1593 (Venus and Adonis) and 1594 (Rape of Lucrece). George Gascoigne wrote a masque in 1575 for
a double marriage in the Montague family (that of Southampton’s mother), featuring the ‘ancient
grudge between the Montagues and Capulets; in October 1594 Southampton sheltered Sir
Charles and Sir Henry Danvers, who had killed another man in a family feud. The Southampton,
Eliot, and Daniel evidence, in conjunction, tilts us toward the 1595 interpretation of the earth-
quake allusion.
The 1591 date would have to be reconciled with the dating evidence for several other plays, for
Romeo and Juliet seems stylistically to belong in the same period as Love’ Labour's Lost,
Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Richard II. Moreover, it remains possible that no allusion is
intended, and without such an allusion there would be no reason at all to date the play so early as
1591. And, of course, the specificity of date in this allusion would be lost in later performances.
Marina Tarlinskaja’s metrical data link the play most closely to Comedy of Errors (see Table 25.8).
MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s data places it closest to Love's Labour's Lost and
Richard II (see Table 25.7); Jackson’s reworking of Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary test links it closely
to only one play, King John (see Table 25.3). These tests therefore confirm the evidence of rhyme
and rhetorical technique in putting the play in the mid-1590s.
G. Blakemore Evans (2003) places Romeo and Juliet in the second half of 1596, basing his argu-
ment heavily upon J. J. M. Tobin’s claim (1980a; 1980b) that the play is indebted to Thomas Nashe’s
Saffron Walden (printed 1596; STC 18369). Jackson (1985) disposes of Tobin’s arguments.
‘Shall I Die?’ 1595-6
Date Range: 1590-1637
Best Guess: 1595-6
Text: Reference pp. 3653-7
‘Shall I Die?’ appears in two seventeenth-century manuscripts: “Yale Osborn b. 197, compiled
between 1620 and 1639, and ‘Bodleian Rawlinson poetry MS 160, which, according to Gary
Taylor, ‘cannot have reached its current state before 1637’ (see Chapter 12). The Rawlinson poem
is ascribed to “William Shakespeare’; the Osborn manuscript names no author. Both texts appear
to derive from a common source, Rawlinson more accurately (Reference p. 3643). Rawlinson
ascribed another poem to Shakespeare, “When God was pleased’; as with ‘Shall I Die?’ it is the
only manuscript to do so.
The attribution of ‘Shall I Die?’ to Shakespeare has been vehemently contested since Taylor
called attention to the poem in November 1985, and included the poem in the 1986 Oxford
Complete Works. The poem has a number of features that make conventional methods of attribu-
tion difficult, particularly its unusual stanzaic form and rhyme scheme, and its highly artificial
diction may not convey many of the linguistic attributes of its author. Additionally, its date of
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 519
composition is disputed. Taylor (1986) proposed an early date, based on evidence of rare
Shakespearean words. A date of 1595-6 would place this poem around the same time as Midsummer
Night’s Dream, most likely written in early 1596, in which the first six lines of Robin Goodfellow’s
chant at 5.449-54 share the internal rhyme scheme and rhythm of ‘Shall I Die?” We have here
placed it before Midsummer Night’s Dream, on the assumption that Robin echoes the peculiar
rhythm of the poem, which is clearly an exercise and/or demonstration of virtuosity in rhyming.
If Shakespeare wrote this poem, it probably stems from this period. However, Donald Foster
(1987, 68-73) argued for a later date, pointing to specific words rare before 1600, the frequency of
gerunds and contractions, and tying the poem to an apparent vogue for ‘Shall I...? lyrics in lute
songs popular between 1600 and 1625, as observed by Erica Sheen (1986). Foster suggested a date
between 1610 and 1625, a range endorsed by Brian Vickers (2002a, 32-3). But a search of Early
English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP) demonstrates that shall I die as a
question expressing romantic despair is common enough in poetry of the late sixteenth century:
examples include Abraham Fraunce’s popular translation of Thomas Watson’s Lamentations of
Amyntas (1587) and Robert Greene’s Menaphon (1589). The reference to ‘Pretty bare... plots’ may
also have some bearing on determining the date of the poem: Foster understands the woman in
the poem to be baring her breasts, a style common from about 1610 onward. However, Taylor
reads the poem as referring to the woman's cleavage as the ‘bare’ or ‘bar’ that ‘parts those plots
[breasts]; pointing to displays of cleavage as fashionable in the later Elizabethan period, which
may support the earlier date (Wells et al. 1987, 454).
Thomas Pendleton (1989) and Vickers (2002a, 1-53) have also rejected Shakespeare’s authorship
on lexical grounds. In his chapter for this volume, Taylor acknowledges the limits of his early lexical
arguments, as well as those of Pendleton, Foster, Vickers, and others (see Chapter 12). In particular,
Taylor challenges Pendleton’s claim that the poem's lack of the article the is evidence that Shakespeare
could not have written it: in a stretch of 384 words between Sonnets 34 and 38 Shakespeare does not
use this article. The only other author who does something comparable is Barnabe Barnes, who may
be considered a candidate (see p. 228). In Chapter 7 of this volume, Francis X. Connor could not
conclusively identify the poem as Shakespeare's. Because the linguistic evidence for authorship
remains inconclusive, Shakespeare cannot currently be excluded as its author.
The bibliographical evidence offers better grounds for suspecting Shakespeare’s potential
authorship. Compilers of manuscripts, unlike book publishers, had no reason to falsely attribute
a poem; the Rawlinson compiler believed Shakespeare wrote ‘Shall I Die?’ and ‘When God was
pleased’ Was the compiler mistaken? On the basis of current scholarship on the composition of the
Rawlinson manuscript, Taylor demonstrates that its attributions are overwhelmingly correct, and
the few erroneous attributions are ‘ambiguous, common, or apparently due to simple misplacement
of initials’ (p. 226). Additionally, if ‘Shall I Die?’ and “When God was pleased’ are both mistakenly
ascribed to Shakespeare, they would be ‘the only known mistakes of such a kind’ in the manuscript,
and they would be the only poems indisputably written by someone other than Shakespeare that are
erroneously credited to him in a seventeenth-century manuscript (see p. 226).
A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1596
Date Range: 1594-7
Best Guess: early 1596
Text: Reference pp. 869-922
Listed by Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia (1598; STC 17834), and ascribed to Shakespeare in the
first edition (1600; STC 22302). Scholars have generally agreed that Merchant of Venice and both
520 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
parts of Henry IV post-date Midsummer Night’s Dream, and that all three must have been written
by September 1598 (see below); at the very least, this would push composition of Midsummer
Night’s Dream back to early 1597 or before. At the baptismal feast of Prince Henry, on 30 August
1594, a chariot was drawn in by a blackamoor: “This chariot should have been drawne in by a lyon,
but because his presence might have brought some feare to the nearest, or that the sights of the
lights and the torches might have commoved his tameness, it was thought meete that the Moor
should supply that room? An account of this incident was published in A True Reportary (entered
in the Stationers’ Register, 24 October 1594), and it bears a remarkable resemblance to the action
of Bottom and his fellow actors, who, planning an entertainment for their sovereign, likewise
anticipate the fear that might be produced by bringing in ‘a lion among ladies, and adjust their
scenario accordingly. Rather than a topical allusion that the dramatist intended to communicate
to the audience, this incident instead seems to have served as a source for his construction of part
of the plot.
Composition soon after 1594 is suggested by a few other details. The reference to ‘the death | Of
learning, late deceasd in beggary’ (7.52-3) seems to us relatively unlikely to refer to any specific
individual, but Robert Greene and Thomas Watson had died in 1592, Christopher Marlowe in
1593, and Thomas Kyd in 1594: the years 1592-4 were disastrous for the men who had dominated
the English stage in the 1580s. Torquato Tasso died in April 1595; whether the author and audience
thought of native drama or continental epic, the lines would be most telling in the years shortly
afterwards. At 7.192-5 Hero and Leander, Cephalus and Procris are referred to in rapid succession
as types of classical love: poems on both couples were entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1593.
Finally, on 17 September 1594, the Admiral’s Men were performing a ‘ne’ play called Palamon and
Arcite (recorded in Henslowe’s Diary; Wiggins #966); it seems likely that both companies were
offering the public a Theseus play at about the same time. The allusion to unseasonable weather
(3.82-7) would fit the second half of 1594, 1595, or 1596, and hence is of little value in narrowing the
range of composition. Most scholars would agree that, given the extraordinary parallels between
them at every level of style and structure, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet were
written at about the same time, though there is no consensus about which came first. Harold F.
Brooks (1979b), Amy J. Riess and George Walton Williams (1992), and G. Blakemore Evans (2003)
all give plausible grounds for placing Romeo and Juliet first, pointing to its influence on
Shakespeare's departure from his sources for the Pyramus and Thisbe playlet.
Martin Wiggins (#1012) gives a date range of 1594-8, with a best guess of 1595, but he does not
provide any further explanation; so, too, Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) settle ona
date in 1595 (1595.3). We think a slightly later date more likely. Midsummer Night's Dream belongs
stylistically to a group of plays which includes Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour's Lost, and Richard
II. All three of Ants Oras’s counts associate it with Romeo and King John (see Table 25.6). In
MacDonald P. Jackson's (2015b) revision of Eliot Slater, Midsummer Night's Dream is linked most
closely to As You Like It and Comedy of Errors (see Table 25.3). For colloquialisms (see Table 25.13),
it is closest to Merchant of Venice and Richard II. Marina Tarlinskaja’s (2014) metrical data place
it closest to King John (see Table 25.8). Supporting a 1596 date, William B. Hunter (1983; 1985) uses
a literal astronomical interpretation of the play’s opening lines.
Some scholars have proposed that Midsummer Night’s Dream was written to celebrate a par-
ticular aristocratic wedding (May 1983; Wiles 1993). This hypothesis seems to us unnecessary
(Wells 1967, 12-14; 1991). The first play known to have been written specifically for such an occa-
sion was Samuel Daniel’s Hymen’s Triumph (1614; STC 6257), in a period when court entertain-
ments had become more elaborate. However, we do know that plays were sometimes performed
at private houses during the 1590s, and it is not inconceivable that a company’s patron might have
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 521
requested a new play for such a performance. If such an occasion is sought, the only two likely
candidates are the marriage between Elizabeth Vere and the Earl of Derby (26 January 1595) and
that between Elizabeth Carey and Sir Thomas Berkeley (19 February 1596). Elizabeth Carey’s
grandfather and father were successively patrons of the Chamberlain’s Men from 1594 to 1603; by
contrast, Shakespeare’s connection with Strange’s Men (patronized by the previous Earl of Derby)
had ended at least eight months before the 1595 marriage. In any case, there are no records that
connect a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream to a specific wedding celebration.
King John 1596
Date Range: 1587-98
Best Guess: mid-1596
Text: Reference pp. 2003-66
Listed by Francis Meres (1598; STC 17834), and undoubtedly later than Raphael Holinshed’s
Chronicles (1587). It could be, and has been, dated in any year of the decade between these termini.
The play is certainly related to The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England, an anonymous
two-part play published in 1591 (Wiggins #824). Dugdale Sykes (1919) and, more recently, Brian
Vickers (2004) ascribe Troublesome Reign to George Peele. Most scholars believe that Troublesome
Reign is a major source of King John; this view has been cogently restated by R. L. Smallwood
(1974) and Charles R. Forker (2010). E. A. J. Honigmann (1954b; 1982a) argued that Troublesome
Reign is an imitation of Shakespeare's play, influenced by memories of King John in performance.
Even so, however, he was forced in 1982 to concede a direct link between the wording of two stage
directions in Troublesome Reign and those in King John, which could not be due to memorial
transmission and would normally be interpreted as clear evidence that Shakespeare worked in
composing King John directly from a text of Troublesome Reign. Honigmann averts this conclu-
sion (1982a, 62) only by supposing that the Folio compositors sporadically consulted an edition of
Troublesome Reign when setting from the manuscript of King John. Given the fact that the two
plays have only two lines in common (2.1.527; 5.4.42), we find this supposition highly improbable
(E. P. Wilson 1953). The relative priority of the two plays about King John encouraged extensive
debate in the late 1980s (Thomas 1986; 1987; Honigmann 1987; Werstine 1987). Honigmann reiter-
ated his stance (2000), but as Vickers (2004) and Forker (2010) observe, drawing in part on John
Dover Wilson (1936) and the analyses of Jackson, King John’s close narrative and stylistic relation-
ship (see below) with Richard II strongly indicates that King John is later than Troublesome Reign
and that Shakespeare is the borrower. If not, both Shakespeare plays would need to be dated pre-
1591 and this is improbable for Richard II (date range, 1595-7). Martin Wiggins (#1043) also
includes 1596 as his best guess for King John, providing a date range of 1594-8. The listing in Meres
(1598) provides the obvious terminus ad quem; Wiggins does not explain his reasoning behind
1594 as a starting point, but it presumably refers to the founding of the Chamberlain’s Men.
Elsewhere Wiggins provides a date range of 1587-91 (best guess 1589) for Troublesome Reign.
In MacDonald P. Jackson’s revision of Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary analysis King John is most
strongly linked to Romeo and Juliet (see Table 25.3). For Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s figures
for mid-line pauses, King John is closest to (in descending order): Midsummer Nights Dream,
Romeo and Juliet, Loves Labour’ Lost, Comedy of Errors, and Richard II (see Table 25.7). The
colloquialism-in-verse test (see Table 25.13) puts King John closest to the two Henry IV plays. Even
Honigmann placed Richard II and 1 Henry IV in 1595-6, and their strong links with King John are
difficult to explain on his hypothesis. Baron Brainerd’s statistical test (1980) forcefully corroborates
522 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
alate date. Marina Tarlinskaja’s analyis of stress places it closest to Midsummer Night’s Dream (see
Table 25.8). Her data for ‘strong syntactical breaks’ also place King John after Richard II and before
Merchant of Venice (see Table 25.9). Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith's (2014) initial analysis
places King John in mid-1595 (1595.44), but their final dating (adjusted for theatre closures) is early
1596 (1596.1). All the stylistic evidence, and the play’s relatively infrequent use of rhyme (see
Table 25.2), place King John after Richard II, and in the absence of good evidence to the contrary we
have accepted that order.
The Merchant of Venice 1597
Date Range: 1596-8
Best Guess: early 1597
Text: Reference pp. 935-96
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 22 July 1598, and mentioned by Francis Meres (September
1598; STC 17834), although not published until 1600, in an edition which attributed it to Shakespeare.
Joan Ozark Holmer (1985) notes that Shylock’s use of the story of Jacob and Laban (1.3.70-89) is
almost certainly indebted to Miles Mosse’s The Arraignment and Conviction of Usury (1595;
Stationers’ Register, 18 February 1595; STC 18207). The reference to ‘wealthy Andrew’ (1.1.27-9)
apparently alludes to a Spanish vessel, the St Andrew, captured in the Cadiz expedition of 1596;
news of the capture apparently reached England on 30 July 1596, and the ship continued to arouse
interest until the summer of 1597 (Brown 1955, xxvi-xxvii). Richard H. Popkin (1989) notes that
there was a Jewish merchant from Venice, Alonso Nunez de Herrera, living in London between
1596 and 1600; but there is no reason to believe Shakespeare had a specific Jewish person in mind
(similar attempts have been made to connect the plight of Roderigo Lopez to Shylock), and, of
course, Antonio is the titular merchant, not Shylock.
Martin Wiggins (#1047) gives a range of dates of 1596-8, and a best guess of 1596. But the rela-
tive priority of Merchant of Venice and 1 Henry IV is hard to determine, and Marina Tarlinskaja’s
metrical figures would place the comedy just after the history (see Tables 25.8 and 25.9). Douglas
Bruster and Geneviéve’s (2014) initial analysis places it in mid-1596 (1596.59), but after adjust-
ment for theatre closure they date it very early in 1597 (1597.1). The difference here is only a matter
of months, and it seems to us more probable that Shakespeare wrote two plays in both 1596 and
1597, rather than three in 1596 and only one in 1597.
Henry IV, part one 1597
Date Range: 1596-7
Best Guess: late 1597
Text: Reference pp. 547-612
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 25 February 1598, and published in an edition dated 1598;
Francis Meres (1598) includes ‘Henry the 4? among Shakespeare's plays, and the title page of the
1599 edition attributes it to him. The play’s probable indebtedness to Samuel Daniel's Civil Wars
(1595; STC 6244.3), and the fact that it must post-date Richard II, effectively narrow the date of
composition to 1596 or 1597. Gary Taylor (1987d) argues that the circumstances of the change of
the name Oldcastle strongly suggest that the play was censored in connection with a court per-
formance; the publication of the play was almost certainly designed to publicize the changed
name, and we might therefore expect it to have followed soon after the act of censorship, and
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 523
therefore unusually close to the play’s original composition or, at least, its first court performance.
Martin Wiggins (#1059) also gives a date range of 1596-7, and like us he favours the later date;
Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) also favour a 1597 date (1597.5). There is little stylistic
(or other) evidence to separate the order of composition for Merchant of Venice and 1 Henry IV.
Marina Tarlinskaja’s metrical counts places the history before the comedy (see Tables 25.8 and
25.9). MacDonald P. Jackson's reworking of Ants Oras’s figures for mid-line pauses also connects
1 Henry IV closely with Merchant of Venice (see Table 25.7). The two plays are closest to each other,
and they correlate most closely (in descending order) with the same three plays, Much Ado, Henry
V, and Julius Caesar. Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary evidence revised by Jackson links 1 Henry IV
most closely to 2 Henry IV (see Table 25.3). The close relationship between the two Henry IV plays
is reinforced by the findings of Jackson's revision of Hartmut Ilsemann’s speech length tests (see
Table 25.4).
Henry IV, part two 1598
Date Range: 1597-1600
Best Guess: early 1598
Text: Reference Pp. 779-856
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 23 August 1600, and published in an edition dated 1600;
both attribute it to Shakespeare. Francis Meres’s allusion (1598; STC 17834) to ‘Henry the 4° is
ambiguous, but the play must be earlier than Henry V (late 1598-mid 1599); Justice Silence is
referred to in Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour (1599; Wiggins #1216). The reference to
Amurath at 15.48 apparently alludes to the accession of Muhammad III to the Turkish Sultanate
in late February 1596. When 1 Henry IV was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 25 February
1598, it was not identified as the first part, nor was it so identified on the title page of the 1598 edi-
tion; this conspiracy of silence has suggested to some scholars that Part Two had not by February
1598 been performed. However, the third ‘newly corrected’ edition of 1 Henry IV (1599) also failed
to be identified as the first part. And likewise the editions of 1604, 1608, 1613, and 1622 all continued
without this distinction. The Folio confirms 1 Henry IV as the first part for the first time. (Indeed,
the 1632 and 1639 quarto editions of 1 Henry IV still did not identify the play as the first part.) Little
can be made of this. But the play must in its entirety post-date 1 Henry IV.
MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Marina Tarlinskaja’s data for “Strong syntactic breaks’
(see Table 25.9), which excludes Merry Wives of Windsor and Much Ado, link 2 Henry IV most
closely with, in order, Merchant of Venice, 1 Henry IV, and Henry V. For rare word vocabulary, in
Jackson’s revision of Eliot Slater, the play has the most links with Merry Wives and 1 Henry IV (see
Table 25.3), but these connections may simply reflect overlapping material and characters. For
speech length, 2 Henry IV falls unsurprisingly between 1 Henry IV and Henry V (see Table 25.4).
All of this evidence points to a close temporal proximity between both parts of Henry IV (our
chronology supposes the two parts were written within twelve months). Martin Wiggins (#1083)
gives a range of dates of 1596-1600, but settles on 1597 as the play’s most likely date. Douglas
Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) think a date in late 1597 most likely (1597.8). The multiple
early editions of 1 Henry IV suggest that the play was an immediate success, whetting the public
appetite for more plays involving Sir John. 2 Henry IV appears to have been written soon after to
satisfy that demand; the writing of Merry Wives of Windsor some years later testifies to the char-
acter’s enduring appeal. If 1 Henry IV had been written in time for a court performance in the
1597-8 winter season, then the Chamberlain’s Men would have wanted the sequel to be ready for
the next, 1598-9 winter season.
524 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Much Ado About Nothing 1598
Date Range: 1597- early 1599
Best Guess: mid- to late 1598
Text: Reference pp. 1019-73
Mentioned in the Stationers’ Register on both 4 August and 23 August 1600, and published in an
edition dated 1600. The second Register entry and the title page both attribute it to Shakespeare,
and his authorship has never been doubted. The 1600 edition makes it clear that William Kempe
played, or was expected to play, the role of Dogberry; Kempe left the Chamberlain’s Men early in
1599 (Chambers 19238, 2: 326). The fact that the play is not mentioned by Francis Meres (September
1598; STC 17834) is usually interpreted as evidence that it had not been performed by mid-1598,
thus fixing the date precisely (see above). The cumulative stylistic evidence supports this dating.
In MacDonald P. Jackson's reworking of Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary tests (see Table 25.3), the
play is most closely linked to 2 Henry IV. Ants Oras’s mid-line pause data, reworked by Jackson
(see Table 25.7), link it to, in order, Julius Caesar, 1 Henry IV, As You Like It, Merchant of Venice,
and Henry V. The concentration of links with non-comedies in this brief period cannot be dis-
counted statistically. The colloquialism-in-verse test (see Table 25.13) places Much Ado closest
to Henry V and clearly places the play earlier than As You Like It. Generally, the play belongs to
Shakespeare's prose period, stretching from 1 Henry IV to Twelfth Night. Douglas Bruster and
Genevieve Smith's (2014) initial test places the play implausibly early (1596.69, before the Henry IV
plays), but their final dating (allowing for theatre closure) is early 1597 (1597.35). Their dating
ignores the play’s absence from Meres’s list. The comedy’s sophistication (compared, say, to Two
Gentlemen, which Meres includes) encourages our suspicion that Meres did not know the play.
Martin Wiggins (#1148) puts the play firmly in 1598.
“To the Queer’ 1599
Date Range: January 1598—March 1599
Best Guess: February 1599
Text: Reference p. 617
The verses with the heading or label or title ‘to y* Q. by y* players 1598’ survive in only a single
known early document, a manuscript miscellany currently preserved in the Cambridge University
Library (Ms. Dd.5.75, folio 46r). Steven W. May (1968; 1988) identified the compiler of the miscel-
lany as Henry Stanford, a minor versifier employed for many years in the household of Sir George
Carey. In 1598-9 Carey was the second Baron Hunsdon and also Lord Chamberlain, and hence
the patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men; his father preceded him as patron of the company
from its inception in 1594. William A. Ringler and Steven W. May cautiously attributed the verses
to Shakespeare (1972). They noted that ‘other dates in the manuscript invariably follow the custom
of beginning the new year on March 25’ (138.n1), and reasoned that the verses were probably
addressed to Queen Elizabeth I after a theatrical performance for the Shrovetide entertainments
in (according to modern conventions of dating) February 1599.
The manuscript does not contain an attribution to Shakespeare, but it does attribute the verses
to actors (‘by the players’), presumably professional actors, who had access to the Queen in
1598-9. Only the Admiral’s Men and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed at court between
1 January 1598 and 25 March 1599. Given Henry Stanford’s position in the Carey household, it
seems most likely that Stanford acquired the verses from the Lord Chamberlain, who acquired
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 525
them from his own company of players, who had performed before the Queen. This chain of
reasoning is not watertight. As Lord Chamberlain, Carey could have asked for a copy of such
verses from any playing company performing before the Queen. Nevertheless, in the context
of Stanford's life ‘the players’ seems most likely to have been a reference to the only players
associated with his own employer. At worst, there is a fifty-fifty chance that ‘the players’ were the
Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
If the players were the Chamberlain’s Men, then it is also plausible to infer that the verses were
written by the company’s house dramatist, Shakespeare. This too is not watertight. The verses
might have been written by the author of the play that they followed, and although there have
been several conjectures we simply do not know which play that was. Thomas Dekker’s The
Shoemaker’s Holiday (Wiggins #1188) was performed by the Admiral’s Men before the Queen on
1 January 1599. The only playwright, other than Shakespeare, known to have written a new play
for the Chamberlain’s Men in 1598 was Ben Jonson; Every Man in his Humour (Wiggins #1143)
was first performed between 10 July and 20 September of that year, and its evident success would
have made it an attractive candidate for court performance that winter. But we also do not know
whether all the plays performed were new ones.
Ringler and May supplemented the documentary evidence by calling attention to some
stylistic features characteristic of Shakespeare: the uninflected genitive in line 16, ‘father queene;
the use of which as a personal pronoun, the use of trochaic metre, ‘which was a favorite with
Shakespeare; and the fact that each word in the epilogue occurs elsewhere in Shakespeare’s works,
with the exception of ‘circuler’ On this basis, G. Blakemore Evans (1974, 1851-2) included the verses
in an appendix, and Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen prominently included the poem in their
Royal Shakespeare Company edition of the Complete Works (2007, 2433), with Bate calling par-
ticular attention to their addition to the canon. But their edition emended away the uninflected
genitive that Ringler and May cited as evidence of Shakespeare's authorship.
Since then, Michael Hattaway (2009) and Helen Hackett (2012) have both contested the attri-
bution to Shakespeare. Hattaway advocates Jonson's authorship; Hackett advocates Dekker’s. But
their alternative attributions are based on weak and circumstantial evidence. More recently, John
V. Nance has systematically checked the poem's language (1) against all early modern dramatic
texts first performed between 1576 and 1642 and contained in Literature Online, and (2) against all
early modern texts (drama, poetry, and prose) printed between 1576 and 1642 and contained in
EEBO-TCP (Nance 2016a). He has checked the results of these searches against control samples
of similar writing by Shakespeare, Jonson, and Dekker. His quantitative results clearly associate
the verses with Shakespeare more than any other writer of the period. Nance supplements the
quantitative data with a close reading of the thought and language of the verses, which strongly
links it to Shakespeare’s undisputed work in the late 1590s.
As Francis X. Connor demonstrates in Chapter 7 of this Authorship Companion, short poems
cannot be definitively attributed on the basis of such tests. But the documentary evidence estab-
lishes that these verses are a theatrical text, dated and situated in a specific context; moreover, for
professional theatrical texts the number of plausible potential candidates is much smaller than for
poems, and the existing digital databases more comprehensively represent the extant dramatic
corpora. Nance’s investigation seems to us sufficient to confirm Ringler and May’s attribution.
The Passionate Pilgrim 1599
Date Range: 1589-99
Best Guess: 1599
Text: Reference pp. 649-64
526 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
The dates for individual poems in this miscellany are addressed in Reference (pp. 626-40). The
collection is dated 1599 on the title page for the second edition, printed by Thomas Judson for
William Jaggard, and as with other books of poetry associated with Shakespeare we take the date
of earliest known publication as the date of completion of the material in its current form. A first
edition exists only in a fragmentary form and lacks a title page, so its date, publisher, and printer
are uncertain. It is widely assumed Jaggard was the publisher and Judson the printer, although
Katherine Duncan-Jones and H. R. Woudhuysen (2007, 491-4) cast doubt on the latter.
The datable poems that appear in both the fragmentary first edition and the second edition can
be traced to the mid-1590s. Three poems—‘Dyd not the heauenly Rhetoricke of thine eie’ (PP3),
‘If Loue make me forsworne (PP), and ‘On a day’ (PP16)—appear in Love’s Labour's Lost, written
in 1594-5 and printed in 1598, although there was apparently a 1597 edition, now lost, which might
have contained the same poems (see Reference, p. 450). A version of another poem common to
both editions, ‘My flocks feede not’ (PP17), appears in British Library ‘MS Harley 6910; dated
to the late 1590s; it was also printed in Thomas Weelkes’s 1597 Madrigals to 3.4.5.e6. Voyces (STC
25205). ‘When as thine eye hath chose the Dame’ (PP18) appears in two manuscripts plausibly dated
to the 1590s. On the evidence of the dates of these poems, it seems safe to date the compilation of
the manuscript that lies behind the first edition of Passionate Pilgrim to the late 1590s.
If the first edition also included all the contents of the second edition, the latest poems would be
two by Richard Barnfield, ‘If Musicke and sweet Poetrie agree’ (PP8) and ‘As it fell vpon a day’
(PP20). These appeared in his 1598 Complaint of Poetry, published by John Jaggard, Williams
brother (STC 1485). Neither poem has been discovered in any source that pre-dates these printed
versions, and their inclusion would indicate that the manuscript miscellany underlying the first edi-
tion was compiled late in 1598 at the earliest, or early in 1599. The second edition also includes ‘Liue
with me and be my Loue; a version of the popular lyric alluded to in Christopher Marlowe's The Jew
of Malta (Wiggins #828), written no earlier than 1589, which may set the earliest date for any part of
the compilation. Other poems that suggest a late 1590s date for this compilation include PPu, a ver-
sion of which had appeared in B. Griffin's 1596 Fidessa (STC 12367), and perhaps three poems (‘Sweet
Cytherea PP4, ‘Scarse had the Sunne’ PP6, and ‘Faire was the morne’ PP9) apparently based on, or
exploiting the popularity of, Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, first published in 1593 but republished
in 1599 in an edition with which some extant copies of Passionate Pilgrim are bound.
The second-edition title page names ‘W. Shakespeare’ the author, although the work is a
miscellany. He almost certainly wrote five poems: the three from Loves Labour’ Lost, and the
first two poems in the collection, versions of Sonnets 138 and 144. As noted above, other poems
had appeared in printed collections attributed to Griffin and Barnfield. ‘Crabbed age and youth
(PP12) would later appear in a book by Thomas Deloney, a lost edition of which may have pre-
dated Passionate Pilgrim. ‘Liue with me and be my Loue’ would be printed as Marlowe's in 1600,
and its reply, included here in an abridged version, would be credited to Walter Raleigh in 1664.
The other poems are anonymous, and Shakespeare's authorship is uncertain. In particular, he
cannot yet be excluded as author of the “Venus and Adonis’ poems (see Connor, Chapter 7 in this
volume), although it remains possible that the poems are a skilful imitation of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare almost certainly had nothing to do with compilation of this volume, so it does not
affect our consideration of his workload in 1598-9.
Henry V 1599
Date Range: November 1598-September 1599
Best Guess: spring 1599
Text: Reference pp. 2311-85
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 527
Mentioned in the Stationers’ Register on 4 August and 14 August 1600, and published in a quarto
edition dated 1600. It was first (implicitly) attributed to Shakespeare by inclusion in the projected
Thomas Pavier collection of 1619, and more reliably by inclusion in the 1623 Folio. Evidence for
dating is most fully discussed by Gary Taylor (1982b). The play must post-date 2 Henry IV; it
probably post-dates George Chapman’s Seven Books of the Iliads of Homer (entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 10 April 1598, and published in an edition dated 1598; STC 13632). Francis
Meres does not mention Henry V in Palladis Tamia (September 1598). The allusion to the Earl of
Essex’s expedition to Ireland (5.0.29-34) could have been written as early as November 1598, but
a time closer to Essex’s departure on 27 March 1599 seems more plausible: one usually anticipates
someone’s return after they have departed. It has generally been assumed that the allusion dates
completion of the play before midsummer, when it became clear that Essex was unlikely to return
victoriously; Keith Brown has, however, pointed out that the allusion could fit July or August,
with the dramatist and his audience hoping against hope, and with Essex’s predicament resem-
bling Henry’s before Agincourt (Brown 1986). Nevertheless, this later dating of Henry V creates
problems for the dating of Julius Caesar (see below). If Shakespeare had been writing Henry V
during the summer touring break, he should have been cautious about inserting an allusion
which could be obsolete by the play’s first (autumn) performances.
Richard Dutton (2016) claims that the Folio text includes later additions to the underlying
Shakespearean text, rather than, conversely, restored excisions from the quarto text. As such, he
proposes the Folio’s choric allusion to a successful ‘Generall... from Ireland comming’ refers to
Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy’s victory in Kinsale in the winter of 1601. However, stylistic tests
(completed on the Folio text) tend to support the earlier date. Marina Tarlinskaja’s strong pause
data place it much closer to 1 Henry IV, Merchant of Venice, and 2 Henry IV than to those plays
dated 1601-2 (see Table 25.9). The colloquialism-in-verse test (see Table 25.13) places it closest to
Much Ado. Martin Wiggins (#1183), while noting Dutton’s argument, nevertheless places Henry V
firmly in 1599; Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) use a date of mid-1599 (1599.5) as one
of three ‘more reasonable’ play dates to anchor their overall analysis. If the allusion does refer to
Essex, as we suspect, the Folio version of the play must have been finished before his return on
27 September 1599; it was probably imitated in 1 Sir John Oldcastle (Wiggins #1211), completed on
16 October 1599 according to Philip Henslowe’s Diary (Foakes 2002). The disputed relationship
between the quarto and Folio texts is discussed in Alternative Versions.
Julius Caesar 1599
Date Range: September 1598-September 1599
Best Guess: mid-1599
Text: Reference pp. 2941-97
First published in 1623, but also attributed to Shakespeare by Ben Jonson and Leonard Digges.
It was not mentioned by Francis Meres (September 1598; STC 17834). Thomas Platter witnessed a
performance of a ‘tragedy of the first Emperor Julius’ on 21 September 1599. This has usually
been assumed to be Shakespeare's play (Chambers 1930; Williams 1937). Ernest Schanzer (1956)
objected that this might have been a play performed by the rival Admiral’s Men at the Rose, but
in fact Philip Henslowe recorded no income for the Admiral’s Men in the summer of 1599.
Carol Chillington Rutter (Rutter 1984) proposed that the Rose was closed for the summer. If
true, then the tragedy Platter saw was almost certainly Shakespeare's at the Globe. But during
that summer Henslowe continued to pay for books (see below) and materials for costumes.
Rutter therefore also conjectured that the Rose might have been open and that Henslowe
528 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
ceased receiving income, which was instead received by the players who had ‘turned over’ all
payments to Henslowe for the preceding twelve months; if this scenario is true, then the play
Platter saw might have been an anonymous lost play about Caesar at the Rose. Gabriel Egan
(1999) observes that there is nothing in the evidence about Platter’s visit that strongly supports
one scenario over the other.
Supporting a 1599 date for Shakespeare’s play are two apparent allusions in Jonson's Every
Man out of his Humour, 3.4.33 and 3.1.77 (Wiggins #1216: ‘late 1599’ for date of composition;
registered 8 April 1600). As Gary Taylor points out (1984), the play may be indebted to Samuel
Daniel’s Musophilus (in Poetical Essays, STC 6261; entered 9 January 1599; first edition dated
1599) and to Sir John Davies's Nosce Teipsum (STC 6355; entered 14 April 1599; first two editions
both dated 1599). The allusion to Rome at Henry V 5.0.26-8 suggests that Shakespeare was
influenced towards the end of that play by his primary sources in writing Julius Caesar;
although it is impossible to be sure whether that allusion anticipates or recollects Julius Caesar,
it agrees with other indications that the two plays belong together. Martin Wiggins (#1198)
identifies a situational correspondence with Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday or The
Gentle Craft (Wiggins #1188), comparing the scene in Shakespeare's play in which an impatient
Portia sends Lucius to the Senate (2.4) with Mistress Firk sending Firk to the Guildhall in
Dekker’s play (scene 10). Shakespeare was the borrower, Wiggins claims, because Dekker got
his material directly from Thomas Deloney’s novella, while the situation is treated cursorily in
Plutarch. Henslowe records advancing £3 to Samuel Rowley and Thomas Downton to purchase
‘The Gentle Craft from Dekker on 15 July 1599 (Foakes 2002). If Shakespeare does borrow from
Dekker’s play in the interaction between Portia and Lucis in 2.4 (a short and expendable scene),
then it may (as Wiggins conjectures) have been written ‘fairly late’ in the overall composition of
the play (4:135).
For Marina Tarlinskaja’s ‘strong metrical breaks’ (see Table 25.9), Julius Caesar falls between
Henry V and Troilus and Cressida (Tarlinskaja excludes As You Like It). MacDonald P. Jackson's
reworking of Helmut Ilsemann’s figures on speech length (see Table 25.4) places it later, between
Twelfth Night and Troilus and Cressida. In rare vocabulary links in Jackson's reworking of Slater's
figures (see Table 25.3), Julius Caesar is closest (in descending order) to 2 Henry IV and Troilus
and Cressida. The repeated links to Troilus and Cressida may in part reflect genre and classical
subject matter.
Additions to The Spanish Tragedy 1599
Original Date Range: 1585-91
Original Best Guess: 1587
Additions Date Range: 1596-1602
Additions Best Guess: late 1599
Text: Reference pp. 1089-98
First entered in the Stationers’ Register on 6 October 1592 to Abel Jeffes: ‘a booke w** called the
Spanishe tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellimperia &c. The play has a vexing early print history.
The title page to the first quarto (Q1), undated but certainly printed in late 1592, records that this
edition is ‘Newly corrected and amended of such grosse faultes as passed in the first impression.
Edward Allde printed this edition for William White (STC 15086). The Court Book of the
Stationers’ Company records a dispute between White and Jeffes in which ‘eche of them offended’:
White printed The Spanish Tragedy which rightly belonged to Jeffes, apparently in retribution for
Jeffes having printed Arden of Faversham which rightly belonged to White. Both were ordered to
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 529
pay a fine of 10s. for having ‘seuerally transgressed’ the Company's ordinances with these actions.
It is almost certain that Jeffes printed a (now lost) earlier edition of the play, negatively alluded to
on the title page to White's edition.
Qi was published anonymously, but Thomas Kyd’s authorship of the original play has never
been seriously disputed. Nine further editions of the play were issued before the closure of the
playhouses: 1594 (Q2), 1599 (Q3), 1602 (Q4), 1603 (Q5), 1610 (Q6), 1615 (Q7), 1618 (Q8), 1623 (Q9),
and 1633 (Q10). Kyd is not named on the title page to any of these editions. Thomas Heywood
identifies ‘M. Kid’ as the author of the ‘Spanish Tragedy’ in An Apology for Actors (1612; STC 13309,
sig. E3v). Though little of Kyd’s canon survives, his literary reputation was firmly established in
the period. Francis Meres lists ‘Kid’ along with fellow playwrights Christopher Marlowe, George
Peele, Thomas Watson, Shakespeare, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, and
Ben Jonson as ‘best for Tragedie’ in Palladis Tamia (1598; STC 17834, sig. Oo3r). In Jonson's dedi-
catory poem to “To the memory of my beloued... Mr. William Shakespeare’ in the 1623 Folio he
name-checks only six English writers: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Francis Beaumont,
John Lyly, Marlowe, and ‘sporting Kid.
Though the first recorded performance is not until14 March 1592 (by Lord Strange’s Men at the
Rose), Kyd’s original play was probably first written and performed in the late 1580s. Martin
Wiggins (#783) gives a range of dates of 1585-91, but his best guess is 1587. Jonson's reference to the
play in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair (first performed 1614, first published 1631), if taken lit-
erally (and assuming ‘Jeronimo’ refers to Kyd’s play), gives a range of 1584-9 (STC 14753.5; Wiggins
#1757). Wiggins’s early limit of 1585 is because of Kyd’s use in The Spanish Tragedy of Robert
Garnier’s Cornélie. An edition of Garnier’s tragedy was published that year, though it is possible
that Kyd consulted an earlier edition. Kyd bases his later translation on this 1585 edition, so, as
Wiggins points out, it is more probable that this is the edition he consulted. The absence of any
direct reference to the Spanish Armada suggests, but does not prove, that the original play was
written before August 1588. Lukas Erne (2001, 57-9) notes a possible allusion to the episodes in 3.5
and 3.6 involving Pedringanos execution and the empty box in Thomas Nashe’s pamphlet
Anatomie of Absurdities: ‘not vnlike to him that had rather haue a newe painted boxe, though
there be nothing but a halter in it’ (entered in the Stationers’ Register on 19 September 1588 and
printed in 1589; STC 18364, sig. C3v).
Shakespearean interest in the play begins with the 1602 fourth quarto (STC 15089). The title
page to this edition advertises that the play has been “Newly corrected, amended, and enlarged
with new additions of the Painters part, and others, as it hath of late been diuers times acted’ After
the publication of Qi, Kyd fell into significant troubles with the authorities over his connections
with Marlowe (they shared lodgings). Kyd was imprisoned for some time from May 1593 onwards
(before Marlowe's arrest on 18 May and continuing after Marlowe's death on 30 May), and, after
his release, died the next year (buried 15 August 1594). There is no reason to think that Kyd wrote
the additions to Q4 or that they were composed during Kyd’s lifetime. Jonson seems a possible
candidate for authorship of the additions, because of payments to him by Edward Alleyn recorded
in Philip Henslowe’s Diary for ‘adicians in geronymo’ in September 1601 and ‘new adicyons for
Jeronymo’ in June 1602 (Foakes 2002). But Jonson's authorship of the additions has been long
doubted because of apparent allusions to the additions made before September 1601. No one
made a substantial scholarly case for Shakespeare’s involvement until recently. For this reason,
the additions were not even considered in the 1987 version of this essay. In the past decade, how-
ever, there has been renewed critical interest in determining the identity of the author (or authors)
of these additions.
These ‘new additions’ consist of five distinct groups of lines. Warren Stevenson (2008), Hugh
Craig (2009b), Brian Vickers (2012), and Douglas Bruster (2013) have each identified Shakespeare
530 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
as author of the additions as a whole. Two chapters in the present volume offer fuller accounts of
these recent findings, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their respective methodologies.
John V. Nance (Chapter 16) confirms that Shakespeare wrote the ‘Painter’s Part’ in the Fourth
Addition. But Gary Taylor (Chapter 15) rejects the claim that Shakespeare wrote all five additions
to the 1602 edition. He identifies Thomas Heywood, not Shakespeare, as the author of the First
Addition. Further work is required to identify the author of the other remaining additional
material. But Shakespeare and Heywood, at least, are identified as collaborators in co-authoring
some of the additions.
Shakespeare and Heywood (and possibly others) evidently wrote the additions for a revival of
the play at some date close to the publication of Q4; as the title page notes, the enlarged play was
performed ‘of late. Meres includes Heywood as one of those English dramatists who are ‘best for
Comedy; though we have no extant comedies by him before Palladis Tamia was entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 7 September 1598. The earliest reference to him working at the playhouses
is an entry ‘for Heywood’s book’ in Henslowe’s Diary on 14 October 1596 (Foakes 2002). This helps
create a timeline between 1596 and 1602 for the additions. There are records for performances of
some version of The Spanish Tragedy throughout 1597: 7 January, 11 January, 17 January, 22 January,
31 January, 9 February, 8 March, 21 April, 4 May, 25 May, 20 June, 19 July, and 11 October. It is
not inconceivable that the 1597 performances included the additions, but we think a later date
is more likely.
A scene in John Marston’s Antonio and Mellida appears to parody the Painter Scene in the
Fourth Addition. It seems unlikely that the chronological direction of influence could be reversed,
with the Painter Scene in the Spanish Tragedy additions making serious the comic scene in
Antonio and Mellida. Marston's parody helps establish a terminus a quo for Shakespeare’s Painter
Scene addition; Marston cannot parody what is not already familiar to audiences in performance.
Marston's play has been traditionally dated to 1599 (Wiggins #1218). In the Painter Scene in
Antonio and Mellida, Balurdo notes the date on one portrait as ‘Anno Domini 1599’; the other por-
trait bears the inscription “Etatis suae 24’ (1602; STC 17473, sig. Har). The latter portrait is usually
assumed to depict Marston himself. The satirist was baptized on 7 October 1576, meaning that he
turned 23 (by modern English and American reckoning) in early October 1599. But modern con-
tinental reckoning would identify Marlowe as turning 24 on that date, and Marston could have
used either system. G. Cross (1957, 331) argues that the inscription should be read literally and that
‘Marston entered his twenty-fourth year on his twenty-third birthday, sometime before October
7, 1599, and the inscriptions on the two pictures would thus have been biographically accurate any
time from the beginning of October 1599 until March 24 1600’ But there is no real reason why the
date observed on the painting must be current with the year of composition for the play. Or, for
that matter, there is no real reason to assume that the dates on the two paintings are directly
linked—that is, that the person aged 24 or in their 24th year must be so in 1599, the year recorded
on the other portrait—though one might easily make that connection. Though the best evidence
for the dating of the play, it is less secure than one might like. And Michael Neill and MacDonald
P. Jackson observe lexical correspondences between the play and Holland's translation of Pliny’s
Historie of the World (STC 20029), suggesting a date of composition for the play of 1601. Holland’s
translation was entered in the Stationers’ Register in November 1598, and first published in 1601
(Neill and Jackson 1998). Whether or not we accept a slightly later date for Antonio and Mellida,
moving it from 1599 to 1601, the material in Shakespeare’s added Painter Scene to one of the most
popular plays in the period would have still been relatively new and ripe for parody. The
Additions represented a relatively small amount of work for the two (or more) collaborators,
and could easily have been done between composition of Julius Caesar and As You Like It, or
even in the middle of composition of either play (or, for that matter, any other). We have chosen
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 531
late 1599 because of the Marston connection, but would not be surprised if the additions were
later or earlier.
As You Like It 1600
Date Range: 1598-August 1600
Best Guess: early 1600
Text: Reference pp. 1865-922
Mentioned in the Stationers’ Register on 4 August 1600; a setting of ‘It was a lover and his lass’
(5.3.15-38) was published in Thomas Morley’s First Book of Airs (1600; STC 18115.5). Morley’s book
was apparently written in the summer of 1599 or the summer of 1600. The Stationers’ Register
entry of 4 August 1600 associates As You Like It with other plays belonging to ‘my lord chamberlens
men, but it was first attributed to Shakespeare by inclusion in the 1623 Folio. The play must be
later than the publication of its principal source, Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde (STC 16664), written
in 1586-7 and published in 1590. In judging that the play belongs to 1599-1600 scholars can rely
on no documentary evidence beyond the absence of mention by Francis Meres (September 1598;
STC 17834). Richard Knowles (1977) surveys the alleged topical allusions which have been
detected in the text, finding most of them dubious. However, we would repose less faith than he
was willing to do in the assumption that Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander (Stationers’
Register, 28 September 1593) was not printed until 1598, the date of the first extant edition (STC
17413); even if that assumption is justified, it does not warrant the further assumption that
Shakespeare's allusion to the poem (3.5.82-3) post-dates its publication. Of alleged references
to contemporary events we find most plausible: (1) the interpretation of ‘the little wit that fools
have was silenced’ (1.2.66-7) as an allusion to the burning of satirical books in June 1599, and
(2) the conjecture that Jaques’s ‘All the world’s a stage’ (2.7.138) alludes to the motto of the new
Globe theatre, which may have been occupied by 21 September 1599 (if we accept that Platter saw
a performance of Julius Caesar at the Globe—see above), and perhaps as early as 16 May 1599.
Juliet Dusinberre connected the dating of the play to the verses “To the Queen’ (see above). Like
us, she ascribes those verses to Shakespeare, but (unlike us) she proposes that they were written
for As You Like It. Her evidence for this is Touchstone’s weak joke about pancakes, which she
assumes connects the play to a Shrovetide performance, 20 February 1599 (Dusinberre 2003). For
this court performance, Dusinberre claims that Will Kempe played the part of Touchstone. It
does not seem to us at all clear that Shakespeare wrote Touchstone’s part for either Kempe, who
left the company in 1599, or Robert Armin, who seems not to have joined the Chamberlain’s Men
until early in 1600. James Nielson (1993) observes a reference to Kempe in a contemporary
pamphlet A Pill to Purge Melancholy (1599; STC 19933.5): ‘that Chollericke Pill of hers will easely
be digested with one pleasant conceit or other of Monsier de Kempe on Monday next at the Globe’
(STC 19933.5, sig. B4v). The work cannot pre-date the construction of the Globe or post-date
Kempe’s departure from, or Armin’s joining of, the Chamberlain’s Men. Chris Sutcliffe (1996) and
Bart van Es (2013) attribute the pamphlet to Armin. Van Es claims that Kempe is hostile towards
Armin in the opening and closing epistles of Nine Days Wonder (entered on the Stationers’
Register on 22 April 1600). One reason for this hostility, van Es proposes, is a series of jibes in A
Pill about Kempe’s performances (as Dogberry and others). Another is that Kempe must know by
then that Armin has joined the Chamberlain’s Men and would be performing in his old roles. For
help in dating As You Like It—by connecting the writing of a certain part to a certain actor—such
slight evidence is inconclusive. Our date agrees with Martin Wiggins’s (#1237), who gives a date
range of 1598-1600, but a best guess of 1600.
532 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith's analysis (2014), which relies on Ants Oras’s original
pause counts (1960), places As You Like It in mid-1596 (1596.69) and their final calculation
(adjusted for theatre closures) is 1597. Generally, the play’s high proportion of prose indicates that
it is later than King John (see Table 25.2). MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s figures
for mid-line pauses places it closest to, in descending order, Julius Caesar, Much Ado, Twelfth
Night, Hamlet, and Henry V (see Table 25.7); none of these connections supports composition as
early as 1597. The colloquialism-in-verse test (see Table 25.13) places it after Much Ado, Henry V,
and Julius Caesar, which is where most scholars have been inclined to put it.
The Merry Wives of Windsor 1600
Original Date Range: 1596-1601
Best Guess: mid-late 1600
Revision Date: 1604?
Text: Reference pp. 1653-710
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 18 January 1602, and published in an edition dated 1602,
which attributes it to Shakespeare and claims that it had been performed before the Queen (and
elsewhere). The play’s inclusion in the 1623 Folio confirms Shakespeare’s authorship, which has
never been seriously contested.
The Stationers’ register entry establishes that the play existed, in some form, by the end of 1601.
E. K. Chambers and most earlier scholars assigned it to 1599-1601. But in 1931 Leslie Hotson sug-
gested that it was written for the Garter Feast held at Whitehall on 23 April 1597, at which George
Carey, the patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was inaugurated into the Order of the Garter
(Hotson 1931). This theory was widely accepted for half a century, as exemplified by critics like
William Green (1962) and Jeanne Roberts (1979, 41-50). But more recently Hotson’s conjecture
has been persuasively refuted by Elizabeth Schafer (1991), Barbara Freedman (1994), Giorgio
Melchiori (1994; 2000), and Richard Dutton (2016, 245-9). Martin Wiggins (#1079), while con-
vinced by the rejection of the Garter Feast argument, thinks it a ‘humours comedy, whose ‘histor-
ical moment’ comes in May 1597; he gives it a date range of 1597-1602. But this argument assumes
that Shakespeare must have responded immediately to the rise of ‘humours comedy’ and the
huge success of Every Man out of his Humour demonstrates the continuing vitality of the genre.
Moreover, Merry Wives must postdate 1 Henry IV, which we date to the second half of 1597.
Due the exceptionally small amount of verse in the play, the various analyses of metre are
unhelpful for dating. But the play’s uniquely high proportion of prose (87 per cent) itself suggests
a date between 1598 and 1601: the first Shakespeare play to have more than 50 per cent prose was
2 Henry IV (52 per cent), and the last was Twelfth Night (61 per cent). Between those dates are two
other plays with similarly high rates: Much Ado (72 per cent) and As You Like It (57 per cent) (see
Table 25.2). The prose pattern confirms that Merry Wives is later than 1 Henry IV and earlier than
January 1602, and it makes a position between the two Henry IV plays unlikely: 45-52 per cent
versus 87 per cent (see Table 25.2). A position between Much Ado (72 per cent) and Twelfth Night
(61 per cent) would seem more plausible; these are the only other plays with more than 60 per
cent prose, and both are comedies. On the other hand, in MacDonald P. Jackson's revision of Eliot
Slater’s rare vocabulary test Merry Wives of Windsor is most like 2 Henry IV and vice versa (see
Table 25.3). But even that relationship does not establish which play was written first, and it could
merely reflect the strong overlap between characters and comic materials in those two plays.
Current stylistic evidence cannot pinpoint the play’s date, but it would be most compatible with
composition after 1598.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 533
Our positioning of the play reflects recent work by B. J. Sokol (2009) that dates Merry Wives in
1600 or later. Sokol observes a parallel between the fictional situation of Anne Page in the play,
who, with a significant unconditional dowry and hopes for more, proceeds to disappoint her par-
ents’ marriage plans for her by marrying an ‘unworthy’ suitor, and the real-life situation of
Elizabeth Aston, who in 1600, with an unconditional dowry (she could marry or not), proceeded
to run away and marry a man, John Sambach, a former servant in the Lucy house at Charlecote,
deemed wholly unsuitable by her grandfather (acting in loco parentis). The real-life grandfather,
Sir Thomas Lucy (flourished 1532-1600), was certainly well known to Shakespeare (as were the
Lucy family, more generally). Sir Thomas, a virulent anti-Catholic, pursued the arrest and senten-
cing of Edward Arden (perhaps under false allegations), second cousin to Shakespeare’s mother,
Anne; Edward was hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1583. In the same year, Sir Thomas was one of
three judges in a commission that subpoenaed John Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s father. In 1592, Sir
Thomas signeda list of known recusants in Warwickshire; this list included one ‘John Shakespeare,
possibly Shakespeare’s father. Sokol sketches other cross-connections between the Lucy and
Shakespeare circles, surmising that there can be little doubt that Shakespeare would have known
of the scandal involving Sir Thomas's granddaughter and that the case would have been resonant
for London audiences.
Sir Thomas died suddenly on 7 July 1600. As Sokol notes, Aston’s marriage to Sambach was
solemnized two weeks later. What followed was a series of complaints before the Star Chamber.
Elizabeth's tutor was Bartholomew Griffin, a minor poet with connections to Shakespeare
(Sokol 2004). Griffin was accused of pandering for the couple while employed at Charlecote.
Elizabeth never received her expected paternal dowry, and Sokol traces a downward spiral in for-
tunes for the newly-weds and their offspring. In contrast, in the fictional world of the play, Anne’s
parents eventually accept Anne's decision, with Anne's mother giving her blessing to the union in
her final speech. Sokol thus argues that Shakespeare is ‘spoofing’ or criticizing Sir Thomas's
‘intransigent behaviour’ But it is also possible that he is simply using local gossip as source mater-
ial for his plot.
Sokol’s late date also builds on G. R. Hibbard’s (1973) observations about Nim, who is present
in Merry Wives and Henry V but absent from 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV. The opening scene of
Merry Wives, which introduces Shallow, Sir John, Bardolph, Nim, and Pistol, seems designed, as
Hibbard notes, to ‘attract spectators’ wanting to ‘see more’ of these characters: it assumes audi-
ence familiarity with them all. It could be objected that Doll’s absence from Merry Wives points
the other way; but it would be hard to fit a London prostitute into the Windsor comedy. What
seems implausible about Nim’s presence (rather than Doll’s absence) is that if this character was
only first introduced in Henry V in early 1599, then his presence here, if Merry Wives of Windsor
was written in 1597, would anticipate the enduring popularity of a character previously unseen.
Nim’s presence suggests a date after Henry V, and Dutton (2016, 251) links the play to Henry, Lord
Cobham’s 1599 election to the Order of the Garter. The topical allusion to the Lucy scandal
requires a date in the second half of 1600.
In 1702 John Dennis, in the preface to The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff
(his adaptation of Merry Wives), claimed that Shakespeare had written the play in two weeks, in
response to a request by Queen Elizabeth to see Falstaff in love. In 1709 Nicholas Rowe repeated
the story of the Queen’s request for the play without including Dennis’s claim that it was written
in two weeks. Whether or not we accept the two-weeks claim, there is nothing intrinsically
implausible about the idea of a royal command. But when would such a command have been
made? The 1602 quarto makes it clear that the play must have been performed at court no later
than the winter season of 1601-2. 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV both promised more of Falstaff,
and therefore do not require a royal intervention to explain Falstaff’s reappearance. But the
534 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
third historical play, Henry V, declared that there would be no more Falstaff. The Queen's
command might then be understood as a refusal to accept the end of the entertaining Falstaff
franchise. With or without such a command, Merry Wives would follow naturally in the winter
season of 1600-1, the fourth Falstaff play in a sequence of court seasons running from 1597 to
1600. This is all conjectural, but we see no obvious obstacles to its economical accounting for
the established facts.
Dutton proposes that the Folio text represents a revision and expansion of the play specifically
designed for the court performance of the play at Whitehall, for James I, on 4 November 1604.
This hypothesis is plausible and interesting, but untested, and it depends on Dutton’s interpret-
ation of the relationship between the short quarto text and the much longer Folio text. That con-
tested and complex relationship is fully discussed in Alternative Versions. We here record the
possibility of a Jacobean revision. However, the bulk of the play certainly pre-dates 1602, and we
therefore identify Merry Wives as a late Elizabethan play.
‘Let the Bird of Loudest Lay’ 1601
Date: 1601
Text: Reference pp. 1079-81
The poem (also known as “The Phoenix and Turtle’) is attributed to “William Shakes-peare’ in a
section of ‘Diverse Poeticall Essaies on...... the Turtle and Phoenix. Done by the best and chiefest
of our moderne writers’ that follows Robert Chester’s poem Loves Martyr, published by Edward
Blount in 1601 (STC 5119, sig. Z3v-Z4v). Shakespeare's authorship has never been seriously con-
tested, although Katherine Duncan-Jones and H. R. Woudhuysen (2007) propose that only the
concluding “Threnos’ section is unambiguously Shakespeare's, a suggestion James P. Bednarz
convincingly rejects (2012, 27-31). Other poems on the topic are contributed by John Marston
and George Chapman, with two by Ben Jonson. Loves Martyr is dedicated to ‘Sir Iohn Salisburie;
who was knighted 14 June 1601, so the book was presumably published after this event
(Borukhov 2015, 568). Shakespeare's poem, which indeed depicts a phoenix and turtle-dove, is
specific to the contents of Chester’s book and presumably was written for it; publication most
likely followed soon after its composition.
Twelfth Night, or What You Will 1601
Date Range: 1599-1602
Best Guess: late 1601
Text: Reference pp. 2165-216
First printed, and attributed to Shakespeare, in 1623. John Manningham’s memorandum book
(British Library ‘MS Harley 5353, folio 10) describes a performance at the Middle Temple on
2 February 1602. That the play is later than 1598 is suggested by: (a) the fact that Francis Meres
does not mention it in that year among Shakespeare's plays; (b) the two references to the Sophy
(2.5.146; 3.4.232), which probably reflect topical interest in the visit of Sir Anthony Sherley to the
Persian court, between summer 1598 and the end of 1601; (c) an apparent allusion (3.2.24-6) to
the Arctic voyage of William Barentz in 1596-7, first described in an English translation of Gerrit
de Veer’s account, entered in the Stationers’ Register on 13 June 1598 (STC 24628; earliest surviv-
ing edition dated 1609); (d) Maria’s allusion to ‘the new map with the augmentation of the Indies’
(3.2.61), which is generally agreed to refer to a map first published in 1599 (in Richard Hakluyt’s
Voyages, STC 12626). On this evidence the play can be no earlier than 1599.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 535
‘The snatches of songs in 2.3/scene 8 are taken from songs which first occur, to our knowledge,
in Robert Jones’s First Book of Songs or Airs (1600; STC 14732). Feste’s avoidance of the phrase
‘out of my element’ because the word element ‘is ouerworr (3.1.46-7) has been plausibly inter-
preted as an indication that Twelfth Night post-dates Thomas Dekker’s Satiromastix (Wiggins
#1304; Stationers’ Register, 11 November 1601), which had been performed at some time in 1601
by Shakespeare’s company, and which three times pokes fun at the expression ‘out of [one’s]
element’ (1.2.134-6, 1.2.186-8, 5.2.324-7). Finally, the Chamberlain’s Men performed an uniden-
tified play at court on 6 January 1601 (Twelfth Night), on which occasion Queen Elizabeth's
guest of honour was Don Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano. Leslie Hotson (1954) contended
that Twelfth Night was performed on that occasion; like most other scholars we regard this con-
jecture as unlikely, but Shakespeare was probably influenced by the occasion in choosing the
name of his protagonist, which appears in none of the play’s possible sources. Cumulatively
such evidence suggests that the play was composed in 1601, and hence was at least relatively
new when Manningham saw it. Martin Wiggins also provides a best guess of 1601, with dating
limits of 1600-2.
The cumulative stylistic evidence supports a late Elizabethan date. In MacDonald P. Jackson's
reworking of Eliot Slater’s rare words vocabulary, the play is closest to Othello, As You Like It, and
Hamlet (see Table 25.3). The reworked Ants Oras data put it closest to, in descending order,
Hamlet, As You Like It, Henry V, Julius Caesar, and Much Ado (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster
and Genevieve Smith (2014), working from Oras’s original data, place the play in late 1600
(1600.8). In its high proportion of prose in a comedy it is most closely linked to As You Like It and
Merry Wives.
Verses on the Stanley Tomb at Tong 1602
Date Range: 1576-1617
Best Guess: 1602
Text: Reference p. 3651
The Stanley Tomb, a monument to Sir Thomas Stanley, his wife Margaret Vernon, and their son
Edward, is undated and unattributed. Thomas Stanley died in 1576, so the verses carved on the
tomb (Figure 25.7) were certainly written after that; Edward Stanley died in 1632, by which time
they already existed. It seems most plausible that the verses were connected with the construction
of the Stanley monument, although that precise date is uncertain. Planning for the tomb most
likely began in 1596 after the death of Margaret. The monument does not address Stanley as ‘Sir
Edward’; since he was knighted in 1603, E. K. Chambers (1930) uses this to date the tomb itself as
being erected about 1602. The range 1596-1602 would coincide with the composition and revision
of Sonnet 55 (which is among the sonnets we date as composed 1595-7 and revised 1600-9), with
which it shares some thematic and linguistic similarities.
The latest date for the composition of the poem may be established by the earliest extant
manuscript text, copied by John Weever (London Society of Antiquaries “MS 128’) while he was
collecting inscriptions for his 1631 Ancient Funeral Monuments (STC 25223). The entry in this
manuscript is undated, but H. R. Woudhuysen and Katherine Duncan-Jones use dates from
nearby entries in this manuscript to put this trip ‘not much later than 1617-18, which makes it
likely that these verses were recorded soon after Shakespeare's death (Duncan-Jones and
Woudhuysen 2007, 438).
Neither the tomb nor Weever attribute the lyrics to Shakespeare; the earliest manuscripts nam-
ing him the author date from the late 1630s. Gordon Campbell (1999) has argued that John Milton
536 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
a Tew yy op eee ee
Spitaph on Ged Shady.
en on his foe ein
for Gi :
we CSEL 2S Cue Fa Ame
OeS oun names
ag ow whom tks es
fem, ihiden: On S* Frames unly
ow Ses hoeve La nofw
a Hoo lok but sleet rh
“s sa t
s Fea me Soph.
tf ow 08 “ m (2
ae th clk, poe ce
ibe w fre
numont ¢ ne
nm pe oe gare: ATR a P ann poe
FIG. 25.7 Manuscript from the Folger Shakespeare Library attributing Verses on the Stanley Tomb at Tong to
Shakepeare.
refers to these verses, and thus infers Shakespeare's authorship, in his poem ‘On Shakespeare’,
written 1630 and included in the Second Folio.
Troilus and Cressida 1602
Date Range: 1598 to early 1603
Best Guess: 1602
Text: Reference pp. 3463-544
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 7 February 1603, and first attributed to Shakespeare in the
edition of 1609. The play is indebted to George Chapman’s Seven Books of the Iliads of Homer
(STC 13632; entered in the Stationers’ Register on 10 April 1598), and is not mentioned by Francis
Meres (September 1598; STC 17834). According to Philip Henslowe’s Diary, Henry Chettle and
Thomas Dekker were writing a play on the same subject in April 1599, which was probably com-
pleted by May (Foakes 2002), but as this play only survives in a fragmentary plot (‘British Library
Add. MS 10449; folio 5) we cannot determine the direction of influence, if any. The ‘prologue armd’
(Pro. 23) probably alludes to Jonson's Poetaster (Autumn 1601; Wiggins #1296); the prologue
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 537
appears only in the 1623 text, and may bea later addition, but the allusion to Poetaster would make
most sense close to performance and publication of Jonson's play. In the epilogue, Pandarus
promises that “Some two months hence my will shall here be made’; Kenneth Palmer (1982)
ingeniously interprets the ‘two months’ as an allusion to the interim between Twelfth Night (the
last day of the Christmas holidays, on which he conjectures that the play was originally per-
formed) and Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent). Of possible dates of composition, this
interim fits only the year 1603, and hence would suggest composition in 1602.
E. A. J. Honigmann (1985b) conjectures that the play was written in the first half of 1601, and
that it remained unacted because of fears that it might be interpreted as a political allegory about
the Earl of Essex. One might accept this explanation for the play’s suppression without crediting
Honigmann’s date: alleged allusions to Essex were being detected by ingenious censors as late as
1604-5. Martin Wiggins (#1325) provides limits of 1601-3 for the play, and a best guess of 1602
without further explanation.
Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) place the play implausibly early (mid-1598 or
mid-1597). The stylistic evidence generally supports a later date. In MacDonald P. Jackson's
reworking of Ants Oras's figures for mid-line pauses, the play is most closely linked to Merry
Wives (see Table 25.7). The colloquialism-in-verse test puts it later than As You Like It (see
Table 25.13) and Marina Tarlinskaja’s data for ‘strong metrical breaks’ place it after Julius Caesar
but before Hamlet (see Table 25.9). The tests of Helmut Ilsemann (Table 25.4), Charles A.
Langworthy, and Karl Wentersdorf (‘Table 25.6) all place it after Twelfth Night; so do the figures for
hendiadys (Table 25.10) and rhyme (Table 25.2). Jackson’s reworking of Eliot Slater (see Table 25.3)
links it most closely to Macbeth (which is definitely later than Twelfth Night). Finally, placing
Troilus and Cressida in 1601 would leave 1602 or 1603 (or both) empty of new plays. Cumulatively,
these considerations have persuaded us to agree with Wiggins and with Taylor (1987c) in placing
the play in 1602, after Twelfth Night.
‘Master Ben Jonson and Master William Shakespeare’ 1602
Date Range: 1598-1650
Best Guess: 1601-16
Text: Reference p. 3658
In his History of the Worthies of England, published 1662 (Wing F220), Thomas Fuller mentions
‘wit combates betwixt him [Shakespeare] and Ben Johnson’. While this story is generally considered
apocryphal, it echoes the wit of this lyric, describing Jonson as ‘Solid, but Slow in his perform-
ances, and characterizing Shakespeare ‘by the quickness of his Wit and Invention’ (sig. Qqq3v).
This of course does not confirm the exchange in this lyric happened, but it indicates how the
relationship between the two playwrights was popularly understood. Such an exchange could
have been written at any point where Jonson's and Shakespeare's dramatic careers overlapped. We
have arbitrarily placed it here, after the so-called ‘poets’ war, the suggested parody of Jonson in
Troilus and Cressida, and the presence of both Jonson and Shakespeare in Love’s Martyr, and
before Shakespeare’s possible collaboration with Jonson in 1603.
That the four manuscripts that record the lyric all appear to date around 1650—around the
time Fuller was compiling material for Worthies—and that all five versions have substantial dif-
ferences (mostly in the framing story), might cast doubt on the lyric’s authenticity or the accuracy
of its transmission. Nevertheless, Shakespeare and Jonson are the only poets associated with this
exchange, and it is not beyond either poet's capacity.
538 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
The Tragedy of Sejanus 1603
Ben Jonson and Anonymous (William Shakespeare?)
See: Reference pp. 1229-30
Reception history: Modern p. 2101
The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson’s Workes (STC 14751) specifies that Sejanus (Wiggins #1412) was
first performed by the King’s Men in 1603; Martin Wiggins argues that it was performed at court
during the winter season of 1603-4. Shakespeare is named as one of the actors in the original
performances. In his preface to the play in the 1605 quarto (STC 15789, sig. §2v) Jonson acknow-
ledged that ‘this Booke, in all nubers, is not the same with that which was acted on the publike
Stage, wherein a second Pen had good share: in place of which I haue rather chosen, to put
weaker (and no doubt lesse pleasing) of mine own, then to defraud so happy a Genius of his
right, by my lothed vsurpatior’ (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 2: 215). Jonson thus
testifies that the play performed by the King’s Men in 1603 was originally a collaborative work,
and that the surviving printed text of the play has removed the passages written by the original
collaborator. In the words of the play’s most recent editor, ‘whatever allowance is made for devi-
ousness on Jonson’s part, he is explicit enough about the editing out of a second author’s share to
leave no serious doubt that the text we have does differ to some extent from that which was
performed’ (Cain 2014). This leaves open the question of who wrote the lost passages of text
performed in 1603.
The standard twentieth-century Oxford edition of Jonson’s works (Herford, Simpson, and
Simpson 1925-52) and what is now the standard twenty-first-century Cambridge edition
(Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012) both claim that the unnamed ‘happy... Genius’ was
probably George Chapman. But Peter Whalley (1756, 3: 130), in the first critical edition of Jonson's
works, identified Shakespeare as the collaborator; and to Edmond Malone it was obvious that
‘Shakespeare himself assisted Ben Jonson in his Sejanus, as it was originally written’ (Malone and
Boswell 1821, 1: 356). Anne Barton (1984, 92-4) persuasively revived that traditional hypothesis,
arguing that Shakespeare is more likely than Chapman, or anyone else, to have been Jonson's
collaborator.
As Cain (2014) acknowledges, “There is...no firm evidence for Chapman having written any
of the 1603 version? The Chapman attribution is based almost entirely on an interpretation of
three lines in his commendatory poem in the 1605 quarto of Sejanus, where he praises the Earl
of Suffolk: ‘Who when our Hearde, came not to drinke, but trouble| The Muses waters, did a Wall
importune,| (Midst of assaults) about their sacred Riuer (STC 14789, sig. Aur; lines 153-5).
Jonson's Oxford editors claim that, in ‘this passage of obscure allegory Chapman is evidently
associating himself with Jonson’ (Herford, Simpson, and Simpson 1925-52, 9: 593). Barton
objects, reasonably enough, that the obscurity of the whole poem makes it difficult to put much
trust in any interpretation of these lines. More specifically, what is the verbal basis for the claim
of association? It must be the possessive pronoun ‘our’. But ‘our Hearde’ apparently refers to
London audiences, or ‘Poet-Haters’ (line 115), generally; the ‘our’ need not indicate something
shared only by Chapman and Jonson. The poem’s preceding example of the pronoun, ‘Our
Phoebus; clearly refers to King James, and like the sun the King does not belong exclusively to
Jonson and Chapman. Jonson's 1616 dedication of the play to Lord Aubigny complained that the
play in performance had ‘suffer'd no lesse violence from our people here, then the subiect of it
did from the rage of the people of Rome’ (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 2: 212).
Chapman’s ‘our Hearde’ seems to have the same referent as Jonson’s ‘our people, where the
possessive pronoun yokes Jonson and Aubigny. Finally, Cain interprets this passage as ‘Probably
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY = 539
referring to [Suffolk]’s help in obtaining the release from prison of Jonson and Chapman follow-
ing the performance of Eastward Ho! (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 2: 222). Insofar
as Chapman is associating himself with Jonson, he is referring to their collaboration with John
Marston on Eastward Ho! and their shared disdain for audiences in the big open-air amphi-
theatres that did not always appreciate their work. This passage cannot tell us anything about
Jonson’s collaborator on Sejanus.
In defending their assertion that ‘probability rather points to Chapman’ than to Shakespeare,
C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson supplemented their interpretation of the 1605 commendatory
poem with a few generalizations:
None of his fellow dramatists, in the first place, could be compared with this veteran in
scholarly equipment, and few in genius; and no other could have contributed to Sejanus
work which in the Jonsonian virtues—‘truth of Argument, dignity of Persons, grauity
and height of Elocution, fulnesse and frequencie of Sentence’—so well matched his
own. The nearest contemporary parallels to these Roman tragedies of Jonson's are the
tragedies drawn by Chapman during the next few years from the recent history of
France. (Herford, Simpson, and Simpson 1925-52, 2:4)
This argument may have convinced Jonson scholars, because it presumes that the most important
qualification for the ‘second Per’ is that it be someone whom Jonson would have wanted to
collaborate with. But there is no guarantee that Jonson sought out the collaborator. Barton con-
jectures that the acting company turned to Shakespeare, their in-house actor-dramatist, to
make Jonson's play more actable, more appealing to audiences, more likely to reward their
financial investment. Barton's scenario assumes that Jonson delivered a script that the King’s
Men were not willing to stage unless changes were made, and turned to Shakespeare to make
those changes. But it is also possible that Jonson did not deliver a completed script. Henslowe’s
records demonstrate that playwrights sometimes handed over only part of a play, which then
had to be finished by someone else. This happened with Jonson himself in 1598, when Chapman
supplied Henslowe with two acts of ‘a tragedy of Benjamin's plot, meaning a tragedy for which
Jonson had written a scenario (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 1: 99-100). The King’s
Men may not have been willing to wait, especially if Jonson kept postponing delivery. His
previous play, Poetaster, had been written in 1601; Sejanus was not performed until 1603, and
Jonson was not satisfied with the text until late 1605, which was when the quarto was published.
If, like other acting companies, the Chamberlain’s Men had paid Jonson an advance for Sejanus,
they would have every legal right to secure a second playwright to finish the script, if Jonson
repeatedly failed to meet deadlines.
‘The Herford and Simpson argument for Chapman depends on an unstated, and unjustifiable,
premise. And it can easily be turned on its head. It is true that ‘no other’ could have matched
Jonson as well as Chapman would have, and those shared values explain why Chapman wrote the
first and far-and-away the longest commendatory poem in the 1605 Sejanus quarto. But those
very similarities between the two men make it harder to explain why Jonson would have felt com-
pelled to completely replace everything that had been contributed by his collaborator. The key
piece of evidence for identifying the ‘second Per is the fact that Jonson found its ‘good share’
incompatible with his own aesthetic commitments. What is needed is a writer that Jonson could
and did praise, but also one whose sense of tragedy was significantly different from his own.
Jonson praised few playwrights who were active in 1603, and he praised elsewhere only one con-
temporary who wrote tragedies about the classical world and was working for the Chamberlain’s/
King’s Men in 1602-4.
540 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Martin Wiggins does not commit himself, treating Chapman and Shakespeare as equally
plausible candidates. But without the (dubious interpretation of the) three lines from the com-
mendatory poem, there is no evidence for Chapman, and considerable evidence against him. The
one thing we unequivocally know, from Jonson's testimony, is that the ‘second Pen’ was writing
for the King’s Men in 1603. But Chapman is never elsewhere associated with the Chamberlain’s or
King’s Men, and between 1600 and 1611 he wrote repeatedly and apparently exclusively for the
children’s companies at the indoor theatres. Moreover, the very existence of Chapman’s commen-
datory poem would normally be taken to rule him out as Jonson’s collaborator. Chapman had a
strong sense of his own worth, and in 1623 wrote ‘An Invective Against Mr Ben Jonson, so he was
perfectly capable of turning against Jonson if he felt insulted. Is it plausible that Chapman would
praise, at such length, a writer who had erased a ‘good share’ of Chapman’s own tragic poetry? Is
it likely that Chapman would collaborate on Eastward Ho!, in 1605, with a collaborator who had,
so recently, publicly erased Chapman's share of Sejanus? The hypothesis of Chapman as collabor-
ator is hard to reconcile with Chapman's praising presence in the 1605 quarto; to an equal and
opposite degree, the hypothesis of Shakespeare as collaborator explains Shakespeare's absence
from that quarto, and Shakespeare's failure to supply commendatory poems for any of Jonson's
subsequent publications.
‘Let the bird of loudest lay’ (1601) demonstrates that Shakespeare was willing to write short
poems on commission for someone else's book, and also willing to collaborate with Jonson (who
wrote two poems for that small thematic collection). Between 1605 and 1616, Jonson’s plays were
praised in printed commendatory verses by Chapman, Marston, Francis Beaumont, John
Fletcher, Nathan Field, and John Donne. Shakespeare was the most prominent playwright in
England during those years, and his absence would have been conspicuous to readers of the
praise-laden first printed editions of Sejanus, Volpone, and Catiline (all performed by the King’s
Men). Another possible sign of Shakespeare's disaffection with Jonson after 1603 is his disappear-
ance from the lists of actors in Jonson's plays: although he is prominently named in the cast of
Every Man in his Humour (1598) and Sejanus (1603), he does not appear in those for the King’s
Men's productions of Volpone (1606), The Alchemist (1610), or Catiline his Conspiracy (1611). His
absence from those cast lists has generally been interpreted as evidence that he retired from act-
ing, but all we can say with certainty is that after 1603 he never again acted in a play by Jonson.
Our only seventeenth-century testimonies to Shakespeare's opinion of Jonson are not com-
mendatory at all. Several manuscripts ascribe to Shakespeare a couplet defining Jonson as ‘a slow
thing’ (see entry for ‘Master Ben Jonson and Master William Shakespeare’ above). Another pur-
ported exchange is described by Jonathan Bate (1997, 31) as ‘the earliest, and most likely to be
authentic, of these anecdotes about the two men: it is preserved in a manuscript of ‘Merry
Passages and Jests’ by Nicholas LEstrange, probably dated between 1629 and his death in 1655:
Shake-speare was Godfather to one of Ben: Johnsons children, and after the christning
being in a deepe study, Johnson came to cheere him vp, and askt him why he was so
Melancholy? no faith Ben: (sayes he) not I, but I haue beene considering a great while
what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow vpon my God-child, and I haue resolud
at last; I pry’the what, sayes he? I faith Ben: Tle een giue him a douzen good Lattin
Spoones, and thou shalt translate them. (British Library “Harley MS 6395’ folio 2)
As Bate notes, “Here Shakespeare is imagined to play upon his own small Latin’ and “The punch-
line turns on a pun: christening spoons were frequently made of a metal alloy called “latten”’. But
the anecdote would also have been especially pertinent after publication of the 1605 quarto
of Sejanus, which conspicuously calls attention to Jonson’s Latin sources. Together, these two
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 541
anecdotes mock Jonson for slow composition and translating Latin, and both are relevant to
Sejanus. Indeed, Shakespeare might have been called in to help the slow-moving Jonson complete
Sejanus. As Cain acknowledges, ‘it is significant that Shakespeare played a leading part in it... Not
only does Sejanus carry on an implicit dialogue with his earlier Roman play, Julius Caesar... but
without Sejanus it is difficult to see Shakespeare’s later Roman plays, or Measure for Measure, King
Lear, and Macbeth, treating the uses and abuses of power as they did’ (Bevington, Butler, and
Donaldson 2012, 2: 197). Cain is here talking about Shakespeare's ‘part’ as an actor, but all these
claims are even more powerfully relevant to Shakespeare and Jonson as co-authors.
It is of course impossible to prove that Shakespeare wrote passages in Sejanus that have not sur-
vived; we cannot test lost writing for internal evidence of authorship or date. Nevertheless, the
external evidence makes Shakespeare the most plausible candidate. Both before and after 1603 he
wrote tragedies based on Roman history. He and Jonson were the most successful playwrights
writing for the Chamberlain’s Men between 1598 and 1603, and collaboration between them
would have seemed to make obvious sense to a company trying to impress a new royal family.
Jonson praised Shakespeare in the 1623 Folio in terms compatible with the 1605 preface, which
refers to the collaborator’s ‘happy... Genius’ and concedes that Jonson’s own writing was ‘weaker’
and ‘less pleasing’ than the other writer’s. This might be false modesty, but Shakespeare demon-
strably pleased audiences more than Jonson did; ‘pleasing’ was probably ambiguous, as it could
imply that the collaborator was better at satisfying a (debased) public but had less artistic integ-
rity than Jonson. Jonson was certainly capable of both praising and criticizing Shakespeare, and
his example of one of the ‘thousand’ lines that Shakespeare should have blotted came from Julius
Caesar. Jonson's praise of Shakespeare’s gifts ‘on the public stage’ did not extend to a tolerance of
Shakespeare’s misrepresentations of Roman history and culture, or his failure to have ‘dischargd
the other offices of a Tragick writer’ (as defined by Jonson).
Shakespeare thus appears to us to satisfy, better than any other candidate, Jonson's description of
his anonymous collaborator. Moreover, as we argue above (pp. 446-7), Shakespeare's participation
in the writing of the play would help fill what is otherwise a unique and inexplicable gap in his
regular production of plays from 1594 to 1613. In the Modern Critical Edition we place Sejanus after
Hamlet (in order to leave open the possibility that the canonical text of that play was completed
and first performed in 1602). But our own view is that the canonical Hamlet postdates Shakespeare's
collaboration on Sejanus, and that the portrayal of Claudius and the Danish court owes something
to the Roman tyranny of Tiberius; in this chapter, we therefore place Sejanus first.
We cannot recover the writing of the ‘second Pen; erased and replaced by Jonson in the printed
text. Jonson's statements about the nature and extent of the collaborator’s work are ambiguous,
and possibly contradictory. As Cain observes, Jonson’s ‘in all nubers’ derives from Latin omnibus
numeris, which in different contexts might mean ‘in all numbers’ or ‘in all respects’ or ‘in all parts’
or ‘in every respect’ or ‘in every detail’ (2014). This can be interpreted as a way of minimizing the
extent of the differences between the 1603 performance script and the 1605 printed text. But that
interpretation seems to contradict ‘good share; where the adjective seems to mean ‘considerable
in size, or degree; fairly large...ample’ (OED a.10). That, at least, is the meaning of ‘good share’ in
all four examples found in EEBO-TCP in May 2016, when searching for the phrase in printed
texts up to 1605: before Jonson, the phrase was used by Anthony Munday, John Harrington,
Francis Bacon, and Edward Grimeston. The apparently contradictory implications of ‘in all num-
bers’ and ‘good share’ might mean that Jonson wrote the scenario for the whole play, but
Shakespeare wrote a significant amount of the original dialogue: his role might then be described
as a ‘good share’ of the details:
It is not difficult to explain why the 1623 Folio does not include the original collaborative ver-
sion of the play. Neither the King’s Men, nor the publishers, would have wanted to alienate Jonson
542 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
by publishing something he had publicly suppressed. Moreover, the original version of the play
had been a failure, theatrically, and the revised version was enshrined in Jonson's 1616 Workes.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 1602-3
Original Hamlet Date Range: 1575-89
Original Hamlet Best Guess: late 1588
Revision/Adaptation Date Range: 1599-1604
Revision/Adaptation Best Guess: early 1602 or mid-1603
Text: Reference pp. 1137-228
No one seriously doubts Shakespeare’s sole authorship of the Hamlet included in the New Oxford
Shakespeare Complete Works, based on the second quarto (Wiggins #1259). Another version of
that play, published in the 1623 Folio, is included in Alternative Versions. All early printed texts
of that long play, in either of those versions, attribute it to Shakespeare; eighteenth-century edi-
tors combined material from both versions to create a conflated text, which remained canonical
until Harold Jenkins’s edition (1982), and is still widely read, performed, and cited. Stylistically,
that play—whether in the second quarto, the Folio, or the conflated text—clearly belongs to
Shakespeare’s middle period, but it is not unquestionably referenced until publication of the
second quarto. Some copies of Q2 are dated 1604, and others 1605, which is either an accidental
press variant or implies printing near the end of the calendar year and conscious alteration
during the run. Francis Meres (September 1598; STC 17834) does not include Hamlet among
Shakespeare’s works, which suggests that his most famous text did not form part of the theatrical
repertory before mid-1598.
Most of the internal evidence for dating the play is present in both Q2 (referenced here from
the New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works) and F1 (referenced here from the 1986-2005
Oxford edition). The most important such passage refers to the players arriving at court: “How
chances it they travel?...their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovatiom (Q2 7.274-7;
F 2.2.330-3). This has usually been interpreted as a reference either to (1) the abortive Earl of
Essex uprising of 8 February 1601, or to (2) a Privy Council decree of 22 June 1600, restricting
London playhouses to two and performances to twice weekly (Chambers 1923a, 4: 331-2).
G. R. Hibbard (1987) rightly objected that the passage requires no such topical interpretation, and
that London companies were often affected by innovations or inhibitions; but the proximity of
the two allusions makes it difficult to rule out entirely the possibility of some extra-dramatic ref-
erent. However, Roslyn L. Knutson revives and develops a 1785 suggestion by J. Monck Mason:
‘innovatior could in the period refer to the accession of a new monarch, which in 1603 was com-
bined with a sustained ‘inhibition of commercial performances in London, first in mourning for
Elizabeth I and then because of plague; these combined inhibitions led to an exceptionally long
and difficult period of ‘travel’ for the metropolitan acting companies (Knutson 1995, 20).
Knutson’s hypothesis seems to us the most plausible explanation of this passage, and would put
composition of material common to Q2 and F no earlier than mid-1603.
Many scholars have felt that the canonical philosophical play is indebted to John Florio's trans-
lation of Michel Montaigne’s Essays (1603; STC 1804); a copy of the book with Elizabeth I’s book-
plate indicates that it was published before her death on 24 March. Publication of that large
volume in early 1603 would also explain why the printer, Valentine Simmes, did so little visible
printing in 1602: he was primarily working on the Montaigne volume, which was not completed
until the beginning of 1603. Shakespeare might theoretically have read Florio’s translation in
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 543
manuscript, but scribal copies of such a large book would have been expensive, and we possess no
other evidence that it circulated in advance of publication. Both Paulina Kewes (2015) and
Richard Dutton (2016) argue that the canonical play post-dates Elizabeth’s death and the acces-
sion of James I. The revision or adaptation of an old play set in Denmark could have been inspired
specifically by the accession of James, whose wife (Queen Anna) was a member of Denmark’s
royal family.
John Dover Wilson (1935, 305-6) argued that Q2’s discussion of Fortinbras’s campaign against
Poland (14.7-26; not in F) alluded to the siege of Ostend, the most famous land battle in Europe in
Shakespeare’s lifetime. The siege began on 5 July 1601, and the earliest of many English news
pamphlets about Ostend was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 5 August 1601; the Spanish
general Spinola took command of the army of Flanders in August 1603 and Ostend capitulated in
September 1604. Wilson’s conjecture was rejected by E. K. Chambers (1944, 70-5) and Harold
Jenkins (1982, 527-8), who preferred to connect the passage to Michel de Montaigne. But Ostend
seems to us the most plausible contemporary allusion (and is perfectly compatible with the 1603
publication of Montaigne’s Essays). As an alternative, Beth Goldring (1982) suggested the English
victory at Nieuport on 22 June 1600. The battle was fought on a narrow strip of sand between two
sets of dunes, and approximately 6,000 people were slain: see Harrison 1933, 95-7, and contemporary
reports in STC 17679 (entered 30 June 1600), STC 17671, and STC 11029. This referent would put
Hamlet no earlier than July 1600. However, the slaughter was not as great, the degree of public
attention was not as intense or sustained, and the outcome was not as tragic (from an English per-
spective) as at Ostend, which would put composition of Hamlet no earlier than mid-August 1601,
and possibly as late as 1604. Terri Bourus (2014b), drawing on earlier scholars, provides new
reasons to believe that the canonical Hamlet post-dated the death of Shakespeare's father
(September 1601). That date coincides almost exactly with the explosion of interest in Ostend. That
date is also supported by Andrew Gurr (2004,, 21-2), who argued that the most likely source for
the insulting word ‘groundling’ (3.2.11) was Philemon Holland’s translation of Pliny’s Natural
History (1601; STC 20029). All this evidence supports a date of completion no earlier than late 1601.
Some scholars have defended an earlier date on the basis of the play’s relationship to John
Marston's Antonios Revenge (Wiggins #1271; composed winter 1600, entered in the Stationers’
Register 24 October 1601). However, although the resemblances with Hamlet can hardly be coin-
cidental, scholars continue to disagree over the direction of influence. The most recent examin-
ation of the links between Hamlet and Marston's Antonio’s Revenge (Cathcart 2001) is inconclusive,
as Martin Wiggins recognizes (#1259). Moreover, the Folio passage alluding to the ‘little eyases’
(2.2.339-62) cannot have been written before Michaelmas 1600, when a troupe of boy actors
established itself at the Blackfriars theatre, thereby ending the decade-long interruption of indoor
boys’ companies. But that allusion would have remained topical until 1606 (Knutson 1995). At
1.1.112-19, the portents associated with Julius Caesar’s death (not present in F1 Hamlet) probably
echo Julius Caesar, and maybe also echo Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives, which
Shakespeare read when writing Julius Caesar; if so, this would suggest composition of Hamlet no
earlier than mid-1599. But Shakespeare jumbled many sources in the portents passage; Jenkins
gives a full account (1982, 428-9). It has also been suggested that ‘in hugger-mugger’ (Q2 15.81;
F 4.5.82) echoes Plutarch, but Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP)
demonstrates that the phrase was common throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Shakespeare was regularly reading Plutarch for a decade, and clearly had a retentive memory, so
even if we accept these parallels they do not establish that the canonical text of Hamlet must have
been written immediately after Julius Caesar.
Gary Taylor (1987c) observed that the stylistic evidence pointed to a date for the canonical Hamlet
later than the ‘1600’ traditional since the edition of Edmond Malone and James Boswell (1821). In the
544 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
1987 Textual Companion, the colloquialism-in-verse test put it as late as Measure for Measure or
Othello, the metrical index placed it after Twelfth Night and before Othello, and the percentage
of rhyme to verse placed it closer to Othello than to Troilus and Cressida. Baron Brainerd’s statistical
test (1980, 280) put it at 1604.7, which would be immediately before publication of Q2. George T.
Wright's (1982) study of hendiadys puts the canonical conflated Hamlet firmly in Shakespeare's
middle period; only from Henry V to Macbeth do the rates of that unusual trope consistently rise
to frequencies higher than one for every 350 lines. Only five plays have more than one every 200
lines: Hamlet 1/60, Macbeth 1/117, Othello 1/118, Measure for Measure 1/176, and Troilus and
Cressida 1/184 (Wright 1982, 190-1). Chronologically, these plays all range from 1602 to 1606.
Although Shakespeare clearly preferred the classical trope in tragedies, Hamlet here is very far
from Julius Caesar (1/310) and Antony and Cleopatra (1/383), and the only comedy with such high
figures is Measure for Measure (see Table 25.10).
More recently, Douglas Bruster and Geneviéve Smith (2014) place Hamlet in mid-1599, but
that early date depends upon their bootstrapping techniques, which we have criticized in our
introduction. MacDonald P. Jackson’s more reliable adjustment of Eliot Slater’s data links the
conflated text to later tragedies (Othello, Timon of Athens, and Macbeth, in that order) rather than
Troilus and Cressida or Julius Caesar (see Table 25.3). Its strongest links are with Othello, and
Othello’s strongest links are with it. Jackson’s more reliable adjusted figures for Marina Tarlinskaja’s
stress profiles put Hamlet after Measure for Measure (see Table 25.8); his adjusted tabulation of
Tarlinskaja’s data for strong metrical breaks places it after Troilus and Cressida and before Othello
(see Table 25.9). Jackson's statisticalization of Ants Oras’s work (based on the Folio) puts it closest
to Twelfth Night and Othello, which would suggest that it might have been written between them
(see Table 25.7). All this stylistic data would make sense if the expanded Hamlet were written after
Twelfth Night (hence, later than early 1602) and before Othello (which can have been written no
earlier than autumn 1603).
All this evidence surveyed above would be explained by the hypothesis that the canonical ver-
sion was completed during the closure of the theatres in the summer and autumn of 1603, and
first performed during the inaugural Jacobean Christmas season of late 1603 to early 1604.
‘The preceding conclusion is based solely upon external and internal evidence related to the
canonical version of Hamlet, familiar to readers since late 1604. However, most attempts to
date the Hamlet included in our Complete Works have been complicated by the existence of an
earlier play of the same name (Wiggins #814). A play called Hamlet, ‘latelie Acted by the Lord
Chamberleyne his seruantes, was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 26 July 1602, and printed
in an edition dated 1603; the printing of the only extant copy of that quarto title page, because of
its allusion to Shakespeare’s company as ‘his Highnesse seruants, must post-date 19 May of 1603 when
James I became their patron. The 1603 quarto contains a much shorter text, which is stylistically
inferior to the 1604-5 and 1623 texts; it is included in the Alternative Versions. If the 1603 quarto is
simply a massively corrupted text of the 1604-5/1623 version(s), then Shakespeare must have
written the canonical Hamlet before 26 July 1602. If, on the other hand, the 1603 quarto represents
Shakespeare's own first, much earlier version of the play, then the familiar, mature play of 1604-5/1623
might not have been written until late 1603, or even 1604.
While attribution of the mature Hamlet is comfortingly uncontroversial, the authorship of the
earlier play is much disputed. Who wrote the early play determines whether we consider it a
source for Shakespeare's later play, or an early version of that later play. Thomas Nashe (1589),
Philip Henslowe (1594), and Thomas Lodge (1596) all independently refer to a play named, or
containing a character named, “Hamlet. According to Nashe, that play contained ‘tragical
speaches, and according to Lodge it was a ‘revenge’ play containing a ‘ghost’ who spoke to Hamlet.
But none of the three early allusions explicitly names an author.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 545
Gabriel Harvey did name an author. On a blank half-page of his copy of Thomas Speght’s 1598
edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s works (British Library ‘Add. MS 42518’ folio 394v, renumbered
422v), Harvey notes that “The younger sort takes much delight in Shakespeares Venus, & Adonis;
but his Lucrece, & his tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, haue it in them, to please the wiser
sort? This is the most frequently cited early reference to Hamlet, but Harvey’s note is not dated,
and conjectural dates for it have ranged from 1598 to 1606. Michael J. Hirrel (who reproduces the
page) provides palaeographical and inking evidence to suggest that the half-page contains a ser-
ies of separate notes, written at different times in chronological sequence; the note referring to
Hamlet comes between one on the Ear! of Essex (probably written before September 1599, and
certainly before February 1601) and another probably written between 1606 and 1612 (Hirrel 2012).
Harvey's Hamlet reference could thus have been written at any time between late 1599 and 1612.
Hirrel’s own guess (that it was written ‘very probably...after late 1604’) assumes that it refers to
the 1604 edition of Hamlet. But it might just as well refer to the 1603 quarto, or to performances
from the early 1590s, when Harvey was in London and showed some familiarity with theatrical
affairs. In either case, the note does not assist in dating either version of the play. If it refers to the
1604 text, its evidence of authorship is superfluous. If it refers to the early Hamlet, its attribution
to Shakespeare would be significant, and its praise of the play that Nashe had mocked would fit a
larger pattern of polemic between Nashe and Harvey; but the ambiguity of the date also makes
Harvey’s attribution ambiguous.
Nashe, in a book (STC 12272) entered in the Stationers’ Register on 29 August 1589, claimed
that “English Seneca read by candle light yeeldes manie good sentences, as Bloud is a begger, and
so foorth: and if you intreate him faire in a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets,
Ishould say handfulls of tragical speaches (sig. **3). Malone (1778; 1790; Malone and Boswell 1821),
writing before rediscovery of the 1603 quarto, consistently denied that Nashe could be referring
to an early version of the play by Shakespeare; because elsewhere in the long paragraph Nashe
refers to ‘the Kid in Aesop, Malone speculated that he was referring to a play written by Kyd, a
conjecture that continues to be repeated in twenty-first-century scholarship on Kyd and on
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But Malone's interpretation of the passage has been challenged by many
scholars. The most important of all editors of Nashe, R. B. McKerrow, specifically rejected
Malone's assumption that ‘Noverint’ (earlier on the page) meant that the author was a legal scribe.
McKerrow (1904-10, 1: 449-50) also rejected Malone’ interpretation of ‘the Kid in Aesop as evi-
dence that Kyd was the author of the early play; so did W. W. Greg (Wilson 1958) and E. A. J.
Honigmann (1954a). Bourus (2014b) surveys the history of scholarship on this passage; much of
it is invalidated by the assumption that the ‘he/hiny of the sentence about Hamlet is identical with
the plural ‘they/them/their’ of the rest of the long paragraph. Most significantly:
Nashe’s jibe at an author reliant on “English Seneca’ suggests that he is referring to some-
one with no apparent knowledge of Seneca in the original Latin. Kyd’s only influential
play was The Spanish Tragedy, which quotes Seneca’s Octavia, Agamemnon, Troades, and
Oedipus, in Latin, in a single speech by Hieronimo. No one could plausibly have claimed
that Kyd knew only the English translations of Seneca’s tragedies. (Bourus 2014b, 163)
Nashe does tell us that the early Hamlet ‘was written by a single author (Bourus 2014b, 165), who
cannot have been Robert Greene (whose work Nashe was praising and introducing) or George
Peele (whom Nashe praises in the same preface), or Nashe himself, or any university-educated
writer. Shakespeare is a plausible candidate as the target of Nashe’s satire, because he lacked a
university education, and his earliest undisputed tragedy, Titus Andronicus, is demonstrably
‘Senecan’ but not as learned as Nashe’s work or Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. Moreover,
546 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
‘Shakespeare's library certainly contained books in French and Italian, as well as those in Latin’
(Miola 2000, 169).
Henslowe records a performance at Newington Butts on 9 June 1594 of ‘hamlet’; it is not
marked as ‘ne[w]; and its average box-office receipts do not suggest that it was new; it was
included in a list of plays performed by the Lord Admiral’s Men and the Chamberlain’s Men,
either working together or alternating use of the venue (Foakes 2002, 21-2; Dulwich ‘MS VIL
folio 9). This is the first recorded reference to the Chamberlain’s Men. This record presumably
refers to a play written before formation of the Chamberlain’s Men, and probably before the
plague closures of 1592-3; it seems reasonable to assume that it is the same play mentioned
by Nashe. We do not know which of the pre-1594 companies owned the early Hamlet, but
Shakespeare could have taken the play with him to the Chamberlain’s Men. The 1603 title page
claims that the play had been ‘diuerse times acted... in the Cittie of London: as also in the two
Vniversities of Cambridge and Oxford, and else-where’ These claims are hard to reconcile with
a seventeenth-century date for Shakespeare’s canonical Hamlet, but all three would be easy
to explain as a reference to performances of the 1589 play (Nelson 1989, 2: 985; Menzer 2008,
145-54; Manley 2008; Bourus 2014b, 152-5).
Lodge (STC 16677, sig. h4v) refers to a ‘fiend’ who ‘walks for the most part in black vnder
colour of grauity, & looks as pale as the Vizard of y* ghost which cried so miserally at y* Theator like
an oister wife, Hamlet, reuenge. Malone (1778; 1790) accepted this as a reference to Shakespeare's
play, being performed by the Chamberlain’s Men at the Theatre in Shoreditch; Malone therefore
dated Shakespeare’s play in 1596. But Malone’s 1821 chronology rejected this earlier identification
on the grounds that no published text of Shakespeare's play contains the exact two-word sequence
‘Hamlet, revenge. Malone's objection has been repeated by many scholars, including Taylor
(1987c). However, Bourus (2014b) convincingly refutes Malone’s conjecture. She points out that
Lodge’s comment is itself an unreliable ‘memorial reconstruction of something heard in per-
formance, and she documents similar memorial compressions and misquotations of iconic bits
of dialogue in modern films (where the popular misquotation can be checked against the ori-
ginal); she also points out that the misquotation continued long after publication of both quarto
versions of Shakespeare's play. Finally, she relates this passage to one on the following page where
Lodge praises five living English writers (John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, Samuel Daniel, Michael
Drayton, and Nashe) but does not praise Shakespeare, despite the great success of his Venus and
Adonis and Lucrece (Bourus 2014), 145-51). This re-examination of the Lodge allusion seems to
us decisive in removing the only serious objection to the assumption that the Hamlet tragedy
mentioned by Lodge and Nashe could be represented by the 1603 quarto, and could have been
written by Shakespeare. Between them, Nashe and Lodge rule out eight authors, leaving only
Shakespeare and Anthony Munday as candidates who would satisfy the external evidence.
Bourus (2016a) strengthens the case for Shakespeare's authorship with three other observa-
tions about Nashe’s 1589 allusion. First, in the original 1589 text, Nashe plays with the proper
name of the play’s protagonist, transforming it into an odd plural: ‘whole Hamlets, I should say
handfuls of tragical speaches’. Italicized, with an initial upper-case letter, ‘Hamlets’ in 1589 is
clearly a proper noun, an allusion to a play or a character (as Malone recognized in 1790, after
seeing the 1589 text). But when Nashe’s text was reprinted in 1599 (STC 12273, British Library
copy), the odd original ‘Hamlets’ was emended by a compositor to ‘hamlets’ (sig. A4r). Not itali-
cized or capitalized, ‘hamlets’ is clearly, in 1599, a common plural noun—and Malone in 1778,
having seen only the 1599 text, interpreted ‘hamlets’ as an ordinary plural, with the usual sense
‘small village in the country’ (OED n.1, examples from 1330). This use of the plural is found in
Book One of Richard Stanyhurt’s Aeneis (1582), lines 434 (‘rustical hamlets’) and 585 (‘wheather
he through forrest dooth range, or wandreth in hamlets’); it occurs in Raphael Holinshed’s
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 547
Chronicles (1587) and Tarltons News out of Purgatory (1590), and EEBO-TCP records examples in
dozens of other sixteenth-century English books, often in contrast to ‘cities’. Nashe himself uses
the singular ‘hamlet’ to mean ‘village’ in Lenten Stuff (McKerrow 1904-10, 3: 160.36). At least one
reader of Nashe in 1599, and one in the eighteenth century, gave the pun ‘hamlets’ priority over
the literary allusion to Hamlet. But what is the point of such a pun in the original 1589 text? Kyd
and Munday were born in London, so the wordplay makes no sense if either of them was the
author of the early Hamlet. But Shakespeare came from a small market town in the English
Midlands that might easily be mocked as a ‘hamlet. This resembles the jibe at Shakespeare as a
country bumpkin in Greenes Groatsworth of Wit (‘the only Shakes-scene in a Country’). Unlike
the other alleged puns elsewhere in the paragraph, this pun explicitly refers to the play. It seems to
us strong positive evidence for Shakespeare's authorship of the original play.
Secondly, Nashe’s plural proper name (“Hamiets’) is odd. In Shakespeare's play, two characters
have that same name; that does not happen in any other known versions of the story. The Comedy
of Errors contains two men named Dromio and two named Antipholus, 3 Henry VI contains two
Yorkists named Richard (father and son), and Henry IV contains a father and son both named
Henry (‘Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,| But Harry Harry’). This kind of name-doubling
does not occur in Thomas Kyd’s work.
Bourus’s third point is less compelling, but nevertheless suggestive: the unnamed ‘he’ associ-
ated with Hamlet here is not associated with writing a ‘play’ or ‘pamphlet’ or even ‘translation; but
is instead associated with ‘speeches, the words spoken by actors, and in particular with an actor
who is asked to give a speech (like the actors in a famous scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet). The
sentence thus conflates author and actor in a way that would be particularly appropriate to an
actor-author like Shakespeare, especially if he had already written a scene in which actors are
asked to give a speech.
We find the arguments for Shakespeare’s authorship of the early Hamlet more convincing than
any alternative explanation. Why then did Meres not include Hamlet in his 1598 list of
Shakespeare's plays? Bourus (2014), 182) attributed this omission to the play’s early date, noting
that Meres also omits The Taming of the Shrew and the three Henry VI plays. ‘The ‘early play’
hypothesis would also explain Meres’s omission of Arden of Faversham and Edward III. Another
factor may also have influenced Meres: at least one of the Henry VI plays had been criticized in
Greenes Groatsworth of Wit. It would therefore not be surprising if Meres also omitted another
play, Hamlet, that had been conspicuously mocked: in 1596 by Lodge, and in 1589 by Nashe (in a
preface to Greene’s Menaphon). After all, Meres was not compiling a bibliography, but celebrating
admired specimens of English writing. It would make sense for him to omit some plays that had
been criticized by important English writers of the previous decade. Both explanations (early
date and conspicuous criticism) overlap as explanations for Meres’s omission of Hamlet.
Finally, Bourus (2014), 155-79) argues that the 1603 text contains no material or allusions that
point to a date later than 1588, and that it can be connected to the publication of Frangois de
Belleforest’s ‘Amleth’ (1570), to the inquest on the drowning of Katherine Hamlett in Tiddington
(1580), to the birth of Shakespeare’s son ‘Hamnet or ‘Hamlet’ (1585), to the 1586-7 visit to Denmark
by several English actors later associated with Shakespeare (George Bryan, William Kempe, and
Thomas Pope), to a Latin poem on Mary, Queen of Scots (1587), to the early career of Richard
Burbage (born 1568, acting from 1584), and to the death of Richard Tarlton (September 1588). Its
allusions to child actors fit the boy companies of the 1580s, and the name Corambis might refer to
Burghley, who died in 1598. The style of the 1603 text, often derided by modern critics, is certainly
primitive by comparison with the canonical 1604 version, but in many respects reflects the poetry
and drama of the 1580s. We provisionally date the original Hamlet to late 1588, the earliest date
compatible with a plausible allusion to the death of Tarlton (Yorick).
548 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
One can accept the claim that Shakespeare wrote the early Hamlet without accepting that Qu
represents that early version. Whether we accept Shakespeare's authorship of the early version
will affect how we interpret another allusion to the play. The prefatory epistle to the poem
Daiphantus (1604; STC 21853), written by ‘An. Sc, compares his poem to ‘Friendly Shake-speares
Tragedies, where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on Tip-toe: Faith it should
please all, like Prince Hamlet (sig. A2r). This 1604 publication, not entered in the Stationers’
Register, tells us little about the play’s date. However, Andrew Gurr (2000) suggested that the
preface had been written years before the only extant edition of the poem. Gurr called attention
to another sentence later in the same paragraph: his own poem, the poet claims, “but for the Lord
Mayor, and the two Sheriffes, the Innes of Court, and many Gallants elsewhere, this last yeare might
have been burned (sig. A2v). Gurr noted that ‘there had been only one notable burning of books
of poetry written by gallants and Inns of Court students in recent history, the notorious “Bishops’
ban” of June 1599, and he concluded that the epistle ‘must have been written some time in the year
after’ that burning (1600). This would date Hamlet to 1600 or late 1599. However, that conclusion
contradicts Gurr’s own evidence that the canonical Hamlet (containing the word ‘groundlings’)
cannot have been written before 1601 (Gurr 20042, 21-2). That contradiction would be removed
if ‘An. Sc’ had been referring, in 1600, to the early play about ‘Prince Hamlet’ and attributing it to
Shakespeare. Hence, the evidence of Daiphantus is as ambiguous as the evidence of Gabriel
Harvey’s note.
Most twentieth-century editors and textual scholars, including Taylor (1987c), believed that
the first quarto of Hamlet was based on a memorial reconstruction. The whole theory of memor-
ial reconstructions and reported texts has been systematically challenged in the last three
decades. The Arden3 Hamlet (Thompson and Taylor 2006) was conspicuously uncomfortable
about labelling Qi a ‘bad’ quarto of any kind; in independent book-length re-examinations,
both Bourus (2014b) and Zachary Lesser (2015) systematically undermined the traditional
dismissal of Qu, calling for a new stemma. We find these arguments convincing, but we recog-
nize that others may remain sceptical. We hope and expect that our own conclusions here will
stimulate new research.
In deference to those who accept the received view of the 1603 quarto, we admit the possibility
that the canonical Hamlet might have been written early in 1602, and therefore place it in 1602-3,
after Troilus and Cressida, in the Modern Critical Edition. Our own view is that it probably post-
dates the death of Elizabeth, and was written in the second half of 1603; therefore, in this chapter
we place it in 1603, after Sejanus. If the canonical Hamlet does date from early 1602, and if
Shakespeare was not Jonson's collaborator on Sejanus, then Shakespeare apparently did no play-
wrighting in 1603. This seems to us unlikely. It also seems to us unlikely that Shakespeare would
have permitted a failed collaborative play (Sejanus) to be his only ‘new’ offering at court in the
first theatrical season of the new reign.
Additions to Sir Thomas More 1603-4
Original play by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle; revised by Henry Chettle, Thomas
Dekker, Thomas Heywood, William Shakespeare, and Hand C
Original Date Range: 1590-1600
Original Best Guess: 1600
Date Range for Additions: 1600-May 1606
Best Guess for Additions: 1604
Text: Reference pp. 1107-112
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 549
British Library ‘MS Harleian 7368’ is an undated dramatic manuscript in several hands. The ori-
ginal play is throughout in the hand of Anthony Munday; on this original are comments in the
handwriting of Sir Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels from 1579 to 1610. This original was
probably written in or around 1600, by Munday and, most likely, Henry Chettle; for the original
play’s co-authorship, see Jonathan Hope (1994), MacDonald P. Jackson (2011), and Marina
Tarlinskaja (2014), and for Chettle’s involvement in the original text, see John Jowett (1989; 2011).
To this original script have been added a series of additions, in several hands. Hand A is that of
Chettle, Hand E is Thomas Dekker, Hand B is probably Thomas Heywood, and Hand C is a the-
atre professional who transcribed some material and annotated other passages, in both the ori-
ginal and the additions, thereby coordinating the revision. Hand D is believed to be Shakespeare's
autograph, and has accordingly aroused most interest. Hand D’s contribution is the third section
of Addition II (here, as in the Reference and Modern editions, referred to as IIc, but also often
referred to elsewhere as II.D, with the capital letter referring to the penman).
Richard Simpson (1871) first proposed Shakespeare's authorship of three of the additions,
including IIc and III. The history of scholarly debate until the mid-1980s is conveniently charted
by G. Harold Metz (1989). Most of the great palaeographers of the twentieth century concurred
that Hand D bears a remarkable resemblance to the handwriting of Shakespeare's attested signa-
tures and to the handwriting implied by errors in printed editions of his work. This conclusion
was endorsed by E. Maunde Thompson (1923), W. W. Greg (1923), C. J. Sisson (1954), Harold
Jenkins (1961), Peter W. M. Blayney (1972), G. Blakemore Evans (1974), and Charles Hamilton
(1985). The most systematic and methodologically rigorous study was completed by Giles Dawson
(1990), who compared the handwriting of Hand D with samples from 250 writers of the period.
He identified four distinctive features not found elsewhere in the period that are common to
Hand D and samples of Shakespeare's handwriting such as his signature in the Bellott-Mountjoy
case, and his signature to his will and the words ‘By me’ which precede it.
On the basis of its handwriting, Addition IIc cannot be attributed to any other dramatist of the
period whose handwriting has survived. The only dramatist who seems capable of composing the
passage whose autograph is not certainly extant is John Webster, and Carol Chillington (1980)
offered him as an alternative candidate on that basis; but Gary Taylor (1989) and Charles R. Forker
(1989) demonstrated, on the basis of verbal parallels, orthography, and misreadings, that Webster
is far less likely to have written it than Shakespeare.
By the mid-1980s, the palaeographical evidence for Shakespeare’s authorship of Addition
IIc had been buttressed by investigations of its orthography (Wilson 1923a) and of its patterns
of thought and imagery (Chambers 1931; Spurgeon 1930; Wentersdorf 1973). Since then, a
wealth of new evidence lends strength to the attribution to Shakespeare. In his sociolinguistic
study, Jonathan Hope (1994) establishes that additions IIc and IH, taken together, are not
outside Shakespeare’s range, whereas the results for the entire play (including the other
additions) are incompatible with Shakespeare. Using the Literature Online (LION) database,
Jackson (2006b) discusses five highly unusual spellings in the passage by Hand D that are
each found elsewhere in Shakespeare: scilens (for modern silence), Iarman (for German), a
leven (for eleven), deule (for devil), and the plural form elamentes (for elements). Though none
of these spellings is unique to Shakespeare, they are each rare (to varying degrees) in the
period. The co-occurrence of these five spellings within 1,200 words of dialogue points
strongly towards Shakespeare. Jackson notes that the comic mispronunciation of ergo as argo
(also occurring in 2 Henry VI) or argal (three times in Hamlet) is a ‘characterizing solecism of
Shakespeare’s. For rare collocations (those occurring in Hand D’s portion and five times or
less in early modern drama), Jackson identifies fourteen plays that produce at least four shared
collocations. Nine of these fourteen plays are by Shakespeare and no other dramatist wrote
550 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
more than one of the remaining five. Jackson (2007b) provides a sophisticated statistical analysis
of the cumulative evidence that Hand D is Shakespeare.
Thomas Merriam (2006), though making an ill-founded case elsewhere for Shakespeare's
authorship of the original text, identifies eight collocations that occur in Ic in other works by
Shakespeare but nowhere else in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Using computational stylistics
to provide systematic comparisons for word choice, vocabulary, and syntax between Addition IIc
and 136 other early modern plays, Timothy Irish Watt (2009a) demonstrated that the results for
Hand D’s portion of the text pointed towards Shakespeare’s authorship. Jowett (2011) notes seven
additional parallels between Shakespeare's works and Hand D’s portion. These include hurly
(occurring three times elsewhere in Shakespeare, but in no other play from the English public
theatre); peace ho (a phrase Shakespeare uses eleven times elsewhere, but is only used three times
elsewhere in total by other writers in the period), and would feed on one another (a five-word
sequence which only occurs here and in Coriolanus). Tarlinskaja (2014, 192), analysing nine
separate metrical features (rhyme, run-on lines, feminine endings, word boundaries, strong
syntactic breaks, mid-line stressing, end-line stressing, enclitic phrases, and rhythmical italics) in
Additions IIc and III, concludes that ‘most features’ indicate Shakespeare. Finally, Hugh Craig’s
chapter in this volume (Chapter 14) shows that Hand D’s addition is stylometrically plausible as
Shakespeare's, and much more likely to be Shakespeare’s than the King’s Men's additions to
Mucedorus. Cumulatively, such internal evidence has persuaded us, as it has most specialists, that
Hand D is Shakespeare's composition in his own handwriting.
But there are still some who reject the Shakespeare attribution. Most recently, Diana Price
(2015), as part of her more general anti-Stratfordian position, has dismissed the palaeographical
argument as questionable and the spelling evidence as selective. Rather surprisingly, then, Price
never refers to Dawson's essay, which remains the most comprehensive study of Hand D’s hand-
writing. While anyone would agree that rare spellings alone could not establish authorship, the
co-occurrence of six rare spellings within such a short sample is persuasive in itself. And, of
course, this attribution is made much more emphatic by the co-occurrence of (a) distinctive
palaeographical features, (b) rare spellings, and (c) unique and rare collocations, all within the 1,200
word sample. Price also draws on Paul Werstine’s (2013) description of the manuscript that rejects
W. W. Greg's category of authorial ‘foul papers; in general, and, for Sir Thomas More, determines
that Hand C’s work with the manuscript is consistent with being prepared for performance. But
that larger argument is irrelevant to the attribution of Hand D. Werstine is generally averse to any
form of internal evidence of attribution, and thus characteristically refuses to endorse any identi-
fication of Hand D. Citing previous work by B. A. P. Van Dam, L. L. Schiicking, Grace Ioppolo,
and Gerald Downs, Werstine suggests that ‘Hand D, whether Shakespeare or not, is a copyist’
(Werstine 2013, 252). That conjecture, debatable though it is (Jowett 2011, 439), does not necessar-
ily count against Shakespeare's authorship: it would open the possibility that Hand D was copying
Shakespeare's writing (because he was certainly not copying the style of Munday or Chettle).
Shakespeare could be said to have been copying certain passages of Thomas North’s translation of
Plutarch in Antony and Cleopatra, or copying certain passages of John Florio’s translation of
Montaigne in Tempest, but in those and many other cases Shakespeare’s copying is transformative
and still reveals his personal style. (See Taylor's Chapter 1 in this volume.) The cumulative and
interlocking evidence for Hand D as Shakespeare’s hand is overwhelming, and we therefore
include Addition IIc among his works.
The status of Addition III is less certain, because it exists only in a transcription by Hand C,
leaving us wholly dependent upon verbal parallels in a much briefer passage. Evidence for
Shakespeare's authorship of Addition III was first collected and analysed by R. C. Bald (1931),
and explored further by J. M. Nosworthy (1955a). Jowett collates and provides further striking
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 551
parallels between Addition III and Shakespeare's other works, concluding that the diction is
‘entirely compatible with Shakespeare throughout’ (Jowett 2011, 453-56). No one who doubts
Shakespeare's authorship of IIc will be persuaded by the less substantial evidence for attributing
Addition II to him. However, if one accepts his presence among the adapters, he seems more
likely than the other available candidates to have written the speech.
Jowett (2011; 2013) first identified Addition V, also a transcription by Hand C, as including writ-
ing by Shakespeare. These added twenty-two lines function as a ‘short prologue’ to scene 9. The
Messenger’s short speech can be firmly attributed to Heywood because Hand C simply copies in
these lines from Heywood’s Addition VI. This leaves the first seventeen lines of More's soliloquy.
It is a small sample, but on the basis of verbal parallels, Jowett rules out Munday, Chettle,
and Dekker as authors, and proposes that it includes mixed writing by both Shakespeare and
Heywood. He hypothesizes that Shakespeare wrote an initial draft of the speech and that
Heywood revised it (Jowett 2011, 456-8).
The date of the original play remains debated. Traditionally, it was dated around 1593-5. Jackson
(2011) and Jowett (2011) propose a later date, around 1600. Jackson provides strong palaeographical,
metrical, and linguistic evidence. Jowett argues that the play is of a piece with two sub-genres of
early modern drama emergent in the final years of the sixteenth century: first, plays that focus on
the social lives of London’s citizens, and secondly historical plays that centre on early Tudor
non-monarchical figures. The identification of Chettle as co-author of the original play also
pushes the date a little later; as Jowett notes, there is no evidence of Chettle and Munday’s
collaboration until after 1598. Jowett’s date has been confirmed by Hugh Craig’s (2013) statistical
analysis of changing language use; the original play is strongly associated with plays of known
composition in the early seventeenth century.
The additions must be later than the original; how much later is uncertain. All scholars agree
that the additions make no serious attempt to respond to Tilney’s objections; nevertheless, the use
of the word Lombards on two occasions (Addition II.B.82, 104) suggests that at least that addition
was written after Tilney read the play, for Tilney had insisted on precisely that change in the iden-
tification of the aliens (Il. 364, 368). Moreover, the complete absence of Munday’s hand in the
additions, and the fact that they are written on different paper from the original, make it clear that
the problem of dating the additions must be considered separately from the problem of dating the
original. Scott McMillin (1989) believed that Hand D’s addition belongs to the same period as the
original composition, but Giorgio Melchiori’s (1986) study of the paper encourages the trad-
itional assumption that all the additions belong to a single period.
The additions collectively contain twenty-seven profanities of a kind forbidden by the Act to
Restrain Abuses of Players (May 1606), and since these occur in all of the additions, it seems likely
that composition of the added material antedates the legislation. The allusion to the scouring of
Moorditch (Addition IV.215-16) would best fit 1595 or 1603. Several passages in Addition I (lines
12-16, 23-7, 58-61) allude to the court, the King, and ‘Lord Spend-alls Stuart’s’ in a way which
would be appropriate after the accession of James I. Several parallels between Addition IIc and
Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffman (1631; composed between 29 December 1602 and about 1604;
Wiggins #1384) suggest that Chettle was influenced by that addition when writing the play. David
J. Lake (1977) demonstrates, on the basis of stylistic evidence, that Dekker’s contribution must
post-date 1599. The political circumstances which forbade production of the play ceased to exist
when Elizabeth I died in March 1603, ending the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth's special sensitivity
to portrayals of her father Henry VIII. The acceptability in the new regime of previously forbid-
den material is demonstrated by Heywood’s The Troubles of Queen Elizabeth, also known as If You
Know Not Me, Part 1 (Wiggins #1427, possibly 1603, best guess 1604). Taylor (2014c) points to
another kind of evidence, in the length of the main role. For Othello (1603-4) and Volpone (1605-6)
552 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
the King’s Men required two actors capable of memorizing exceptionally long roles, to play the
paired protagonists Othello—-Iago and Volpone—Mosca. This change in company practice might
well be connected to the arrival of John Lowin, who at some point in the second half of 1603 left
Worcester’s Men (working for Philip Henslowe at the Rose) to join the King’s Men (Butler 2004;
Gurr 2004), 233-4). Perhaps Lowin brought the manuscript of Sir Thomas More with him. We
therefore regard 1603-4 as the likeliest date for the projected revival, and for composition of
all the additions. The evidence for this conclusion is presented in full in Taylor (1989) and
Jackson (2006b).
If one assumes that Shakespeare wrote Addition Llc, as we do, then the internal evidence points
strongly to a date in the early seventeenth century. Such a dating was supported by Addition IIc’s
rate of frequency for internal stops in verse speech (1.925) and its phrasing and expression
(Nosworthy 1955a). Jackson (2007a) shows that the linguistic evidence, the vocabulary, the speech
length, and the distribution of pauses in verse lines all place it in the period from Twelfth Night to
Macbeth. The passage contains a number of parallels from crowd scenes scattered throughout
Shakespeare's career (2 Henry VI, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus), but these are content-specific, and
may reveal nothing about chronology. Outside such parallels dictated by the subject matter, the
most striking verbal resemblances in Hand D’s addition are with Hamlet, Troilus, Othello, and Qu
King Lear. The colloquialism-in-verse test places it unmistakably in the seventeenth century, just
after Troilus and Twelfth Night. Tarlinskaja’s (2014, 192) metrical analysis of Additions IIc and III
supports these findings; she concludes that Hand D’s portion ‘seems to belong to Shakespeare dur-
ing the period of Othello, sometime around 1603-04. This internal evidence for dating Addition IIc
corresponds remarkably well with the evidence for dating the additions generally around 1603-4.
The only obstacle to a Jacobean date for the additions has been the presence of Hand C, who
has hitherto been identified in only two theatrical documents: the plot of 2 Seven Deadly Sins
(Dulwich College ‘MS xix’; Wiggins #1065) and that of 2 Fortune’ Tennis (British Library ‘Add.
MS 10449’ folio 4, around 1597 or around 1602; Wiggins #1273). The date of 2 Seven Deadly Sins
has been keenly debated. W. W. Greg (1931) ascribed the play to Strange’s Men, which would date
it to the late 1580s or early 1590s. More recently, it has been argued that it is a Chamberlain’s Men's
play from the mid-to-late 1590s (McMillin 1988; Kathman 2004b). Andrew Gurr (2007) rejects
this argument and thinks the play can be more closely associated with Strange’s Men, but this has
been rebutted by Kathman (2011). On the balance of evidence, Wiggins’s best guess for the play is
1597, and he gives a date-range of 1590-7. The date of 2 Fortune’ Tennis is less subject to debate; it
was most likely written between 1600 and 1603 as a sequel to the lost first part (Wiggins #1264).
The play belonged to the Admiral’s Men, so Hand C worked for at least two companies. Although
Shakespeare might be associated with Strange’s Men in the early 1590s, there is no evidence of his
association with the Admiral’s Men, or Henslowe, or any company beside the Chamberlain’s/
King’s Men after 1594. However, Hand C does not appear in any of the voluminous Henslowe
documents of 1597-1602; nor does the name of the actor Thomas Goodal, written in the margin
opposite the beginning of Addition V. Their presence in the additions therefore does not impede
attribution of the play to the King’s Men. Even if the play at some stage belonged to Henslowe, it
could at another stage have belonged to the King’s Men, and our ignorance of the detail of the
operations of the King’s Men should discourage dogmatism about the relationship between prov-
enance and authorship in sucha case. After all, our only knowledge of anyone who acted as book-
keeper for Shakespeare’s company before 1609 is an anecdote in which the King’s Men’s Thomas
Vincent fraternizes with the actor John Singer, the principal comedian of the rival company.
Jowett (2011, 102) notes that Hand C’s presence does not really provide any objection to the
Chamberlain/King’s Men’s (and Shakespeare’s) involvement with the play; Hand C was most
likely a freelance theatre scribe ‘with no fixed tie to any company.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 553
The Hand D portion was first included in an edition of the Complete Works by Peter Alexander
in 1951. Individual editions of the play, both with Shakespeare identified as a reviser, were pre-
pared by Vittorio Gabrieli and Giorgio Melchiori (1990) and Jowett (2011). It is omitted from the
print edition of the recent third edition of The Norton Shakespeare (Greenblatt et al. 2015), and
included only in their Digital Edition. In the New Oxford Shakespeare we include Additions Ic,
III, and V in the Reference and Modern editions of the Complete Works; the complete text, includ-
ing all the Additions, is included in Alternative Versions.
Othello; or, The Moor of Venice 1604
Date Range: October 1603-October 1604
Best Guess: early 1604
Text: Reference pp. 3159-250
Attributed to Shakespeare in the edition of 1622 and the 1623 Folio. According to a Revels Account
document now in the National Archives (Audit Office, Accounts, Various, ‘A.O. 3/908/13’), the
play was performed at court on 1 November 1604. Othello is also probably echoed in Thomas
Dekker and Thomas Middleton's The Patient Man and the Honest Whore, Part I (Wiggins #1431);
Philip Henslowe had made an advance payment for that play by 14 March 1604 at the latest
(Foakes 2002), and it was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 9 November. Alfred Hart (1935)
contended that the 1603 edition of Hamlet, which he thought a ‘bad quarto’ (see the entry for
Hamlet), included phrases which resulted from an actor’s memories of Othello. E. A.J. Honigmann
(1993; 1996) used some of these verbal parallels to make a case for a date around 1601-2. But
although Wiggins (#1437) gives a range of dates of 1601-4, and a best guess of 1604, he also points
out that which play echoes which is uncertain. We find the alleged parallels unconvincing, in part
because it is now clear from extensive computational searching of large corpora that a certain
number of unique verbal parallels will connect any two substantial works. Even if the parallels are
not random, they could be explained in two other ways: (1) the 1603 quarto of Hamlet might, as
Terri Bourus suggests, represent Shakespeare's 1589 version of the play, and hence might reflect
shared authorship rather than date; (2) whatever the origins of the 1603 quarto, Shakespeare
might have read the printed book while he was writing Othello, incorporating and improving
some phrases from it into the later play. The parallels therefore are poor evidence for dating the
first performances of Othello before the July 1602 Stationers’ Register entry for Hamlet.
Better evidence for dating Othello was provided by Stanley Wells (1984), who pointed out the
play’s apparent indebtedness to Richard Knolles’s History of the Turks (1603; STC 15051) for
details of the movement of Turkish galleys in 1.3. Knolles’s book contains an epistle dated ‘the
last of September, 1603’ and, if accepted, this evidence fixes the play’s composition in the year
before its recorded court performance. Knolles dedicated his book to King James, and that dedi-
cation refers to the King’s poem The Lepanto, first published in an Edinburgh edition of Poetical
Exercises (STC 14379, 1591), but printed separately in London, for the first time, in 1603 (STC
14379.3, entered 12 April). Emrys Jones (1968) first suggested that Lepanto influenced Othello;
Michael Neill (2006, 396) first pointed out that the ‘turbaned Turk and ‘circumcised dog’ in
Othello’s penultimate speech (5.2.351-3; STC 22305, sig. N2r; “Turbond-Turke’ in the Folio)
apparently echo the ‘circumcised Turband Turkes’ on the first page of Lepanto (sig. A4r). Jane
Rickard (2015, 216) strengthens Neill’s suggestion, noting how rare ‘turbaned’ was as an adjec-
tive: Lepanto is OED’s first citation of the adjective, and Othello its second. So far as we can tell
from database searches, the collocation of the three words occurs nowhere else in sixteenth- or
seventeenth-century texts.
554 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
The cumulative stylistic tests support the external evidence for a date in the early 1600s within
a year or so of James I’s accession (1603). The colloquialism-in-verse test places it after Measure for
Measure but before All’s Well (see Table 25.13). For rare word links (Eliot Slater’s data revised by
MacDonald P. Jackson), the play’s strongest links are with Hamlet (and Twelfth Night to a lesser
extent—see Table 25.3). In Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s figures for mid-line pauses, Othello
is most closely connected to (in descending order): Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Merry Wives,
Twelfth Night, and Measure for Measure (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith
(2014), who rely upon Oras’s original data, place Othello implausibly early in 1601; their initial
analysis gives an earlier date of late 1600 (1600.77). In Helmut Ilsemann’s figures it falls between
Measure for Measure and King Lear (see Table 25.4). In the index of stressed syllable placement
(based on Marina Tarlinskaja’s studies of metre), Othello is closest to the Additions to The Spanish
Tragedy and Measure for Measure (see Table 25.8); for strong metrical breaks, Othello is after
Hamlet but before Measure for Measure (see Table 25.9). Most of these tests point towards a strong
connection between Othello and Measure for Measure. It is likely that they were written within the
same twelve-month period. Because Othello was performed at court almost two months earlier
than Measure for Measure, and because the stylistic and metrical tests for Othello generally link
the play to earlier works in the 1600s, while the same results for Measure for Measure link that play
more consistently with later works, we assume that Othello is the earlier of the two. We also
assume that it was written too late for performance at court in the 1603-4 winter season: it would
be odd to begin a new court season with a play already seen in the previous one.
Measure for Measure 1604 (adapted 1621)
William Shakespeare; adapted by Thomas Middleton
Original Date Range: 1603-4
Best Guess: late 1604
Adaptation Date Range: 1616-early 1622
Adaptation Best Guess: late 1621
Text: Reference pp. 1725-91
According to a Revels Account document now in the Public Record Office (Audit Office, Accounts,
Various, ‘A.O. 3/908/13’), the play was performed at court on 26 December 1604. One passage
(1.1.68-74) has, since the eighteenth century, often been cited as an allusion to King James I's distaste
for crowds, but Kevin Quarmby (2011) has shown that this is part of the anti-Stuart historiographical
tradition, which cited Measure for Measure as evidence of the alleged distaste; the argument is
therefore entirely circular. However, there is other, less negative evidence of Jacobean composition.
J. W. Lever (1959) discerned a plausible parallel between 2.4.20-30 and The Time Triumphant (STC
7292), entered in the Stationers’ Register on 27 March 1604. Alice Walker (1983) objected that the
pamphlet, written in whole or part by Robert Armin, might as easily have been influenced by
Measure; but Armin was describing actual events, and Shakespeare was instead using an anecdote
about ‘a well-wished king’ as a simile to describe Angelo’ feelings. There had been no ‘well-wished
king’ in London between the death of the young Edward VI (1553) and the official entry of James I
into the city in March 1604. The severe punishment of Lucio for ‘Slandering a Prince’ might
relate to King James I’s strong views on defamation (Taylor 2001b, 53-9). Jane Rickard reinter-
prets and strengthens the view that the play reflects Shakespeare’s reading of his new monarch’s
Basilikon Doron, repeatedly reprinted and widely read in 1603 (Rickard 2015, 219-30). ‘He who
the sword of heaven [‘God in this edition] will bear’ (3.1.454) apparently alludes to the coronation
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 555
ceremony (Wilson 2015); the coronation of James I (25 July 1603) had been the first since 1559. The
play’s unique focus on religious issues, signalled by the title, might reflect the new King’s active theo-
logical interests, evident in the Hampton Court Conference of January 1604. Measure for Measure
also seems to belong to a group of ‘disguised ruler’ plays associated with the start of the new reign,
including John Marston’s The Fawn and Thomas Middleton's The Phoenix (Wiggins #1455, #1420).
Middleton's play seems to have been performed in the first Jacobean court season (1603-4). If we
accept such cumulative indications of Jacobean composition, the original version of the play could
belong to any time from March 1604 to December 1604 (Wiggins #1413 gives dating limits of 1603-4).
Plague closed the London theatres from 19 May 1603 to 9 April 1604, so even if the play was finished
in early summer 1603 its Globe premiere could not have occurred until April 1604.
Stylistic evidence supports this dating. The colloquialism-in-verse and the metrical tests place
Measure after Troilus and Cressida and Twelfth Night but before All’s Well (see Table 25.13). In
MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Elliot Slater’s data for rare word links, the play is associated
most closely with (in descending order): Winter's Tale, All’s Well, and Troilus and Cressida (see
Table 25.3). The link with Winter's Tale is difficult to explain, but it does suggest that Measure is
later than Othello or any of the Elizabethan plays, and the two other strong associations are with
plays on either side of 1603-4. For mid-line pauses (Jackson's reworking of Ants Oras’s data),
Measure for Measure is closest to (in descending order): King Lear, All’s Well, Macbeth, Timon of
Athens (all dated in 1605-6), and Hamlet (earlier than 1604) (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster and
Genevieve Smith (2014), who rely on Oras’s original data, place the play in early 1602 (1602.2);
such an early date seems implausible given the other cumulative external and internal evidence.
In an index of stressed syllable placement (reworked from Marina Tarlinskaja’s analyses of metre),
Measure for Measure is closest to (in descending order): Othello and Hamlet (see Table 25.8). For
strong metrical breaks, it falls between Othello and King Lear (see Table 25.9). All these links to
tragedies suggest that chronology is here more important than genre. Though the relative priority
of Othello and Measure for Measure is contested, the cumulative stylistic tests put Measure for
Measure slightly later. We must add a caveat that Middleton’s adaptation of Shakespeare's original
version, discussed below, may slightly affect the results of some of these tests. But the additions
affect only a small fraction of the dialogue (most of it prose or song), and we do not believe they
would significantly alter the results derived from these various measures that record broad pat-
terns across the text. Wiggins gives a best guess of 1603. But given the evidence that Othello can be
no earlier than October 1603 (see above), and the evidence that Measure is stylistically later than
Othello (which we place in early 1604), we place the original composition of Measure in the
second half of 1604.
John Jowett and Gary Taylor, developing hints from previous scholars, have argued at length
that the 1623 Folio text represents Thomas Middleton’s posthumous adaptation of the play. Their
evidence was first outlined in the Textual Companion (Wells et al. 1987), but not fully published
until Shakespeare Reshaped (Jowett and Taylor 1993). Our summary here is based upon their
arguments, as modified in various subsequent publications (Jowett 2001; Taylor 2004; Taylor and
Lavagnino 20074, 1542-85; 2007b, 681-89). These findings have been supplemented and refined
by the work of Terri Bourus (2014a; Bourus and Taylor 2014), and by Bourus’s textual introduc-
tion in Reference.
All modern editors agree that the Folio text of Measure for Measure is set from a Ralph Crane
transcript of another manuscript. Jowett and Taylor argued that Crane was copying the King’s Men’s
playbook, reflecting late changes to the original manuscript. As Bourus points out in her textual
introduction, some of their arguments are based on the New Bibliography’s now-discredited
assumptions about sharply marked differences between ‘foul papers’ and ‘promptbooks.
Nevertheless, even without such assumptions there is abundant evidence that the Folio text
556 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
reflects practices (act divisions) and norms (in the expurgation of profanity) that were not char-
acteristic of Shakespeare in 1604.
More significant evidence for posthumous adaptation is the song “Take oh take those lips away’
(4.1.1-6). James Boswell (Malone and Boswell 1821, 20: 419-20) first raised doubts over
Shakespeare's authorship of the song, suggesting, implausibly, that the printer introduced it. The
song also occurs, with another stanza, in Rollo, Duke of Normandy (also known as The Bloody
Brother), by John Fletcher and others. Rollo is most plausibly dated in mid-1617 (Wiggins #1,841),
and the song, as Jowett and Taylor prove, originated in Fletcher’s play, not Shakespeare’s. The two-
stanza version in Rollo, addressed by a man to a woman, is clearly based on a two-stanza Latin
lyric, also addressed to a woman, and the two-stanza version was enormously popular in the
seventeenth century. That popularity would explain why the King’s Men might reuse it in another
play, where they could expect many auditors to recognize its transformation to a female com-
plainant addressing a man. The song occurs in Measure for Measure in a context long suspected of
textual dislocation. Jowett and Taylor explain that dislocation as the consequence of interpolating
the act-break, the stanza from the Rollo song, and the dialogue immediately following it. Those
additions significantly expand the role of Mariana, who accompanies the singing boy-actor,
which is part of a more general expansion of female roles typical of Middleton and particularly
appropriate for a revival (Bourus and Taylor 2014). Two speeches by the Duke (at 3.1.454-75 and
4.1.56—61 in the Folio) seem to have been transposed from their original locations: that conjec-
tured transposition provides, as Jowett notes, ‘a longer and stronger close at the new act-break
(Taylor and Lavagnino 20074, Measure for Measure 3.1.514-35n.).
The longest proposed interpolation is the episode with Lucio and the two anonymous gentle-
men at the beginning of 1.2. This expansion seems to replace an intended deletion at 1.2.1.D1-D7,
and it explains various confusions and clear signs of crowding on the second page of the Folio text.
The proposed addition significantly expands the role of Lucio, the play’s chief comic character.
Such an expansion is also characteristic of late interpolations. Stylistically and lexically, the begin-
ning of the scene is more characteristic of Middleton than Shakespeare. This passage also provides
good evidence for the date of Middleton’s adaptation. The Bawd’s complaint at 1.2.0.A66-A67
better fits the historical circumstances of the years 1619-21 than of 1603-4; the reference to the King
of Hungary at 1.2.0.A2-A4 would have been particularly topical in 1621-2, and ‘the sanctimonious
Pirat’ of 1.2.0.6 would also have been especially pertinent in 1621. Jowett (2001) established that
the first lines of 1.2 echo a news-sheet published on 6 October 1621 (STC 18507.32). The economic
depression and losses caused by war mentioned by Overdone would have been more resonant in
1621 than 1604; England’s economy was devastated in the period 1618-22, with income low and
resources scarce, and many thousands of Englishmen volunteered for the war in Europe. This
clustering of apparent topical allusions strongly suggests that the passage dates from the last months
of 1621 or very early 1622. Middleton's adaptation of Measure for Measure is likely to capitalize on
market demand in the early 1620s for plays that reflect upon and exploit contemporary political
controversies, a motive for adaptation discussed by Gerald Eades Bentley (1971, 253-5, 263).
Middleton’s own World Tossed at Tennis (1620), Nice Valour (1623), and A Game at Chess (1624)
exploit similar material. Jowett (2001) and Bourus and Taylor (2014) analyse, in different ways,
the adapted play’s political polemics in performance in late 1621. Richard Wilson (2015) interprets
the political implications differently, but also treats Middleton's adaptation as beyond doubt.
Other suspected alterations by Middleton include some added passages in 2.1, the expansion of
Lucio’ role in 2.2, highlighting and increasing Juliet’s silent presence in the play (1.2 and 5.1), and
an additional comic soliloquy for the Clown at the beginning of 4.3. Another likely change
involves only nine words of the text but more significantly alters the play’s meaning. Taylor (2004)
explained a geographical issue that had long puzzled commentators and actors, conjecturing that
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 557
Shakespeare's original version had been set in Italy, and that Middleton switched the location to
Vienna. A setting of Vienna would have been much more politically resonant in the backdrop to
the European conflicts of the Thirty Years War; in the early Jacobean period, Vienna would have
held no special interest, and Shakespeare never elsewhere sets a play in Vienna or a linguistically
Germanic setting. Bourus and Taylor (2014) discuss the differences in costuming and performance
associated with Italy and Vienna and in Reference (p. 1712) Bourus gives new evidence that the
original version was set in Ferrara. In the vein of such changes, the Duke's name Vincentio,
recorded in “The Names of all the Actors’ in the Folio but never mentioned elsewhere, may have
been cut at 1.1.2. This line’s deficient metre, short by four syllables ( Vin-cent-i-o, perhaps), suggests
something has been omitted.
Bourus and Taylor (2014) conjecture that the phrase ‘But fitter time for that’ (5.1.481), the only
evidence in the text that suggests that Isabella does not immediately signal her approval to the
Duke's proposal, may also belong to Middleton's adaptation; the phrase fitter for never occurs in
Shakespeare, but five times in Middleton texts written between 1605 and 1621. On the other hand,
the sentence resembles Paulina’s “There's time enough for that’ in The Winter’ Tale (5.3.129) ina
similar context. This conflicting evidence is characteristic of the problems associated with small
changes to the text: they are necessarily harder to prove than the major alterations in 1.2, 4.1, and
4.3. In the case of 5.1.481, all we can say is that we do not know who wrote those five words, and
consequently cannot judge whether Shakespeare or Middleton intended to indicate some awk-
wardness about Isabella's response to the Duke's proposal. We will never be able to identify with
complete confidence all the exact details of the adaptation. But the cumulative evidence for late
revival and adaptation seems compelling.
As Bourus and Taylor (2014) note, all these changes would only constitute roughly 5 per cent of
the dialogue in the Folio text, but would affect the beginnings of half the speaking roles.
Shakespeare's primary responsibility for the play is not in doubt, but Middleton's alterations seem
to be carefully calculated to produce maximum impact by minimal textual intervention.
AIl’s Well that Ends Well 1605 (adapted 1622)
William Shakespeare; adapted by Thomas Middleton
Original Date Range: 1603-early 1606
Original Best Guess: early 1605
Adaptation Date Range: 1616-middle 1622
Adaptation Best Guess: early 1622
Text: Reference pp. 2075-139
First mentioned in November 1623, in the Stationers’ Register entry for Shakespeare's Comedies,
Histories, & Tragedies (the Folio). Internal evidence for dating is sparse. Most critics agree that
Lavatch belongs to a series of clown roles that Shakespeare created for Robert Armin (in the vein
of Feste), who joined the company around 1600, after the departure of William Kempe. John Dover
Wilson (1929) related 1.3.73—4 to the controversial enforcement of the surplice in 1604; less plausibly,
he sawallusions to the Gunpowder Plot (late 1605) at 1.1.105—-07 and 4.3.15. Terry Reilly (2007) argues
that the relationship between Bertram and the King reflects the 1604 debates about the Court of
Wards. Such markers would suggest but not confirm a date in the early Jacobean period. Wiggins
(#1461) gives dating limits of 1601-8, but his best guess agrees with our placement in 1605.
Edmond Malone and James Boswell (1821) assigned the play to 1606, but twentieth-century editors
generally assumed that it pre-dated Measure for Measure. The two plays are related in many ways, but
558 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
priority is not easily established. Shakespeare may have imported the bed-trick into Measure
because of its use in the source for All’s Well; but even if that were—as it is not—demonstrably
true, Shakespeare might have read Giovanni Boccaccio’ story years before he decided to drama-
tize it. The tendency to date All’s Well earlier than Measure for Measure is founded upon little
more than a critical prejudice that Measure for Measure is ‘the less uncertain achievement’ (Hunter
1959, xxiv). We do not share that belief, and even if we did would regard it as an inadequate
argument for dating.
At 2.1.93-4, Helen is apparently disguised or muffled, and Lafeu says ‘I am Cresseds Vncle, |
That dare leaue two together’; in Troilus and Cressida, when Pandarus does bring two together
(8.187), Cressida is veiled. The allusion in All’s Well is more naturally explained if the play post-
dates Troilus and Cressida. In the 1987 version of the present essay, Gary Taylor dated All’s Well to
1604-5, after Measure for Measure and Othello but before Timon of Athens. In the 2005 edition of
the Oxford Complete Works, Wells and Taylor were influenced by MacDonald P. Jackson's argu-
ment that All’s Well post-dates Thomas Middleton's Revenger’s Tragedy, performed by the King’s
Men in 1606 (Jackson 2001e); they therefore moved All’s Well to follow Antony and Cleopatra and
precede Pericles. In the present volume, Gary Taylor (Chapter 21) reconsiders and rejects Jackson's
argument, concluding that All’s Well should indeed be placed just after Othello and Measure
for Measure.
The dating of the play is now complicated by the probability that the Folio text contains writing by
Middleton. Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith (2012b) first conjectured that Middleton collaborated
with Shakespeare on the play, and several essays in this volume provide further evidence for his pres-
ence. Unlike Maguire and Smith, we propose that Middleton retrospectively adapted Shakespeare's
original play, most likely for a revival by the King’s Men after Shakespeare's death. Rory Loughnane
first identifies added material by Middleton in the gulling of Paroles passage in 4.3 (Chapters 17, 19).
Terri Bourus and Farah Karim-Cooper independently support this finding in their discussion of
dramaturgically expendable material in 4.3 (Chapter 18). As Loughnane notes, markers of Middleton's
presence cluster significantly in passages identified as expendable (or, its corollary, added). He also
rules out Shakespeare as author of this added material. Taylor identifies Middleton as author of the
virginity dialogue in 1.1 (Chapter 21). John V. Nance finds Middleton's presence in the King’s speech
in 2.3 (Chapter 20). It is possible, even probable, that Middleton added other passages to the play;
further research is required. But the hypothesis of adaptation suggests that Middleton is responsible
for much less of the play than the hypothesis of collaboration would entail.
Taylor’s Chapter 21 in the present volume also provides new evidence about the date of
Middleton’s adaptation. Mocking references to out-of-fashion brooches, the contemporary res-
onance of the play’s military narrative in the light of the Thirty Years War, and the reference to a
fistula that is in some way embarrassing or shameful (1.1.25), combine to suggest a date in the first
half of 1622 for Middleton's adaptation of the play, some months before the play was set in type for
the 1623 Folio edition.
For Shakespeare's original composition, internal evidence strongly suggests an early Jacobean
date. In Jackson's reworking of Ants Oras’s pause tests (see Table 25.7) All’s Well is most closely
linked to (in descending order): Macbeth, Measure for Measure, and Timon of Athens (plays we
date from 1604 to 1606). The colloquialism-in-verse test puts it after Measure for Measure and
Othello (see Table 25.13). Jackson's revision of Eliot Slater’s rare word data gives closest links to
Troilus and Cressida and Measure for Measure (see Table 25.3). Marina Tarlinskaja’s stressed
syllables index places it between King Lear and Macbeth (see Table 25.8); her metrical breaks place
it between Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra and followed thereafter by all the traditional late
solo-authored plays (see Table 25.9). Karl P. Wentersdorf’s tests also place it after Othello and
Measure for Measure but before Macbeth (see Table 25.6). For use of hendiadys, All’s Well (with
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 559
nine occurrences) is one removed from Antony and Cleopatra (which we place later) and Julius
Caesar and As You Like It (both earlier); this ambiguity results from the curve in hendiadys
frequency, discussed above (see Table 25.10).
In short, the internal evidence strongly suggests a date in the first years of James I’s reign
(1603-6), corroborating the slight evidence of historical or topical connections. We must note,
however, that each of the preceding tests was completed on the entire text of All's Well, including
what we now regard as Middleton's additions. Internal tests also support the dating of Measure for
Measure and Macbeth to the same period (see the respective entries for these plays). We hold that
Middleton also adapted both of those plays for revival. His involvement does not appear to skew
the internal evidence for date of original composition: if it does, the effect of his minor additions
is comparable to the range of variability in the tests themselves. The results produced by the vari-
ous metrical, linguistic, and lexical tests measure broad patterns and preferences across entire
texts (or large chunks of text). And, in fact, many of these tests focus specifically on patterns in
verse, while the Middletonian passages that Loughnane and Taylor in this volume (Chapters 17, 19,
and 21) identify in All’s Well are in prose. We see no reason to believe that Middleton added such
an extensive amount of new material to the play that it would significantly alter these results.
Roger Holdsworth’s Chapter 22 in the present volume helps us to establish a chronology for
Shakespeare (and Middleton) from late 1605 to mid-1606, including the original composition of
King Lear, Timon of Athens (with Middleton), and the original text of Macbeth. We find it implaus-
ible that Shakespeare also wrote All’ Well in these crowded months. ‘The stylistic tests do not
group All’s Well with Shakespeare’s late plays after mid-1606. On the early side, they most often
date All’s Well after Othello and Measure for Measure. In our working chronology, this leaves a gap
between the composition of Measure for Measure in 1604 and King Lear in late 1605. Thus we
think early 1605 is the most likely period for the play’s first composition.
Finally, the identification of Middleton's hand as adapter in this play may encourage some to
revisit the nineteenth-century speculation that Love’s Labour’s Won is, in fact, All's Well. (See the
discussion of Love's Labour’s Won, above.) While we propose that the Folio text represents a
revised version of Shakespeare's play, we see no evidence to suggest that the Shakespearean ver-
sion could be earlier than September 1598. In plot and genre, quite apart from Middleton's revi-
sions, the play is most closely linked to Measure for Measure. Furthermore, the internal evidence
strongly suggests an early Jacobean date, after Othello and Measure for Measure, which makes it
unlikely that Loves Labour’s Won and AIl’s Well are the same play.
King Lear 1605
Date Range: 1604-6
Best Guess: late 1605
Revision Date Range: 1608-14
Revision Best Guess: early 1610
Text: Reference pp. 1257-338
The play exists in two substantive texts, a quarto edition printed in 1608 (STC 22292), which
serves as the copy-text for the play in this Complete Works, and a text included as part of the
1623 Folio (STC 22273), which serves as the copy-text for the play in Alternative Versions. The
relationship between these two texts is fully discussed in Alternative Versions. King Lear is
attributed to Shakespeare in the Stationers’ Register (26 November 1607) and on the title page
to the first quarto edition (1608). Shakespeare’s sole authorship of the quarto text has never
been seriously disputed.
560 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Our dating of King Lear reflects Shakespeare's first completion of a substantive version of the
play. It was performed at Whitehall Palace on St Stephen’s Day (26 December) 1606, as part of
the Christmas season, which provides the latest possible date of completion. The play is clearly
influenced by, and therefore cannot precede, Samuel Harsnett’s Declaration of Egregious Popish
Impostures (1603; STC 12880), most notably in Edgar’s possessed language when disguised as
Poor Tom. The Jacobean date demonstrated by the influence of Harsnett is confirmed by a cluster
of apparent topical allusions to James I and his court in scene 4. To the examples discussed by
Gary Taylor (1983b, 102-5) should be added the line ‘If thou be as poore for a subiect, as he is fora
King, thar’t poore enough’ (4.17-18), which would have been uncomfortably pertinent to the
financial difficulties which James I soon encountered; the use of the third-person pronoun makes
such an allusion even more likely. In total, these allusions could hardly be earlier than mid-1604.
The problem then is where to situate the play within the thirty months between mid-1604 and
the end of 1606. Shakespeare makes extensive use of the anonymous play King Leir (Wiggins
#838), entered in the Stationers’ Register on 8 May 1605 and printed in that year but probably first
performed in 1589-90: Wiggins gives a date range of 1586-94, but his best guess is 1589. For the
purposes of dating Shakespeare’s King Lear, what matters is that the anonymous Leir was an
old play not printed until mid-1605 or somewhat later. W. W. Greg (1939-40) conjectured that
Shakespeare knew the old play in manuscript, and that its publication was an attempt to capitalize
on the success of King Lear. But King Lear was also apparently influenced by Eastward Ho!
(Wiggins #1473: first three editions all dated 1605), written by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and
John Marston in early 1605, and entered in the Stationers’ Register on 4 September 1605
(Taylor 1982a). Moreover, the reference to “These late eclipses in the Sunne and Moone’ (2.103)
probably alludes to the eclipses of 17 September and 2 October 1605. Given this evidence of a date
later in 1605, it seems likely that a 1605 revival of King Leir (the title page to the 1605 edition states
that it was ‘lately acted’), or its appearance in print, or both, inspired Shakespeare to compose his
own version. The play may also be indebted to George Wilkins’s Miseries of Enforced Marriage
(Wiggins #1521), which cannot have been written earlier than mid-1605. All these connections
point to a date for King Lear no earlier than the autumn of 1605.
Roger Holdsworth, in Chapter 22 of this Authorship Companion, further narrows the range of
plausible dates, by situating King Lear in the larger pattern of writing by Shakespeare, Middleton,
and Jonson in 1605-6 to place it in October-December 1605. Why then was it performed at court
in the 1606-7 court season, rather than 1605-6? Wiggins (#1486, whose best guess is also 1605)
conjectures that Shakespeare's script may not have been finalized or delivered in time for a per-
formance in the 1605-6 season and that its depicting the division of the kingdoms might have
been thought too close a political allusion to King James’s unification project.
‘The stylistic evidence is affected to some degree by the problem of revision; historically, most
investigations have conflated the two versions of the play. Taylor’s re-examination of the rare
vocabulary evidence put the original version between Othello and Macbeth, either just before or
just after Timon of Athens (Taylor 1983a, 388-90, 452-68). Holdsworth gives strong reasons for
placing it before Timon of Athens (Chapter 22). MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s
figures for mid-line pauses, although based on a conflated text, links King Lear most closely with
other plays from the early Jacobean period (in descending order): Measure for Measure, Macbeth,
All’s Well, and Pericles (see Table 25.7). Revision is unlikely to have affected these figures much,
although they must be used with some caution. Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014),
who rely upon Oras’s original data, also settle on a date of 1605, although their initial analysis
gives a date in mid-1604 (1604.67).
The revision—as represented in the 1623 version—appears to have occurred some years after
first composition. It apparently began on a copy of the 1608 edition and makes no use of the
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 561
sources of the original version. It may have been influenced by details of Plutarch’s ‘Life of Marius’
(echoed in Coriolanus) and of George Puttenham’s The Art of English Poesy (1589; STC 20519),
echoed in The Winter's Tale. The rare vocabulary in the parts unique to the Folio version has no
statistically significant links with the plays from As You Like It to Othello, as the quarto version
does; its strongest links are instead with The Winter’ Tale, Cymbeline, Tempest, and All Is True.
Moreover, the language of King Lear seems to have re-entered Shakespeare's active vocabulary at
about the same time as Cymbeline: King Lear and Cymbeline are also linked by many similarities
in sources and preoccupations. ‘No heretics burnd’ (3.2.84; Folio line references to the 2005
Complete Works) is unlikely to have been written after 14 December 1611, when Edward Wightman
was condemned to death for heresy; he and Bartholomew Legate went to the stake in March 1612.
The foregoing evidence is discussed at length by Taylor and Warren (Taylor 1983a; Taylor and
Warren 1983a, 485-6). In addition, Taylor (1993c) argues that the revision presumes the use of act
intervals, and hence post-dates the reacquisition of the Blackfriars in August 1608. Shakespeare's
work on the revision, as Wiggins notes, would fit neatly in early 1610 before he began work on
Cymbeline. A revival of King Lear around the same time as Cymbeline would also make good
sense, as both plays are about early English history.
P. W. K. Stone (1980) conjectured that Philip Massinger was responsible for the Folio alter-
ations. The essays in Taylor and Warren (1983b) presented linguistic evidence which rules out
every plausible candidate but Shakespeare. The type and distribution of rare vocabulary, verbal
parallels, clusters of imagery, sources, and chronological evidence are all compatible with
Shakespeare's authorship, and we see no serious evidence of posthumous or unauthoritative
adaptation. Neither did Arthur F. Kinney in his stylometric analysis (2009b). The only passage
sometimes isolated as a theatrical interpolation is the Fool’s prophecy (3.2.79-96); that conjecture
has been recently reiterated by R. B. Hornback (2004). But the grounds for the allegation are
wholly subjective, and we do not share the distaste of some critics for the passage. E. A. J.
Honigmann (1982b) and Joseph Wittreich (1984) provide further arguments for its authenticity.
Brian Vickers (2016), published as this Authorship Companion was going to press, denies that
the Folio represents a later Shakespearean revision of the play. Initial reviews by Jonathan Bate
(2016), Holger Schott Syme (2016), and Eric Rasmussen (2017) have found the Vickers hypothesis
unpersuasive; John Jowett’s introduction to King Lear in Reference (p. 1244) considers and rejects
arguments Vickers made in a 2013 lecture, which have now appeared in print. Vickers’s evidence
will be fully assessed in Alternative Versions.
Timon of Athens 1606
William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton
Date Range: 1604-6
Best Guess: early 1606
Text: Reference pp. 3079-135
First mentioned in the Stationers’ Register entry for the 1623 collection. The Folio’s inclusion of
the play establishes that Shakespeare wrote all or part of it. But Charles Knight (1840) suggested
that Shakespeare might not be the sole author, and this conjecture stimulated many competing
attempts to assign the collaborator(s) a name. Partly in reaction against such theories, E. K.
Chambers (1930, vol. 1) and Una Ellis-Fermor (1942) argued that the play was unfinished. This
conjecture grew out of Chambers’s belief that Shakespeare suffered a mental breakdown, and his
related belief that Timon of Athens was the last of the tragedies, abandoned before a revived and
spiritually whole Shakespeare began composing the romances. These biographical speculations
562 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
represent a wholly uncharacteristic lapse from Chambers’s usual standards of good sense,
and they illustrate the lengths to which conjecture is driven in the effort to resist the evidence
of collaboration.
Charlton Hinman’s (1963) study of the printing of the Folio demonstrated two things pertinent
to the authorship problem: (a) Timon of Athens appears where it does in the Folio only because
plans for Troilus and Cressida had to be altered, and thus might not have been included at all if the
troubles with Troilus and Cressida had not occurred; (b) the text was set by one compositor, thus
making it impossible to attribute the textual inconsistencies to printing-house influence. Although
subsequent scholarship has attributed one page of Timon of Athens to a second compositor, this
minor revision does nothing to weaken the force of Hinman’s conclusion. It has been widely recog-
nized that the Folio text is anomalous in its lineation, which is unexplained by proponents of single
authorship; it is also anomalous in its treatment of pronouns (Brainerd 1979, 14, figure 2).
Developing a conjecture by William Wells (1920) and Dugdale Sykes (1924), David J. Lake
(1975), MacDonald P. Jackson (1979), and Roger V. Holdsworth (1982) provided extensive, inde-
pendent, complementary, and compelling evidence that approximately a third of the play was
written by Thomas Middleton. This conclusion was based in each case upon studies of the entire
Middleton canon, set in the context of surveys of relevant evidence in the entire corpus of
Jacobean drama. Specifically, Middleton’s presence in Timon of Athens is indicated by the distri-
bution of: (a) linguistic forms, (b) characteristic oaths and exclamations, (c) function words, (d)
rare vocabulary, (e) characteristic stage directions, (f) verbal parallels, (g) spellings, (h) inconsist-
encies of plotting, (i) rhyme, and (j) mislineation. Holdsworth’s investigation of verbal parallels
comprehensively compared every phrase in an entire play with the complete corpus of both can-
didates for authorship; although, as might be expected, each author occasionally uses phrases
which occur in the other’s works, the great bulk of the verbal parallels, and all of the most striking
ones, fall into distinct patterns, corresponding to the division of authorship already established
on other grounds. By the mid-1980s the consistency of all these independent forms of evidence
could no longer be dismissed.
The 1986 Oxford Shakespeare was the first Complete Works to identify the play as a collabor-
ation between Shakespeare and Middleton. The idea that Middleton co-authored Timon of Athens
has since become orthodoxy. Brian Vickers’s (2002b) study of co-authorship provides a compre-
hensive history of the attribution debate. Timon of Athens was included in the 2007 Collected
Works of Thomas Middleton (Taylor and Lavagnino 20074). The only recent editor to dispute the
attribution was Karl Klein (2001) for the New Cambridge Series, which has been systematically
hostile to attribution scholarship; Vickers dismissed Klein's treatment of the authorship issue as
‘brief and wholly inadequate’ (2002b, 288). Two more recent editions, John Jowett’s for the Oxford
Shakespeare series (2004b) and Anthony B. Dawson and Gretchen E. Minton’s for the Arden3
series (2008), both accept Middleton's involvement as co-author. This claim has been lent support
by other work since the mid-1980s. Jonathan Hope's sociolinguistic study (1994) gave ‘broad sup-
port’ for a Shakespeare-Middleton collaboration, but also offered a slight modification of Lake's
suggested division of authorship. The stylometric studies of Hugh Craig and Arthur E. Kinney
also identified the play as a Shakespeare-Middleton collaboration (2009d). M. W. A. Smith's
stylometric study (1991b) confirmed that certain scenes were outside Shakespeare's normal range,
and across six tests Middleton was the favoured candidate author. While Smith’s work confirmed
the distinct presence of at least two authors, it was based on a small sample of control plays, and
the mixed nature of some of his results led him to hypothesize that several more authors (and not
necessarily Middleton) were involved in completing the composite play. Jowett (2004b), discuss-
ing Smith's work and noting especially mixed results for scene 4, dismissed the possibility of a
third hand: even in scene 4, the presence of both Middleton and Shakespeare is clearly discernible
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 563
and this is most likely a scene of mixed authorship. Indeed, the likelihood of mixed authorship—
resulting from Shakespeare revising Middleton’s work and/or vice versa—can help explain incon-
sistent results for several scenes.
Jowett’s edition (2004b), which builds upon Holdsworth’s work on Shakespearean and
Middletonian linguistic and lexical preferences, provides the most thorough recent examination
of evidence for authorial shares. Dawson and Minton (2008) provide a cursory discussion of the
authorship of various scenes in appendix 2 of their edition, noting also the equivocal evidence for
determining either Shakespeare or Middleton’s authorship in certain passages and scenes. In the
New Oxford Shakespeare we most confidently attribute to Shakespeare:
Scenes 1, 3, 11.33—92, 12, 14.1-4.41, 15, 16, 17
To Middleton, we attribute:
scenes 2, 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, 11.1-21, 93-101, 13.3051, 14.442-521
Scene 1 may or may not include material by Middleton; Jowett hypothesizes that Middleton inserted
the silent figure of Mercer in the entrance direction, but Dawson and Minton reject this. Scene 4
consists of writing by both authors, and it is difficult to distinguish in detail the two authorial contri-
butions, though both are evidently present. The scene, as Jowett notes, is ‘thoroughly collaborative’
(Taylor and Lavagnino 2007b, 357). Scene 13.1-29 may also include mixed writing.
The evidence of co-authorship helps to clarify certain issues about chronology. Martin Wiggins
(#1536) gives dating limits of 1605-8 and a best guess of 1607. But cumulative external and internal
evidence points to an earlier date. Timon of Athens may or may not draw upon the anonymous
play Timon, written around 1602 and preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum's manuscript
‘Dyce MS 52’ (Bulman, Nosworthy, and Proudfoot 1978). It indisputably draws upon Plutarch’s
‘Life of Antony’ in Thomas North’s translation. This was also a primary source of Antony and
Cleopatra, but Shakespeare refers to material on Antony in Macbeth, too, and had already made
extensive use of North’s translation for Julius Caesar. Shakespeare's interest in the story of Timon
could have been stimulated by the 28th novella in William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1566; STC
19121); Painter’s 38th novella provided the primary source for All’s Well. These sources are of little
value in fixing the play’s date, though they do intimate—as does, most strongly, its style—that the
play belongs to the seventeenth century, and probably to the reign of James I.
‘The identification of Thomas Middleton as co-author supports a date in the early Jacobean
period. Middleton was born in 1580 and his first known involvement with professional theatre
dates from May 1602 when Philip Henslowe records his part authorship of the lost play, Caesar's
Fall, which might also have drawn upon Plutarch’s Lives (Foakes 2002). As Roger Holdsworth
argues in Chapter 22 of this volume, Middleton’s work on A Yorkshire Tragedy—his first known
play for the King’s Men—has implications for the dating of Timon of Athens. Middleton's contri-
bution to Timon of Athens shares many verbal links with A Yorkshire Tragedy, but, as Holdsworth
shows, the direction of borrowing to indicate relative priority strongly points towards Timon of
Athens as the later play.
Beyond that, the play’s date must be decided almost entirely on the basis of stylistic evidence.
The colloquialism-in-verse test puts Shakespeare's share of the play just after All’s Well and before
Macbeth (see Table 25.13). Jackson (2015b) also re-examined the distribution of rare vocabulary
(derived from Eliot Slater’s study) on the basis of the authorial division: Shakespeare's share falls
in the period 1604-5, while the rest of the play—if by Shakespeare—would have to be dated
1594-5, which seems clearly impossible (see Table 25.3). Such conclusions not only reinforce the
564 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
evidence for collaboration but also agree in juxtaposing Shakespeare’s share of Timon of Athens
with composition of King Lear. Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014), using Ants Oras’s
original data for mid-line pauses, also give a final prediction of early 1606 (1606.1). Most critics
have felt that these two plays are as strongly related as Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and
Juliet, or Measure for Measure and All’s Well. Holdsworth demonstrates that Middleton borrows
from King Lear in A Yorkshire Tragedy, and that Yorkshire precedes Timon of Athens; therefore,
King Lear must have been written before Timon of Athens. Holdsworth dates Timon of Athens to
February-March 1606.
Macbeth 1606 (adapted 1616)
William Shakespeare; adapted by Thomas Middleton
Original Date Range: 1606-11
Original Best Guess: mid-1606
Adaptation Date Range: 1616-22
Adapted Best Guess: Autumn 1616
Text: Reference pp. 3011-68
First printed and attributed to Shakespeare in 1623, the play was seen by Simon Forman at the
Globe (Bodleian Library’s ‘MS Ashmole 208, X, folios 207-207v’) on ‘1610 the 20 Aprill’ Forman
followed this note with the astrological sign for Saturday; but since 20 April 1610 was a Friday, it
has been assumed that his ‘1610’ was a mistake for ‘1611: His note is reproduced in the
Introduction to the play in the Reference edition. H. N. Paul (1950) made a circumstantial case
for the play’s performance before James I on 7 August 1606, during the visit of King Christian of
Denmark; Neville Davies (2015) has more recently questioned the exact day and location of the
performance, but not its likelihood. However, the plausibility of this conjecture largely depends
upon a prior assumption about dating. The choice of a Scottish and demonic subject, and the
prophetic reference to King James (4.1.110-22), make it clear that the play was written after James
I’s accession. James was touching for ‘the king’s evil’ (4.3.147) as early as November 1604. The
reference to equivocation coupled with treason at 2.3.6-9 probably alludes to the trial and exe-
cution of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators (January-May 1606); this argument has been
strengthened by Garry Wills (1995), who (among other things) points out that ‘Farmer’ was a
pseudonym used by Father Henry Garnet, one of the Jesuit conspirators. The reference to ‘th
Tiger’ (1.3.5-24) may allude to the terrible voyage experienced by a ship of that name which
arrived back at Milford Haven on 27 June 1606 and at Portsmouth on 9 July, after a sea voyage
which lasted almost exactly the play's “Wearie Sewnights, nine times nine’ (1.3.18; F A. Loomis).
All this evidence suggests that Macbeth was completed no earlier than the summer of 1606, and
Roger Holdsworth’s chapter in this volume (Chapter 22) shows that Shakespeare was busy with
other things in late 1605 and early 1606. What seems to be a clear reference to Banquo’s ghost has
been plausibly detected in Francis Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle (Wiggins #1562):
‘When thou art at thy Table with thy friends| Merry in heart, and fild with swelling wine, Ile
come in midst of all thy pride and mirth,| Invisible to all men but thy selfe,] And whisper such a
sad tale in thine eare,| Shall make thee let the Cuppe fall from thy hand,| And stand as mute and
pale as Death it selfe’ (5.22-8). The fact that Beaumont’s play is full of metatheatrical allusions
and parodies makes this the strongest of all suggested early allusions to Shakespeare's play;
Wiggins, who also dates Macbeth in 1606 (#1496), confidently dates composition and performance
of Burning Pestle in 1607.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 565
Alleged connections to other plays are less clear. F. S. Boas (1909) suggested that Lady Macbeth’s
sleep-walking scene was echoed by Thomas Tomkis's Lingua, an academic play performed at
Trinity College, Cambridge (entered in the Stationers’ Register on 23 February 1607 and first pub-
lished later that year; STC 24104); this claim is repeated in the most recent Arden edition of the
play (Clark and Mason 2015, 14-16). But Wiggins (#1524) sees ‘little to recommend’ this connec-
tion; Lingua might have been performed as early as 1602, and its many sources do not include any
unpublished London commercial play. Several correspondences have also been detected between
Macbeth and John Marston's Sophonisba, or The Wonder of Women (Wiggins #1485; date range
1605-6). The most significant of these is the wounded Carthalon’s report of a battle (1.2 in
Marston's play), which contains several verbal parallels with the Captain's speech at 1.2. Marston's
play was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 17 March 1606, and Shakespeare might have read it
not long after, or he might have seen the play performed; but it is difficult to be sure whether, in
this instance, Marston influenced Shakespeare, or Shakespeare influenced Marston. Problems
also beset the alleged relationship between Macbeth and Thomas Middleton's The Puritan Widow
(Wiggins #1509, published in 1607 but written in the summer of 1606). Middleton's play contains
the line ‘the ghost i’th’ white sheet sit at upper end o'th’ table’ (4.2.355-6); this has been taken as an
allusion to Banquos ghost, but Roger V. Holdsworth (1990a) noted that it is simply a repetition of
language that Middleton had used in The Black Book and in The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinary
(pamphlets published between January and March 1604). The allusion to Antony at 3.1.58
suggests that Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra belong to the same period, but cannot deter-
mine which came first (see discussion of Antony and Cleopatra, below).
The colloquialism-in-verse test places Macbeth after King Lear and Timon of Athens but before
Antony and Cleopatra (see Table 25.13). MacDonald P. Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s data for
mid-line pauses records the closest connections with (in descending order): Pericles, All’s Well,
King Lear, Measure for Measure, and Antony and Cleopatra (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster and
Genevieve Smith (2014), using Oras’s original data, give a final prediction of 1606 (1606.3).
Marina Tarlinskajas metrical data (see Table 25.8) is in keeping with these results: in an index of
stressed syllable placement, Macbeth falls between All’s Well and Pericles (Acts 3-5; scenes 12-28);
for strong metrical breaks, it is closest to All’s Well (see Table 25.9). The revised figures of Eliot
Slater for rare vocabulary link the play most strongly with (in descending order): King Lear,
Troilus and Cressida, and Cymbeline (see Table 25.3). For frequency of use of hendiadys it is closest
to (in descending order): Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and King Lear (see
Table 25.10). The cumulative stylistic evidence strongly supports a date range of 1606-8; the clus-
ter of possible sources and echoes noted above suggests a date of 1606, most likely in the summer,
for Shakespeare’s original version of the play.
As the various stylistic tests confirm, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare wrote the major-
ity of the extant text. But this does not mean that he wrote everything, or that the version of the
play published in the 1623 Folio must entirely represent the play as first written in 1606. It has been
known since the late eighteenth century (Reed 1788) that the two songs involving Hecate called
for in the stage directions of Macbeth (3.5 and 4.1) appear in Middleton's play The Witch (pre-
served in the Bodleian Library’s ‘MS Malone 12’). W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright (1869) proposed
that the songs were a late interpolation into Shakespeare's play. This conjecture has been widely
accepted. J. M. Nosworthy (1965) instead argued that the late adaptation was Shakespeare’s own,
made around 1611, but his efforts have convinced few scholars. Nosworthy’s hypothesis still
requires a late alteration of the play, so the key questions are the date and authorship of the
additions. Nosworthy’s ‘1611’ should be understood as ‘no earlier than mid-1611; after Forman’ visit
to the theatre, which records a performance of Macbeth that seems somewhat different from the
text published in 1623. The two songs draw upon Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft (1584; STC
566 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
21864), an important source for Middleton’s play, but not otherwise used in Macbeth, or in
Shakespeare's other Jacobean plays.
There is no reason to doubt Middleton's authorship of these songs; after all, Hecate is a central
figure in his play, and superfluous in Shakespeare’s. Middleton’s hand is therefore present in
Macbeth in the six words of the song titles recorded in the stage directions, regardless of the
debate about Middleton’s revision of the play. And no editor producing an edition of the Folio text
of Macbeth has excluded the reference to these songs. As Middleton and Shakespeare collabor-
ated on Timon of Athens (see above), we must first consider the possibility that these songs repre-
sent another collaboration. The date of The Witch is important in this respect. That play’s date has
been subject to some debate, but all recent editors (Esche 1993; Schafer 1994; Taylor and
Lavagnino 2007a; Kapitaniak 2012b) assign it to late 1615 or 1616. Wiggins (#1805) gives a range
of dates of 1608-16, but his best guess is 1616, which is strongly supported by Kapitaniak’s
excellent edition (which Wiggins does not cite) and his published note on the sources shows that
Middleton's play can hardly have been written before 1614 (Kapitaniak 2012a). The presence of
songs from the Middleton play, written at earliest in 1608 but much more likely in 1615-16, pro-
vides strong evidence that Macbeth includes some material by Middleton that was interpolated
after original composition. It is theoretically possible that Shakespeare, who died in April 1616,
added this material from Middleton's play. But since Shakespeare appears to have ceased writing/
working for the stage by 1614, this seems implausible. And the songs are not the only part of the
play where Middleton's hand has been identified.
In the New Oxford Shakespeare—following the proposals and arguments set forth in the 1986
Complete Works, the 2007 Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, and elsewhere—we hold that the
two songs from The Witch form part of a larger pattern of revision of the play undertaken by
Middleton for a revival of the play after Shakespeare's death. The Hecate passages in which the
songs appear—spectacular, dispensable, written in a different style, and introducing a new char-
acter—are typical of new additions (Kerrigan 1983, 195-205). Simon Forman does not mention
the Hecate passages, though they might be expected to interest him. Holdsworth (1982, 189-219;
2012) provided evidence for Middleton's authorship of the Hecate passages. In particular, he
noted that the stage direction formula ‘Enter [Character A] meeting [Character B]} where
Character B is not already on stage (occurring twice in Macbeth at 1.2.0.1-2 and 3.5.0.1), was
extremely rare in early modern drama outside of Middleton. (This formula is distinct from ‘Enter
[Character A] and [Character B] meeting, which makes it clear that neither is already on stage.)
Not counting Macbeth, Gary Taylor (2014b) gives a final count of fifteen uses of this formula by
Middleton to zero by Shakespeare. Since Middleton’s dramatic canon is only about half the size of
Shakespeare's (see Chapter 17), the two stage directions in Macbeth represent a highly significant
marker of Middleton’s presence. Middleton is not only more likely than Shakespeare to have writ-
ten these two stage directions, he is more likely than anyone else: across 637 plays by other
Renaissance dramatists this formula occurs just 14 times. Most dramatists never use it. Lending
some support to this, Jonathan Hope's sociolinguistic study (1994) noted that, for 3.5 and 4.1, the
rate of usage of redundant auxiliary do (88 per cent) more closely resembled Middleton’s typical
usage than Shakespeare’s. More significantly, a comprehensive survey of n-grams and colloca-
tions in 3.5 and in the two Hecate speeches in 4.1 demonstrates that, however the lexical data is
evaluated, it much more strongly points to Middleton than to Shakespeare (Taylor 2014a).
In addition to the 54 (37 + 17) lines of the songs, Taylor (in Taylor and Lavagnino 2007, 383-97)
identified another 94 lines as added by Middleton—1.1.8, 1.3.40-2, 3.5, 4.1.39-4.1.0.A17,
4.1.120-130.1, 4.1.133-55, 4.2.38-55, and 5.10.35.2—for a total of 148 lines. John Jowett currently
questions the authorship ofa few of these lines, but agrees that Middleton wrote most of them. In
a play of about 2,500 lines, Middleton’s new additions comprise between 5 per cent and 6 per cent.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 567
Middleton's interventions in the text may, however, be more significant than these numbers
suggest, as it is probable that Middleton cut material from Shakespeare's original version. As
represented by the Folio text, Macbeth is the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies; it is 35 per cent
shorter than Coriolanus, 30 per cent shorter than Antony and Cleopatra, and 29 per cent shorter
than King Lear, all written at about the same time. Corroborating internal evidence supports
the theory of abridgement. Taylor (Taylor and Lavagnino 2007b, 383-98) considers an additional
65 lines—1.1.10, 1.2.0.2-1.2.30, 1.3.35-9, and 4.1.62-92—to consist of mixed writing by both
Shakespeare and Middleton.
Scene 1.2 in particular shows signs of abridgement and mixed writing. E. K. Chambers (1899),
John Dover Wilson (1947; 1950), and Nicholas Brooke (1990) each thought that an original ver-
sion of the scene had been abridged, citing difficulties with metre, syntax, and narrative. Taylor
confirmed that most of the dialogue in this scene is clearly Shakespearean, but there is lexical
evidence for Middleton's presence in addition to the distinctive stage direction ‘Enter...meeting
a bleeding Captain. Holdsworth also noted several verbal parallels between Middleton’s canon
and this scene. Adding to these, Taylor observed that the Middleton parallels cluster together in a
small number of lines (8-9, 15, 22, 27-9). It appears that the recognizably Middletonian opening
stage direction was added to replace existing material. Taylor offered two explanations that might
account for this. First, in the original text the scene may have begun with a battle sequence, a the-
atrical convention that would have been old-fashioned and less popular by 1616; Middleton might
have opted to omit it for a revival at the smaller Blackfriars playhouse, which seems to have been
less well suited to battle sequences. Secondly, the scene might have begun with a conversation
between Duncan and the other lords. Either conjecture might account for Middleton's abridge-
ment and minor verbal alterations to a scene primarily by Shakespeare.
The next scene, 1.3, also shows signs of adaptation. Forman’s eyewitness account of what we
must assume was the original unadapted Shakespearean version describes the three witches as
‘women feiries or Nimphes. Likewise, throughout Shakespeare’s dialogue in the play they are
referred to as ‘sisters. The weird sisters might originally have been ‘feiries or Nimphes, as Forman
describes them, and as Holinshed’s version of this episode indicates; if they initially appeared as
beautiful figures, rather than ‘filthy hags’ (4.1.113), this would better fit the play’s insistence that
‘faire is foule, and foule is faire. As Taylor noted the change is significant because it affects casting
requirements and doubling possibilities. If the weird sisters were originally female, the parts
would have been performed by boy actors (Kathman 2005), and the number of boy actors avail-
able to the King’s Men was always smaller than the number of men. Old bearded hags could have
been played by adult men (like Falstaff cross-dressed as a bearded witch in Merry Wives of
Windsor). Middleton's addition of four female singing characters in 3.5 and 4.1 would have
required more boys than the King’s Men could easily muster, unless the nymph-like sisters (played
by boys) were re-imagined as witches (played by men).
Marcus Dahl, Marina Tarlinskaja, and Brian Vickers (2010) and Brian Vickers (2010) chal-
lenged the Middleton adaptation theory. The key evidence was phrases from the supposedly
Middletonian passages that Vickers and Dahl claimed to be common in Shakespeare and
absent from Middleton’s other works. As Gabriel Egan shows elsewhere in this volume
(Chapter 4), those phrases do in fact occur in Middleton’s works and some of them are more
frequent in Middleton than Shakespeare. Dahl, Tarlinskaja, and Vickers also disputed the evi-
dence for Middleton’s adaptation based on metrical considerations. But only 36 of the 148 lines
attributed to Middleton were composed in complete iambic pentameter; Tarlinskaja, recogniz-
ing that 36 lines scattered across the play was not a sample large enough to make an attribution
on the basis of metre, withdrew her conclusions (2015). More generally, the detailed peer-
reviewed rebuttals in Taylor (2014a; 2014b) seem to all the members of the New Oxford
568 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Shakespeare attribution board to have confirmed the orthodox view that Middleton wrote 3.5
and two speeches in 4.1, and that he probably also intervened occasionally elsewhere in the
play. Those other, smaller interventions are, necessarily, more conjectural and harder to prove,
simply because there is less evidence, one way or the other, in short passages. But the songs, and
the associated material in 3.5 and 4.1, are enough to identify the Folio text as a late theatrical
adaptation, by Middleton, of a work originally written by Shakespeare alone. Because language
is inherently a shared as well as a personalized phenomenon, it may never be possible to iden-
tify, with confidence, all the details of the adaptation.
Antony and Cleopatra 1607
Date Range: September 1605-early 1607
Best Guess: early 1607
Text: Reference pp. 3261-351
First printed, and attributed to Shakespeare, in 1623. Entered with Pericles in the Stationers’
Register by Edward Blount on 20 May 1608. However, Blount published neither play. It is possible
that this was because the entry was a ‘blocking’ or ‘staying’ measure to ensure that no rival party
could publish it (Knutson 1997, 469), but the whole category of ‘blocking’ entries remains a dis-
puted conjecture. In his edition of Pericles, E D. Hoeniger (1963, xxv) suggested that Blount’s fail-
ure to publish might reflect purely personal issues: ‘soon after the registration he had to move his
shop’ (xxv). Blount indeed moved shops: from 1609 to 1626, Blount worked from the Black Bear
in Paul’s Cross Churchyard (Blayney 1990, 17, 26). But we cannot be certain exactly when the
move from his earlier shop (the Bishop’s Head) occurred. It may be relevant that, at about the
same time that he first mentions the Black Bear on a title page (1609), Blount entered a partner-
ship with William Barrett. Their first books together (STC 12686, STC 13541, STC 15460, and STC
17417) were published in 1609, and they continued to publish together in 1610-12. Throughout the
four years from 1609 to 1612, Blount did not publish a single book without Barrett; most of his
books in 1613 were also co-publications, but he returned to acting independently with one book
(STC 6197) that probably appeared late in that year since thereafter Blount ceased to collaborate
with Barrett. Although Blount published at least four books independently in 1607, he may not
have published any in 1608; the only possibility is an undated book (STC 5051) co-published with
William Aspley, which had been entered in the Stationers’ Register on 17 July 1606, and might
have been published at any time in the following thirty months. Perhaps Blount did not under-
take any speculative publications on his own in 1607 or 1608, and returned to publishing only
after he had established a financial partnership with Barrett. This pattern suggests that Blount was
experiencing financial difficulties in 1607-8, which might have been related to his change in loca-
tion, or might have reflected the effects on his retail business of the long intermittent plague prob-
lems of 1603-9. We might therefore conjecture that Blount sold his rights in Pericles to another
stationer because he could not afford to publish it on his own, and his new partner Barrett was not
interested in it; the same change in circumstances might have thwarted his intention to publish
Antony and Cleopatra. Whatever the explanation for non-publication, Blount’s entry indisput-
ably establishes that Antony and Cleopatra had been written by 20 May 1608, but does not settle
whether its composition followed or preceded Pericles.
Samuel Daniel's revision of his play Cleopatra, published with a title page dated 1607 (STC
6240), is probably indebted in a number of details to Shakespeare's play. J. Leeds Barroll (1965)
argued plausibly that Daniel must have seen Shakespeare's play before December 1607 in order to
be influenced by it. As the theatres were closed because of plague for most of 1607, that inference
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 569
pushes performances of Antony and Cleopatra back to March 1607. Shakespeare’s play also seems
related to Barnabe Barnes's The Devil’s Charter (1607; Stationers’ Register, 16 October 1607;
Wiggins #1523), performed by the King’s Men at court on 2 February 1607. Barroll rightly observes
that acceptance of Shakespeare’s influence on Barnes may push Antony and Cleopatra back to a
period close to the court performance of King Lear on 26 December 1606; from external evidence
we cannot be sure which was the earlier play. But Barroll’s key piece of evidence for Barnes's
indebtedness to Shakespeare is the episode in which Cleopatra treats the adder as though it were
a baby at her breast, which is not uniquely Shakespearean. A similar episode occurs in George
Peele’s Edward I (Wiggins #881; 1593, reprinted 1599) during scene 15 (sig. lar), in which a woman
is murdered by an ‘Adder’ which is described as her ‘Babe’ at ‘her brest, and she as its “Nurse.
Barnes's treatment resembles Peele’s more closely than it does Shakespeare's. However, as Michael
Neill (1994, 21) rightly notes, Peele’s old play did not invoke Cleopatra, and Barnes’s new play
does. But the printed text of Barnes's play advertises itself as ‘renewed, corrected, and augmented
by the author’ since its court performance, so that even if we could be sure of Shakespeare's
influence it might have been exerted later than the original composition of Barnes's play.
Wiggins (#1517) gives a range of dates of 1606-7, and a best guess of 1606. Internal and contextual
evidence supports the later date in his range. All stylistic tests—rare vocabulary, metre,
pauses, colloquialism-in-verse—concur in placing King Lear before Antony and Cleopatra.
MacDonald P. Jackson's reworking of Ants Oras’s data for mid-line pauses links it most closely to
later plays (in descending order): Tempest, Pericles, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, and Two Noble
Kinsmen (see Table 25.7). Working from Oras’s original data, Douglas Bruster and Geneviéve
Smith (2014) date the play to mid-1610 (1610.5). Such a late date is impossible because of the 1608
document discussed above but their results again suggest that Antony and Cleopatra belongs to
the later end of our date range. Helmut Ilsemann’s data on average speech length (reworked by
Jackson) again link the play strongly with the late plays (see Table 25.4). Similarly for links
between rare words (Eliot Slater’s data reworked by Jackson), the play is most closely connected
to Tempest (Macbeth and Othello follow but the statistical significance of the results is signifi-
cantly lower, see Table 25.3). In an index of stressed syllable placement (based on Tarlinskaja’s
metrical data), the play falls between King Lear and Coriolanus, just as our dating suggests (see
Table 25.8). For strong metrical breaks, again using Tarlinskaja’s data, the play comes after All’s
Well and before all of the later plays but Pericles (Acts 3-5, scenes 12-28) (see Table 25.9). All of
these tests support a date after King Lear.
It is harder to be confident about the relative priority of Macbeth. But H. Neville Davies (1985)
makes a strong case for one of the sources of Antony and Cleopatra being the visit of Christian IV
to England in the summer of 1606, and in particular the influence of two conspicuously alcoholic
shipboard encounters, on 10 and 11 August, featuring James I (often associated with Octavius
Caesar) and his charismatic soldier brother-in-law Christian. This suggests that the writing of
Antony and Cleopatra post-dates the royal visit, whereas Macbeth might have been written before,
or specifically in anticipation of, that visit. More objectively, Antony and Cleopatra’s stronger styl-
istic links to the late plays persuades us to place it after Macbeth. We place it early in 1607, rather
than late in 1606, because 1607 is otherwise empty, and 1606 is already crowded.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1608
William Shakespeare and George Wilkins
Date Range: May 1606 to May 1608
Best Guess: early 1608
Text: Reference pp. 1359-432
570 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Edward Blount entered Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra in the Stationers’ Register on 20 May
1608. However, Blount published neither play, and instead a rival publisher, Henry Gosson, first
issued Pericles the following year. (See discussion of Antony and Cleopatra above.) The title page
to the earliest quarto edition of the play (Q1), printed in 1609, states that the play was written “By
William Shakespeare’ but the play was omitted from the 1623 Folio. This combination of conflict-
ing external evidences puts Pericles in a class of plays which includes The London Prodigal (1605;
STC 22333; Wiggins #1443) and A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608; STC 22340; Wiggins #1484a). The play
is extant in three further quartos: a reprint in 1609 (Qz), another quarto in 1611 (Q3), and a fourth
quarto printed by William Jaggard for Thomas Pavier in 1619. Despite its evident immediate
popularity in print, the play did not enter the Folios sequence until the 1664 Third Folio (F3). It is
implausible that the compilers of the 1623 Folio simply lacked a text, given its frequent quarto
printings and the involvement of William Jaggard in the printing of Pavier’s quartos. They must,
therefore, have had other reasons for excluding the play from their collection. One reason may
have been that it was co-authored (see below).
In 1608 a pamphlet novella was published entitled The Painfull Aduentures of Pericles Prince of
Tyre. Its subtitle reads “The true History of the Play of Pericles, as it was lately presented by the
worthy and ancient Poet John Gower. The ‘Argument’ to the novella states that ‘the Reader
[should] receiue this Historie in the same maner as it was vnder the habite of ancient Gower the
famous English Poet, by the Kings Maiesties Players excellently presented: This novella was,
therefore, printed after the King’s Men first performed the play. The Venetian Ambassador Zorzi
Giustinian witnessed a performance of the play during his tenure in London; that is, at some time
between 5 January 1606 and 23 November 1608 (Brown 1900, 465; 1904, 372). He attended the
performance with the French Ambassador, Antoine de la Broderie, the French Ambassador's
wife, and another companion, Lotto, the Secretary to the Duke of Florence. Giustinian paid ‘more
than 20 crowns’ as an entrance fee for himself and his three guests, hence this must have been a
public not a court performance. Q1’s title page confirms that the play was performed at The Globe
(the play ‘hath been diuers and sundry times acted by the Maiesties Seruants, at the Globe on the
Banckside’). De la Broderie arrived in London on 6 May 1606 and did not leave until 13 November
1618. Due to plague, the theatres were closed from July to December 1606 and for all of 1607
except for a week in April and late December. The theatres reopened from April to mid-July 1608
(Barroll 1991, 192-3). This means the group could have attended a performance only in May or
June 1606, over one week in April 1607, in late December 1607, or between April and mid-July in
1608. De la Broderie’s wife is first mentioned in London in April 1607, casting doubt over the 1606
dates, but it is possible that she was present beforehand. In unusually cold conditions, the Thames
froze over in late December 1607. This had the effect of reducing the spread of infection and
lowering the number of plague deaths. Thus, technically, the theatres could have opened for busi-
ness in late December, but the freezing conditions mean that it is highly unlikely that (a) there
were performances at the open-air Globe or that (b) the Ambassador's party would have chosen
to attend. Therefore the most likely date for their attendance is April to mid-July 1608.
Dating the composition of Pericles is intertwined with issues of attribution. Most scholars since
Edmond Malone (Malone 1780, vol. 2) have accepted that Shakespeare contributed to the play. By
1606-8, Shakespeare's verse style had become so remarkably idiosyncratic that it stands out from
that of his contemporaries, and approximately the last three-fifths of the play (scenes 12-28)
betray clear evidence of his presence. Equally clearly, scenes 1-11 show little or no evidence of
Shakespearean authorship. (The editors of Pericles for the New Cambridge Shakespeare represent
a notable exception to this consensus; in line with the general policy of the series, Doreen
DelVecchio and Antony Hammond (1998) ignored or summarily dismissed over 100 years of
attribution work and insisted that Shakespeare was the sole author.) The most likely candidate for
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 571
co-author is George Wilkins, the author of Painful Adventures (Lake 1969a; 1969b; 1970;
Hope 1994; Jackson 2003a; Vickers 2002b). Based on metrical, linguistic, and stylistic evidence,
there is ‘overwhelming support for Wilkins as candidate’ (Jackson 20038a, 169). Shakespeare cer-
tainly knew Wilkins, but we can only speculate on the nature of their collaboration.
Wilkins was a minor freelance dramatist, who wrote The Miseries of Enforced Marriage for the
King’s Men around 1606 and co-authored The Travels of Three English Brothers for Queen Anne's
Men in 1607. Wilkins’s novella, Painful Adventures, resembles Pericles closely in parts (see Textual
Introduction in Reference). But he also drew heavily on Laurence Twine’s The Pattern of Painful
Adventures, which was republished in 1607, having been earlier published in 1594. (It was entered
in the Stationers’ Register in 1576 but there is no extant edition pre-dating 1594.) Wilkins reworked
Twine’s tale of Apollonius of Tyre, sometimes verbatim, to fit his prose tale of Pericles. The publica-
tion of Wilkins’s novella of Pericles seems intended to take advantage of market demand for the
stage play. A reference to Pericles as ‘a new play’ in Pimlyco, an anonymous poem entered in the
Stationers Register on 15 April 1609 and published in quarto in the same year (STC 19936), suggests
that the play was only recently first performed. Since the public playhouses were closed for much
of 1607-8, this evidence once more points to first performances of the play in April to mid-May
1608. Painful Adventures was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 20 May 1608. When published
later in 1608 its title page and ‘Argument’ make reference to performances of the play. It is highly
unlikely that the novella was prepared and submitted before the first stage performances. Therefore,
the most likely date of first performance is after the playhouses reopened in April 1608; the play
was probably written during the preceding months of playhouse closure leading up to April 1608.
Wiggins (#1555) gives Pericles a range of dates of 1606-8, and a best guess of 1607. Douglas
Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014) relying upon Ants Oras’s original data for mid-line pauses,
give a final prediction of 1607 (1607.2). The external evidence, discussed above, suggests to us that
early 1608 is a more likely date. A range of pertinent biographical factors mark 1607-8 as a time of
change for Shakespeare (Power and Loughnane 2012, 1-3).
In the New Oxford Shakespeare we identify the play as co-authored by Shakespeare and George
Wilkins. Their proposed authorial share is as follows:
Scenes 1-11: Wilkins
Scenes 12-18, 20-1, 23-8: Shakespeare
Scenes 19, 22, 23 (‘brothel scenes’): primarily Shakespearean, but possibly mixed authorship
Jackson's tests (and the tests of the scholars Jackson assesses) typically divide Pericles into two dis-
crete units (in the New Oxford Shakespeare, scenes 1-11 and 12-28). But, as Jackson acknowledges
(Jackson 2003a, 206-7, 211-13), there is evidence of mixed authorship in the so-called ‘brothel
scenes’ of the play. Here Shakespeare may have adapted passages originally composed by Wilkins.
Coriolanus 1608
Date Range: late 1607 to late 1609
Best Guess: late 1608
Text: Reference pp. 2843-930
The play is first referred to among sixteen plays ‘not formerly entred to other men’ in the
Stationers’ Register entry for the First Folio, dated 8 November 1623. There is no record of any
early performances of Coriolanus, but allusions to the play in other printed works, along with
572 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
allusions in the play to certain contemporary events, help us to narrow the parameters for date of
composition and likely first performance. It is probably indebted to William Camden’s Remains
(1605; STC 4521). An allusion has often been detected in 3.1.97-8 to Hugh Middleton's project for
bringing water into London (February 1609, but known for some time before). The hardships
suffered by the citizens in Coriolanus would have particularly resonated with Londoners after the
Midlands Revolts of 1607-8. A bad harvest in 1606, followed by a harsh winter in 1606-7, led to
widespread grain shortages. In late spring 1607 violent protests broke out across the Midlands in
dispute against the enclosure of previously held common land. Shakespeare probably spent time
in the Midlands that summer. His daughter Susanna married John Hall at Trinity Church,
Stratford-upon-Avon, on 5 June 1607, and the (illegitimate) son Edward of his brother Edmund
Shakespeare was buried on 12 August. News and consequences of the revolts quickly reached
London, which suffered food shortages and high prices. Coriolanus dramatizes a plebeian revolt
prompted by famine and perceived injustices; the citizens’ accusations of aristocratic hoarding
probably reflected contemporary suspicions and complaints. The ‘coale of fire vpon the Ice’
(1.1.155) is more likely on the Thames than the Tiber, and probably glances at the great London
frost of December 1607-January 1608, and the choice and treatment of subject matter is strikingly
pertinent to the Midlands riots of 1607-8.
The civil unrest and fire-on-ice occur in the opening scene, suggesting an earliest possible date
of composition of December 1607. However there is no reason for assuming that the play was
written continuously from beginning to end. Similarly, there is no reason for speculating that
these allusions would only have been momentarily resonant, or that Shakespeare would have
responded immediately to these stimuli; the inadequate supply of food, high prices, and famine
continued for some time, exacerbated by another bad harvest in 1609.
However, a latest possible date for composition can be fixed to the winter of 1609-10. Ben
Jonson's Epicoene (Wiggins #1603) seems to allude to Cominius’s ‘He lurched all swords of the
garland’ (2.2.95) in Truewit’s final speech: ‘you have lurched your friends of the better half of the
garland, by concealing this part of the plot!’ (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 3: 5.4.182-3).
Neither LION nor EEBO-TCP identifies other examples of lurched near of the garland. ‘The title
page to Epicoene in Jonson's 1616 Workes records that the play was ‘Acted in the yeere 1609’ by the
‘Children of her Maiesties Revells’; the note on performance at the end of the play specifies that it
was ‘first acted’ then. David Bevington notes that this could mean either December 1609 or
January 1610. The company’s name as Children of her Majesty’s Revels was patented after 4
January 1610. Bevington notes that Jonson did not usually adopt the older calendar form in his
dating in the Workes (Bevington, Butler, and Donaldson 2012, 3: 375). If the recorded performance
is December 1609, then Jonson uses the more recent name of the company. If the performance is
January 1610, then Jonson deviates from his usual dating practice.
Martius’s ‘they would hang them on the horns oth moon,]| Shouting their emulation (1.1.195-6)
in Coriolanus is echoed in Robert Armin’s preface to The Italian Tailor and his Boy (1609; STC 774):
‘euery Pen & inck-horne Boy will throw vp his Cap at the hornes of the Moone in censure,
although his wit hang there’ (sig. A4r). Again, this is a unique collocation of words and thought,
which is not recorded anywhere else, and is therefore extremely unlikely to be coincidental.
Armin’s work was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 6 February 1609, and was first printed
thereafter in 1609; prefaces are often the last thing written and last thing printed. Jonson and
Armin had connections to Shakespeare, and both these allusions indicate that Coriolanus had
been written by the end of 1609, and probably earlier.
Two internal features of the play, associated with performances at indoor playhouses, also
suggest a similar date range. First, there are frequent demands for the use of cornetts in the
play. There is no recorded use of cornetts in an early modern play pre-dating 1608; sounding
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 573
somewhat like softened trumpets (although harder to play), cornetts are strongly associated with
indoor hall theatres and with professional musicians. Secondly, the play is divided sensibly into
five act divisions. Unlike the continuous action of plays performed in open-air amphitheatre
playhouses, plays written for indoor playhouses were structured to allow for interruptions to
attend to the candles needed for lighting. The indoor playing space at Blackfriars became avail-
able to the King’s Men in August 1608 (Taylor 1993c). However, because of plague closures it is not
likely that they were able to use the Blackfriars until early 1610. If Coriolanus was initially written
for performance at the Globe, it could have been marked up at a later date for performance at
Blackfriars. Several, but not all, of the cues for cornetts occur after a ‘flourish’ which could have
been what was initially included in the authorial manuscript (Holland 2013, 76). The Folio text is
almost certainly printed from a scribal transcript, and therefore might represent theatrical prac-
tices that considerably post-date original composition. Thus, the use of act divisions and of cor-
netts suggest, but cannot prove, original composition in anticipation of a Blackfriars performance.
Coriolanus may well straddle the transition.
Stylistic tests uniformly place the play after the quarto text of King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony
and Cleopatra. Although many critics want Shakespeare to have written the four ‘Romances’
(Pericles, Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, Tempest) in sequence, that theory ‘presupposes the latest pos-
sible date for Pericles and the earliest possible date for Coriolanus’ (Taylor 1987¢, 131). Jackson’s
reworking of Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary test links Coriolanus ‘significantly’ (statistically) to
only two plays, Cymbeline and Winter's Tale (see Table 25.3); neither is a tragedy, so the connec-
tion seems to be chronology rather than genre. This evidence makes it unlikely that Coriolanus
precedes Shakespeare's share of Pericles. Jackson’s reworking of Ants Oras’s pause pattern tests
associates the play most strongly with (in descending order): Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra,
Pericles, Cymbeline, and Two Noble Kinsmen (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster and Genevieve
Smith (2014), using Oras’s original data for mid-line pauses, place Coriolanus implausibly late in
mid-1611 (both in their initial analysis and in adjusted final prediction figure). Although that date
is surely wrong, it does clearly put Coriolanus later than Pericles. We think it probable that
Coriolanus was written after the performance of George Chapman's The Conspiracy of Charles
Duke of Byron and The Tragedy of Charles Duke of Byron in March 1608, and perhaps after the pub-
lication of the plays later that year, as Lucy Munro (2007) argues, comparing the boy protagonists
of Chapman's and Shakespeare's tragedies. We follow Wiggins (#1589), who places Coriolanus as
the last play of the year 1608, arguing that, because of the plague closures, it may have premiered in
the winter court season of late 1608. This would also fit Richard Dutton’s (2016, 78) argument that
a text as long as Coriolanus must have been written with court performance in mind.
Sonnets 1609
Date Range: 1582-early 1609
Text: Reference 1449-508
On 3 January 1600 the Stationers’ Register records an entry for ‘A booke called Amours by J D.
with certen oy' [other] sonnetes by W 8’; this could refer to Shakespeare’s sonnets, or to those of
William Smith, who published a sequence in 1596. Shakespeares Sonnets were entered in the
Stationers’ Register on 20 May 1609, and printed in an edition dated 1609 (STC 22353). Francis
Meres refers to Shakespeare's ‘sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends’ (1598; STC 17834 sig.
Oo1v-Oo2r), and two sonnets (128 and 144) were included in The Passionate Pilgrim (second edition
dated 1599; earliest edition fragmentary, and date uncertain). Some of the sonnets existed by this
date, but there is no evidence that they yet constituted a sequence, and the scattered distribution
574 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
of the sonnets in manuscript—along with the publication of only two in The Passionate Pilgrim—
suggests that they circulated separately.
It has generally been agreed that Shakespeare's Sonnets (or, at least, Shakespeare's writing of indi-
vidual sonnets, later incorporated into a sequence) was probably begun in the period after the 1591
publication of Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella (STC 22536), which initiated a vogue for sonnets,
with contributions by Samuel Daniel (1591-2) and Edmund Spenser (1595), among others. Some indi-
vidual sonnets have been ascribed certain dates or dating parameters, but each has been challenged.
Sonnet 73 includes the word sunset (line 6), used in 3 Henry VI (scene 6 (= 2.2.), generally attributed
to Shakespeare), Romeo and Juliet, and King John, and never again elsewhere by Shakespeare. This
early dating cluster is interesting but does not constitute decisive evidence; but it would be cor-
roborative if other evidence were brought to bear to support that dating; as indeed it does (see below).
Andrew Gurr (1971) proposed that Shakespeare first composed Sonnet 145 for Anne Hathaway
in 1582, perceiving a pun in the phrase ‘hate away’ (line 13); Stephen Booth (1977, 501n.) supported
this finding, identifying a secondary pun in ‘And’ (for ‘Anne’) at the start of the sonnet’s final line.
Such a quibble (And pronounced as An) is supported in David Crystal's Dictionary (2016). This
sonnet is unique in form among the sonnets, written in iambic tetrameter instead of the usual
pentameter. Gurr’s theory about the sonnet’s early date has generally been found persuasive
(Kerrigan 1986; Holland 2004), though it was immediately challenged by Hilda Hulme (1971).
Noting the reference to ‘fiend, Hulme believes the ‘hate away’ line conceals a pun on the collo-
quial expression ‘Deil hae’t’ (or “Devil have it’). This seems improbable to us, as it has to others.
More plausibly, Hulme also objects that there is no linguistic evidence to support the idea that
‘hate away’ would be an acceptable pun on ‘Hathaway’. Crystal's Dictionary does not record ‘hate’
as an acceptable pronunciation for ‘hath. But the pronunciation of proper names is often idiosyn-
cratic, and what is an ‘acceptable pur’ depends on the social context. The poem’s ‘naive diction
and simple feeling suggest early work (Honan 1998, 74). It may not be coincidental that the poem
is placed in what seems to be the earliest group of sonnets (see below).
John Dover Wilson (1966) and John Kerrigan (1986) argued that Sonnet 107 dates from spring
1603, alluding to the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James; Katherine Duncan-Jones
(1997b, 23) argues for 1604. The sequence as we know it could not, in this interpretation, have
been completed until 1603 or 1604, and this conclusion agrees with the independent evidence for
dating A Lover’s Complaint (see below). The variation in the texts of four sonnets (see Passionate
Pilgrim and Alternative Versions) suggests that Shakespeare at some point revised the poems, and
for Sonnet 2 the revision was relatively late and related to the construction of a sequence
(Taylor 1985). Many scholars believe that Shakespeare himself arranged the sonnets in order for
the 1609 publication, though, of course, there is no reason why that order should reflect the
chronology of their original composition.
In Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary test (1975a) the Sonnets as a whole are linked most closely with
Henry V, Love’ Labour's Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Richard II. The chronological clus-
tering of the last three of these plays is at first difficult to ignore. Such internal evidence strongly
confirms the supposition, encouraged by Meres, that most of the sonnets were written in the
15908, probably the mid-1590s. But more recent work identifying patterns within Shakespeare's
lexical and stylistic preferences establishes that it is unhelpful and misleading to produce results
based on the Sonnets as a whole. A study by A. Kent Hieatt, Charles W. Hieatt, and Anne Lake
Prescott (1991), looking at the distribution of early and late rare vocabulary in Shakespeare's
canon (divided before and after 1600) as compared to the Sonnets, proposed that the Sonnets
could be divided into four groups (or zones) with each giving certain dating parameters (1-60,
61-103, 104-26, 127-54). Across several studies, MacDonald P. Jackson has supported and refined
their findings. By calculating rhyme links between Shakespeare’s plays and the Sonnets (divided
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 575
into the same four groups as Hieatt, Hieatt, and Prescott), Jackson (1999a) proposed that most, if
not all, of Sonnets 104-26, the last twenty-two of those addressed to the Friend, were composed
significantly later than the rest. In a further study, Jackson (2001f) used Gregor Sarrazin’s
century-old compilation of twice-used and thrice-used words in Shakespeare's canon to test Hieatt,
Hieatt, and Prescott’s ‘zones, and supported their general outline for dating and confirmed the
seventeenth-century dating for Sonnets 104-26. Sonnets 1-60 were shown to include both early
and later rare words, suggesting that they were written in the mid-1590s but also include revised
material from a later date. Then Jackson showed (2002a) that J. A. Fort’s 1933 list of parallels con-
firms a later dating for the last twenty or so to the Young Man; this is yet another kind of evidence,
all the stronger because Fort had no reason to differentiate those sonnets from the rest. Jackson
(2005), drawing again on rare vocabulary links and contextual evidence that suggests that
Shakespeare was responding to Meres'’s ‘comparative discourse’ in Palladis Tamia, dates the Rival
Poet sequence (Sonnets 78-86) to 1598-1600. In another study, Jackson (2012c) divided the entire
Sonnet sequence into six roughly equal groups, ranging in number from 25 to 27 (Sonnets 1-25,
26-50, 51-75, 76-100, 101-26, and 127-54). He then calculated the use of -eth and -es verb endings
within each group. As Estelle W. Taylor (1987a) established in a study of verb endings in the First
Folio, Shakespeare used the -eth verb ending much more regularly in plays before 1600. In Groups
76-100 and 101-26 an -eth verb ending was more rarely used than in the other four groups; in fact,
the verb ending -eth is never used in Sonnets 76-100, but -es is used nine times.
Hieatt, Hieatt, and Prescott’s study demonstrated that taken as a group Sonnets 61-103 were
generally early (1594-5); such a conclusion is now necessarily affected by Jackson’s findings for the
Rival Poet sequence and for verb endings in the group 76-100. We assume that the remainder
(61-77, 87-103) was a significant factor in producing an earlier dating for the larger group (or
zone) in the Hieatt, Hiett, and Prescott study, but these sonnets are the most difficult to date.
The dating parameters included here are based upon the conclusions produced by these vari-
ous studies, but slightly modified to follow the New Oxford Shakespeare chronology.
Sonnets 1-60 Range: 1595-7 (probably revised 1600-9)
Sonnets 61-77 Range: 1593-1604; best guess 1594-5
Sonnets 78-86 (the ‘Rival Poet’ sequence) Range: 1596-1604; best guess 1598-1600
Sonnets 87-103 Range: 1593-1604; best guess 1594-5
Sonnets 104-26 (last 22 to a Friend’) Range: 1600-9; best guess 1600-4
Sonnets 127-44, 146-54 Range: 1590-5
Sonnet 145 1582?
Our positioning of the Sonnets here and in Modern does not reflect the date of original compos-
ition of most of the poems; instead, as with the other books of poetry, we treat date of publication
as the date when the poems were first made public (in contrast to plays, which were first made
public by performance). It is entirely possible that the sequence did not achieve the state repre-
sented by the 1609 quarto until shortly before it reached the printer.
A Lover’s Complaint 1609
Date Range: 1592-1609
Best Guess: 1608-9
Text: Reference pp. 1508-16
576 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Although not mentioned in the Stationers’ Register entry or the title page, this poem was included
in the 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, beginning on the page after Sonnet 154 (‘A Lovers
complaint.| BY] WILLIAM SHAKE-SPEARE)). Shakespeare's authorship was doubted by most
editors until the 1960s, but Kenneth Muir (1964) and MacDonald P. Jackson (1965b), in inde-
pendent and complementary studies, vindicated its authenticity, citing among much other evi-
dence its use of compounds, neologisms, and imagery. John Kerrigan (1986), Katherine
Duncan-Jones (1997b), and Colin Burrow (2002), developing hints by earlier critics, all defend its
position at the end of the Sonnets, by analogy with codas to other Elizabethan sonnet sequences.
The authorship of A Lover's Complaint has garnered renewed attention in recent years. Though
Shakespeare's authorship had become the default position by 1987, Ward E. Y. Elliot and Robert J.
Valenza (1996; 1997; 2004a), Marina Tarlinskaja (2004a; 2005; 2014), and Brian Vickers (2007b)
have all challenged this consensus, and on the basis of those criticisms Jonathan Bate and Eric
Rasmussen omitted the poem from their edition of the Complete Works (2007). Elliot and Valenza
(who oversee the Claremont Shakespeare Authorship Clinic) applied various tests to 3,000-word
blocks of text from their database of early modern plays and poems. These included works
securely attributed to Shakespeare, works from the Apocrypha, and works by other early modern
dramatists and poets. From their results, they concluded that A Lover’ Complaint could not be
attributed to Shakespeare. Tarlinskaja focused on the poem’s verse features and found it incom-
patible with Shakespeare's metrical range elsewhere. In her 2014 study, analysing the position of
word boundaries, strong syntactic breaks, and patterns in stressed syllables, she concluded that
the versification features of A Lovers Complaint pointed away from Shakespeare, and suggested
that it is an anonymous sixteenth-century poem. Vickers attributed the poem to John Davies of
Hereford, a prolific though relatively minor poet from the period.
We include the poem in the New Oxford Shakespeare. MacDonald P. Jackson (2014a) cast ser-
ious doubt upon the methodologies used and findings advanced by each party disputing
Shakespeare's authorship. His article critiquing Elliot and Valenza’s study demonstrated that their
specific comparative tests for A Lover’ Complaint could only produce inconclusive findings
about the poem’s authorship (Jackson 2013). For each of their feature-counts, Elliott and Valenza
manually selected the range of acceptably Shakespearean values, drawing whatever boundaries
were necessary to ensure that most Shakespeare work falls within that range and most non-
Shakespeare work falls outside it. Jackson objected that instead of such hand-fitting they should
have used a standard mathematical procedure to set the boundaries at two standard deviations
either side of the average. An additional problem is that Elliott and Valenza did not hold aside
(that is, leave out of their boundary-setting process) some test samples of known Shakespearean
verse in order to check that they had calibrated their tests correctly and could reliably distinguish
Shakespearean from non-Shakespearean verse. In fact, Elliott and Valenza’s tests (based on Venus
and Adonis and Lucrece) would declare Shakespeare’s Sonnets to be someone else’s work. Jackson
also challenged Tarlinskaja’s findings about the anomalous nature of the metrical features because
the verse form of A Lover’s Complaint is itself anomalous, and cannot be plausibly compared to
his plays or other poems. Of Shakespeare’s works only Lucrece is composed in the same stanza,
but with probably at least ten years separating the composition of the two works we have little
idea of the metrical features of a mature Shakespearean ‘complaint’ in rime-royal.
Vickers’s identification of John Davies of Hereford as the poem’s author has been thoroughly
rejected. Indeed, Tarlinskaja rejects John Davies of Hereford’s authorship as well as Shakespeare's;
but she is on firmer ground with Davies, because most of his verse is closer in date and form to
A Lover's Complaint. Vickers’s evidence is primarily based upon the poem’s narration and plot,
lexical features, and use of rhyme. Jowett (2009), reviewing Vickers’s monograph, undertook a
preliminary investigation, using Literature Online (LION), of the phrases and collocations used in
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 577
the first stanza of A Lovers Complaint and found that Shakespearean analogues outnumbered
those of John Davies by twelve to one. Jackson (2013) expanded these results to include the first
seven stanzas and the results again overwhelmingly favoured Shakespeare over the Anglo-Welsh
poet. Hugh Craig (2012) also ruled out the possibility of John Davies’s authorship; his results for
Shakespeare were less conclusive, but unlike Davies (or George Chapman—an attribution made
by J. M. Robertson 1917; 1926)—Shakespeare could not be ruled out as author. Jackson’s book
(2014a), which also includes analysis of spelling, neologisms, and shared vocabulary between
A Lover’s Complaint and Shakespeare's mature work, dismantles the claims and counter-claims
proposed in all three recent studies rejecting Shakespeare's authorship. A subsequent study
(Jackson 2015a) strengthens the spelling evidence. In Chapter 8 of this Authorship Companion,
Jackson answers some more recent, minor objections to the attribution. Identified on the (separ-
ate) title page as author, Shakespeare is the most likely candidate to have written A Lover's
Complaint.
On the basis of its imagery and of specific verbal parallels, both Muir and Jackson dated the
poem's composition early in the seventeenth century; Slater’s rare word test (1975a), including
words of up to fifteen occurrences, supports this conclusion, linking the poem most clearly with
All’s Well, King Lear, and Hamlet. Jackson (2014a) suggests a dating range of 1603-7, based on the
distribution of links with other plays. Assignment of a position between 1600 and its publication
in 1609 is less secure than the attribution to Shakespeare. In the 1987 version of this essay, Taylor’s
best guess of 1603 was influenced by the parallel case of the narrative poems, which originated in
the interregnum of playing caused by plague. The similar, though less prolonged, interregnum in
1603-4 would have afforded an opportunity and incentive to tidy up the collection of poems
which Shakespeare probably began writing during the plague of 1592-4. (Southampton’s release
from prison in 1603 may also be relevant.) But as J. Leeds Barroll (1991) demonstrates, the plague
continued to disrupt performances in the entire period from 1603 to late 1609. Jackson's identifi-
cation of extensive linking in rare word usage between A Lover's Complaint and Cymbeline—
expanding upon work by A. K. Hieatt, T. G. Bishop, and E. A. Nicholson (1987)—persuades us
that the poem was most likely completed or revised closer to the date of first publication. Further
supporting this connection are the exceptionally strong links between A Lover's Complaint and
Cymbeline identified by Ahmed Shamsul Arefin, Renato Vimieiro, Carlo Riveros, Hugh Craig,
and Pablo Moscato (2014) in their study of authorship affinities (see Cluster 3 in Figure 25.1). The
enforced plague closures of 1607-9 may have granted Shakespeare occasion to return to poetic
composition (Power and Loughnane 2012, 1-3). Our positioning of the poem here and in Modern
reflects both when we think it reached its final form and when it was first published.
The Winter's Tale 1609
Date Range: 1609 to early 1611
Best Guess: 1609
Text: Reference pp. 2233-99
First printed and first attributed to Shakespeare in the 1623 Folio. Ben Jonson probably associates
The Winter’s Tale with another late play by Shakespeare in the Induction Scene to Bartholomew
Fair (first performed 31 October 1614, first printed 1631): he snidely refers to ‘those that beget
Tales, Tempests, and such like drolleries’ (STC 14753.5, sig. A6r). In the same passage, John Pitcher
sees an oblique allusion to the Jupiter scene in Cymbeline in Jonson’s mocking ‘nest of antiques’;
Pitcher suggests that Jonson thought of these three plays as a group (Pitcher 2010, 86). The allu-
sion is possible but not very convincing. Without identifying an author, Simon Forman witnessed
578 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
a performance at the Globe on 15 May 1611 (Bodleian ‘MS Ashmole 208; folios 201v—202r). In the
preceding month, Forman had also witnessed performances of Macbeth and Cymbeline at the
Globe. Martin Wiggins (#1631), giving a date of 1611 for Winters Tale, seems to assume it was writ-
ten shortly before Forman saw it. The professional theatres were most likely closed for much of
the preceding three years due to recurrent outbreaks of plague. J. Leeds Barroll (1991) proposes
that the open-air amphitheatre playhouses would have been closed for 30 out of 36 months; we
cannot be certain that the same restrictions applied to performances at indoor playhouses, such
as Blackfriars, available to the King’s Men from 1608.
‘The Winter’s Tale was performed at court on 11 November 1611. The dance of twelve satyrs at
4.4.318.1 apparently makes use of material from Jonson’s Masque of Oberon, performed at court
on 1 January 1611. Pitcher proposes that Shakespeare began work on Winter's Tale in late 1610. He
then imagines a situation whereby Jonson ‘would certainly have’ informed Shakespeare of ‘just
how good’ his masque would be (Pitcher 2010, 88). Shakespeare then completes his play by May
1611, borrowing the dance of the satyrs from Jonson’s masque. But Stanley Wells argued (Wells et
al. 1987, 601) that the dance could be omitted easily without disturbance to the dialogue, and, as
such, most likely represents a later interpolation. Wells notes that no one comments upon the
dance afterwards. He also observes that the Clown’s comment ‘My Father, and the Gent. are in sad
talke’ (4.4.292-3) seems misplaced, and would more naturally (after the exit of Autolychus and
his clients) precede Polixenes’ address to the Old Shepherd ‘O Father, you’l know more of that
heereafter’ (4.4.319). As it stands in the Folio text, we must assume that Polixenes has been
engaged in conversation with the Old Shepherd rather than concentrating on the dance that he
requested to see. The dating of Jonson's masque is thus of no value in dating the original composition,
except insofar as it suggests that the play may have been originally completed before the end of
1610 (with the dancing satyrs added later).
The revival of the popular Mucedorus (see “Works Excluded’) by the King’s Men no later than
1610, with new additions including a bear scene, is also ambiguous for dating. A third quarto of
Mucedorus was printed in 1610. It included new additions—three entirely new scenes and revised
endings for two scenes, including an expansion of the bear part—anzd its title page notes specifically
that the play was performed with ‘new additions’ before James I at “White-hall on Shroue-sunday
night’ (that is, Sunday 20 February 1610). Martin Wiggins (#884) notes that it cannot have been
Shrove Sunday 1611 because there was a different performance at court that day. The title page
also notes that it was ‘vsually playing at the Globe: The recorded performance and publication
gives us a latest possible date for the revised version of Mucedorus, but it tells us little about how
new these new additions were. In theory, this version of Mucedorus could have been several years
old by 1610. It could be that Mucedorus was revived, and such a scene written, based on the suc-
cess of The Winter’s Tale, or that the success of the scene in the Mucedorus revival prompted the
writing of such a scene for The Winter’s Tale. In either case, the stage demand, capacity, and vogue
for a bear (whether real or costumed) suggests a date of 1609-10 for the composition of The
Winter's Tale.
A separate issue sometimes related to dating is the availability ofa real bear for use in perform-
ance. Teresa Grant (2002) notes that Philip Henslowe came into possession of two white (polar)
bears in August 1609. As recorded in Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625; STC 20509), Jonas Poole led a
small expedition to Cherry Island and there captured ‘two young. ..white Beares’ (they killed the
mother bear). The young white bears were brought back to England and it is noted that ‘they are
aliue in Paris Garden’, which means either the manor of that name containing the royal game park
or the bear-baiting arena (the Beargarden) operated by Henslowe and Edward Alleyn near this
manor. Grant claims that Henslowe had expanded his responsibilities to include ‘management of
the Globe’ and ‘the King’s Men: But there is no evidence for Henslowe having any role with the
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 579
Globe and King’s Men in this period. Such conjecture cannot be used to support the secondary
claim that one of these bears, having been sufficiently tamed, was used in the performance of
Winter's Tale. Certainly, as recorded in the Calendar of State Papers (Green 1858, 17), Henslowe
and Alleyn received a warrant for ‘keeping two white bears’ on 20 March 1611, but we have no way
of telling if they were used in contemporary performances; there is a long history of bears in stage
plays (Locrine, the original Mucedorus, The Old Wives Tale) and Henslowe's inventory includes a
‘bear skin’ which suggests, at least, that bear costumes were used in performance. Barbara
Ravelhofer (2002) argues that real bears were used in the Oberon masque, in keeping with the
ostentatious style of such performances at court (the bears in the masque are ‘under guard’). This
seems possible, even likely. But Helen Cooper (2005) persuasively rejects the likelihood of the use
of real bears at the Globe. She notes that the stage direction specifically calls for the bear to chase
(pursue) Antigonus off stage. At the Globe, the bear would have had to enter through one of the
rear doors, ‘do a U-turn, and exit through the same or another rear door. Cooper also sagely notes
that Henslowe’s white cubs would by 1611 (say, at the performance Forman attended) have
weighed several hundred pounds and be approaching sexual maturity. In summary, although it is
certain that bears were in theatrical vogue and available in the period, there is little reason to con-
nect any real bears or potential access to real bears to the date of composition for Winter's Tale.
All stylistic tests place Winter's Tale in Shakespeare’s late period. At 4.4.728-34 the play makes
use of material from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (Day 2, Tale 9), which is also exploited in
Cymbeline; critics have usually taken this borrowing as evidence that Cymbeline preceded Winter's
Tale. Though it may suggest proximity of composition, such a parallel cannot determine priority
of composition. Although we lack hard evidence which enables us to fix a terminus post quem,
most critics agree that the play should be paired with Cymbeline. Stylistically, narratively (loss,
separation, reunion, and redemption), and generically (Romance), they seem to have been writ-
ten in the same period. In Marina Tarlinskaja’s metrical data, and in MacDonald P. Jackson's
reworking of Ants Oras’s pause pattern test, it is closest to Cymbeline (see Tables 25.8 and 25.7).
Douglas Bruster and Genevieve Smith (2014), using Oras’s original data, propose an impossibly
late date of mid-1613; their results do, however, again closely link Winter’s Tale to Cymbeline.
Three kinds of evidence suggest to us that Winter’s Tale is the earlier play of the two. J. H. P. Pafford
(1963, 142-3, 153-5) demonstrates Shakespeare's indebtedness to Plutarch for several incidental
features, which suggests that Winter’ Tale was written in or not long after the period of the classical
tragedies. In rare vocabulary its strongest links are with (in descending order) two earlier plays,
Measure and Coriolanus (see Table 25.3); the colloquialism-in-verse test puts it after Coriolanus
and before Cymbeline (see Table 25.13). These two stylistic tests both suggest that it pre-dates
Cymbeline. We conjecture that the play was first written during the plague closures of 1609-10. It
is probable that the ‘dance of the twelve satyrs’ was added later, after January 1611.
Cymbeline 1610
Date Range: 1608-11
Best Guess: mid- to late 1610
Text: Reference pp. 3365-447
Printed and first attributed to Shakespeare in 1623. Simon Forman witnessed a performance
(Bodleian “MS Ashmole 208, folio 206’), probably between 20 and 30 April 1611, and obviously
before his death on 8 September 1611. He attended Globe performances of Macbeth on 20 April
1610 and The Winter’s Tale on 15 May 1611. But the King’s Men could have performed Cymbeline at
either the Globe or Blackfriars, or at both. The play’s composition probably post-dates Macbeth,
580 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
for 5.3 is based upon a minor incident in Raphael Holinshed’s history of Scotland, which
Shakespeare seems to have consulted only in relation to Macbeth. In rare vocabulary its strongest
links are with Tempest, more than twice as significant as its links with Coriolanus, and more than
three times as significant as its links to Winter’s Tale (Table 25.3). All these plays are later than Macbeth.
Moreover, the play is clearly related in some way to Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher's
Philaster (Wiggins #1597), which Suzanne Gossett (2009) convincingly dates in 1609; whatever
the direction of influence, the two plays almost certainly were written at about the same time.
Philaster was apparently Beaumont and Fletcher's first great success; Cymbeline does not seem to
have been especially popular, if we may judge from the dearth of references to it. Beaumont and
Fletcher could have been influenced by Shakespeare's play only through performance, and the
London theatres were closed because of plague until at least December 1609, and perhaps until
January or February 1610. John Davies of Hereford read or attended a performance of Philaster
before October 1610. In Scourge of Folly (entered in the Stationers’ Register on 8 October) Davies
writes a commendatory verse to Fletcher, which makes mention of the play’s subtitle. So, the play
was at least in existence, whether performed or not, before this date.
James E. Savage (1949) argues that Beaumont and Fletcher’s Cupid’s Revenge, which he dates to
late 1607-8, precedes Philaster. Andrew Gurr (1969) connects a reference to ‘the new platform in
Philaster to the construction of the deck of Prince Henry’s new ship, the Prince Royal. Reports of
this ship circulated in May 1609, and Gurr supposes that Philaster was written ‘in and after May
1609. The echoes between Cymbeline and Philaster, beyond their generic similarity—the plot of
disobedient princess, lowly lover and false accusations of infidelity, a character named Belarius/
Bellario, and some common wordplay—tell us nothing about the order of composition; either
play could have influenced the other. The outbreak of plague ensured that the theatres were closed
until early 1610. This means that even if Philaster was written in mid-1609, when a reference to the
ship was topical, the play is unlikely to have been performed until the following year. Shakespeare,
as sharer and primary dramatist for the King’s Men, would almost certainly have seen the manu-
script of Philaster before it was performed; he had the opportunity to read and be influenced by
the entire text, prior to performance. On the other hand, there is no reason why Beaumont or
Fletcher would have had access to a manuscript of Cymbeline before seeing it performed.
Moreover, Shakespeare might have seen the text months before it was performed, as plague con-
tinued to delay the reopening of the London theatres. Both plays were written around the time
tragicomedy came into vogue. But Shakespeare is more likely to have been the borrower. If so,
Cymbeline can hardly have been completed before the beginning of 1610. We therefore agree with
Suzanne Gossett that Philaster was composed in 1609 during the theatre closure and acted for
the first time in early 1610, and that Cymbeline was being written later in 1610, with its first
performances in December 1610 (Gossett 2009, 7). It might even have premiered at court, as
Richard Dutton (2016, 280-1) suggests.
Cymbeline is also linked to another contemporary play, Thomas Heywood’s The Golden Age,
performed at the Red Bull theatre in Clerkenwell around 1610, and first printed in 1611. Towards
the end of Heywood’s play, Iris ‘descends’ to Jupiter, who then ‘ascends vpon the Eagle: Shakespeare
may have borrowed this device from The Golden Age, or Heywood may have borrowed from
Cymbeline. The order of composition remains uncertain.
More dependable historical markers are the assassination of Henry IV of France on 4 May 1610
and the investiture of Henry as Prince of Wales on 5 June 1610. Another marker is Lady Arbella
Stuart’s sensational marriage to the lowly William Seymour in July 1610, and her subsequent
imprisonment at the Tower. But it is uncertain how or if Cymbeline responds to any or all of these
events. The play’s Welsh themes and Milford Haven setting persuaded Geoffrey Bullough (1975)
that Cymbeline was written or adapted for production to coincide with the investiture celebrations.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 581
Bullough also proposes that the ennobling of the Scot James Hay as a Knight of the Bath on 4 June
1610 prompted Shakespeare to recall the famed story of Hay’s ancestors, recounted in the history
of Scotland by Hector Boece (1465-1536). Hay and his two sons, fighting under Kenneth II of
Scotland, had turned the tide in the Scots’ favour against the Danes in a battle at Luncarty in 990.
Such a recollection may have prompted the story of Belarius and his sons. Or it may be simply a
coincidence. James’s response to the assassination, which (on 2 June 1610) banished recusants
from court and within 10 miles of London, and all priests from the land, led to an increase in the
persecution of Catholics. The banishment plot of Cymbeline may have been prompted by this
national situation. The scandal of Arbella Stuart’s marriage and imprisonment for marrying
below her station provides an ambiguous dating marker; while the plot in Cymbeline would have
been topical, it would also have been politically insensitive and risky (especially for a performance
at court). None of these markers convinces alone, but aggregately they suggest composition in or
soon after mid-1610. Wiggins (#1623) assigns the same date of 1610 to the play.
Cymbeline’s verbal mannerisms have persuaded most critics that it belongs to the final period
of Shakespeare's career, and that it was relatively new when Forman saw it; the essential difficulty
has been whether to place it before or after Winter's Tale. Most critics have placed it before, on
the grounds that Winter's Tale is the more mature achievement. This does not seem to us either
true or relevant. Unlike Pericles and Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline contains no verbal echoes of
Plutarch (Jackson 1975), which suggests that it was written at a greater distance from the period
of Timon of Athens, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. Eliot Slater’s rare vocabulary evidence
(reworked by Jackson) puts Cymbeline closest to Tempest, and Tempest closest to Cymbeline, by
large margins (see Table 25.3); the colloquialism-in-verse test places it closest to the
Shakespearean portion of All Is True (see Table 25.13). Marina Tarlinskaja’s analysis of strong
metrical breaks puts it between Two Noble Kinsmen and All Is True (see Table 25.9). The stylistic
tests agree in putting Cymbeline later than Winter's Tale.
Horace Howard Furness (1913) and Harley Granville-Barker (1948) attributed much of the play
to an unidentified collaborator; these theories depended on little evidence, and have won little
support. The vision in 5.4 has been more widely condemned as an unShakespearean interpol-
ation, and it does satisfy the criteria for such interference, being (1) a discrete and spectacular
scene which (2) is nevertheless not mentioned by an early witness and (3) introduces a new set of
characters and (4) occurs in a text apparently set from a late manuscript. But its integrity has been
persuasively defended on grounds of imagery and style by E. H. W. Meyerstein (1922), G. Wilson
Knight (1947), Hardin Craig (1948), and J. M. Nosworthy (1955b). We would add that in per-
formance its old-fashioned fourteeners can achieve an impressive oracular authority, and that
Shakespeare's lifelong fondness for the fourteeners of Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses makes him more likely than any other Jacobean dramatist to have used that form,
especially for a classical epiphany.
“When God was pleased’ 1610
Date Range: 1610-33
Best Guess: late 1610
Text: Reference p. 3653
Leslie Hotson (1949, 111-40) identified this poem's subject, Elias James, as a proprietor of a brew-
ery in Puddle Dock Hill, located near the Blackfriars Theatre. He was buried 24 September 1610,
and left £10 to the poor of his parish in his will, proved 26 September 1610. The poem was appar-
ently used as a memorial inscription for James in St Andrew’s Church at the Wardrobe; a copy of
582 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
these verses appear in the 1633 edition of John Stow’s Survey of London (STC 23345). Because the
poem refers to James making ‘the poor his issue; it was probably written after his death.
The copy in Stow does not name an author. The poem is attributed to Shakespeare in the manu-
script ‘Bodleian MS Rawlinson poet. 160, the same manuscript that names Shakespeare the
author of ‘Shall I Die?’ Although Thomas A. Pendleton cast doubt on this attribution because of
the supposed unreliability of attributions in this manuscript (1989, 324-5), in this volume Gary
Taylor observes that the poems are overwhelmingly attributed accurately (Chapter 12). This attri-
bution, as well as James's proximity to one of Shakespeare's theatres and other possible connec-
tions between Shakespeare and James’s family discussed by Hotson (1949) and by Hilton Kelliher
(1986) make his authorship plausible, although attribution tests are inconclusive as Francis X.
Connor shows in Chapter 7 of this volume.
The Tempest 1611
Date Range: 1610-11
Best Guess: 1611
Text: Reference pp. 1531-80
The play was first printed and attributed to Shakespeare in the 1623 Folio, and his single author-
ship has never been seriously doubted. It was performed at court before King James I at Whitehall
on Hallowmas night (1 November) 1611. Edmond Malone claimed to possess evidence that the
play existed by the middle of 1611 (Malone and Boswell 1821, 15: 414), but the basis for this claim
has never been discovered. The play is indebted to sources which were not available before
September 1610: William Strachey’s manuscript of the True Repertory of the Wrack and
Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, dated 15 July 1610 in Virginia (first printed in 1625; STC 20509),
Sylvester Jourdain’s A Discovery of the Bermudas (title page dated 1610, with a dedication dated 13
October; STC 14816), and the Council of Virginia’s True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony in
Virginia (1610; STC 24833; Stationers’ Register, 8 November). Shakespeare thus must have written
the play in the year before its first court performance.
According to Simon Forman'’s journal, Shakespeare had also completed Winter's Tale by 15 May
1611, and Cymbeline no later than September (see above entries for those plays). Unless all three
plays were written at extraordinary speed, it seems certain that The Tempest post-dates Winter's
Tale, and likely enough that it post-dates Cymbeline. In MacDonald P. Jackson's reworking of Eliot
Slater’s rare vocabulary its closest links are with Cymbeline (see Table 25.3). In Ants Oras’s Criterion A
and the colloquialism-in-verse test, it also emerges as last of the four romances, if we assume a
bend in the curve at about the time of Coriolanus (see Tables 25.6 and 25.13). Jackson’s reworking
of Oras’s data associates the play most closely with (in descending order): Antony and Cleopatra,
Coriolanus, Pericles, Cymbeline, and Two Noble Kinsmen (see Table 25.7). Douglas Bruster and
Genevieve Smith's initial analysis (2014), relying upon Oras’s original data, gives a date prediction
of 1611. Marina Tarlinskaja’s stressed syllables test places it last (see Table 25.8). Although we can-
not be positive that it followed Cymbeline, that does remain the most probable interpretation of
the data at our disposal. It is unlikely that it was written in 1610, because Shakespeare seems to
have written at least one new play a year for the King’s Men, insuring that they would have some-
thing new to perform during the winter court season. If The Tempest had been written in 1610,
that would leave 1611 empty. Our date of 1611 agrees with Martin Wiggins’s (#1652), who also
provides the same date range of 1610-11.
The masque in 4.1 has sometimes been regarded as an interpolation, written for a performance
of the play at court in the winter of 1612-13, between the betrothal and marriage of Princess
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY _ 583
Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine (Wilson 1921; Smith 1970). The King’s Men were paid in May
1613 for fourteen plays performed during that period, The Tempest being one of them. Although
interpolation cannot be proven, it also cannot be disproven; the conjecture seems to us unneces-
sary and improbable, but it would not in any case affect the text, since Shakespeare himself could
have written an addition at that date.
The History of Cardenio 1612
John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, adapted by William Davenant, Lewis Theobald,
and Colley Cibber
Original Date Range: June 1612-January 1613
Best Guess: second half of 1612
First Adaptation Date Range: 1663-7
Second Adaptation Date Range: 1727
Text: Reference Pp. 3681-769
Cardenio presents unusually complex problems, and has been the subject of passionate contro-
versy for centuries. Since the publication of Brean Hammond's Arden edition of Double Falsehood
(2010) it has been the subject of two anthologies of critical essays (Carnegie and Taylor 2012;
Bourus and Taylor 2013) and many individual scholarly essays and review articles; a third anthol-
ogy of essays is forthcoming (Payne 2016).
On 20 May and 9 July of 1613 the King’s Men were paid by the Treasurer of the King’s Chamber
for two separate performances of a play variously spelled ‘Cardenno’ and ‘Cardenna (“MS
Rawlinson A.239, folio 47). Since the discovery of the document in 1780, scholars have assumed
that these are different spellings or misspellings of the same unusual proper name. What is almost
certainly the same unusual proper name occurs, properly spelled, in the Stationers’ Register on
9 September 1653, when Humphrey Moseley entered his right to publish “The History of Cardenio,
by Mr Fletcher. & Shakespeare’ Tiffany Stern (2011) denied that these three documents refer to
the same play, but misspellings are common in payment documents, and there is no precedent for
an early modern acting company performing in the same season two plays with a title that differs
by only a single vowel (Taylor 2012a, 22-3; 2013b).
Whoever wrote the play performed by the King’s Men, its date of composition can be estab-
lished with some precision. The name ‘Cardenio’ first became prominent in European culture in
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605). The title “Ihe History of Cardenio’ echoes a phrase
that appears in Thomas Shelton’s translation of Don Quixote (STC 4915)—and nowhere else in
early modern English, or in subsequent translations of the Spanish novel—as a mistranslation of
‘el cuento de Cardenio’ (Taylor 2012a, 14-15). If the play registered in 1653 was the King’s Men’s
play performed at court (which is the most economical assumption, but not certain), then it must
have been based on the Shelton translation. David L. Gants situates the manufacture of the 1612
book in the printing house of John Windet and William Stansby, concluding that it was ‘pub-
lished some time in the spring of 1612’ (Gants 2013, 43). If we assume that the playwright(s) used
as a narrative source the printed book rather than a manuscript, the King’s Men's play (Wiggins
#1684) could hardly have been written and performed earlier than the summer of 1612.
The Treasury account specifies one payment on 9 July 1613 (for a performance on 8 June 1613)
and another payment on 20 May 1613 for ‘sixe severall playes’ performed before King James I during
the preceding winter court season (31 October 1612 to 12 April 1613). That season was unusually
complicated: Prince Henry became seriously ill on 25 October 1612, then died on 6 November,
584 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
and Princess Elizabeth married the Elector Palatine in February; the court and the nation were in
mourning for most of the intervening time. Gary Taylor’s detailed examination of the court cal-
endar concludes that it is unlikely that Cardenio could have been performed for the grieving King
before 5 January, or later than 21 February 1613; the most probable dates are between 9 and 21
February 1613 (Taylor 2012b, 293-9). If this analysis is correct, then the King’s Men’s Cardenio was
almost certainly written between June and December 1612.
None of the foregoing analysis of the date depends on assumptions about the authorship of the
King’s Men's Cardenio. But the date does make possible and plausible the 1653 attribution to John
Fletcher and Shakespeare. First, Shakespeare had been writing at least one play a year for the
Chamberlain’s/King’s Men since 1594 (assuming that either or both the canonical Hamlet and the
lost collaborative version of Sejanus date from 1603). We know that his Tempest had been per-
formed at court on 1 November 1611, and that All Is True was being performed at the Globe by June
1613. It would make sense, and may have been part of his contractual obligation to the King’s Men,
for Shakespeare to have written, or co-written, a play in the summer or autumn of 1612, in anticipa-
tion of the winter court season of 1612-13. Secondly, both All Is True and Two Noble Kinsmen were
written by Shakespeare and Fletcher. It would therefore make sense if Shakespeare’s collaboration
with Fletcher began in the year following Tempest. Thirdly, Cardenio was the only play that was
performed twice at royal expense in the 1612-13 fiscal year; if it was the first Fletcher-Shakespeare
collaboration, that initial success would explain why they continued to collaborate.
Shakespeare was the dominant playwright at court from 1594 to 1613; after Shakespeare,
Fletcher became the dominant court playwright for the rest of the reign of James I and into the
reign of Charles I. The most successful play of the 1612-13 court season is more likely than not to
have been written by one or both of them. Probably two-thirds of Fletcher’s extant plays were
written in collaboration with another dramatist. Fletcher wrote more plays based on Spanish
sources than any other English dramatist, and Cervantes was his favourite author. The story of
Cardenio, as told by Cervantes, is a romantic pastoral tragicomedy, and in this and other respects
is the kind of material that attracted Fletcher, and this genre also attracted Shakespeare, particu-
larly in the last years of his London career. Only eight playwrights are known to have been writing
for the King’s Men in the period 1611-14: Robert Armin, Francis Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson,
Thomas Middleton, Shakespeare, Cyril Tourneur, and John Webster. Of these, only Beaumont,
Fletcher, and Shakespeare wrote romantic pastoral tragicomedies (and Beaumont did so only in
collaboration with Fletcher). In extant plays or lost plays that are attributed to an author, “The
History of [proper name]’ is used as a title more often by Shakespeare than by any other play-
wright of the period. In 1654, the lifelong playgoer Edmund Gayton seems to have remembered a
scene of the lost Cardenio play (Taylor 2012a, 33-6); in the same book he associated Shakespeare
with Don Quixote, calling him ‘the Shake-spear of the Mancha’ (1654; Wing Ga1s, sig. N4r).
If the King’s Men’s Cardenio were a lost play, we would be justified in conjecturing that it was
probably written by Fletcher, or by Fletcher and Beaumont, or by Fletcher and Shakespeare, or by
all three working together. If it had been written by Shakespeare alone, it would be hard to explain
its absence from the 1623 Folio: it was a late Jacobean play that belonged to the King’s Men, and
therefore unlikely to have been lost only ten years after its court performances. But the Folio
omitted the Jacobean collaborations Pericles and Two Noble Kinsmen.
But the King’s Men’s Cardenio seems not to be entirely lost. A manuscript of it was in Moseley’s
possession in 1653. In a letter probably written in 1710, and published in 1719, Charles Gildon
referred to a manuscript of an ‘excellent’ unspecified ‘Play written by Beaumont and Fletcher; and
the immortal Shakespear; in the Maturity of his Judgment, a few Years before he dy’; Gildon also
claimed that “There is infallible Proof that the Copy is genuine’ (Gildon 1719, 267-8). As Robert D.
Hume (2016) concludes, this shows that ‘circa 1710 a knowledgeable bibliographer believed that a
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 585
“genuine” copy of a “noble Piece of Antiquity” had survived and could be staged at Drury Lane if
the managers were willing:
In December 1727 the managers were apparently willing. They performed a play called Double
Falshood, published later that month by Lewis Theobald, who claimed that it was his adaptation
of a play by Shakespeare which he possessed in manuscript. In a wide-ranging article, Tiffany
Stern (2011) renewed and expanded old allegations that Double Falsehood is a forgery, and that
Theobald never possessed any seventeenth-century manuscript. Stern’s claims have since been
refuted by more than a dozen scholars, working in a variety of disciplines, using old and new
techniques: MacDonald P. Jackson (2012b), Giuliano Pascucci (2012), Richard Proudfoot (2012),
Edmund G. C. King (2012), David Carnegie (2012), Taylor and John V. Nance (2012), Taylor and
Steven Wagschal (2013), Gerald Baker (2013), John V. Nance (2013), Elizabeth Spiller (2013),
Marina Tarlinskaja (2014, 203-11), Hammond (2014), Ryan L. Boyd and James W. Pennebaker
(2015), Hume (2016), Jean I. Marsden (2016), Gary Taylor (20124; 2012b; 2013b; 2015; 2016a), and
Diana Solomon (2016). Peter Kirwan (2015b, 177) also rejects Stern’s case for forgery, and explains
the omission of Cardenio or Double Falsehood and other plays (like Two Noble Kinsmen) from
Theobald’s 1733 edition of Shakespeare's Works as a defensively ‘safe’ move designed to preserve
his editorial ‘reputatior’ against further attacks by Pope (Kirwan 2015b, 33).
Collectively, these studies demonstrate that the text of Double Falsehood is indeed what
Theobald claimed: a Jacobean play adapted for an early eighteenth-century theatre. Although
Theobald, like other adapters, was undoubtedly responsible for some passages of independent
writing (and for structural and verbal tampering throughout), the text preserves writing by both
Shakespeare and Fletcher, and its primary source was clearly Shelton’s translation of Don Quixote
(a text not in Theobald’s library catalogue, and which he never used elsewhere, or showed any
awareness of ). Consequently, the Jacobean play that Theobald adapted can be confidently identi-
fied as The History of Cardenio, by Fletcher and Shakespeare.
However, Theobald was not the only adapter of the 1727 text. In his Preface to Double Falsehood
he claimed to possess a manuscript ‘of above sixty years standing’ in the handwriting of the fam-
ous old prompter John Downes. Theobald’s preface was published with the title page date of 1728,
but was printed late in 1727, which would place the Downes manuscript no later than 1667, and
perhaps earlier. A revival of the play in those years has been plausibly connected to the theatrical
vogue for Spanish romance from 1663 to 1668, initiated by the success of Sir Samuel Tuke’s The
Adventures of the Five Hours (Hume 1976, 240-2). John Freehafer (1969) suggested that Theobald
possessed, in the handwriting of Downes, William Davenant'’s adaptation of the play, and Hume
(2016) agrees. Both Taylor (2013b) and Hume, using overlapping but distinct arguments, show
that there is nothing unusual or suspicious about the absence of records of a performance of the
Davenant adaptation: ‘we have no grounds for asserting that it was not performed circa 1665 or
1667. All we can say with assurance is that no evidence of performance is known to survive’
(Hume 2016). Elsewhere in this Authorship Companion Tarlinskaja (Chapter 23) and Pascucci
(Chapter 24) independently supply new stylometric evidence of Davenant’s hand in Double
Falsehood (especially in Act 2); Taylor's commentary in Reference provides additional Davenant
parallels (especially in Act 2). Taylor also, for the first time, identifies Colley Cibber (one of the
managers of Drury Lane in 1727) as the author of some of the comic prose in 2.3.
It now seems clear that Double Falsehood is an adaptation, primarily by Theobald with some
help from Cibber, of Davenant’s adaptation of a Jacobean play by Fletcher and Shakespeare. What
editors of Shakespeare should do, in this situation, remains a matter of debate, and will no doubt
be the subject of continuing research. The inclusion of the play in the New Oxford Shakespeare
is designed to serve ‘as a productive stimulus for debate, rather than as a final statement’
(Kirwan 2015b, 178).
586 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
All Is True; or, King Henry VIII 1613
John Fletcher and William Shakespeare
Date Range: 1613
Best Guess: early summer 1613
Text: Reference pp. 2755-829
The only contemporary testimony to the play’s authorship is its inclusion in the 1623 Folio.
Although the poet Alfred Tennyson first suggested that the verse of some scenes could only have
been written by John Fletcher, the first published scholarly case for Fletcher's part-authorship was
made by James Spedding (1850), who assigned to Fletcher the prologue, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1,
3.2.204-460, Act 4, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, and the epilogue. Samuel Hickson (1850; 1851) independently, and
using different methods, simultaneously came to almost exactly the same conclusions. Spedding
felt that Act 4 might be the joint work of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher; he also suggested
that 3.2 might be either Shakespeare revising the work of another, or another revising Shakespeare.
Spedding’s suspicion of a third hand has rarely been taken seriously and no compelling evidence
has been produced to support the identification of Francis Beaumont, Philip Massinger, or any
other third author.
Spedding’s general conclusions about the play as a collaboration between Fletcher and
Shakespeare were lent support in the work of EF. J. Furnivall on run-on lines (1874a); John K.
Ingram on verse line weak endings (1875); Ashley H. Thorndike (1901) on contractions evidence;
W. E. Farnham (1916) on colloquial contractions; Karl Ege on elements of style, including use
of imagery, rhetorical repetition, alliteration, and antithesis (1922); E. K. Chambers on various
elements of verse forms (1930); Charles Langworthy (1931) on the relationship between sen-
tences and verse lines; Ants Oras on use of extra monosyllables as the last metrically unstressed
unit ina verse line (1953) and on pause patterns (1960); Marco Mincoff (1961) on the percentage
of run-on lines in ten Fletcher plays; and MacDonald P. Jackson on the use of affirmative
particles (1962) and rare vocabulary (1979). Brian Vickers’s Shakespeare, Co-Author (2002b)
provides the most comprehensive account of this earlier scholarship. No less remarkable than
these quantifiable features are the disparities in complexity and idiosyncrasy of syntax and
imagery: the scenes assignable to Shakespeare display consistently the kinds of grammatical
muscularity characteristic of his late style as analysed by Dolores M. Burton (1973), John
Porter Houston (1988), and Russ McDonald (2006), among others. Cyrus Hoy’s (1962) survey
and analysis of linguistic forms in the entire Beaumont and Fletcher canon confirmed
Fletcher's part-authorship, but identified only six scenes as entirely Fletcher's work (1.3, 1.4,
3.1, 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4). Although mixed authorship of some scenes is possible, Vickers harshly
criticizes Hoy’s reliance on a single type of evidence, which might have been affected by scribal
interference (as happens occasionally elsewhere in the Fletcher canon). But Hoy lent the
authority of analytical bibliography to the nineteenth-century attribution, and persuaded
Fredson Bowers to include Henry VIII in his ten-volume Cambridge edition of The Dramatic
Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon (1966-96).
The cumulative findings of earlier generations of scholars established beyond reasonable doubt
that Fletcher and Shakespeare collaborated in writing All Is True, just as they did with Two Noble
Kinsmen. A battery of tests completed since the mid-1980s has reinforced those earlier conclu-
sions. These studies include, most notably, Marina Tarlinskaja’s various metrical analyses (1987;
2014), Jonathan Hope’ sociolinguistic research (1994), and Jackson's analysis of phrase length
(1997). The play was identified as co-authored by Fletcher and Shakespeare in the 1986 Oxford
Shakespeare. In the New Oxford Shakespeare we identify Shakespeare as sole author of 1.1, 1.2, 2.3,
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 587
2.4, 3.2.1-204, and 5.1; Fletcher is wholly or primarily responsible for the remainder, and is there-
fore the dominant author, as he is again in Two Noble Kinsmen.
The Globe Theatre burned down during a performance on 29 June 1613, and a manuscript letter
of 4 July 1613 (written by Henry Bluett to Richard Weeks) reported that the disaster occurred
while the company was acting ‘a new play called all is triewe w® had beene acted not passinge 2 or
3 times before’ (Cole 1981). This documentary evidence strongly supports a date of composition
in spring or early summer of 1613, and its discovery in 1981 rendered obsolete previous specula-
tion—summarized and endorsed by R. A. Foakes (1957)—that the play might date from a some-
what earlier time.
But recently Martin Wiggins (#1674) has argued that this external evidence pointing to 1613 is
contradicted by ‘strong internal evidence’ that suggests a date early in 1612, or even earlier than
1612. As he notes, in both Al] Is True and John Webster's The White Devil (Wiggins #1689) a prin-
cipal female character refuses to be tried in Latin, with both characters describing it as ‘a strange
tongue. Each also rejects a Cardinal’s authority, saying that he shall not be her ‘judge’ The title
page to The White Devil is dated 1612, which means it was published at latest on 25 March 1613.
Wiggins believes Webster to be the borrower for three reasons: (1) Webster habitually borrows
from other works, (2) the parallels occur in scenes written by both Fletcher and Shakespeare, and
(3) while Katherine's rejection of the trial in Latin and rejection of Wolsey occur in Raphael
Holinshed’s Chronicles, the primary source for the Fletcher-Shakespeare play, there is nothing
comparable in Webster's sources for the trial of Vittoria. Wiggins notes that one counter-argument
is that All Is True does not appear in the list of plays performed at court in the 1612-13 Revels
season, but reasons that a play about a triumphant Henry might have been ‘tactless’ so soon after
the death of Prince Henry. Wiggins thus conjectures that All Is True was first written in or earlier
than 1612, and that the documentary evidence for it having been acted only ‘two or three times
before’ the fire in June 1613 refers to a revival of the play. Alternatively, he conjectures that the play
‘waited a long time before going into production, and was only first performed in June 1613, but
that Webster had somehow read the play in manuscript. He admits that this alternative is unlikely,
and we agree.
We do not find compelling any of the reasons Wiggins gives for the relationship of All Is True to
‘The White Devil. To begin with, another early witness of the Globe fire—Henry Wotton, in a letter
of 2 July 1613—also specifically attests that All Is True was ‘a new Play’—and thus not, as Wiggins
conjectures, a revival of a play that had been performed a year or more earlier, in time for the
notoriously slow Webster to be influenced by it in a play completed, performed, and subsequently
published in 1612 (Wotton 1661, 30). One witness insisting that it was an entirely new play might
be mistaken; two independent witnesses are hard to ignore. Secondly, the conjecture that All Is
True would have been tactless during the court season of 1612-13 is impossible to prove or dis-
prove: but the six comedies performed before the bereaved father by the King’s Men could all be
dismissed as equally tactless. Indeed, a better case can be made that a major source, or inspiration,
for All Is True was the mix of tragedy and comedy and spectacle, death and marriage and glittering
processions, in the Jacobean court in the winter of 1612-13. Huge crowds of Londoners witnessed
the public funeral of Prince Henry in December, followed by the spectacular festivities for the
wedding of Princess Elizabeth in February—the first royal wedding in England for seventy years,
with the royal family dressed in gold and silver, and wearing jewels that were alone worth ‘nine
Hundred Thousand poundes sterling’ (Taylor 2012b). Three of the scenes written by Fletcher,
featuring the two anonymous Gentlemen (2.1, 4.1) and the porters (5.3), dramatize key historical
events not from the perspective of the royal or aristocratic participants themselves, but as charis-
matic spectacles that ordinary Londoners witness, and gossip about, with a mixture of fascination
and irony. This is the play’s most original feature, dramaturgically. Numerous instant pamphlets
588 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
about the royal funeral and princess bride appeared in the four months from December 1612 to
March 1633. It would be an extraordinary coincidence if All Is True were written months before
the events that it seems so perfectly to reflect.
Though the verbal parallels cited by Wiggins may seem to be evidence more objective than
this connection with the events of 1612-13, his parallels do not stand up to systematic investiga-
tion. The phrase a strange tongue also appears in two other early modern plays: Shakespeare's 2
Henry IV (13.69) and Jasper Mayne’s A City Match (1639, STC 17750). In All Is True it is used at
3.1.43, a scene attributed to Fletcher. Thus, the phrase was used by four different dramatists
between 1596 and 1639. In the larger textual culture it was extremely common: Early English
Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP) records 121 examples in books printed
between 1576 and 1612, and five examples in three different books printed in 1613, none of which
is at all likely to have been influenced by either All Is True or The White Devil. The phrase be my
judge occurs in a different scene from ‘a strange tongue’ (2.4.75, 80, 116). It is even more com-
mon in the early modern theatre than ‘a strange tongue’: a search in Literature Online identifies
it eight more times in plays of 1576-1642, including Titus Andronicus 1.429 (a scene written by
George Peele), 2 Henry VI 22.67 (by Christopher Marlowe), Winter’s Tale 3.2.113, Ben Jonson's
Sejanus, Philip Massinger’s The Picture, Richard Brome’s Queen and Concubine, and twice in
the plays of Thomas Nabbes. The examples from Jonson and Brome also object to an accuser
being the judge. In EEBO-TCP between 1576 and 1613 the same trigram occurs sixteen times
(not counting White Devil).
A female character's objection to her major antagonist’s involvement in legal proceedings
against her seems largely coincidental. Machiavellian Catholic churchmen abound in early
modern plays set in Italy, France, and Spain; Cardinal Wolsey’s machinations were of course
notorious in the period. It seems also possible that Webster knew the story of Katherine of
Aragon’s objection to Latin: the sources for Tudor history used by the authors of All Is True are
much the same as the sources for the two-part play on ‘Lady Jane’ (Wiggins #1365, 1369, 1369a)
used by Webster and his collaborators in 1602. Also, Katherine’s objections are contextually
much different in All Is True from Vittoria’s in The White Devil. Wolsey (and the papal legate,
Cardinal Campeius) interrupt Katherine and her “Women as at worke’ in Katherine's domestic
space in 3.1. Wolsey requests a private meeting with Katherine away from her waiting women
and domestic servants, which she rejects saying there is nothing in her conscience that
‘Deserues a Corner’. Wolsey’s subsequent use of Latin in this context is rude and deliberately
alienating: he is treating her as a non-English subject. As Gordon McMullan notes (2000, 320),
Katherine's objection means that she insists upon her right to be addressed in English as
Queen of England and ensures that she has witnesses to whatever Wolsey says. In contrast, the
centrepiece to Webster’s The White Devil is Vittoria’s arraignment at Rome before a crowded
court. At the beginning of the arraignment, a lawyer (not a cardinal) addresses the judge in
Latin to begin the case against Vittoria. She objects to the use of Latin because she fears that
many of those present will not be able to understand the particulars of her case. The Cardinal
tells Vittoria that it would be better for her if the case were made in Latin since then fewer
people would hear of her misdeeds.
We conclude that the correspondences between the two plays are minimal and coincidental,
and that the external documentary evidence fixes the date of composition for All Is True with
unusual precision. Other internal evidence supports a late date. In the index of stressed syllable
placement produced from Tarlinskaja’s studies of metre, Shakespeare’s portion of All Is True is
closest to his share of Two Noble Kinsmen (see Table 25.8); for strong metrical breaks, which con-
form broadly to the New Oxford Shakespeare chronology, All Is True achieves the highest total and
is placed last (see Table 25.9).
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 589
The Two Noble Kinsmen 1613
John Fletcher and William Shakespeare
Date Range: 1613-14
Best Guess: late 1613
Text: Reference pp. 3559-634
Entered in the Stationers’ Register on 8 April 1634, and published in an edition dated 1634; both
the entry and title page attribute the play to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. The morris
dance in 3.5 was apparently borrowed from Francis Beaumont’s Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn
Masque (1613; Wiggins #1700), performed on 20 February 1613 and entered in the Stationers’
Register a week later; it seems too integral to the plot to represent a later interpolation. The pro-
logue's reference to ‘our losses’ is plausibly interpreted as an allusion to the burning down of the
Globe on 29 June 1613. If so, this would necessarily place Two Noble Kinsmen later than All Is True.
Indeed, it has been often assumed that Two Noble Kinsmen was the first play performed in the
rebuilt theatre (completed by June 1614). Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair (first performance 31
October 1614) twice sarcastically alludes to ‘Palamor’ (4.3.70, 5.6.83—4), in a way which suggests
that Two Noble Kinsmen would be fresh in the spectators’ minds. All of this evidence points
towards a date of composition in the twelve months following June 1613. But there is no clear evi-
dence that Two Noble Kinsmen was written for the Globe; it might just as easily have been written
for the Blackfriars.
Lois Potter (Fletcher 1997) compares ‘in so dull a time of Winter’ in John Webster's 1612 preface
to The White Devil (STC 25178; Wiggins #1674) to the Prologue’s reference to ‘dull time’ (Pro.31) in
Two Noble Kinsmen, suggesting that this might help narrow the date range to the winter of 1613/14.
But Webster was talking about a different winter, and citing the weather as an excuse or explan-
ation for the failure of his play in an outdoor amphitheatre. The Prologue to Two Noble Kinsmen
is instead imagining or hoping that the play will keep ‘A little dull time from us, which need not
refer to the weather at all, especially if the play was written for indoor performance at the
Blackfriars. For instance, in James Shirley’s The Lady of Pleasure (1637, STC 22448) a character
says ‘come Ladies weele beguile| Dull time, and take the aire’ (H4r, last words of Act 4): going out-
side for a walk is the antidote to ‘dull time, which therefore clearly does not refer to winter wea-
ther. Times can be dull for any number of reasons. As Wiggins (#1724, who agrees with dating the
play to 1613) notes, “The Prologue suggests a date sooner rather than later after the Globe fire. The
actors ‘losses’ could not be said to ‘fall so thick if the burning down of the Globe were too much
earlier than the feared, hypothetical failure of this new play.
Though the play’s entry and title page both explicitly state that Two Noble Kinsmen is a col-
laborative play by Fletcher and Shakespeare, the play’s authorship was subject to some dispute
until the late twentieth century. Most discussion of authorship turned not on whether
Shakespeare wrote all the play but whether he wrote any of it. That scepticism was founded on
the play’s omission from the 1623 Folio. But that omission can easily be explained by the collab-
orative authorship asserted on its first publication. Although publishers’ attributions of plays to
Shakespeare before 1623, or after the closing of the theatres, must be regarded with consider-
able scepticism, Two Noble Kinsmen is the only play first attributed to him in the two decades
between the Folio and the Civil War, and the only play printed before 1660 attributed to him as
part-author. In 1619 the Lord Chamberlain insisted, in a letter to the Court of the Stationers’
Company, that in future no plays belonging to the King’s Men should be printed without their
consent; between this date and the closing of the theatres only two plays (other than those in the
1623 Folio) were printed in first editions which attributed them to Shakespeare: Othello (1622) and
590 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
Two Noble Kinsmen (1634). The attribution is supported by the fact that it occurs in the Stationers’
Register as well as the first edition, and by the hypothesis that the text was printed from a manu-
script annotated by the book-keeper of Shakespeare's company. The external evidence for
Shakespeare's part-authorship of Two Noble Kinsmen therefore appears to be reliable.
Paul Bertram (1965) claimed the whole play for Shakespeare, but his arguments were decisively
refuted by Cyrus Hoy (1969). Barron Brainerd (1980) found Two Noble Kinsmen statistically devi-
ant relative to his ten tested variates; he did not attempt to divide the play into authorial shares,
but if Shakespeare were sole author it should not be deviant. Moreover, if Shakespeare were sole
author, the play should have been included in the Folio. Studies of verbal parallels by Harold
Littledale (1876), of vocabulary by Alfred Hart (1943a), of imagery by Edward A. Armstrong
(1946), Marco Mincoff (1952), Kenneth Muir (1964), and C. H. Hobday (1965), of linguistic
evidence by Cyrus Hoy (1962), of pause patterns by Ants Oras (1960), of the treatment of sources
by Ann Thompson (1978), and of metre summarized by E. K. Chambers (1930), all corroborate
the external evidence, discriminating two stylistic patterns in the play, one remarkably congruent
with late Shakespeare, the other equally congruent with mid-career Fletcher. The play’s
co-authorship has also been supported by Jonathan Hope’s sociolinguistic study distinguishing
grammatical preferences between the two authors (1994), and by Marina Tarlinskaja’s analyses of
metre (1987; 2014). Brian Vickers (2002b) provides a comprehensive account of how the play’s
co-authorship has been proven and has gained acceptance in Shakespeare circles; all recent edi-
tions of Two Noble Kinsmen accept its co-authorship.
Building upon these various studies that distinguish between Fletcher and Shakespeare, in
the New Oxford Shakespeare we attribute most confidently the following scenes to Shakespeare:
1.1—4, 2.1, 3.1-2, 5.1.18-68 (from the exit of Theseus to the end of the scene), 5.2, 5.3, 5.5, 5.6. The
authorship of one short scene (1.5) and one prose scene (4.3) is disputed. It is possible, even
likely, that some scenes include mixed authorship. Moreover, as discussed in Rory Loughnane’s
Textual Introduction in the Reference volume, certain errors and inconsistencies in the quarto
text suggest that the play has been subject to revisions. What is beyond doubt is that, as with
Cardenio and All Is True, Shakespeare wrote the opening to the play. But, unlike the other two
Fletcher collaborations, and in what was almost certainly his final play, Shakespeare also
contributed the ending.
‘Ten in the hundred’ 1614
Date Range: 1608-19
Best guess: 1614
Text: Reference p. 3658
John Combe, a wealthy and prominent citizen of Stratford and subject of this poem, died on
10 July 1614. “Tenn in the hundred’ was a fairly common phrase to describe usury, one that often
appears in sermons. (EEBO-TCP returns fifty-five printed books using the phrase between 1566
and 1614, the year of Combe’s death.). Thomas Dekker is one of the first to associate the phrase
with the devil in his Seuen Deadly Sinnes of London (1606, STC 881), where he personifies
“Vsurie’ as ‘the Diuels Tole-taker’ who ‘keepe[s] the dores till the letchery of ten in the hundred
be sated’ (sig. D4v). Although the lyric could have been written any time during Combe’s career
as a money lender, this particular satiric use of the phrase seems to attain prominence around
the time of Dekker’s pamphlet. E. K. Chambers (1930, 2: 140) identified seven epitaphs that use
the phrase in conjunction with the devil or damnation, the earliest from 1608. We use that as the
lower boundary.
THE CANON AND CHRONOLOGY 591
It is possible the poem was composed as a mock-epitaph before Combe’s death in 1614; indeed,
the lyric is somewhat at odds with the assessment of Combe in ‘How ere he liued’ (see below),
which refers to his posthumous generosity. However, most early witnesses treat it as an epitaph,
starting with its first printing, unattributed, in a 1619 reissue of Richard Braithwait’s Remaines
After Death (STC 3568), where it appears among a collection of epitaphs. Robert Dobyns records
it as having been on Combe’s tomb, although he notes that the verses were subsequently removed.
Therefore we treat this lyric, like “How ere he liued; as having been written soon after Combe’s
death, although we are less certain this is the case.
Because it was a fairly common joke, it is difficult to assess Shakespeare's possible authorship.
Shakespeare is first mentioned as the author in a manuscript copy from the 1620s, ‘Folger MS
V.a.345. Additionally, a 1634 letter (quoted in Chambers 1930, 2: 242) from ‘Lieutenant Hammond’
(which does not include a text of the lyric) and Nicholas Burghe’s manuscript commonplace book
(‘Bodleian MS Ashmole 38’) from around 1650 both explicitly associate Shakespeare with the
lyric. The early biographical accounts of John Aubrey (Dick 1957) and Nicholas Rowe (1709-10,
vol. 1) attribute it to Shakespeare. Therefore, while this generic poem has no linguistic features
that could confirm Shakespeare's authorship, the circumstantial case is fairly strong, although, as
with “How ere he liued; Shakespeare may simply have been identified as the author because of his
established relationship with the Combes.
‘How e’er he lived, judge not’ 1614
Date Range: 1613-18
Best guess: 1614
Text: Reference p. 3652
John Combe'’s will, made 28 January 1613, left money to the poor, which is alluded to in this poem.
John Weever recorded a text of the poem during his visit to Stratford in 1617-18, which provides
the latest possible date for its composition. It seems most plausible that it was written soon after
death, perhaps once the details of his will (which was proved on 10 November 1615) became
public.
Shakespeare is named as the author only in Nicholas Burghe’s manuscript commonplace book
(‘Bodleian MS Ashmole 38’), where this poem is included in a section of texts collected between
1640 and 1660. In Chapter 7 of this volume, Francis X. Connor shows that attribution tests are
inconclusive. Shakespeare could have been named the author simply because he was the most
famous poet from Stratford. However, no other plausible candidate has emerged, and Shakespeare
was certainly acquainted with Combe, who in his will gave ‘M" William Shackspere five pounds
(Chambers 1930, 2: 127-41).
‘Good friend, for Jesus’ sake, forbear’ 1616
Date Range: 1614-16
Best guess: 1616
Text: Reference p. 3652
Shakespeare has traditionally been identified as the author of his epitaph, a logical inference since
it puts a curse on anyone who moves ‘my bones, which implies that its author is the deceased.
However, the earliest attribution appears in a manuscript commonplace book of Francis Fane,
compiled about 1629 (‘Shakespeare Birthplace Trust MS ER.93/2’). John Dowdall in 1693 would
592 GARY TAYLOR AND RORY LOUGHNANE
ape slg ish of
Beudly for the battering downe of those vanities of the Gentiles w® are
comhended in a May-pole, written by a zealous brother from
the Blacke=Friers [by Richard Corbett; also attrib. John Harris]
Sence [by Richard Corbett]
A song against weomen that wear their brests bare [doubtfully attrib.
Richard Corbett]
Of a slumbering maid
On W" Cole an Alehouskee
at Coton neer Cambridg
The Fart cen-sured in the Lower house of Parliament [by John Hoskyns]
The farts Epitaph in the Parliament house [by John Hoskyns]
A Discripcon of a fart in Prose [prose]
An epigram (An English lad long woo'd a lasse of Wales)
[by Sir John Harington]
Of the Angell at Oxford where virtue and grace were seruants
In tobaconistas
A copy of a Letter sent vnto the Pope [prose]
A songe (There was an old ladd, rode on an old padd) [attrib.
Sir Thomas Parsons]
On the Earle of Som'sett [attrib. Sir Walter Ralegh]
An Epitaph (Wee liued One and Twenty yeares)
From Count: Somerset daughter to Katherine Countesse of Suffolke
[Untitled: A page, a squire a viscount and an Earle]
An Epitaph on D’. Price subdeane of Westm. who dyde a roman Catholicke
A Representation of y* states of y° Low Countries vnder y* gouernm’.
of y® Prince Of Orange
Vpon lustice
An Epitaph vpon Light=borne a sergeant A very knave
[Untitled: Thy father all from thee, by his last Will] [by John Donne] 163v
Vpon The Great Ship
Mr Herick His farewell to Sacke [by Robert Herrick]
The Time expired he welcoms his M™ Sacke as followeth [by Robert Herrick]
King Oberons Pallace. “R: Herick [by Robert Herrick]
King oberons Apparel. ‘S' Simon Steward’ [by Sir Simeon Steward;
sometimes attrib. Robert Herrick]
King Oberons feast. ‘Rob: Herrick’ [by Robert Herrick]
Of irish at tables
Elegia (Behold a wonder such as hath not bin)
An eligie (Come madam come: all rest my powers defy). ‘I: D? [by John Donne]
Vpon A gold cheyne lent and loste. ‘I: Done’ [by John Donne]
[Untitled: Promus since that thy meynteynance is all]
611
113V
115
117
117V
118V
155
156
156V
157
157
157V
158V
158V
158V
158V
159
159V
162
162V
162V
163
163
163
163V
163V
163V
164
165
165V
167
168V
169V
170
170V
171
171V
172V
612 DATASETS
[143] Ben Iohnsons Maske before the Kinge [by Ben Jonson]
[144] The Warrs of the Gods
[146] Ben: Ionsons grace [by Ben Jonson]
[147] Anagram
[148] Poetica fictio de mulieris origine
[149] Whoope doe me noe harme good man
[150] To the tune of Virginia
[151] A song (Heaven bless king Iames our Ioy)
[152] A song (The Scottishmen be beggars yet)
[153] Vpon Prince Charles his arrivall from Spaine Oct 5
[154] A song (In Sussex late since Eighty Eight)
[155] An epigram (The Lawyers did of late in freindship Iarre)
th
1623
William Compton, first Earl of Northampton]
[157] Aretines Epitaph
[160] A song (Phoebus fiery, hot & weary, would not tarry here)
[161] Let Closestoole & Chamberpot Choose out A Doctor
[162] A song (Come all you farmers out of y* Country)
Cambridge: 1624: To y* tune of whoop Do me &tc
[164] On The Duke of Bucks:
[165] GeorglVs DUX bVCkIngaMlae 1628 [attrib. John Marston]
[166] [Untitled: Art thou returnd great Duke w all thy faults]
[attrib. John Heappe]
[167] Englands Teares for Scotland
Dataset 2.2
cee
(for Gary Taylor,
Index of Authors
Austin, William (1587-1634) ODNB
Barrister of Lincoln's Inn; lived in Southwark
Ayton, Sir Robert (1570-1638) ODNB
educ. St Leonard’s College, St Andrews (BA 1588, MA
1589); University of Paris; knighted 1612; Gentleman of the
Bedchamber and Queen’s private secretary; Privy Councillor
to Charles I
Bacon, Sir Francis (1561-1626) ODNB
educ. Trinity College, Cambridge, 1573-5; Gray’s Inn, 1576;
Bencher, 1586; MP; knighted, 1603; Solicitor General,
1607; Attorney General, 1613; Lord Chancellor, 1618; Baron
[145] A song (Cooke Lorry would needs have y* divell his guest) [By Ben Jonson]
[156] Vpon Sir Iohn Spencer. ‘Lord Compton who fell frantick: [attrib.
[158] An Epigram (Had we for tearmes of law fower tearms of war)
[159] An Epigram (Had weomen wit, me thinkes they should not boast)
[163] A Proper new song made Of those y' Comencd y* King being at
Rawlinson Poetry 160”: The Manuscript
Source of Two Attributions to Shakespeare’)
173
174
175
175V
175V
176
176V
177V
178v
179V
180V
181V
182V
182V
182V
182V
183
183
183V
185
191V
198
198
198
206
35V
29, 107V, 117
Verulam, 1618; Viscount St Albans 1621; indicted and
dismissed, 1612
Basse, William (1583-1653?) ODNB
Beaumont, Francis (1584/5-1616) ODNB
educ. Broadgates Hall [Pembroke College], Oxford (matric.
1597); Inner Temple, 1600
Brooke, Samuel (1575-1631) ODNB
educ. Trinity College, Cambridge, 1596 (MA 1604, BD 1607,
DD 1615); secretly celebrated marriage of John Donne and
Ann More; chaplain to Prince Henry, James I and Charles I;
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1629
Browne, William (1590/1-1645?) ODNB
educ. Tavistock grammar school; Exeter College, Oxford,
C.1603 (matric. 1624, MA 1625); Inner Temple, from
Clifford’s Inn, 1611; later attached to household of Herbert
family, Earls of Pembroke
C., A.N.
C., L. de
Carew, Thomas (1594/5-1640) ODNB
educ. Merton College, Oxford (matric. 1608, BA 1611);
Middle Temple, 1612; diplomatic appointments in Italy, the
Hague and Paris, 1613-19; Gentleman of the Privy Chamber,
1628, and subsequently Sewer in Ordinary to the King
Carey, Thomas (1597/8-1649)
second son of Robert Carey, first Earl of Monmouth; educ.
Exeter College, Oxford (matric. 1611, BA 1614); Gentleman
of the King’s Bedchamber
Charles I (1600-1649) ODNB
King of England, 1625-49
Cholmley, Sir Henry
brother of the royalist soldier and MP Sir Hugh Cholmley (1600-57)
Compton, William (c.1575? -1630)
educ. Gray’s Inn 1593, Cambridge University (MA 1595),
Oxford University (MA 1605), Lord President of Wales 1617-30, first
Earl of Northampton 1618, Privy Council 1629
Corbett, Richard (1582-1635) ODNB
educ. Westminster School; Broadgates Hall [Pembroke
College], Oxford (matric. 1598); Christ Church, Oxford, 1599
(BA 1602, MA 1605, DD 1617); Proctor of Christ Church,
1612; Dean of Christ Church, 1620; Bishop of Oxford, 1628-32;
Bishop of Norwich, 1632-5
Davies, Sir John (1569-1626) ODNB
educ. Winchester College; Queen’s College, Oxford (matric.
1585); Middle Temple, 1588; BA 1590; called to bar, 1595;
disbarred, 1598, and restored, 1601; MP; Solicitor General
for Ireland, 1603; Attorney General for Ireland, 1606;
Serjeant-at-Law, 1609
DATASETS 613,
33V
13v (2)
20V, 27V
85V
27) 37V, 52V
21V, 34V
43
54; 55, 77 77V, 106 bis,
106v bis, 110V, 113V, 115
112V
23
53
182V
15V, 52V (2), 155, 156
37V
614 DATASETS
Donne, John (1572-1631) ODNB
educ. Hart Hall, Oxford (matric. 1584, MA 1610; DD at
Cambridge 1615); Lincoln’s Inn, 1592; secretary to Sir
Thomas Egerton, 1597/8; Royal Chaplain; Reader at Lincoln’s
Inn, 1616-22; Dean of St Paul’s, 1621-31; vicar of St
Dunstan's in the West, 1624
Dowland, John (1563?-1626) ODNB
Earle John (1598(x1601)-1665) ODNB
educ. Christ Church, Oxford (matric. and BA 1619); Merton
College, Oxford (Fellow 1619, MA 1624, DD 1642);
Proctor, 1631; member of Great Tew circle; tutor and
chaplain to the future Charles IT, 1641; Dean of
Westminster, 1660; Bishop of Worcester, 1662-3; Bishop of
Salisbury, 1663-5
Fletcher, John (1579-1625) ODNB
son of Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London; educ. probably
Cambridge; protégé of Earl of Huntingdon
Harington, Sir John (1560-1612) ODNB
Godson of Queen Elizabeth; educ. Eton College; King’s
College, Cambridge (matric. 1576; BA 1577-8; MA 1581);
Lincoln’s Inn, 1581; knighted by Earl of Essex in Ireland,
1599; stopped writing epigrams in 1603
Harris, John (? b.1600/1)
educ. Christ Church, Oxford (matric. and BA 1621)
Heappe, John
Herbert, George (1593-1633) ODNB
educ. Westminster School; Trinity College, Cambridge
(matric. 1609, BA 1612-13, MA 1616, Fellow 1614-16);
Reader in Rhetoric, 1618; Public Orator of Cambridge
University, 1619-27; ordained, 1630; rector of Fugglestone
and Bemerton, Wiltshire, 1630-3
Herrick, Robert (1591-1674) ODNB
apprenticed to uncle, the King’s Jeweller, 1607; educ. St
John’s College, 1613-16, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA
1616, MA 1620); chaplain on Isle of Rhe expedition, 1627;
rector of Dean Prior, Devon, 1629/30-46, 1660-74
Hertford, Countess of ODNB
probably Frances, née Howard (1578-1639), third wife (in 1600)
of Sir Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford (1539?-1621)
Hodgson (or Hodson), William (fl. 1617-40) ODNB
educ. Peterhouse, Cambridge (matric. 1617, BA 1621, MA 1624)
Hoskins, John (1566-1638) ODNB
educ. Winchester School; New College, Oxford (matric. 1585,
BA 1588, MA 1592); Middle Temple (barrister 1600); MP
for Hereford; justice itinerant of Wales; Serjeant-at-Law, 1623
13V (2), 29V, 51, 113, 163V,
171, 171V
103V
22
45
158Vv
155
198
84 (2), 84v (?)
28V, 46V, 47V, 105 (2),
165, 165V, 167, 169V
118
39
30V, 157V, 158v (bis)
Jeffries, John
perhaps John Geoffreys (d. 1660), educ. Emmanuel College,
Cambridge (matric. 1627, BA 1631, MA 1634)
Johnson, James
Jonson, Ben (1572-1637) ODNB
educ. Westminster School under William Camden; honorary
degree at Christ Church, Oxford, while guest of Richard
Corbett, 1619
King, Henry (1592-1669) ODNB
eldest son of John King, Bishop of London; educ. Westminster
School; Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1609, BA 1611, MA
1614); prebendary of St Paul’s, 1616; honorary member of
Lincoln’s Inn, 1619; Royal Chaplain to Charles I and Charles
II; Dean of Rochester, 1639; Bishop of Chichester, 1642-3, 1660-9
Lewis, William (1591/2-1667) ODNB
educ. Hart Hall, Oxford (BA 1608); Oriel College, Oxford
(Fellow 1608; MA 1612, DD 1627); chaplain to Francis
Bacon; Provost of Oriel College, 1618-22; chaplain and
secretary to the Duke of Buckingham on Isle of Rhe
expedition, 1627; Royal chaplain; Master of the Hospital of
St Cross, Winchester, 1628-43, 1660-7
M.,E.
Marston, John
probably not the dramatist (1576-1634) but John Marston
(fl. 1629-37); educ. Magdalen College, Oxford (BA 1630,
MA 1632); rector of St Mary Magdalen, Canterbury, 1631,
and vicar of St Mary of Bredin, Canterbury, 1637
Parsons, Sir Thomas
Radney, Sir George (d. 1601)
Ralegh, Sir Walter (1554-1618) ODNB
educ. Oriel College, Oxford, c.1568; Middle Temple; knighted
1585; imprisoned in the Tower, 1603-17; executed after
failure of second Guiana expedition
Randolph, Thomas (1605-35) ODNB
educ. Westminster School; Trinity College, Cambridge
(matric. 1624, BA 1628, minor fellow 1629, major fellow
1632, MA 1632)
Rayment, John [or Ja: Raynalls’]
perhaps John Rayment, educ. Peterhouse, Cambridge (matric.
1627, Scholar 1628, BA 1631, MA 1634); I have not been
able to trace any James Raynalls, to whom the poem is
attributed in Yale MS Osborn b.197
Roe, Sir Thomas (1581-1644) ODNB
educ. Magdalen College, Oxford (matric. 1593); Middle
Temple, 1597; knighted, 1604; Ambassador to the Great Mogul,
1614-17, and at Constantinople, 1621; MP
Seares [or ‘Steares’], John
DATASETS 615
41
14Vv (2)
12v, 25v (bis), 34V, 110V,
111, 173, 175, 175V
39V, 41V
23V, 55V, 56V
103
198 (?)
162 (?)
117 V
57 (?), 117
31
76
38Vv
616 DATASETS
perhaps John Steares (to whom the poem is attributed in
Folger MS V.a.147, f. 27v): educ. Pembroke College,
Cambridge (BA 1608, MA 1612, probably rector of Bircham-Newton,
Norfolk, till 1669) 33V
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) ODNB
educ. King’s New School, Stratford-upon-Avon 41, 108
Steward, Sir Simeon (1579/80?-1629?) ODNB
educ. Trinity Hall, Cambridge; Gray’s Inn, 1593; knighted
1603; MP for Shaftesbury (1614), Cambridgeshire (1624-5)
and Aldesburgh (1628-9) 168V
Strode, William (1601?-1645) ODNB
educ. Westminster School; Christ Church, Oxford, 1617
(matric. 1621, BA 1621, MA 1624, BD 1631, DD 1638);
chaplain to Richard Corbett, 1628; Public Orator of Oxford
University, 1629-45; Canon (1638) and Sub-Dean of of Christ
Church, 1639-43 51V, 113
Suckling, Sir John (1609-1641?) ODNB
educ. Westminster School (?); Trinity College, Cambridge
(matric. 1623) 48v
Sylvester, Josuah (1562/3-1618) ODNB
educ. select school of Adrian a Saravia, Southampton, 1573-6; Groom of
the Chamber for Prince Henry, c.1606-12 100 (bis), 101v
Waller, Edmund (1606-87) ODNB
educ. Eton College; King’s College, Cambridge (matric.
1621); Lincoln’s Inn, 1622; MP intermittently 1624-87 48v
Wotton, Sir Henry (1568-1639) ODNB
educ. Winchester School; New College, Oxford (matric. 1584);
Queen's College, Oxford (BA 1588); Middle Temple, 1595;
Provost of Eton College, 1624-39 85,109
Wren, C. ODNB
probably Christopher Wren (1589-1658), educ. St John’s
College, Oxford (matric. 1608, BA 1609, MA 1613, Proctor
1619, BD 1620); incorporated at Cambridge 1620; DD
Peterhouse, 1630; Dean of Windsor 1635 23 (2), 36, 37V
Dataset 2.3
(for Gary Taylor, ““Rawlinson Poetry 160”: The Manuscript
Source of Two Attributions to Shakespeare’)
Index of Titles
30: ° May 1630 30V
Against & For Fruition 48Vv
An other (Noe spring nor somer beauty hath such grace) 103V
An other (Wilt thou hear what man can say) 25V
An other [on Prince Henry] 27
An other [to the queen of Bohemia] 84v
DATASETS
Anagram
Angell at Oxford where virtue and grace were seruants, Of the
Another [on the King of Sweden]
Another (You’l ask perhaps wherefore I stay)
Answeare of y* Countesse of hertford to S". Geo: Radnors Elegie, The
Aretines Epitaph
Armes [of Prince Henry], Vpon his
Barklays epitaph
Ben Johnsons Maske before the Kinge
Ben: Ionson To the painter
Ben: Ionsons grace
Blessed eliza of famous memorie| The humble petic6n of these
wretched & most contemptible the poore comons of England, To the
Cherry=stone sent to the tip of the Lady Jemonia Walgraues Eare, Vpon a
Con=Quest by flighte
Copy of a Letter sent vnto the Pope, A [prose]
Death of Mistris Boulstead, On the
Death of prince Henry; y* Earths Complaint, Vpon The Descripcén: of a
woman, The
Description Of a looking=glasse and an howreglas, A
Deuines meditation upon y* plague, A
Deuine M™., A
Discripcon of a fart in Prose, A
Distracted Elegie vpon y' most execrable murther of Thomas Scott Preacher
whoe was kild by an English soldier in a Church=Porch at Vrtrecht, as he
was entring to deuine seruice, A
Doctor Brookes of Teares
Do’ Corbets wife walking in y * snow, On
D' Kinge On his deceased Wife
Duke of Bucks:, On The
Duke of Richmond, Vpon the
Earle of Some'sett, On the
Eglogve To his worthy father M*. Beniamin Iohnson, An
Elegia (Behold a wonder such as hath not bin)
Eligie, An (Come madam come: all rest my powers defy)
Elegie consecrated to y* pious memory of y* most renowned king of
Sweden, An
Elegie on the death of the Countesse of Rutland, An
Elegie vpon the death of Dr Donne, An
Elegie vpon the death of M* Ambrose Fisher diuine, & M’ of Arts in Trinity
Colledg in Cambridge, An
Elegie vpon y* death of M". Washington In Spayne, An
Elegie vpon y* death of Sr. Charles Rich Slaine at y* Isle of Ree, An
Elegie vpon the death of S". John Burgh slaine in the Isle of Ree w®. a musket
shott A°. 1627, An
Elegie vpon the Victorious King of Sweden, An
Elegy on the Lady Peniston, An
617
175V
158V
38V
106V
118V
182V
36V
110V
175V
618 DATASETS
Encomiastick Epicedium in memory of the illustrious & eu'renowned late K:
of Swethland, An
Englands Teares for Scotland
Epigram, An (An English lad long wood a lasse of Wales)
Epigram, An (Had we for tearmes of law fower tearms of war)
Epigram, An (Had weomen wit, me thinkes they should not boast)
Epigram, An (The Lawyers did of late in freindship Iarre)
Epigram on A Skinner, An
Epigram on Prince Charles his Birth: May 29" 1630, An
Epitaph, An (Wee liued One and Twenty yeares)
Epitaph, An (When God was pleased, the world unwilling yet)
Epitaph, His (Knew’st thou whose theis ashes were)
Epitaph on D*. Price subdeane of Westm. who dyde a roman Catholicke, An
Epitaph On the Ladye Markham, An
Epitaph vpon Light=borne a sergeant A very knave, An
Epitaphe on, An (As careful nurses in their beds do lay)
Epitaphivm Countissa Pembrook
Epitaphivm Henrici Principis
Epithalamie, An (Oh bright-eyed virgin! Oh how fair thou art!)
Epithalamie Or Nuptiall Hymne vpon the Marriage of the Palssgraue
& the Ladye Elizabeth, An
Exhortation To M' Iohn Hamond minister of the word in the ish of
Beudly for the battering downe of those vanities of the Gentiles w* are
comhended in a May-pole, An
Fart cen-sured in the Lower house of Parliament, The
Farts Epitaph in the Parliament house, The
Felton That kild y* Duke of Bucks: & was hang’d in Chaines, Vpon
Five sences, The
From Count: Somerset daughter to Katherine Countesse of Suffolke
GeorgIVs DUX bVCkIngaMlae 1628
Glorious King of Sweden, Vpon The
Gold cheyne lent and loste, Vpon A
Gratiovs Answeare f'6 the blessed S'. to her whilome subiects w". a deuine
admonition and a propheticall conclusion, A
Gunne powder conspirracie Anagramatized Nowe god can preserve the prince, The
His deceased Wife, Dr. Kinge on
His Epitaph (Knew’st thou whose theis ashes were)
His m*®, To (Dearest thie tresses are not threds of gold)
His m*., To (Here, take my picture; Though I bid farewell)
His m* going beyond Sea, To
Hymne By S‘. Henry Wotton In tyme of his Sicknes, A
Hymne to Christ vpon occasion of taking ship from England, A
In Absence
In English thus
In fancissimas nuptias Frederici Quinti Ilustri Principis Palatini apud Rhenn,
Ducis Bauaria, Romain Emperii Electoris primarii & Serenissima Elizabetha
Iacobi magna Britt: Rege filia vnica Epithalmium
38
206
158Vv
182V
183
182V
21V
12V
162V
41
56V
163
27V
163V
37V
27
26V
102
29
155
157V
158Vv
53
14V
163
198
38V
171V
18V
34
41v
56V
115
113
112V
85
51
106V
30V
12
DATASETS
In festam Quinti Nouembris
In gloriosissimam Passionem & Resurrectionem Domini nostri Jesu
Christi [diagram]
In nive Tumulatu Tumul
In Obitum filii dni Rich: Anderson Militis
In tobaconistas
Infant & y* mother dying in travaile, Vpon an
Irish at tables, Of
Tustice, Vpon
King oberons Apparel
King Oberons feast
King Oberons Pallace
Kings sicknes 1633, Vpon The
Lady Arabella’s Epitaph, The
Let Closestoole & Chamberpot Choose out A Doctor
Lo: Keepers verses on the life of man, The
Lover Comparing himself to a world, A
Loves Laborinth [diagram]
Mind, The
Most high and mightiest the most iust and yet most mercifull the greatest Chancellor
of heauen and the cheife Iudg of y* earth, To the
M' Herick His farewell to Sacke
Mr. Stephens Epitaph
Mvsica Dei Donum
My Princesse & M's the Lady Elizabeth elected Queene of Bohemia, On
Nightingale, The
Ode to the love and beautie of Astrea, An
Of a slumbering maid
Of irish at tables
Of the Angell at Oxford where virtue and grace were seruants
Of the troope of silvan virgins & light paced huntresses of Dianna the goddesse
of hunting, whose habits & aspects were thus by authors described
On do* Corbets wife walking in y* snow
On his deceased Wife, Dr. Kinge
On my Princesse & M's the Lady Elizabeth elected Queene of Bohemia
On Pegg: Nott
On the Death of Mistris Boulstead
On The Duke of Bucks:
On the Earle of Some'sett
On the princes Death vnto the King
On the report of y* death of the Earle of Kensington & S*. Georg Goring
On W®. Cole an Alehouskee at Coton neer Cambridg
Parascene
Pegg: Nott, On
Poeme On the Death of Prince Henry, A
Poetica fictio de mulieris origine
619
176
620 DATASETS
Preparacon toa ioyfull resurrection, A 13
Prince Charles his arrivall from Spaine Oct 5" 1623, Vpon 180V
Princes Death vnto the King , On the 29
Princesse & M's the Lady Elizabeth elected Queene of Bohemia, On my 109
Proper new song made Of those y' Comencd y* King being at Cambridge: 1624:
To y° tune of whoop Do me &tc, A 191V
Psalme 79 76
Psalme 104 77v
Queene of Bohemia, To The 84
R. Herrick his charge vnto his wife 47V
R. Herricks Farewell to Poesye 46V
Report of y* death of the Earle of Kensington & S'. Georg Goring, On the 23
Representation of y* states of y’ Low Countries vnder y* gouernm‘ of y* Prince
Of Orange, A 163V
Sence 156
Shakespeares epitaph 13V
Sir Geo. Radnor to the Countes of Hertford: Elegia 117V
Sir Iohn Spencer, Vpon 182V
Sir Walter Ralegh to Queene Elizabeth 117
Sir Walter Raleighs Pilgrimage 57
Slumbering maid, Of a 157
Song, A (Come all you farmers out of y* Country) 185
Song, A (Cooke Lorry would needs have y° divell his guest) 175
Song, A (Heaven bless king Iames our Ioy) 178V
Song, A (In Sussex late since Eighty Eight) 181V
Song, A (Phoebus fiery, hot & weary, would not tarry here) 183
Song, A (The Scottishmen be barrs yet) 179V
Song against weomen that wear their brests bare, A 156V
Songe, A (There was an old ladd, rode on an old padd) 162
Sonnet, On his m™ singinge, A 113V
Sonnet, A (Disdaine me still y' I may euen loue) 103V
Sonnet, A (It is not long since I could see) 107V
Sonnet, A (The silken wreath y' circled in myne arme) lov
Sonnet, A (Thou sent’st to me a heart was sound) 107V
Sonnet, A (When as a child is sick and out of quiet) 112V
Tetrasticon fil
30: ° May 1630 30V
Time expired he welcoms his M" Sacke as followeth, The 165V
To his m* (Dearest thie tresses are not threds of gold) 115
To his m". (Here, take my picture; Though I bid farewell) 113
To his m® going beyond Sea 112V
To the blessed eliza of famous memorie| The humble petic6n ofthese wretched
& most contemptible the poore comons of England 16
To the most high and mightiest the most iust and yet most mercifull the greatest
Chancellor of heauen and the cheife Iudg of y* earth 16V
To The queene of Bohemia 84
DATASETS 621
To the tune of Virginia 177V
Transvbstantiation 33V
Troope of silvan virgins & light paced huntresses of Dianna the goddesse
of hunting, whose habits & aspects were thus by authors described, Of the 109V
Tune of Virginia, To the 177V
Verses in comendation of musick 14
Vnion of England & Scotland, Vpon The 34V
Vpon a cherry=stone sent to the tip of the Lady Jemonia Walgraues Eare 28
Vpon A gold cheyne lent and loste 171V
Vpon an infant & y* mother dying in travaile 52V
Vpon Felton That kild y* Duke of Bucks: & was hangd in Chaines 53
Vpon his armes [of Prince Henry] 36V
Vpon lustice 163V
Vpon Prince Charles his arrivall from Spaine Oct 5" 1623 180V
Vpon Sir Iohn Spencer 182V
Vpon The death of prince Henry; y* Earths Complaint 36
Vpon the Duke of Richmond 23V
Vpon The glorious King of Sweden 38V
Vpon The Great Ship 164
Vpon The Kings sicknes 1633 55
Vpon The vnion of England & Scotland 34V
W". Cole an Alehouskee at Coton neer Cambridg, On 157
Warrs of the Gods, The 174
Whoope doe me noe harme good man 176V
Dataset 2.4
(for Gary Taylor, ‘““Rawlinson Poetry 160”: The Manuscript
Source of Two Attributions to Shakespeare’)
Index of First Lines of Verse
A little mushroom table spread HeR181 169V
A page a squire a viscount and an earl 163
Accept thou shrine of my dead saint KiH 334 = 41v
All the chief talk is now 177V
An English lad long wooed a lass of Wales 158V
And art thou born brave babe? Blest be the day JnB 64 = 12v
And wilt thou go great duke and leave us here 198
Are all diseases dead or will death say 23V
Arm arm in Heaven there is a faction 174
Art thou returned great duke with all thy faults MrJ 25 = 198
As careful nurses in their beds do lay 37V
As I lay slumbering once within my bed 157
As unthrifts mourn in straw for their pawnd beds BmF 59 ~=27v
Ay me poor earth! why am I made receiver 36
622 DATASETS
Be not offended at our sad complaint 37V
Behold a wonder such as hath not been 170V
Bright soul of whom if any country known HrG 296 84
Come all you farmers from out of the country 185
Come madam come all rest my powers defy DoJ 3199 171
Cook Lorry would needs have the devil his guest JnB 631 175
Dear dear soul awake awake 13
Dearest thy tresses are not threads of gold CwT 50 115
Death what am I a-doing? Do I write 206
Did you ever see the day 29
Die die desert! poor hope go hang thy self 43V
Disdain me still that I may ever love PeW 2 103V
Divided in your sorrows have I strove 118V
Doth William Cole lie here? Henceforth be stale 157
Dum Rex Paulinas accessit Gratus ad Aras Ho] 297 30V
Early one morn old Tithon’s spouse arose 109V
Eternal mover whose diffused glory WoH 16285
Even as you see two lovers in a night HeR361 46v
Fair piece of angel gold that wert yet hot 41
Farewell fair saint! may not the seas nor wind 112V
Farewell the thing time past so known so dear HeRu8 165
From Katherine’s dock was launchd a pink 163
From one that languisheth in discontent 117V
From such a face whose excellence DrW 117.16 14V
Full as a bee with thyme and red HeR 192 167
Give me my scallop shell of quiet RaW 440 57
Go and with this parting kiss HeR 201 47V
God bless the King the Queen God bless JnB 261 175V
Great Jupiter being at a solemn feast 159
Gustavus in the bed of honor died 38V
Had we for terms of law four terms of war 182V
Had women wit methinks they should not boast 183
Hail Bishop Valentine whose day this is DnJ 1186 =. 29
Hast thou been lost a month and can I be 55V
He that’s imprisond in this narrow room 53
Heaven bless King James our joy 178V
Here biting Aretine lies buriéd 182V
Here lies Sir John Spencer like Dives in ground 182V
Here lieth Lightborne dead in a ditch 163V
Here take my picture though I bid farewell DnJ 1548 113
Here uninterred suspends though not to save 53
How do I thank thee death and bless thy power CoR 536 15V
How fain would we forget this fatal war 53V
I am amazed to see theologies iv
IC UR good monsieur Carr RaW 394 162V
I hate a lie and yet a lie did run
I may forget to eat to drink to sleep
I saw fair Chloris walk alone
If bleeding hearts dejected souls find grace
If saints in Heaven can either see or hear
In nature’s pieces still I see
In sad and ashy weeds
In Sussex late since eighty-eight
In what torn ship soever I embark
It is not long since I could see
John Smith why shit on him and then I think
Justice of late hath lost her wits
Keep thy tears reader and that softer sorrow
Knew’st thou whose these ashes were
Ladies all glad’ee here comes Doctor Paddy
Ladies fly from love's smooth tale
Lady I entreat you wear
Let him who from his tyrant mistress did
Like a cold fatal sweat that ushers death
Like to the silent tone of unspoke speeches
[Lost] in a troubled sea of grief I float
Love that great workman hath a new world made
Madam be cover'd why stand you bare
Make the great God thy fort and dwell
My friend and I passing his shop did spy
My soul the great God's praises sings
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
Not dead not born not christend not begot
Not long time since I saw a cow
Not more lamented for so hard a fate
Not that in color it was like thy hair
Now God preserve as you well do deserve
Now now I see though earth and hell conspire
Now the declining sun gan downward bend
Now thou art dead I write when breath is gone
Oh bright-eyed virgin! Oh how fair thou art!
Oh for a laureate, a Sidneian choir!
Oh wound us not with this sad tale forbear
Oh ye that careless pass along this way
Old Paul's steeple fare thee well
Other diseases seize some other part
Our eagle is flown to a place yet unknown
Our passions are most like to floods and streams
Painter you're come but may be gone
[Passions are likened best to floods and streams]
DATASETS
BmF 31
StW 783
CwT 177
DnJ 1562
CwT 844
HeR 406
CwT 188
KiH 233
CoR 736
CwT 606
CwT 612
DnJ 281
DnJ 403
JnB 565
StW 1200
EaJ 16
RaW 325
JnB 198
623
624 DATASETS
Phoebus fiery hot and weary would not tarry here 183
Playing at Irish I have seen 170
Priests make Christ body and soul 33V
Promus since that thy maintenance is all 172V
Puffing down comes grave ancient Sir John Crooke HoJ 46 157V
Reader I was born and cried HoJ 119 158V
Reader this same stone doth tell 27
Reader wonder think it none 26V
Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh 13V
Sacred music heavenly art 36
Sacred peace if I approve thee 100
Salve festa dies cunctis celebranda Britannis 34
Seek not sad reader here to find 38V
Shall I die? Shall I fly 108
Shine on majestic soul abide 84v
Sickness the minister of death doth lay CwT 1221 55
Sitting and ready to be drawn JnB 159 110V
So soft streams meet so springs with gladder smiles HeR 267 —-165v
Stay here fond youth and ask no more. Be wise SuJ 7| WaE 95 48v
Stay! View this stone and if thou be’st not such JnB106 —_a5v
Sweet mouth that send’st a musky rosed breath 101V
The fifth of August and the fifth 180V
The heathen Lord are come into 76
The lawyers did of late in friendship jar 182V
The looking-glass and hourglass do stand so nigh 33V
The mighty zeal which thou hast now put on CoR 217 155
The poets feignd in music’s praise 14
The Scottishmen be beggars yet 179V
The silken wreath that circled in mine arm CwT 1186 110V
The world’s a bubble and the life of man BcF 12 33
There is a certain idle kind of creature 176
There needs no trumpet but his name 38
There was an old lad rode on an old pad 162
This stone hides him who for the stone 163
Thou for whose sake my freedom I forsake 100
Thou sent’st to me a heart was sound 107V
Thy father all from thee by his last will DnJ 903 163V
Thy feathered plumes great prince did signify 36V
Thy numerous name with this year doth agree MrJ 58 198
Tossed in a troubled sea of grief I float CwT 1041 = 106v
Una dies Anglos Germains foedere incipit [?] 12
Under this beech why sit’st thou here so sad RnT 84 31
Virtue and Grace dwell in this place 158V
Was ever contract driven by better fate JnB 416 34V
We lived one and twenty years 162V
DATASETS
When God was pleasd the world unwilling yet
When the King came of late with his peers of state
When the monthly horned queen HeR 341
When you awake dull Britons and behold
Whenas a child is sick and out of quiet
Whenas our grateful King went to Paul’s shrine
Who lies here? no man no man truly no man
Who would have thought there could have been PeW 155
Whose head befringéd with bescattered tresses HeR 309
Wilt thou hear what man can say JnB 127
Within a fleece of silent waters drowned BrW 155
Within this grave there is a grave entombed BrW 82
Wrong not dear empress of my heart RaW 508
[You lesser beauties of the night] WoH 76
You that can look through Heaven and count the stars FIJ 10
You that think love can convey CwT 836
You violets that do first appear
You'll ask perhaps wherefore I stay CwT 209
Your bold petition mortals I have seen
ce
(for Gary Taylor,
Dataset 2.5
Rawlinson Poetry 160”: The Manuscript
Source of Two Attributions to Shakespeare’)
Chronological Index (by apparent date of composition)
1596: 103
1597-8: 34
1598-9: 80, 81, 82
1600: 108, 109
by 1603: 107, 118
1604: 39, 71
1604-14: 46
1607: 115, 116, 117, 151, 161
1609: 20, 27
by 1610: 149
1610: 53, 156
1612: 14, 22, 23, 24, 29, 42, 43
1613: 4, 30, 123, 125, 126
1614: 122
1615: 10
1616: 7, 65, 143
1617: 3, 146
1618: 110
1619: 61
1620: 67, 77, 91, 96
1621: 19, 75, 76, 145
by 1622: 74
1622: 149, 151
1623: 9, 69, 70, 144, 153
1623-4: 11, 12, 13, 154
1624: 18, 54, 163
by 1625: 57
by 1626: 73
1626: 2
1627: 16, 66, 129, 165, 166
1627-33: 99, 100
1628: 64
1629: 38
1630: 5, 31, 32, 33
by 1631: 78 (Brooke), 87, 131,
140, 141 (Donne)
1631: 55, 127
1633: 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 68
by 1634: 40, 137
1637: 17, 52, 116, 124
625
41
191V
168V
23V
112V
30V
27
85V
105
25V
37V
52V
117
109
45
113V
109
106V
18V
626 DATASETS
Dataset 2.6
(for Gary Taylor, ‘““Rawlinson Poetry 160”: The Manuscript Source
of Two Attributions to Shakespeare’)
Chronological Index (by date of print publication)
1599: 100 (bis), 101v [reprinted 1621 etc.]
1612: 86
1613: 158v [reprint?]
1622: 20V
1623: 26V
1629: 33
1631: 26
1632: 113
1633: 13V, 29V, 38V, 39V, 41, 51, 103V, 163V
1635: 35, 168V, 169V, 171V
1637: 23V, 37V, 162V
—1638: 31
1640: 23, 27V, 54, 55, 106 (bis), 106v, 110V, 113V, 115
Dataset 2.7
(for Gary Taylor, ‘“Rawlinson Poetry 160”: The Manuscript
Source of Two Attributions to Shakespeare’)
Rhyme-Parallels in ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’
The following rhymes are listed in the order in which they appear in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Parallels are taken from Kokertiz (but without citing parallels that the New Oxford Shakespeare
identifies as the work of another author). Non-comic parallels are printed in bold.
will| skill] Cym 2.5.33-34; 1H4 1.3.171-2 (comic); Lover’s Complaint 126; MND 4.125-6; TGV
2.4.205-6
show| know] 9 instances; 7 non-comic: elsewhere in LBLL; AYLI 3.2.118-120; Cym 5.1.29-30;
AIT pro. 17-18; LLL 5.2.321-22; Mac 1.7.81-2; MM 5.1.525-6; R2 1.3.238-9; 5.3.48-9; Sonnet
53-10; Sonnet 77.5.
slain| stain] 1H6 4.4.442-3 (not WS)
blade| shade] Luc 507
breast| rest] Ham 9.155-6; 1H6 2.5.118-19 (not WS); 3H6 10.28-9; LLL 5.2.780-2; Re&J 2.1.229-
30; Luc 757-9, 1842-4; V&A 647-8, 782-4, 853-5, 1183-5
twain| remain] Sonnet 36.1; 39.13; LBLL 45-8
think] chink] recycled in LBLL; MND 7.189-90 (an intentionally? ridiculous rhyme)
bliss| this] Tit 5.148-9 (attributed to Shakespeare); tragic instance.
see| me] Luc 1306-7 (not obviously comic)
DATASETS 627
moane(s)| stone(s)] Lover’s Complaint 216-17; no terminal s’s (not obviously comic)
thee| me] Sonnet 43.13-14 (not obviously comic)
face| grace] Err 2.1.84-5 (comic); LLL 5.2.79-80, 129-30, 147-8 (all comic); R2 5.3.98-9 (not at
all comic); Sonnet 132.9-11 (not obviously comic); Tit 3.1.203-4 (tragic); VeA 62-4 (not
obviously comic)
kill| still] Luc 167-8 (not comic)
true| you] 7 instances: LLL 5.2.739-40 (comic); MM 2.4.169-70 (not comic); MV 3.2.147-8;
(not comic); Re] 5.52-3 (comic); Sonnet 85.11-12; 114.1-2; 118.14-15
go| so] acommon rhyme used 21 times elsewhere: best non-comic example is R2 1.2.63-64
fear| here] 2 instances: 1H6 1.2.13-14 (not Shakespeare); elsewhere in MND 4.153-4 (comic)
strife] life] 11 non-comic instances: 1H6 4.5.38-9 (Shakespeare); R2 5.6.26-7; Re>J P. 6-8 (not
comic), 3.2.168—9; Luc 141-3, 405-6, 687-9; Sonnet 75.1-3; Tim 1.1.37-8; VeA 289-91,
764-66
bright| sight] Luc 373-5
here| dear] LLL 4.3.266-8 (comic)
see| be] 21 times elsewhere; 9 instances that are not obviously comic: AeéC 1.3.64-5; H5
4chor.52-3; Lover’s Complaint 183-5; Luc 750-2, 1084-5; Sonnet 56.9-11; Sonnet 137.2-4;
TC 1.2.238-9; VerA 937-9
good| blood] 14 times elsewhere; 12 instances where this rhyme is not obviously comic:
1H6 2.5.128-9 (not Shakespeare); Luc 655-6; Mac 3.4.133-4, 4.1.37-8; R2 2.1.131-2, 5.5.113-14; Luc
1028-9; Sonnet 109.12; Sonnet 121.6-8; Tit 5.1.49-50; Tim 10.52-3, 13.38-9; Ve~A 1181-2
cheer| dear] MV 3.2.310-11
dead| fled] 12 instances; 5 non-comic: 1H6 5.1.17-18 (contested); R2 2.4.16-17, 3.2.73-5
Sonnet 71.1-3; Tim 7.33—4 (Middleton); VeA 947-8
fight| light] 3 instances, all non-comic: R2 1.1.82-3; Sonnet 60.5-7; Sonnet 88.1-3
dumb| tombe] 3 instances: AWW 2.3.131-2; Sonnet 83.10-12; Sonnet 101.9-11
arise| eyes] Cym 4.2.403-4
milk| silke] Per 17.21-2
sword| word] LLL 5.2.276-8; MND 4.12-13
friends| ends] LLL 5.2.222-3; Tim 14.447-8; V&A 716-18
Dataset 3.1
(in support of Hugh Craig, ‘Shakespeare and Three Sets of Additions’).
28 Sole-Authored Shakespeare plays and a Selection of Others’
Well-Attributed Early Modern English Plays
John Bale: King Johan (Complete Plays of John Bale, ed. Peter Happé, Brewer, Cambridge, vol. 1,
1985)
628 DATASETS
Francis Beaumont: Knight of the Burning Pestle (STC 1674, 1613)
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher: Captain (Wing B1581, 1647); King and no King (Wing
B1582, 1679); Maid’s Tragedy (STC 1676, 1619)
Samuel Brandon: Virtuous Octavia (STC 3544, 1598)
Richard Brome: Jovial Crew (Wing B4873, 1652)
Elizabeth Carey: Mariam (STC 4613, 1613)
George Chapman: All Fools (STC 4963, 1605); Blind Beggar of Alexandria (STC 4965, 1598); Bussy
dAmbois (STC 22302, 1607); Byron’s Conspiracy (STC 4968, 1608); Byron’s Tragedy (STC 4968,
1608); Caesar and Pompey (STC 4993, 1631); Gentleman Usher (STC 4978, 1606); Humorous Day’s
Mirth (STC 4987, 1599); May Day (STC 4980, 1611); Monsieur d‘Olive (STC 4984, 1606); Revenge
of Bussy (STC 4989, 1613); Sir Giles Goosecap (STC 12050, 1606); Widow’s Tears (STC 4994, 1612)
Henry Chettle: Tragedy of Hoffman (STC 5125, 1631)
Robert Daborne: Christian Turned Turk (STC 6184, 1612)
Samuel Daniel: Cleopatra (STC 6240, 1607)
William Davenant: Unfortunate Lovers (Wing D348, 1643)
John Day: Isle of Gulls (STC 6412, 1606)
Thomas Dekker: 2 Honest Whore (STC 6506, 1630); If It Be Not Good (STC 6507, 1612); Old
Fortunatus (STC 6517, 1600); Shoemaker’s Holiday (STC 6523, 1600); Whore of Babylon (STC
6532, 1607)
Thomas Dekker and John Webster: Sir Thomas Wyatt (STC 6537, 1607)
Richard Edwards: Damon and Pythias (STC 7514, 1571)
Nathan Field, Philip Massinger, and John Fletcher: Honest Man's Fortune (Wing B1581, 1647)
Nathan Field: Amends for Ladies (STC 10851, 1618)
John Fletcher: Bonduca (Wing B1581, 1647); Chances (Wing B1581, 1647); Faithful Shepherdess
(STC 11068, 1610); Humorous Lieutenant (Wing B1581, 1647); Island Princess (Wing B1581, 1647);
Loyal Subject (Wing B1581, 1647); Mad Lover (Wing B1581, 1647); Monsieur Thomas (Wing
B1581, 1647); Pilgrim (Wing B1581, 1647); Rule a Wife (Wing B1582, 1679); Valentinian (Wing
B1581, 1647); Wife for a Month (Wing B1581, 1647); Wild Goose Chase (Wing B1616, 1652)
John Fletcher and Philip Massinger: Double Marriage (Wing B1581, 1647)
John Ford: Broken Heart (STC 11156, 1633); Fancies (STC 11159, 1638); Lady’s Trial (STC 11161,
1639); Lovers Melancholy (STC 11163, 1629); Love’s Sacrifice (STC 11164, 1633); Perkin Warbeck
(STC 11157, 1634); "Tis Pity She’s a Whore (STC 11165, 1633)
Thomas Goffe: Amurath (STC 11977, 1632)
Robert Greene: Alphonsus (STC 12233, 1599); Friar Bacon (STC 12267, 1594); James IV (STC
12308, 1598); Orlando Furioso (STC 12265, 1594)
Fulke Greville: Mustapha (STC 12362, 1608)
William Haughton: Devil and his Dame (Wing G1580, 1662); Englishmen for my Money (STC
12931, 1616)
Thomas Heywood: Four Prentices (STC 13321, 1615); 1 If You Know Not Me (STC 13328, 1605);
Rape of Lucrece (STC 13363, 1638); Wise Woman of Hodgson (STC 13370, 1638); Woman Killed
with Kindness (STC 13371, 1607)
Ben Jonson: Alchemist (STC 14755, 1612); Bartholomew Fair (STC 14753.5, 1631); Case is Altered (STC
14757, 1609); Catiline (STC 14759, 1611); Cynthias Revels (STC 14773, 1601); Devil is an Ass (STC
DATASETS 629
14754, 1640); Epicoene (STC 14751, 1616); Every Man in his Humour (STC 14766, 1601); Every Man
out of his Humour (STC 14767, 1600); Magnetic Lady (STC 14754, 1640); New Inn (STC 14780,
1631); Poetaster (STC 14781, 1602); Sad Shepherd (STC 14754, 1640); Sejanus (STC 14782, 1605);
Staple of News (STC 14753.5, 1631); Tale of a Tub (STC 14754, 1640); Volpone (STC 14783, 1607)
Thomas Kyd: Cornelia (STC 11622, 1594); Spanish Tragedy (STC 15086, 1592)
Thomas Lodge: Wounds of Civil War (STC 16678, 1594)
Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene: Looking Glass for London and England (STC 16680, 1598)
John Lyly: Campaspe (STC 17088, 1632); Endimion (STC 17050, 1591); Gallathea (STC 17080,
1592); Love’s Metamorphosis (STC 17082, 1601); Midas (STC 17088, 1632); Mother Bombie (STC
17084, 1594); Sapho and Phao (STC 17086, 1584); Woman in the Moon (STC 17090, 1597)
Gervase Markham and Robert Sampson: Herod and Antipater (STC 17401, 1622)
Christopher Marlowe: Edward II (STC 17437, 1594); Jew of Malta (STC 17412, 1633); Massacre at
Paris (STC 17423, 1594?); 1 Tamburlaine (STC 17425, 1590); 2 Tamburlaine (STC 17425, 1590)
Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe: Dido Queen of Carthage (STC 17441, 1594)
Shackerley Marmion: Antiquary (Wing M703, 1641)
John Marston: Antonio and Mellida (STC 17473, 1602); Antonio’ Revenge (STC 17474, 1602);
Dutch Courtesan (STC 17476, 1605); Jack Drum’s Entertainment (STC 7243, 1601); Malcontent
(STC 17479, 1604); Parasitaster (STC 17484, 1606); Sophonisba (STC 17488, 1606); What You
Will (STC 17487, 1607)
John Marston and William Barkstead: Insatiate Countess (STC17476, 1613)
Philip Massinger: Roman Actor (STC 17642, 1629); Unnatural Combat (STC 17643, 1639)
Thomas Middleton: Chaste Maid in Cheapside (STC 17877, 1630); Game at Chess (MSR 151, 1990);
Hengist (MSR 167, 2003); Mad World (STC 17888, 1608); Michaelmas Term (STC 17890, 1607);
More Dissemblers (Wing M1989, 1657); Nice Valour (Wing B1581, 1647); No Wit (Wing M1985,
1657); Phoenix (STC 17892, 1607); Puritan (STC 21531, 1607); Revenger’s Tragedy (STC 24150,
1608); Second Maiden’s Tragedy (MSR 17, 1909); Trick to Catch the Old One (STC 17896, 1608);
Widow (Wing J1015, 1652); Wit Without Money (STC 1691, 1639); Witch (MSR 89, 1948); Woman's
Prize (Wing B1581, 1647); Women Beware Women (Wing M1989, 1657); Women Pleased (Wing
B1581, 1647); Yorkshire Tragedy (STC 22340, 1608); Your Five Gallants (STC 17907, 1608)
Thomas Middleton and William Rowley: Changeling (Wing M1980, 1653)
Anthony Munday: Fedele and Fortunio (STC19447, 1585); John a Kent and John a Cumber (MSR 54,
1923)
Thomas Nashe: Summer’s Last Will and Testament (STC 18376, 1600)
George Peele: Arraignment of Paris (STC 19530, 1584); Battle of Alcazar (STC 19531, 1594); Edward I
(STC 19535, 1593); King David and Fair Bathsheba (STC 19540, 1599); Old Wives Tale (STC
19545, 1595)
John Phillips: Patient and Meek Grissill (STC 19865, 1569?)
Henry Porter: Two Angry Women of Abington (STC 20121.5, 1599)
Samuel Rowley: When You See Me, You Know Me (STC 21417, 1605)
William Rowley: New Wonder (STC 21423, 1632); All’s Lost by Lust (STC 21425, 1633
Thomas Sackville: Gorboduc (STC18684, 1565)
William Shakespeare: All’s Well That Ends Well (STC 22273, 1623); Antony and Cleopatra (STC
22273, 1623); As You Like It (STC 22273, 1623); Comedy of Errors (STC 22273, 1623); Coriolanus
630 DATASETS
(STC 22273, 1623); Cymbeline (STC 22273, 1623); Hamlet (STC 22276, 1604); 1 Henry IV (STC
22280, 1598); 2 Henry IV (STC 22288, 1600); Henry V (STC 22273, 1623); Julius Caesar (STC
22273, 1623); King John (STC 22273, 1623); King Lear 1608 (STC 22292, 1608); Love’ Labour's
Lost (STC 22294, 1598); Merchant of Venice (STC 22296, 1600); Merry Wives of Windsor (STC
22299, 1602); Midsummer Night’s Dream (STC 22302, 1600); Much Ado About Nothing (STC
22304, 1600); Othello (STC 22305, 1622); Richard II (STC 22307, 1597); Richard III (STC 22314,
1597); Romeo and Juliet (STC 22323, 1599); Taming of the Shrew (STC 22273, 1623); Tempest
(STC 22273, 1623); Troilus and Cressida (STC 22331, 1609); Twelfth Night (STC 22273, 1623);
Two Gentlemen of Verona (STC 22273, 1623); Winter's Tale (STC 22273, 1623);
Edward Sharpham: Cupid’s Whirligig (STC 22380, 1607); Fleire (STC 22384, 1607)
James Shirley: Love's Cruelty (STC 22449, 1640); Traitor (STC 22458, 1635); Cardinal (Wing
S3461, 1652)
Mary Sidney: Antonie (ST'C11623, 1595)
Wentworth Smith: Hector of Germany (STC22871, 1615)
Sir John Suckling: Aglaura (STC 23420, 1638)
Cyril Tourneur: Atheist’s Tragedy (STC 24146, 1611)
Nicholas Udall: Ralph Roister Doister (STC 24146, 1611)
John Webster: Devil’s Law Case (STC 25173, 1623); Duchess of Malfi (STC 25176, 1623); White
Devil (STC 23178, 1612)
Robert Wilmot and others: Tancred and Gismund (STC 25764, 1591)
Robert Wilson: Cobbler’s Prophecy (STC 25781, 1594); Three Ladies of London (STC 25784, 1584);
Three Lords and Three Ladies (STC 25783, 1590)
Dataset 4.1
in support of Rory Loughnane, “Thomas Middleton in All’s Well
that Ends Well? Part One. Word Sequences All’s Well that Ends Well
(TLN 2350-91; 4.3.203-38)
‘to this captain Middleton Hengist 2.4.193 (1620)
‘you have answered’ Middleton The Phoenix 1.72 (1603-4)*
‘The Bloody Banquet 2.1.21° (1608-9)
‘reputation with the’ Middleton More Dissemblers Besides Women 1.3.126 (1614)
‘Duke and to’ Shakespeare sc. Measure for Measure 4.3.130
‘for rapes’ Shakespeare sc. Titus Andronicus 6.57
‘rapes and’ Shakespeare sc. Titus Andronicus 10.63
> Because my work on this investigation was first completed in 2014, it does not take into account all of the
new findings outlined in Chapter 25. Arden of Faversham and Shakespeare’s Additions to The Spanish Tragedy are
therefore excluded. Note, however, that Pericles, Prince of Tyre is counted as a post-1607 play. All dates for works
by Middleton are based on ‘Works Included in this Edition: Canon and Chronology in Thomas Middleton and
Early Modern Textual Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 335-443.
> 2.1 of The Bloody Banquet is attributed to Middleton, probably with Dekker.
DATASETS 631
‘he professes” Shakespeare sc. Measure for Measure 3.1.441
‘he professes not’ Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida 9.260-1
‘keeping of’ Shakespeare® The Winter’s Tale 5.2.75
Antony and Cleopatra 43.256
‘in breaking’ Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona 4.2.11
“em he Middleton Your Five Gallants 1.2.29 (1607)
A Mad World, my Masters 2.1.21 (1605)
‘lie sir’ Shakespeare Hamlet 18.102
‘sir with such Middleton Hengist 2.4166-7 (1620)
‘that you would think’ Shakespeare 1 Henry IV 4.2.27
‘you would think Shakespeare The Winter's Tale 4.4.204-5
‘were a fool’ Shakespeare Taming of the Shrew 5.388
As You Like It 2.7.42
Lear (Folio) 7.70
‘drunkenness is’ Middleton The Phoenix 10.58—9 (1603-4)
The Peacemaker |. 247 (1618)
‘in his sleep’ Shakespeare’ Midsummer Night’s Dream 5.47
‘sleep he’ Shakespeare Merry Wives 3.2.23
‘save to’ Shakespeare sc. [?] 2 Henry VI 13.129
Lucrece |. 1426
‘conditions and’ Shakespeare Much Ado 3.2.47
Taming of the Shrew 16.165.
‘lay him in’ Shakespeare Taming of the Shrew (Additional passage D,
1. 4—2005 Wells and Taylor)
Shakespeare sc. [?] 1 Henry VI 4.7.29
‘in straw’ Middleton The Owls Almanac 1. 1766° (1618)
‘straw. T° Shakespeare sc. [?] 2 Henry IV 18.75
‘T have but little’ Shakespeare sc. Timon of Athens 14.90
‘have but little Shakespeare Coriolanus 3.1.249
‘of his honesty’ Middleton Plato’s Cap 1. 376 (1604)
‘honesty he’ Middleton The Phoenix 10.119 (1603-4)
‘everything that’ Shakespeare Sonnet 98, ll. 3-4
Sonnet 15, 1.1
* In instances where the word sequence is replicated within a longer sequence (see, hereafter, ‘he professes not’),
the longer sequence is counted as both type and token. The shorter sequence is counted only as a token, since it is
already counted as a type in the longer sequence.
> The phrase ‘keeping of’ is present in Anything for a Quiet Life (1.1.13-14) in a scene attributed to Webster and
in A Fair Quarrel (5.1.280) in a passage attributed to Rowley.
° The phrase ‘were a fool’ also appears in a scene attributed to Fletcher in Two Noble Kinsmen (4.1.40).
’ ‘Tn his sleep’ is present in With at Several Weapons (2.3.57), but in a scene primarily attributed to Rowley.
8 Excerpted from the similar line: ‘he that fronts it with/ straw must be content also to lie in straw’ (1765-6).
632 DATASETS
All Is True 3.1.9
Henry V 5.2.62
Cymbeline 2.3.21
Twelfth Night 2.5.144
Lear (Folio) 4.5.99 (in Wells and Taylor 2005)
Shakespeare sc. Two Gentleman of Verona 3.1.125
‘that an honest’ Middleton The Witch 5.1.25 (1616)?
‘an honest man should’ Shakespeare Much Ado 1.1.121
‘should have he Shakespeare Venus and Adonis 1. 299
‘he has nothing’ Middleton A Mad World, my Masters 1.1.45 (1605)
A Mad World, my Masters 2.4.70 (1605)
‘I begin to’ Middleton A Mad World, my Masters 4.2.9 (1605)
Michaelmas Term 3.5.47 (1604)
Middleton sc. Wit at Several Weapons 2.1.17 (1613)
‘to love him Shakespeare Lear (Quarto) 4.13
Othello 2.1.213
‘to love him for’ Shakespeare As You Like It 3.5.127-8
‘him for this’ Shakespeare Sonnet 33, 1. 13
‘this description’ Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra 12.45
Merchant of Venice 3.2.300
‘thine honesty a Shakespeare Othello 3.3.370
‘A pox upon’ Middleton sc. Wit at Several Weapons 3.1.113'° (1613)
‘upon him for Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida 4.55
All Is True 4.2.64-5
‘and more a Shakespeare Coriolanus 4.5.141
Twelfth Night 3.4.330
‘you to his’ Shakespeare Cymbeline 2.3.38
As You Like It 5.4.115
Shakespeare sc. Measure for Measure 3.1.241
‘will not and’ Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida 14.93-4
‘his soldiership Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra 6.34
Othello 1.1.24
‘in that country’ Middleton Sir Robert Shirley 1. 374 (1609)
‘honour to be’ Shakespeare sc. Measure for Measure 2.4.149
‘at a place’ Middleton The Patient Man scene 6, |. 105 (1604)
‘place there called’ Middleton A Chaste Maid 4.1.59 (1613)
° ‘The longer word sequence ‘that an honest man’ appears in a Middleton scene of Wit at Several Weapons
(1613), but runs over two sentences: ‘Refrain for food for that? An honest man..? (4.1.15; my emphasis).
'° The exact phrase ‘A pox upon him is also found at 1.1.205 in Anything for a Quiet Life—a scene attributed to
Webster. The shorter phrase ‘pox upon is found in a Shakespearean scene of Pericles (scene 19, |. 22).
‘would do the’
‘the man what’
‘but of this’
‘villainy so’
‘so far that’
‘the rarity’
a pox on him’
‘pox on hin’
‘on him he’s’
‘at this poor’
‘T need not to’
‘will corrupt’
‘corrupt him’
‘will sell’
‘his salvation’
succession for
‘his brother the’
‘as the first’
‘in goodness but’
‘but greater’
‘evil he
‘best that is’
‘he outruns’
" See ‘he professes’ above.
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
Middleton
Middleton sc.
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare sc. [?]
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
DATASETS
The Winter's Tale 3.2.204
Errors 4.4.128*
The Nice Valour 5.3.57 (1622)
The Widow 4.2.170 (1615-16)
Pericles 21.44-5*
King John 2.1.94-5
The Winter’s Tale 4.2.28
Merry Wives 2.2.172
Troilus and Cressida 3.10-11
Macbeth 3.4.135
Measure for Measure 3.1.135-6
‘The Tempest 2.1.52
The Phoenix 10.27 (1603-4)
Your Five Gallants 5.1.173 (1607)
Michaelmas Term 3.4.110 (1604)
633
A Trick to Catch an Old One 4.4.139—40 (1605)
Wit at Several Weapons 4.1.234 (1613)
The Phoenix 9.262 (1603-4)!
Hamlet 13.3-4*
The Witch 2.3.41 (1616)
The Widow 1.1.102 (1615-16)
Edward III 11.34
Richard II 3.4.18
Henry V 4.7.95
Troilus and Cressida 4.5.70
The Phoenix 2.128 (1603-4)
Henry V 3.5.12
A Yorkshire Tragedy scene 4, |. 91 (1605)
Errors 3.1.106-7*
1 Henry IV 3.2.99-100*
Troilus and Cressida 16.46
Much Ado 1.1.140
Tempest 2.1.92
Measure for Measure 3.1.179-80
2 Henry VI 23.183
Coriolanus 1.1.161
The Widow 2.1.19 (1615-16)
Venus and Adonis |. 681
634 DATASETS
‘marry in’? Middleton The Widow 2.1.125 (1615-16)
No Wit/Help scene 8, |. 114 (1611)
The Nice Valour 4.1.304 (1622)
Middleton sc. A Fair Quarrel 4.2.29 (1616)
‘the cramp’ Shakespeare As You Like It 4.1.78
TOTALS
Middleton = 22 types (39 tokens)
Shakespeare= 47 types (79 tokens) [Including 1 Henry VI 4.7.29, 2 Henry VI5.5.81, and1 Henry
IV 3.2.99-100*]
JACOBEAN
Middleton = 22 types (39 tokens)
Shakespeare = 13 types (17 tokens) + non-uniquely Jacobean 7 (14) = 20 (31)
POST-DATING 1607
Middleton = 11 types (16 tokens) + non-uniquely post-1607 4 (5) = 15 (21)
Shakespeare = 5 types (6 tokens) + non-uniquely post-1607 7 (10) = 12 (16)
Unique Uses in Drama (LION 1576-1642)
(marked with ~ if other hit(s) Jacobean (1603-25);
marked with * if other hit(s) post-date 1607)
Middleton Shakespeare
~* ‘to this captain’ ‘for rapes’
~* ‘that an honest’ ‘he professes not’
~* ‘place there called’ ~* everything that’
‘an honest man should’
‘will not and’
~ ‘his soldiership’
‘T need not to
~ ‘in goodness but’
~* evil he
TOTAL
Middleton = 3 Shakespeare = 9
JACOBEAN
Middleton = 3 Shakespeare = 4
” This word sequence is found in Shakespeare—Lear (Quarto) 24.224—but with ‘marry’ in the sense of ‘to wed.
The mild oath that is intended here is also used in Wit at Several Weapons, but in a passage attributed to Rowley
(5.2.203).
DATASETS 635
POST-1607
Middleton = 3 Shakespeare = 2
Rare Uses in Drama (LION 1576-1642; less than five other hits)
(marked with ~ if Jacobean (1603-25); marked with * if post-1607; marked with +
if all other hits Jacobean; marked with # if all other hits post-date 1607)
~* ‘sir with such’ (2 hits)" ~ ‘Thave but little’ (3 hits)
~* drunkenness is’ (2 hits)!° ‘to love him for’ (1 hits)!”
~+ ‘of his honesty’ (2 hits)"* ~ ‘thine honesty a (1 hit)”
~*+ ‘in that country’ (1 hits)” + ‘he outruns’ (1 hit)?!
‘his salvation’ (2 hits)”
~* ‘marry im (4 hits)”
TOTAL
Middleton = 6 Shakespeare = 4
JACOBEAN (~)
Middleton = 6 Shakespeare = 2
POST-1607
Middleton = 4 Shakespeare = 0
ALL OTHER HITS JACOBEAN
Middleton = 3 Shakespeare = 4
ALL OTHER HITS POST-DATING 1607 (+)
Middleton = 2 Shakespeare = 2
8 We count a ‘rare’ use as Jacobean or post-1607 if at least one of the word sequences is written after that date.
™ George Chapman, An Humourous Day’ Mirth (1597); Thomas Heywood, The English Traveller (c.1627-33; first
printed in 1637). Dates for non-Shakespearean and non-Middletonian plays are primarily derived from Alfred
Harbage (1964). In general, I have attempted to offer broad ranges for the dating of plays where there is some
uncertainty or debate, and I have supplemented the findings of Annals with more recent work on chronology
(Wiggins vols. 1-4).
© Anon., The Wasp (c.1630s)—play was written to be performed by the King’s Revels Company; Lording Barry,
Ram-Alley (1607-8), counted as post-1607; Nathan Field, Amends for Ladies (c.1610-11).
© In two anonymous plays: Every Woman in her Humour (c.1603-8); Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools (1619).
” In William Alexander’s closet drama The Alexandrean (c.1605-7; LION copy printed in 1637).
'8 Both post-dating 1607: Richard Brome, The City Wit (c.1629; printed 1653); William Rider, The Twins
(c.1629-55—the date of composition is unknown but most likely Caroline; first printed 1655).
® From a Munday scene in Sir Thomas More (scene 9, |. 287; 1603-4).
°° In John Kirke’s The Seven Champions of Christendom (c.1635); a Red Bull play not printed until 1638.
21 Anon., The Two Noble Ladies (c.1619-1623).
» Thomas Lupton, All for Money (c.1570s; we accept Wiggins’s #); Barten Holyday, Technogamia (1618).
> Once each in four plays by four different dramatists, two post-dating 1607: Henry Porter, The Two Angry
Women of Abington (1599); John Marston, Antonio and Mellida (c.1599-1601); Ben Jonson, The Case is Altered
(c.1597); Philip Massinger, The Unnatural Combat (c. 1621; first printed 1639).
636 DATASETS
Collocations
# symbol: unique collocations to All’s Well (TLN 2350-91; 4.3.251-93) and one of
Shakespeare or Middleton in English Drama 1576-1642
~ symbol: Unique collocations to All’s Well (TLN 2350-91; 4.3.251-93) and one of
Shakespeare or Middleton (1603-25)
@ symbol: Unique collocations to All’s Well (TLN 2350-91; 4.3.251-93) and one of
Shakespeare or Middleton (post-1607)
AA symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but at least one Shakespeare or
Middleton hit is in a work dating from 1603-25
+ symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but at least one Shakespeare or
Middleton hit is in a work dating after 1607
< symbol: not unique collocations in English drama 1576-1642, but all other hits
post-date 1607
= symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642 but all other hits post-date 1607 and
all unique collocations in Middleton or Shakespeare also post-date 1607
answer*™ NEAR reputation
‘but answer in theffect of your reputation’ (2 Henry IV 5.107)
valour NEAR honesty
‘of approved valour and confirmed honesty’ (Much Ado 2.1.286-7)
steal* NEAR eggs
A+ “The very| sight of those stol’n hens eggs me forward horribly’
(More Dissemblers Besides Women 4.2.120-1; 1614)
keep* NEAR oath* NEAR break*
‘Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,| And sin to break it’
(Love’s Labour's Lost 2.1.104-5)
‘gaging me to keep| An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it’
(Troilus and Cressida 16.35-6)
break* NEAR strong*
“These strong Egyptian fetters I must break (Antony and Cleopatra 2.100)
‘If by strong hand you offer to break in’ (Errors 3.1.99)
‘by what strong escape,| He broke from those that had the guard of him
(Errors 5.1.149-150)
*4 The * symbol is used in LION searches to permit searches of variant suffixes (i.e. answer(s), answer(ed),
answer(ing), etc.). I include it here to disclose the exact search parameters which delivered these results.
DATASETS 637
‘like a broken limb united,| Grow stronger for the breaking’
(2 Henry IV 11.159-60)
‘And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks’ (Lear (Folio), 4.5.162 (2005 Wells and Taylor))
<> = fool* NEAR drunk*
AA + ‘All the best arts| Hath the most fools and drunkards’
(The Lady’s Tragedy 5.2.55—-6; 1611)”
drunk* NEAR swine
No LION results for Shakespeare or Middleton, but see note 25 below.
sleep* NEAR harm*
AN ‘jt harmed not me.| I slept the next night well’ (Othello 3.3.333—-4)
A ‘For here it sleeps, and does no hiréd harm?
(Timon 14.292, Shakespeare passage)
condition* NEAR lay
‘And suffer the condition of these times| To lay’ (2 Henry IV 11.74-5)
‘All his senses| have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by’
(Henry V 4.1.98-9)
honest* NEAR pox
AA ‘so holy, so pure, so| honest with a pox?’
(The Patient Man and the Honest Whore, scene 8, ll. 73-4; 1604)
more NEAR cat
‘he sleeps by day| More than the wildcat? (Merchant 2.5.46-7)
‘More than Prince of Cats? (Romeo and Juliet 10.17)
‘in absence of the cat,| To tame and havoc more than she can eat’
(Henry V 1.2.172-3)
<> belie NEAR will
AN ‘hear his father belied to his face; he will ne’er prosper’
(Michaelmas Term 4.4.38; 1604)
A + ‘Belied my truth. That which few mothers will’
(A Fair Quarrel 4.3.42-3, Middleton passage; 1616)
know not NEAR except
‘I know not why, except to get the land’ (King John 1.1.73)
honour NEAR villain
AN + “Than do it honour. O, thou treacherous villain! (No Wit/Help 2.1.373; 1611)
villain* NEAR rare*
AA ‘Slave, soulless villain, dog!| O rarely base!’
(Antony and Cleopatra 43.153-4)
5 LION turns up no results for drunk* NEAR swine so we exclude it, but we note:
LORD (seeing Sly) What's here? One dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
SECOND HUNTSMAN He breathes, my lord. Were he not warmed with ale
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
LORD O monstrous beast! How like a swine he lies.
(Shrew 1.26-30)
638 DATASETS
<> = rare* NEAR redeem*
A+ ‘How precious thou’rt in youth, how rarely| Redeemed in age
(Masque of Heroes; Or, The Inner-Temple Masque ll. 191-2; 1619)
<> pox NEAR still
AA ‘Yet again? A pox of all asses still’ (A Mad World, my Masters 5.2.91; 1605)
A+ ‘A pox upon that wrangling, say I still
(Wit at Several Weapons 3.1.113, Middleton sc.; 1613)
# villain* NEAR poor NEAR price
‘For when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price
they will’ (Much Ado 3.3.87-8)
poor NEAR price
‘Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose’ (1 Henry IV 2.1.10-11)
gold NEAR corrupt
‘And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,| Purchase corrupted pardon
(King John 3.1.91-2)
‘whom corrupting gold] Will tempt unto a close exploit of death
(Richard III 4.2.34-5)
# gold NEAR revolt
‘Nature falls into revolt] When gold becomes her object!’
(2 Henry IV 13.196-7)
TOTALS
Total collocations in Middleton or Shakespeare: Middleton 7 types (9 tokens)
Shakespeare 13 types (23 tokens)
# Unique collocations in English drama 1576-1642: Middleton 0 types (0 tokens)
Shakespeare 2 types (2 tokens)
~ Unique collocations in English Drama 1603-25: Middleton 0 types (0 tokens)
Shakespeare o types (o tokens)
@ Unique collocations in English Drama 1607-42: Middleton 0 types (0 tokens)
Shakespeare o types (o tokens)
AX not unique in English drama 1576-1642,
but unique collocations in M or Sh 1603-25: Middleton 7 types (9 tokens)
Shakespeare 2 types (3 tokens)
+ not unique in English drama, but
after 1607 in M or Sh: Middleton 6 types (6 tokens)
Shakespeare o type (0 token)
<> not unique in English drama, but
all other hits post-date 1607: Middleton 4 types (6 tokens)
Shakespeare 0 types (0 tokens)
= not unique in English drama, but all other hits
post-date 1607 and all unique collocations in M or Sh
also post-date 1607: Middleton 2 types (2 tokens)
Shakespeare o types (0 tokens)
DATASETS 639
Dataset 4.2
in support of Rory Loughnane, “Thomas Middleton in
All’s Well that Ends Well? Part One. Comparable Passage from
Antony and Cleopatra (TLN 1926-69; 12.1-45)
1 Heere they’l be man: some oth'their Plants are ill
rooted already, the least winde i'th'world wil blow them downe.
2 Lepidus is high Conlord.
1 They haue made him drinke Almes drinke.
2 As they pinch one another by the disposition, hee
cries out, no more; reconciles them to his entreatie, and
himselfe tothdrinke.
1 Butit raises the greatet warre betweene him & his discretion.
2 Why this it is to haue a name in great mens Fel-
lowship: I had as liue haue a Reede that will doe me no
seruice, as a Partizan I could not heaue.
1 To be calld into a huge Sphere, and not to be seene
to moue int, are the holes where eyes should bee, which
pittifully disaster the cheekes.
A Sennet sounded.
Enter Caesar, Anthony, Pompey, Lepidus, Agrippa, Mecenas,
Enobarbus, Menes, with other Captaines.
Ant. Thus do they Sir: they take the flow o’th’Nyle
By certaine scales ith Pyramid: they know
By’ th’height, the lownesse, or the meane: If dearth
Or Foizon follow. The higher Nilus swels,
The more it promises: as it ebbes, the Seedsman
Vpon the slime and Ooze scatters his graine,
And shortly comes to Haruest.
Lep. Yhaue strange Serpents there?
Anth. I Lepidus.
Lep. Your Serpent of Egypt, is bred now of your mud
by the operation of your Sun: so is your Crocodile.
Ant. They are so.
Pom. Sit, and some Wine: A health to Lepidus.
Lep. Iam not so well as I should be:
But Ile ne’re out.
Enob. Not till you haue slept: I feare me youl bee in
till then.
Lep. Nay certainly, I haue heard the Ptolomies Pyra-
misis are very goodly things: without contradiction I
haue heard that.
Menas. Pompey, a word.
Pomp. Say in mine eare, what is't.
Men. Forsake thy seate I do beseech thee Captaine,
And heare me speake a word.
640 DATASETS
Pom. Forbeare me till anon.
Whispers in’s Eare.
This Wine for Lepidus.
Lep. Whar manner o'thing is your Crocodile?
Ant. It is shapd sir like it selfe, and it is as broad as it
hath bredth; It is iust so high as it is, and mooues with it
owne organs. It liues by that which nourisheth it, and
the Elements once out of it, it Transmigrates.
Lep. What colour is it of?
Ant. Ofit owne colour too.
Lep. Tis a strange Serpent.
Ant. ’Tis so, and the teares of it are wet.
Ces. Will this description satisfie him?
Word Sequences
Antony and Cleopatra (TLN 1926-69; 12.1-45)
‘plants are’ Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost 4.2.24
‘are ill Middleton Hengist 1.1.2 (1620)
Father Hubburd’s Tale |. 1258 (1604)
Middleton sc. Wit at Several Weapons 4.1.106 (1613)
‘will blow* Shakespeare Taming of the Shrew 5.130
Shakespeare sc. Titus 6.104
Pericles scene 19.15
‘blow them’ Shakespeare Hamlet 19.154
Hamlet Q2 11.206
Merry Wives 5.5.90
Venus and Adonis 1. 52
‘is high?’ Shakespeare Twelfth Night 1.1.15
Henry V 4.2.63
King John 4.3.1
‘one another by the’ Shakespeare Twelfth Night 3.4.159-160
‘cries out’* Hamlet 4.84
2 Henry IV 9.93
1 Henry IV 1.2.69, 4.3.80
Troilus 18.86
Romeo 15.108
76 Present in a Fletcher scene of Two Noble Kinsmen (2.2.144).
7 Occurs in a Ford scene of The Spanish Gypsy (5.1.130).
8 Present in a Rowley scene of A Fair Quarrel (4.4.223).
‘ >
out no more
‘them to his’
‘entreaty and’
‘and himself’
it raises
‘his discretion
‘why this it is?
‘why this it is to”
‘it is to have a?
‘ >
have a name
‘aname in
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc. [?]
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Middleton
DATASETS
King John 5.2.19
As You Like It 2.7.70
Errors 5.1.246
Measure 5.1.393
1 Henry VI 26.15
Tempest 1.2.2.45
Richard III 1.3.39
Titus 8.75
As You Like It 4.1.60
Coriolanus 4.5.189
Lear (Q + F) 3.6”
Shrew 12.26
Richard III 5.4.49
Merchant 1.3.71
Winter's Tale 5.2.93
Cymbeline 1.6.11
Errors 5.1.151
Richard IT 1.3.105
3 Henry 6 1.177, 20.73
Hengist 4.4.15 (1620)
Dream 7.223
Dream 7.224
Dream 7.226
Dream 7.227
Two Gentlemen 1.3.90
Richard IT 1.1.62
All Is True 2.3.82
Two Gentlemen 5.2.48
Lear (Q & F) 4.282-3; 1.4.268-9
641
Triumphs of Love and Antiquity |. 454 (1619)
Honourable Entertainments ll. 20-1 (1620-1)
» For word sequences (type/token) that appear in both Lear Quarto and Folio, I only count Lear once. I only
count the earlier Q text where it appears in both. In other words, I do not include Lear in my post-1607 count. If it
appears in the earlier text then it belongs to the early stage of composition. In the above instance, only Winter’ Tale
and Cymbeline are counted in the post-1607 count.
*° Tokens are counted, but not type in ‘Total’ type/token count, because ‘why this it is’ is a subset of ‘why this
it is to. It is, however, counted as a type/token in non-unique Jacobean and non-unique post-1607 counts,
because the longer word sequence pre-dates those period. See note for ‘he professes not’ in All’s Well Words
Sequences count.
3! Also occurs in a scene of disputed authorship in Edward ITI (10.80).
* See note for ‘and himself.
642 DATASETS
‘Thad as lief have’*
‘will do me
‘service as’
‘not to be seen’
‘holes where eyes’
‘eyes should’
--- VERSE -
‘th height
‘the more it’
‘it ebbs’
‘his grain
234
‘and shortly
‘to harvest’
‘serpent of”
‘is bred’
33 «¢
Shakespeare
Shakespeare passage
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
VERSE inal
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
I had as liue have’ in the Folio text.
34 Appears in a Ford passage of a co-authored scene in The Spanish Gypsy (1.5.41). Also present in a Fletcher
scene of Two Noble Kinsmen (2.6.39).
Henry V 3.7.47
Much Ado 2.3.73
As You Like It 3.2.217
Measure 1.2.35
1 Henry IV 5.4.133
2 Henry IV 8.96
Cymbeline 5.5.93-4
The Witch 4.1.54 (1616)
Women Beware Women 3.1.221 (1621)
Richard III 1.4.29-30
Troilus 3.366-7
2 Henry VI 11.303
Two Noble Kinsmen 5.5.145
VERSE
All Is True 1.2.214
Two Gentlemen 2.7.24
Two Gentlemen 4.2.15
1 Henry IV 2.5.329
1 Henry IV 2.5.330
‘The Tempest 3.1.80
Cymbeline 5.6.347
The Owls Almanac |. 404 (1618)
Troilus 3.7
1 Henry IV 1.3.150
2 Henry IV 4.2.127
Richard II 2.1.290
Hamlet 9.151
Timon 14.721
Twelfth Night 3.1.117
Yorkshire Tragedy scene 7, ll. 6-7 (1605)
Two Gates of Salvation 59 (1609)
Henry V 2.4.51
Henry V 3.5.29
DATASETS 643
‘by the operation of’ Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet 13.7
‘the operation of’ Shakespeare Lear (Q & F) 1.96
‘wine a health Shakespeare Shrew 8.43
‘a health to’ Shakespeare Shrew 8.69
Shrew 16.51
‘am not so well’ Shakespeare Richard II 3.4.44
‘as I should be Middleton The Phoenix 8.97 (1603-4)
‘T should be but’ Middleton sc. The Changeling 2.2.21 (1622)
‘neer out” Middleton Yorkshire Tragedy scene 5, |. 89 (1605)
Michaelmas Term 2.3.244 (1604)
Michaelmas Term 5.3.111 (1604)
‘not till yow Shakespeare Much Ado 5.4.56
Julius Caesar 4.2.137
‘slept Shakespeare sc. Macbeth 2.2.13
‘me you ll’*> Shakespeare As You Like It 5.4.13-14
‘me you'll be’ Shakespeare Love’s Labour's Lost 5.2.302
‘nay certainly’ Shakespeare As You Like It 3.4.16
Shakespeare sc. Pericles scene 14.75
Shakespeare passage Sir Thomas More IIc.99
‘certainly P Middleton The Witch 2.1.42 (1616)
‘goodly things’ Shakespeare Coriolanus 4.6.153
The Winter’s Tale 5.1.177
‘without contradiction Shakespeare Richard II 3.3.123
Cymbeline 1.4.42
‘T have heard that’*® Shakespeare Hamlet 7.484-5
Shakespeare sc. [?] 3 Henry VI14.101
‘ear what’ Shakespeare Cymbeline 3.2.4
‘forsake thy’ Shakespeare King John 1.1.148
Shakespeare sc. [?] 3 Henry VI 21.84
‘thy seat’ Shakespeare Richard II 3.2.115
Richard II 5.5.111
Julius Caesar 3.1.34
‘I do beseech thee?” Shakespeare Othello 3.3.83
Shakespeare sc.
Love’s Labour’s Lost 5.1.76-7
Romeo 8.193
Pericles 25.130
* Present in a Ford scene of The Spanish Gypsy (5.1.186).
36 Appears in Dekker’s section of News from Gravesend (. 32).
37 Present in a Dekker scene of The Patient Man (scene 10, l. 99).
644 DATASETS
‘thee captain and’ Shakespeare
‘and hear me speak’ Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc. [?]
‘me speak a word’ Shakespeare
‘forbear me’ Shakespeare
‘till anor’ Middleton
‘like itself? Shakespeare
‘and it is as’ Shakespeare passage
‘so high as”** Middleton
Middleton sc.
‘as it is and’? Shakespeare
‘and the elements’ Shakespeare
‘once out of’ Shakespeare
‘out of it it’ Shakespeare
‘of it it Shakespeare
Shakespeare passage
‘own colour’! Middleton
‘so and the’ Shakespeare
Shakespeare passage
‘this description” Shakespeare
Twelfth Night 1.2.43-4
Coriolanus 5.6.111
Othello 3.3.29
3 Henry VI 6.117
Errors 5.1.283
Merry Wives 3.1.64
2 Henry IV 13.239
No Wit/Help scene 3, |. 97 (1611)
No Wit/Help scene 4, 1. 295 (1611)
Richard II 2.1.296
2 Henry IV 11.33
Measure 3.1.426-7
The Nice Valour 2.1.173 (1622)
The Changeling 4.3.125 (1622)
Hamlet 5.133
Julius Caesar 5.5.72
2 Henry IV 9.106
Cymbeline 3.1.77
As You Like It 4.3.10-11
Julius Caesar 1.2.233
Tempest 2.1.179-80
Timon 1.35-6
Measure 3.1.294
Triumphs of Truth 1. 405 (1613)
Much Ado 2.3.126
Measure 1.2.54-5
Merchant 3.2.300
38 Also appears in a Dekker scene of The Patient Man (scene 6, |. 459).
*» The phrase also appears in a scene of disputed authorship in 2 Henry VI (15.5).
4° The phrase ‘out of it’ appears elsewhere in All’s Well (2.5.37-8). I have excluded results from this play in
my search.
4’ Also in a disputed scene—most likely written by Dekker—of The Patient Man (scene 13, |. 68).
® ‘The phrase is also present in our test passage for All’s Well (4.3.266). Since that passage’s authorship is the
subject of this study, I have excluded it from the results here, but necessarily included it in the analysis of that passage.
‘There, as here, it is counted as a Shakespearean marker, but, of course, if Middleton is the author of the passage in
All’s Well then it negates that marker. This would affect the findings only slightly as the phrase is not unique in early
modern drama, and Merchant is Elizabethan. Removing this result, “TOTAL 38 LINES PROSE’ for Shakespeare
changes to: “45 types (111 tokens). No other Shakespearean count would be affected. Middleton would gain one
more type/token for unique Jacobean and unique post-1607 counts.
DATASETS
TOTAL 38 LINES PROSE*®
Middleton 13 types (22 tokens)
Shakespeare 46 types (112 tokens)
JACOBEAN (PROSE ONLY)
Middleton = 13 types (22 tokens) + non-uniquely Jacobean 0 (0) = 13 (22)
Shakespeare = 9 types (9 tokens) + non-uniquely Jacobean 13 (16) = 22 (25)
POST-DATING 1607
Middleton = 9 types (12 tokens) + non-uniquely post-1607 2 (4) = 11 (16)
Shakespeare = 6 types (6 tokens) + non-uniquely post-1607 9 (11) = 15 (17)
Unique Uses in Drama (LION 1576-1642)
(marked with ~ if other hit(s) Jacobean (1603-25);
marked with * if other hit(s) post-date 1607)
Middleton Shakespeare
‘one another by the’
‘holes where eyes’
‘me you ll be
~ * ear what’
‘thee captain and’
‘like itself?
TOTAL
Middleton = 0 Shakespeare = 6
JACOBEAN
Middleton = 0 Shakespeare = 1
POST-1607
Middleton = 0 Shakespeare = 1
8 TOTAL 45 LINES (INCLUDING VERSE)
Middleton = 14 types (23 tokens)
Shakespeare = 51 types (126 tokens)
TOTAL VERSE (7 LINES)
Middleton = 1 type (1 token)
Shakespeare = 5 types (14 tokens)
645
646 DATASETS
Rare Uses in Drama (LION 1576-1642; less than five other hits)
(marked with ~ if Jacobean (1603-25);“4 marked with * if post-1607; marked with
+ if all other hits Jacobean or later; marked with ¢ if all other hits post-date 1607)
Middleton Shakespeare
~* + # ‘it raises’ (2 hits)* ‘plants are’ (2 hits)*°
~ * ‘serpent of’ (2 hits)” ~* Out no more (4 hits)**
~‘as I should be (4 hits)” ~*+# ‘entreaty and (3 hits)”
~ + ‘Tshould be but’ (a hit)! ‘why this it is to’ (3 hits)*
~* + # ‘own colour’ (1 hit)*? ~ + # ‘it is to have a (3 hits)™*
‘T had as lief have’>
+ ‘by the operation of”
+ ‘wine a health’ (a hit)°’
+ ‘am not so well’ (3 hits)**
+ # ‘me youll (3 hits)
+ # ‘me speak a word’ (1 hit)®
~ ‘so and the (3 hits)*!
TOTAL 38 LINES PROSE
Middleton = 5 Shakespeare = 12
JACOBEAN
Middleton = 5 Shakespeare = 4
* Tcounta ‘rare’ use as Jacobean or post-1607 if at least one of the word sequences is written after that date.
* Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614); Massinger and Fletcher, A Very Woman (c.1619-21).
*° Anon., Clyomon and Clamydes (c.1570s, first printed 1599); Henry Killigrew, The Conspiracy (1634-5, first
printed 1638).
*” Anon., Clyomon and Clamydes (c.1570s, first printed 1599); Thomas Heywood, The Brazen Age (c.1610-13).
#8 Anon., Love and Fortune (1582); Barnabe Barnes, The Devil’s Charter (1607); Thomas Dekker, The Noble
Spanish Soldier (c.1622-31); Nathaniel Woodes, The Conflict of Conscience (c.15708-1581).
*® Philip Massinger, The Picture (c.1629); Samuel Rowley, When You See Me (c.1603-5); George Ruggle,
Ignoramus (1615); Thomas Tomkis, Albumazar (1615).
°° Thomas Heywood, The Iron Age, part one (c.1612-13); Ben Jonson, Epicoene (1609); Ben Jonson, The New Inn
(c.1628-9).
5! Thomas Tomkis, Albumazar (1615).
* Henry Chettle, Patient Grissil (1600); Thomas Heywood, Edward IV, part one (c.1592-9, printed 1600); Ben
Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour (1599).
> James Shirley, Love’s Cruelty (c. 1631).
*4 Robert Davenport, A New Trick to Cheat the Devil (c.1624-39; first printed 1639); Thomas Heywood, The Royal
King (c.1615-18; printed 1637); William Rowley, A Shoemaker a Gentleman (c.1607-9; first printed 1638).
°° Anon., Every Woman in her Humour (c.1603-8); John Lyly, Mother Bombie (c.1587-90)
°° Lording Barry, Ram-Alley (c.1607-8).
°” Edward Sharpham, The Fleire (1606).
°° Peter Hausted, The Rival Friends (1632); James Shirley, Love’ Cruelty (c.1631); George Wilkins, The Miseries of
Enforced Marriage (1605-6).
°° William Davenant, The Fair Favourite (1638); John Fletcher The Night-walker (Fletcher's play dates from
c.1611°; revised by Shirley and licensed in 1633 and first printed 1640; in 4.1, a scene of disputed authorship); S. S.,
The Honest Lawyer (c.1614-15).
6° James Shirley, The Gamester (c.1633).
S| Anon., The Birth of Hercules (c.1597-1610?); Thomas Lupton, All for Money (c.1570s); James Shirley, The Lady
of Pleasure (c.1635).
DATASETS 647
POST-1607
Middleton = 4 Shakespeare = 2
ALL OTHER HITS JACOBEAN
Middleton = 4 Shakespeare = 7
ALL OTHER HITS POST-DATING 1607
Middleton = 3 Shakespeare = 4
[VERSE 7 LINES”?
~* + # ‘it ebbs’ (1 hit)® + # ‘his grain (1 hit)™
+ ‘to harvest’ (2 hits)*]
Collocations
# symbol: unique collocations to Antony and Cleopatra (TLN 1926-69; 12.1-45) and one
of Shakespeare or Middleton in English Drama 1576-1642
~ symbol: Unique collocations to Antony and Cleopatra (TLN 1926-69; 12.1-45) and one
of Shakespeare or Middleton (1603-25)
@ symbol: Unique collocations to Antony and Cleopatra (TLN 1926-69; 12.1-45) and
one of Shakespeare or Middleton (post-1607)
AN symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but at least one Shakespeare or
Middleton hit is in a work dating from 1603-25
+ symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but at least one Shakespeare or
Middleton hit is in a work dating after 1607
<> symbol: not unique collocations in English drama 1576-1642, but all other hits post-
date 1607
= symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642 but all other hits post-date 1607 and
all unique collocations in Middleton or Shakespeare also post-date 1607
© The phrase ‘it promises’ occurs only in this verse passage and All’s Well that Ends Well in the works of
Shakespeare and Middleton. This phrase appears twice in Beaumont and Fletcher (and others) Love’s Cure
(c.1612-15; not printed until 1647). I have excluded this result because All’s Well is the subject of the overall
attribution test.
® John Clavell, The Soddered Citizen (c.1629-31).
64 John Fletcher (with Nathan Field?), Four Play, or Moral Representations, in One (c.1608-13)
® Henry Glapthorne, The Ladies’ Privilege (c.1637-40; first printed 1640); William Alexander, Croesus (1604).
648 DATASETS
<> plant* NEAR root
Tl plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares?
(Shakespeare sc. ¢; 3 Henry VI1.48)
‘his love was an eternal plant,| Whereof the root was fixed’
(Shakespeare sc. ¢; 3 Henry VI 13.124-5)
wind* NEAR world*
‘Her worth being mounted on the wind| Through all the world’
(As You Like It 3.2.73-4)
pinch* NEAR cries*®
‘Who having pinched a few and made them cry’
(Shakespeare sc. ?; 3 Henry VI 5.16)
# disposition NEAR cries*
‘T have a great dispositions to cry’ (Merry Wives 3.1.17)
cries* NEAR more
‘A cry more tuneable’ (Dream 5.580)
‘More ready to cry out’ (Troilus 5.12)
AA “To come into the cry without more help’ (Othello 5.1.43)
>
AN ‘Cries of itself “No more
A “Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more”’
(Shakespeare passage; Macbeth 2.2.32)
(Shakespeare sc.; Timon 17.10)
AN “Still it cried “Sleep no more” to all the house’
(Shakespeare passage; Macbeth 2.2.38)
more NEAR reconcile*
AA ‘repeals and reconciles thee.| What will hap more tonight
(Lear Quarto, 13.100-1)
great* NEAR discretion”
‘he avoids them with great discretion’
(Much Ado 2.3.157)
call* NEAR sphere
A\ + ‘Let this be called the sphere of harmony’
(Middleton sc.; World tossed at Tennis |. 811; 1620)
huge NEAR see*
A\\ “Tnever saw so huge a billow, sir’
(Shakespeare sc.; Pericles, 14.56)
hole* NEAR eye*
‘in [the] holes| Where eyes did once inhabit’ (Richard III 1.4.29-30)
“I spied his eyes, and methought he had made two holes’ (2 Henry IV 6.64-5)
°° The phrase ‘With your long nailes pinch her till she crie also appears in the inferior first quarto of Merry
Wives of Windsor (London, 1602), Gar.
*” The collocation ‘raise* NEAR discretion occurs in a Rowley scene of The Changeling: ‘we can raise him to the|
higher degree of discretion’ 1.2.121-2; 1622).
DATASETS 649
<> pitiful* NEAR cheek
‘the agéd wrinkles in my cheeks,| Be pitiful to my condemned sons’
(Shakespeare sc.; Titus 5.7-8)
==5 VERSE aoe VERSE --- VERSE
<> more NEAR ebb*
AA + ‘You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed,| Most often do
(Tempest 2.1.211-12)
# ~ @ Egypt NEAR mud
‘For all the mud in Egypt’ (Shakespeare sc.; All Is True 2.3.93)
# ~ sit* NEAR wine NEAR health
‘Come, love and health to all,| Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine?
(Shakespeare passage; Macbeth 3.4.86-7)
wine NEAR health
‘He calls for wine. “A health,” quoth he’ (Shrew 8.43)
# beseech NEAR seat
‘God I beseech him.| Thy honour, state, and seat is due to me?
(Richard III 1.3.110-11)
beseech NEAR hear NEAR speak
‘I beseech you on my knees, | Hear me with patience but to speak a word?
(Romeo 17.158-9)
forbear NEAR till®
‘Better forbear till Proteus make return?
(Two Gentlemen 2.7.14)
“Till he come home again, I would forbear’
(Errors 2.1.31)
‘Forbear till this company be past.
(Love’s Labour’ Lost 1.2.99)
AN ‘forbear his presence till some’
(Lear Q scene 2.133)
till NEAR wine
“till the wine o’erswell the cup’ (Julius Caesar 4.2.208)
just NEAR high
Just as high as my heart’ (As You Like It 3.2.233)
% The phrase ‘forbeare a while,| Till I doe’ appears in True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (London, 1595), D1y,
the early alternative version of 3 Henry VI.
650 DATASETS
high* NEAR move*
A\ “The noise was high. Ha! No more moving:
<> own NEAR organ*
AA “all the organs| Of our own power’
live* NEAR nourish*®
“Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourished’
TOTALS for 38 LINES of PROSE
(Othello 5.2.95)
(Shakespeare passage; Measure 1.1.21-2)
(Shakespeare sc.; Titus 10.60)
TOTALS
Total collocations in Middleton or Shakespeare: Middleton 1 types (1 token)
Shakespeare 21types (31 tokens)
# Unique collocations in English drama 1576-1642: Middleton otypes (0 tokens)
Shakespeare 4types (4 tokens)
~ Unique collocations in English Drama 1603-25: | Middleton: otypes (0 tokens)
Shakespeare: 2types (2 tokens)
@ Unique collocations in English Drama 1607-42: Middleton: otypes (0 tokens)
Shakespeare: itypes (1 token)
AA not unique in English drama 1576-1642,
but unique collocations in M or Sh 1603-25: Middleton 1 type (1 token)
Shakespeare 6types (9 tokens)
+ not unique in English drama, but after
1607 in M or Sh: Middleton 1 type (1 token)
Shakespeare 1 type (1 token)
<> not unique in English drama, but all other hits
post-date 1607: Middleton o type (o tokens)
Shakespeare 3 types (4 tokens)
= not unique in English drama, but all other hits
post-date 1607 and all unique collocations
in M or Sh also post-date 1607: Middleton o type (o tokens)
Shakespeare otypes (0 tokens)
VERSE 7 LINES
Middleton Shakespeare
Total 0 (0) 1(1)
# 0 (0) 0 (0)
® The collocation live* NEAR element occurs only elsewhere in Shakespeare or Middleton in Twelfth
Night, but the verb/noun change alters meaning substantially: ‘Does not our lives consist of the four elements?’
(2.3.7-8).
DATASETS 651
~ 0 (0) 0 (0)
@ 0 (0) 0 (0)
AK 0 (0) 1(1)
+ 0 (0) 1 (1)
<> 0 (0) 1(1)
= 0 (0) 0 (0)
Dataset 4.3
in support of Rory Loughnane, “Thomas Middleton in All’s Well that Ends Well?
Part One. Comparable Passage from Hengist, King of Kent, or
The Mayor of Queenborough (5.1.321-63)
Throws meal in his face, takes his purse, & Exit.
Sym. Oh bless me, Neighbours, I am in a Fogg,
A Cheaters Fogg, I can see no body.
Glo. Run, follow him, Officers.
Sym. Away, let him go,
[He will / For he'll (LP)] have all your purses, [if / and (LP)] he come back,
[A /ba (L)/ not in (P)] pox [on / of (LP)] your new Additions, they spoil all the plays
That ever they come in, the old way had no such roguery [in it / int remember (LP)];
[Calls / Call (LP)] you this a merry Comedy, when [as (LP)] a mans eyes are put out
[in’'t / not in (LP)]?
[Brothet / Brother (LP)] Honey-suckle.
Felt. What says your sweet Worship.
Sym. I make you [my (LP)] Deputy to rule the Town till I can see again,
Which [I hope (LP)] will be within [these / not in (LP)] nine days at [farthest / furthest (LP)].
Nothing grieves me [now / not in (LP)], but that I hear Oliver the Rebel
Laugh at me; a pox [on / of (LP)] your Puritan face, this will make you in
Love with Plays [as long as you live / euer hereafter (LP)],
We shall not keep [you / the (P)] from [them / em (LP)] now.
Oli. In sincerity,
I was never better pleasd [edifyde (LP)] at an exercise. [Ha, ha, ha. / not in (LP)]
Sym. Neighbours, what colour [was the dust
The Rascal / is that rascalls dust he (L)/ is this rascalls dust he (P)] threw in my face?
Glo. [’Twas / tis (LP)] meal, [if it / ant (LP)] please your Worship.
Sym. Meal? [I am / Ime (LP) glad [of it / ont (LP)],
Tle hang the Miller for selling [it / ont (LP).
Glo. Nay ten to one
The Cheater never bought it, he stole it certainly.
Sym. Why then Ile hang the Cheater for stealing [it / ont (LP),
And the Miller for being out of the way when he did it.
652 DATASETS
Felt: | but your Worship was in the fault your self,
You bid him do his worst.
Sym. His worst? that’s true,
But [the Rascal hath / he has (LP)] done his best [the rascall (LP)]; for I know not how
a Villain
Could put out a mans eyes better, and leave [them in his / em ins (LP)] head,
[As / then (LP)] he has done [mine / not in (LP)].
[Enter Clark: (LP)]
Ami. [Where is / whers (LP)] my Masters Worship?
Sym. How now Aminadab? J hear thee though I see thee not.
[Ami. / not in (P)] [You are / yare (LP)] sure couzened, Sir, they are all [professed
Cheaters / Cheaters pfest (L) / Cheaters and profest (P)],
They have stoln [two silver spoons / three spoones too (LP)], and the Clown took his
heels With all celerity; they only take the name of Country-Comedians
To abuse simple people with a printed play [or two / cropped in (L)],
[Which / not in (LP)] they bought at Canterbury for six pence,
And what is [worse / worst (LP)], they speak but
What they list [of it / ont (LP)], and fribble out the rest.
Word Sequences
Hengist (5.2.321-63)”
‘in a fog’ Shakespeare Coriolanus 2.3.23
‘have all your’ Middleton Women Beware Women 5.1.53 (1621)
The Puritan Widow 1.4.152 (1606)
Middleton sc. Anything for a Quiet Life 5.2.74 (1621)
‘a pox on your’ Middleton sc. Wit at Several Weapons 5.2.106 (1613)
[NOT (LP)]
‘pox on your” Middleton sc. Anything for a Quiet Life 2.4.57 (1621)
[NOT (LP)]
‘A pox of your’ (L)” Middleton More Dissemblers 4.2.157 (1614)
Middleton sc. The Roaring Girl scene 6, |. 211 (1611)
‘new additions Middleton A Chaste Maid 3.3.2.4 (1613)
Revenger’ Tragedy 2.2.129 (1606)
Middleton sc. A Fair Quarrel 5.1.437 (1616)
7 “The sequence ‘two which’ occurs in All’s Well (1.1.127 [NOT (LP)]). Since we are completing an authorship
test for All’ Well we omit that play’s results from our counts.
7 As per usual, with word sequences that occur as a subset of a larger word sequence counted in the same pas-
sage, we only count token and not type. The sequence ‘pox on your also appears in a passage attributed to Rowley
in A Fair Quarrel (1.1.346).
” The word sequence appears in Qi Romeo and Juliet, but that is a highly unreliable text compared to the Q2,
Q3, and F and we omit it from our count. See discussion of ‘pox’ and ‘plague’ above.
DATASETS 653
‘spoil all’? Middleton The Widow 2.2.107 (1615-16)
The Widow 4.2.40 (1615-16)
The Puritan Widow 3.5.86 (1606)
The Puritan Widow 4.2.106 (1606)
Honourable Entertainments 1. 35 (1620-1)
No Wit/Help scene 6, |. 104 (1611)
‘spoil all the’ Middleton passage Patient Man scene 5, |. 8 (1604)
‘the old way’ Middleton ‘The Two Gates of Salvation 12 (1609)
‘you this a’ Middleton Wisdom of Solomon verse 18 (1597)
Middleton sc. ‘The Roaring Girl scene 5, 1. 126-7 (1611)
‘a merry comedy’ Middleton A Mad World, my Masters 5.2.132 (1605)”*
‘a man’s eyes’? Middleton No Wit/Help scene 9, 1. 148 (1611)
Middleton sc. ‘The Bloody Banquet 3.3.30 (1608-9)
‘are put out’ Middleton The Puritan Widow 5.1.329 (1606)
‘out int Middleton No Wit/Help scene 1, |. 129 (1611) [NOT (LP)]
‘What says your’ Shakespeare Richard III 3.7.57
Richard III 4.2.92
2 Henry 8.302
‘town till Shakespeare sc. Timon 17.53
‘see again’
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Sonnet 56, l. 7
Cymbeline 1.1.125
Troilus 14.55
Pericles 16.8
‘within these nine days’ Middleton The Witch 2.3.6 (1616) [NOT (LP)]
‘at farthest’ Middleton sc. ‘The Changeling 1.1.89 (1622) [NOT (LP)]
‘me now but’ Middleton The Witch 4.3.11 (1616)
The Puritan Widow 3.5.97 (1606)
‘the rebel’ Shakespeare Macbeth 1.3.107
passage
[REPEAT SEQUENCES ARE RECORDED AS TOKENS, BUT NOT TYPES:
‘pox on your’
Middleton sc.
Anything for a Quiet Life 2.4.57 (1621)
[NOT (LP)]
® The phrase also appears in a scene of mixed authorship of Patient Man (scene 15, l. 88) and in a Dekker scene
of The Roaring Girl (scene 9, |. 118).
™ The letter sequence ‘when as a appears twice in Shakespeare, but both times as ‘whenas a which carries a
distinct meaning: Cymbeline (5.3.232: ‘whenas a) and a Shakespeare scene of Edward III (5.42: ‘whenas @).
* The same word sequence occurs below. We record repeat sequences as tokens, but not types.
’© Appears in a Fletcher scene of All Is True (4.2.109).
654. DATASETS
‘A pox of your’ (L) Middleton More Dissemblers 4.2.157 (1614)
Middleton sc. The Roaring Girl scene 6, |. 211 (1611)]
‘make you in” Middleton A Trick to Catch 4.5.118 (1605)
‘you in love’ Shakespeare Merchant 4.1.422
‘as long as you live’ Middleton Plato’s Cap 1. 158 (1604) [NOT (LP)]
Middleton No Wit/Help scene 9, Il. 49-50 (1611)
[NOT (LP)]
‘ever hereafter’”’ (LP) Middleton The Witch 3.1.4 (1616)
Game at Chess 3.295 (1624)
Game at Chess (additional passages)
D.12 (1624)
Mad World, my Masters 5.2.54 (1605)
No Wit/Help scene 9, 1. 154 (1611)
‘shall not keep yow Middleton The Widow 5.1.345 (1615-16)
‘you from them’ Shakespeare Richard HI 3.1.15
‘from ’em’” (LP) Middleton The Puritan Widow 3.1.63 (1606)
Revenger's Tragedy 3.4.4 (1606)
A Game at Chess 4.1.116 (1624)
A Trick to Catch 2.1.391 (1605)
A Trick to Catch 3.1.67 (1605)
A Trick to Catch 5.2.60 (1605)
Your Five Gallants 1.1.208 (1607)
Your Five Gallants 2.1.177 (1607)
The Phoenix 4.217 (1603-4)
The Widow 2.1.25 (1615-16)
The Widow 2.2.2 (1615-16)
Women Beware Women 5.1.108 (1621)
‘In sincerity’ Shakespeare sc. Measure 1.4.35
‘I was never better pleased’ Middleton The Puritan Widow 3.4.86 (1606)
‘pleased at’ Middleton ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy 5.3.18 (1606)
[NOT (LP)]
Wisdom of Solomon (1597) [NOT (LP)]
‘an exercise” Shakespeare Hamlet 8.46
‘what colour is’(LP)*° Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra 12.41
77” Present in a Dekker passage of News from Gravesend (1. 163).
Also present in a scene primarily composed by Rowley in Wit at Several Weapons (2.2.169).
Appears in a Rowley scene of A Fair Quarrel (2.2.172).
I have counted ‘what colour is’ as a token but not a type for Portland. The same word sequence is present in
‘what colour is this. However, I have counted it as a non-unique Jacobean type (and token), because it is present in
a Jacobean play (Antony) and also a non-Jacobean play (2 Henry VI).
78
79
80
‘what colour is this’ (P)
‘colour was the
‘he threw’ (LP)
‘Tam glad of it
Tm glad ont (LP)
Tll hang the’®!
‘Nay ten’
‘never bought’
‘it certainly’
‘the cheater for’
‘on't and the (LP)
‘being out of’
‘way when he’
‘he did it’
‘but your worship’
‘your worship was’
‘in the fault’
‘him do his’
‘do his worst’
‘the rascal hath
‘has done his’ (LP)®
‘T know not how a
Shakespeare sc.?
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Middleton sc.
Middleton
Middleton
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare sc.?
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Shakespeare sc.
Shakespeare
DATASETS 655
2 Henry VI5.104
Lucrece |. 66 [NOT (LP)]
2 Henry IV 4.1.124 (2005 Wells and Taylor)
As You Like It 4.3.98
Henry V 4.6.25
1 Henry IV 3.1.123 [NOT (LP)]
Merry Wives 3.3.89 [NOT (LP)]
2 Henry IV 11.242 [NOT (LP)]
Hamlet 12.18 [NOT (LP)]
Merchant 3.1.87 [NOT (LP)]
Women Beware Women 3.1.110 (1621)
The Widow 5.1.281 (1615-16)
Anything for a Quiet Life 3.1.92 (1621)
The Widow 4.2.255 (1615-16)
The Widow 5.1.80 (1615-16)
Women Beware Women 1.3.52 (1621)
King John 3.4.18
Titus 10.111
The Witch 2.2.3-4 (1616)
The Witch 3.2.189 (1616)
Love’s Labour's Lost 3.1.34
Julius Caesar 1.2.5-6
Coriolanus 1.1.26
Coriolanus 1.1.28
All Is True 1.1.174
All Is True 3.2.80
3 Henry V11.143
The Widow 4.2.214 (1615-16)
Merchant 1.3.52
Merchant 2.5.8
2 Henry IV 6.21
Othello 1.2.16
Coriolanus 5.2.97
1 Henry IV 2.2.8 [NOT (LP)]
Macbeth 3.2.26
Cymbeline 5.6.321
8! Also appears in a part of a scene primarily composed by Rowley in Wit at Several Weapons (5.2.168).
® Also appears in a scene of disputed authorship in The Two Noble Kinsmen (5.6.102).
8 The phrase ‘he has done his’ is found in a scene of disputed authorship in Anything for a Quiet Life (5.1.41).
656 DATASETS
‘could put’
‘put out a
‘ 53
out a mans
Shakespeare
Middleton
Middleton
Winter’s Tale 5.2.77
Cymbeline 5.6.340
Love’s Labour's Lost 4.3.44
The Owl’s Almanac 1. 1626 (1618)
The Widow 3.2.65 (1615-16)
[REPEAT SEQUENCES ARE RECORDED AS TOKENS, BUT NOT TYPES:
‘a man’s eyes’
‘and leave them’
‘leave them in
‘and leave ‘em’ (LP)
‘in’s head then’ (LP)
‘as he has done
‘done mine’
‘my master’s worship
‘thee though
‘though I see’
‘see thee not’
‘they have stolen’
‘two silver’
‘silver spoons’
< ,
spoons and
‘his heels with’
‘only take the’
‘take the name
‘people with
Middleton
Middleton sc.
Shakespeare
Middleton passage
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare passage
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Middleton
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Middleton
Shakespeare
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
No Wit/Help scene 9, 1. 148 (1611)
‘The Bloody Banquet 3.3.30 (1608-9)
Julius Caesar 5.1.35 [NOT (LP)]
Meeting of Gallants |. 621 (1604)
[NOT LP]
Mad World, my Masters 1.1.21 (1605)
The Puritan Widow 2.1.276 (1606)
Cymbeline 5.5.267
The Witch 5.3.74 (1616) [NOT (LP)]
Mad World, my Masters 5.2.135-6 (1605)
[NOT (LP)]
Sonnet 24, Il. 9-10 [NOT (LP)]
Measure 2.2.39-40 [NOT (LP)]
Your Five Gallants 2.4.143 (1607)
Richard II 5.6.39
The Witch 2.1.111 (1616)
A Chaste Maid 2.2.128 (1613)
Mad World, my Masters 2.6.111 (1605)
Venus and Adonis |. 366 [NOT (LP)]
More Dissemblers 3.1.119 (1614)
[NOT (LP)]
Plato’s Cap |. 106 (1604) [NOT (LP)]
The Owl’s Almanac |. 1651 (1618)
[NOT (LP)]
Penniless Parliament |. 243 (1601)
[NOT (LP)]
Julius Caesar 3.1.122-3
Richard II 4.1.152
A Trick to Catch 1.1.63 (1605)
Coriolanus 5.6.54-5
Twelfth Night 2.5.49
‘bought at’ Middleton passage The Patient Man scene 7, |. 40 (1604)
‘for sixpence’™* Middleton Your Five Gallants 1.1.47 (‘six pence’)
(1607)
Middleton passage The Roaring Girl epistle 1. 14 (1611)
Middleton passage The Patient Man scene 7, |. 18 (1604)
‘what is worst’ (LP) Shakespeare Coriolanus 3.1.355
‘they speak but’ Shakespeare Much Ado 4.1.187
‘speak but what’ Shakespeare Hamlet 3.2.164-5
‘what they list’® Middleton The Witch 2.2.134 (1616)
TOTAL
Lambarde Portland Quarto
Middleton 32 (71) 31 (67) 36 (60)
Shakespeare 31 (47) 31 (48) 32 (51)
DATASETS
JACOBEAN (+ non-uniquely Jacobean)
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Lambarde
31 (67) +1 (1) = 32 (68)
9 (9) + 6 (12) = 15 (21)
Portland
30 (63) +1 (1) = 31 (64)
9 (9) + 6 (12) = 15 (21)
Quarto
34 (54) + 2 (2) = 36 (56)
6 (6) + 6 (12) = 12 (18)
POST-DATING 1607 (+ non-uniquely post-1607)
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Middleton
Shakespeare
Lambarde
15 (24) + 8 (19) = 23 (43)
5 (5) + 4 (10) = 9 (15)
Portland
14 (20) + 8 (19) = 22 (39)
5 (5) + 4 (10) = 9 (15)
Quarto
16 (21) + 10 (15) = 26 (36)
3 (3) + 4 (10) = 7 (13)
657
84 “The longer exact phrase ‘for sixpence and’ appears in a passage conventionally attributed to Dekker in News
from Gravesend (1. 434).
* Also appears in a scene primarily attributed to Webster in Anything for a Quiet Life (5.1.240).
658 DATASETS
Unique Uses in Drama (LION 1576-1642)
(marked with ~ if Jacobean (1603-25);*° marked with * if post-1607; marked with
+ if all other hits Jacobean or later; marked with # if all other hits post-date 1607)
Middleton Shakespeare
~ ‘a merry comedy’ ‘what colour is this’ [P]
~ * ‘a man’s eyes’ *” ‘the cheater for
~ * ‘within these nine days’ [NOT (LP)] ‘way when he’
~* ‘shall not keep you’ ~ * ‘in’s head then’ [LP]
~ ‘Twas never better pleased’ ‘his heels with’
~* Til hang the’ ‘the rascal hath [NOT (LP)]
~* ‘out a man’s ‘only take the’
TOTAL
Middleton Shakespeare
L 6 5
P 6 6
Q 7 5
JACOBEAN (~)
Middleton Shakespeare
il 6 i
P 6 1
Q 7 0
POST-DATING 1607 (*)
Middleton Shakespeare
L 4 1
P 4 1
Q 5 fo)
Rare Uses in Drama (LION 1576-1642; less than five other hits)
(marked with ~ if Jacobean (1603-25); marked with * if post-1607; marked with
+ if all other hits Jacobean or later; marked with # if all other hits post-date 1607)
Middleton Shakespeare
~ * ‘new additions’ (2 hits)** ~*+# ‘ina fog’ (1 hit)”
~ ‘spoil all the’ (1 hit)? ~ # ‘town till’ (2 hits)?!
~ + # ‘are put out’ (3 hits)” + # ‘you from them’ (2 hits)**
We count a ‘rare’ use as Jacobean or post-1607 if at least one of the word sequences is written after that date.
Note that this unique word sequence is used twice in this passage.
Anon., A Warning for Fair Women (c.1598-9); Anon., Jeronimo, part one (c.1600-5).
® Dekker and Rowley, The Witch of Edmonton (1621).
Francis Marbury, The Marriage between Wit and Wisdom (c.1570s).
*! John Fletcher, The Island Princess (1619-21); Philip Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts (c.1621-5).
Anon., Two Noble Ladies (c.1619-23); Thomas Fuller, Andronicus (c.1642-3); John Tatham, The Distracted
State (c.1641-50).
°° Richard Brome, Mad Couple Well Matched (c.1637-9); Henry Glapthorne, Revenge for Honour (c.1637-41).
~* as long as you live’ (3 hits)** [NOT (LP)]
~ ‘pleased at’ (1 hit)*° [NOT (LP)]
~ * ‘nay ten’ (1 hit)”
~* +# ont and the (1 hit)! [LP]
~ * + # ‘but your worship’ (4 hits)!”
~ * + # ‘put out a’ (2 hits)!
~ + # ‘eave them in (3 hits)!°° [NOT (LP)]
~ + # ‘my master’s worship (1 hit)!
~ + # ‘they have stoler’ (1 hit)!”
TOTAL
Middleton
L 9
P 9
Q ll
JACOBEAN (~)
Middleton
L 9
P 9
Q 11
POST-DATING 1607 (*)
Middleton
L 4
P 4
Q 5
DATASETS 659
~ ‘what colour is’ (2 hits)” [LP]
‘it certainly’ (3 hits)*”
+ ‘your worship was’ (2 hits)”
‘in the fault’ (4 hits)!”
~* +#‘T know not howa (3 hits)'™
~ * + # ‘what is worst’ (2 hits)’ [LP]
+ # ‘they speak but’ (1 hit)!”
‘two silver’ (4 hits)!’ [NOT (LP)]
Shakespeare
10
10
9
Shakespeare
5
5
3
Shakespeare
3
3
2
** Anon., Wily Beguiled (c.1596; printed 1606); Shackerley Marmion, A Fine Companion (c.1632-3); John
Marston, The Dutch Courtesan (1603-4).
*° Anon., Timon (c.1581-90); Thomas Tomkis, Lingua (1602-7).
°® One of the two uses by Middleton dates from the Jacobean period. The only other use is found in Anon.,
The Fair Maid of the Exchange (c.1601-7). Wiggins (#1326) dates the play 1602, and we omit it from our
Jacobean count.
7 Anon., Two Merry Milkmaids (1619-20); John Fletcher, The Chances (1617-25); William Percy, The Cuck-
queans and Cuckolds Errants (1601).
°8 Henry Porter, The Two Angry Women of Abington (1599).
»” Thomas Tomkis, Lingua (1602-7); Robert Chamberlain, The Swaggering Damsel (1640).
10° Thomas Nabbes, Hannibal and Scipio (1635).
George Chapman, The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (c.1611-12); Henry Glapthorne, The Lady Mother (1635);
Wentworth Smith, The Hector of Germany (c.1614-15); William Warner, Menaechmi (c.1592-4).
1 John Fletcher, The Captain (1609-12); Fletcher and Beaumont, The Coxcomb (1608-10); Ben Jonson, The
Staple of News (1626); Robert Wild, The Benefice (c.1641).
Richard Brome, The New Academy (c.1630s-1640); John Fletcher, The Lovers’ Progress (with revisions by
Massinger, 1634); Philip Massinger, The City-Madam (1632).
© John Webster, Appius and Virginia (1608-34); John Suckling, The Goblins (c.1637-41).
105 John Ford, The Fancies Chest (1635-6); Thomas Fuller, Andronicus (c.1642-3).
6 Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore, part two (c.1604-5); twice in Thomas Heywood, The Captives (1624).
7 Gervase Markham, Herod and Antipater (c.1619-22).
18 James Shirley, The Wedding (c.1626-9).
Richard Brome, The City Wit (1629-37); Samuel Daniel, Tethy’s Festival (1610); Thomas Dekker, Old Fortun-
atus (1599); John Fletcher, The Loyal Subject (1618).
40 Henry Glapthorne, The Lady Mother (1635).
660 DATASETS
ALL OTHER HITS JACOBEAN OR LATER (+)
Middleton Shakespeare
i 6 6
P 6 6
Q 6 5
ALL OTHER HITS POST-DATING 1607 (#)
Middleton Shakespeare
L 6 6
P 6 6
Q 5 5
Collocations'
# symbol: unique collocations to Hengist (5.2.321-63) and one of Shakespeare or
Middleton in English Drama 1576-1642
~ symbol: Unique collocations to Hengist (5.2.321-63) and one of Shakespeare or
Middleton (1603-25)
@ symbol: Unique collocations to Hengist (5.2.321-63) and one of Shakespeare or
Middleton (post-1607)
AX symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but at least one Shakespeare or
Middleton hit is in a work dating from 1603-25
+ symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but at least one Shakespeare or
Middleton hit is in a work dating after 1607
<> symbol: not unique collocations in English drama 1576-1642, but all other hits post-
date 1607
= symbol: not unique in English drama 1576-1642 but all other hits post-date 1607 and
all unique collocations in Middleton or Shakespeare also post-date 1607
bless* NEAR neighbour*
‘Come hither, neighbour Seacole, God hath blest you’
(Much Ado 3.3.10)
1! The collocation ‘steal NEAR certaim occurs in All’s Well: ‘Certain it is that he will steal himself into a man’s
favour’ (3.6.70-1).
DATASETS 661
run NEAR officer*
A + ‘Run for officers. Let him be apprehended’
(Women Beware Women 4.2.54—-5; 1621)
<> follow* NEAR officer*
AA ‘T follow you| still, as the officers will follow’
(The Phoenix, 9.216-17; 1603-4)
A\ + ‘officers of arms in their rich coats; next followed the Knights’
(Civitatis Amor, |. 156-7; 1616)
spoil* NEAR ever
AN ‘spoil all the servants that ever shall come| under them?
(Middleton sc.; The Patient Man, scene 5, ll. 8-9; 1604)
AA + ‘kill me ever.| Your marriage day is spoiled if all be true’
(Middleton sc.;.A Fair Quarrel, 5.1.210-11; 1616)
<> spoil* NEAR old
‘Tam old now,| And these same crosses spoil me.
(Lear Q and F, 24.273-4)!”
sweet NEAR worship*
AA ‘entreat your worship’s| company, with these sweet ladies’
(Your Five Gallants 2.1.273-4; 1607)
make NEAR deputy
AN ‘she make friends| To the strict deputy’
(Shakespeare passage; Measure 1.2.78-9)
rule* NEAR hope* (LP)
AN “Thope she'll be ruled in time’ (Michaelmas Term 2.3.20-1; 1604)
AN ‘he hopes she'll] be ruled by her in time (Michaelmas Term 3.1.263—4; 1604)
grieve* NEAR hear*!
‘this grievéd Count| Did see her, hear her’ (Much Ado 4.1.85-6)
AN ‘T have heard and grieved’ (Shakespeare sc.; Timon 14.92)
pox NEAR face*
‘Pox, leave thy damnable faces’
(Hamlet Folio 3.2.240 (2005 Wells and Taylor))
AN ‘may mire upon your face. A pox of wrinkles!’
2
(Shakespeare sc.; Timon 14.147-8)
As with our practice elsewhere in the counts, if the sequence or collocation appears first in the quarto of Lear
we do not include it in our post-1607 count.
3
The collocation also appears in a scene normally attributed to Nashe in 1 Henry VI: ‘I grieve to hear what
torments you endured’ (1.6.35).
662 DATASETS
dust NEAR threw*
‘But dust was thrown upon his sacred head’ (Richard IT 5.2.30)
A+ ‘And throw their power ith’ dust’ (Coriolanus 3.1.171)
AA + ‘they to dust should grind it] And throw’t against the wind’
(Coriolanus 3.2.102)
# ~ nay NEAR cheat*
‘Nay, he will cheat his own brother; nay, his own father’
(Your Five Gallants 5.1.96—-7; 1607)
<> = hang* NEAR certain*
A\ + “Hang one of em I will certain
(Middleton sc.; Wit at Several Weapons 4.1.59; 1613)
worship* NEAR fault
AA + ‘the faults I have committed to your worship’ (Winter’s Tale 5.2.117-18)
AA ‘the worships of their name. O most small fault’ (Lear Q & F, 4.233)
# worship* NEAR yourself
I beseech your worship to correct yourself’ (Much Ado 5.1.284-5)
worst NEAR true
AA + ‘and more true to them.| Then let the worst give place’
(‘The Lady’s Tragedy 2.2.91-2; 1611)
best NEAR villain*!*
AA ‘the best clay to mould a villain of’ (Revenger's Tragedy 4.1.49; 1606)
villain NEAR eyes
‘“Their eyes’, villain, “their eyes”! (Love’s Labour’s Lost 5.2.163)
‘Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes’ (Much Ado 5.1.226)
AA ‘Hence, horrible villain, or Pll spurn thine eyes’ (Antony and Cleopatra 10.63)
AA + ‘Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain; (Winter's Tale 1.2.136)
<> cozen* NEAR cheat*
AA ‘Tam cheated! Infinitely cozened!’ (A Trick to Catch 5.2.105; 1605)
abuse NEAR simple
‘But thus his simple truth must be abused’ (Richard III 1.3.52)
44 Also appears in a scene of mixed authorship in Patient Man: ‘villains, and black murderers,| As the best day
for them to labour ir’ (scene, 1 Il. 117-18; 1604).
DATASETS 663
abuse NEAR people
A\ + “The people are abused, set on” (Coriolanus 3.1.58)
speak* NEAR list
‘Or “Tf we list to speak” (Hamlet 5.175)
TOTALS
Total collocations in Middleton or Shakespeare:
Middleton Shakespeare
1 10 (13) 12 (20)
P 10 (13) 12 (20)
Q 9 (11) 12 (20)
# Unique collocations in English drama 1576-1642
ALL TEXTS:
Middleton Shakespeare
il 1 (1) 1 (1)
P 1 (1) 1 (1)
Q 1 (a) 1 (a)
~ Unique collocations in English Drama 1603-25:
Middleton Shakespeare
L 1(1) 0 (0)
P 1(1) 0 (0)
Q 1 (1) 0 (0)
@ Unique collocations in English Drama 1607-42:
Middleton Shakespeare
L 0 (0) 0 (0)
P 0 (0) 0 (0)
Q 0 (0) 0 (0)
AX not unique in English drama 1576-1642, but unique collocations in M or Sh 1603-25:
Middleton Shakespeare
in 9 (11) 8 (11)
P 9 (11) 8 (11)
Q 8 (10) 8 (11)
+ not unique in English drama, but after 1607 in M or Sh:
Middleton Shakespeare
L 5 (5) 4 (5)
P 5 (5) 4 (5)
Q 5 (5) 4 (4)
664 DATASETS
<> not unique in English drama, but all other hits post-date 1607:
Middleton Shakespeare
L 3 (4) 1(1)
P 3 (4) 1(1)
Q 3 (4) 1 (1)
= not unique in English drama, but all other hits post-date 1607 and all unique collocations
in M or Sh also post-date 1607:
Middleton Shakespeare
L 1 (1) 0 (0)
P 1 (1) 0 (0)
Q 1 (1) 0 (o)
Dataset 5.1
(in support of Gary Taylor, “All's Well that Ends Well: Text, Date, and Adaptation’).
Collocations of Five Contractions (outside All’s Well 1.1)
I list below (in chronological order) all the Shakespeare and Middleton passages of 187 words
or less that contain close collocations of these five contractions. I have asterisked passages
that contain more than two of the five different types of contractions within 187 words.
Passages entirely in prose are identified as ‘P’ entirely in verse as “V’, mixed prose and
verse as ‘PV’.
SHAKESPEARE
2 Henry VI 4.2.75-8 (int... for’t) P
Love’s Labour’s Lost 4.1.122-4 (ne’er...int) int...nere
Merchant 5.1.189-207 (ne’er ... for’t)
Twelfth Night 3.4.120-7 (for’t... int) P
Measure 2.4.145-52 (fort...in't) V
All’s Well 3.6.27-8 (fort... in’t) P
All’s Well 4.3.177-84 (int...ne’er) P
Antony 4.28-43 (for’t...neer)
Antony 12.14-29 (ne’er... int)
Coriolanus 3.1.123 (ne’er did service for’t) V
Winter's Tale 1.2.195—99 (int... fort)" V
Winter's Tale 2.3.114-30; 130-42 (int... with’'t...in't) V
Cymbeline 4.2.76-96; 96-116 (ne'er... fort... in’t) V
"S Other contractions in that scene are at 1.2.74 ne er, 295 int, 336 for't, 384 with't. Thus, this long scene contains
four of the five contractions, across 310 lines of verse (2,514 words).
DATASETS
Cymbeline 5.6.370-5 (ne'er... by’t)"° V
All Is True 2.3.13-25 (for't...neer) V
Two Noble Kinsmen 5.3.12-23 (neer...in't) V
MIDDLETON
Michaelmas 2.3.413-20 (for’t... byt) P
Trick 1.3.23-35 (Neer... by’t) P
Mad World 2.4.84-98 (ne'er... by’t) P
Mad World 2.6.120-3 (by’t...for’t) P
Mad World 4.6.139-46 (by’t...ne’er) PV
Mad World 5.2.179-86 (witht...int) P
Timon 2.30-6, 43-54, 136-51, 188-209 (for’t...neer), four times: P
* Timon 6.10-19 (for’t...int...neer) P
* Timon 7.13-35 (int... for’t...by’t...ne’er) PV
Puritan 3.3.77-86 (by’t...neer...neer) PV
Puritan 3.4. 21, 65-7 (ne’er; in't...for’t) P
Puritan 3.4.103-17, 163 (neer..ne’er...for't... neer; witht) P
Your Five Gallants 1.1.102-4 (in’t... witht) P
Your Five Gallants 1.1.139-52, 163 (neer... witht...neer) V
Your Five Gallants 1.1.253-77 (neer...int) PV
Bloody Banquet 5.1.42, 75-83 (by’t; for’t...ne’er)
[*Roaring Girl 9.129-46 (ne'er... witht... int) P (but possibly Dekker)]
No Wit 7.54-66 (int...neer) PV
No Wit 7.131-40 (with’t...neer) PV
No Wit 7.183-7 (neer...for’t) P
No Wit 7.196-208 (neer...int) V
*No Wit 8.149-71 (int... witht... fort) V
No Wit 9.22-38, 49-59, 243, 298-316, 543-9 (neer...for’t), five times: PPPVV
*No Wit 9.296-316 (int...neer... fort) PV
No Wit 9.481-3 (int...ne’er) V
*No Wit 9.481-91 (int...neer... witht) V
No Wit 9.491-510 (witht...for’t ) V
No Wit 9.593-604, 681-7 (for't...neer) twice: PV
Lady 1.1.23-43 (int... by’t) V
Lady 1.2.77 (T'Il ne’er be seen to plead int) V
Lady 1.2.178 (and ne’er trouble me in’t) V
665
6 This passage also contains Shakespeare’ preferred ‘hath at 367 and 384, whereas the passage in All’s Well con-
tains no linguistic features more characteristic of Shakespeare than Middleton.
666 DATASETS
Lady 1.2.216-32 (ne’er...in’'t) V
Lady 1.2.284-7 (ne’er... int) V
*Lady 1.2.300-15 (neer...imt...for’t...ne’er) V
Lady 2.3.49-68 (int... by’t) V
*Lady 3.1.37, 72-87, 127 (by’t; witht... neer...for't; in’t) V
Lady 3.1.191 (shall ne’er be hanged for’t) V
Lady 4.1.143-4 (by’t... ne'er) V
Lady 4.3.67-87, 94-113 (for’t...in’t), twice: V
Lady 5.1.4-23 (by’t...ne’er) V
Chaste Maid 2.1.55-60 (neer...neer... witht) V
Wit at Several Weapons 3.1.259 (for’t... with't)'” V
Weapons 4.2.2-9 (int... by’t) V
Weapons 5.1.130-8 (for’t...for't...in't) V
[*Weapons 5.2.243-57 (int...ne’er... neer... by’t), PV (but possibly Rowley)]
[ Weapons 5.2.282-93 (for’t... witht) PV (but possibly Rowley)]
Dissemblers 1.2.90-115 (for’t...neer...for't) V
Dissemblers 2.1.36-48, 123 (ne’er...with’t; by’t) V
Dissemblers 3.2.89—-91 (ne'er... witht) V
*Dissemblers 4.2.127, 187-200 (by’t; ne’er... with’t... int) P
*Dissemblers 4.2.195-215 (with t...in't...for’t) P
Dissemblers 5.2.3-6 (neer .. by’t) V
Dissemblers 5.2.52-68 (ne’er...for’t) V
Widow 1.1.132—-41 (for’t... witht) P
Widow 2.2.137 Francisco shall ne’r lye for’t
Widow 3.1.25-44 (neer...in't) V
Widow 5.1.140-60 (ne’er... by’t) V
*Witch 1.2.122-36 (neer... witht... fort) V
*Witch 2.3.7-17 (ne’er...ne’er ...for’t...by’t) V
*Fair Quarrel 2.1.27-36 (byt... int... for’t...int) V
Fair Quarrel 3.1.62-6 (int... witht) V
Masque 159-82 (ne’er... witht) V
Masque 212 (ner thrived in’t) V
Old Law 2.1.120-2 (by’t .. ne’er) V (Rowley?)
Old Law 2.2.185—-200 (for’t...neer) V
"7 The text of Wit at Several Weapons in Middleton's Collected Works silently emends to ‘with it’; the change is not
recorded in the textual notes, has not been made by any previous editor, and is presumably a mistake (perpetuated
in Oxford Scholarly Editions Online).
DATASETS
Old Law 3.2.308-18 (In't...ne’er) V
Old Law 3.2.304—-9 (for’'t...neer) V
Old Law 4.2.179-90 (for’t...for’t...neer) V
Old Law 4.2.251-63 (ne’er...by’t) VP
Tennis 440 (int, it shall ne’er) V
Tennis 531-6 (int... by’t) PV
Tennis 772-85 (neer... witht) V
*Hengist 3.1.136-48 (witht...ne’er... for’t) V
Hengist 3.2.104-9, 3.3.1-14 (byt... ne’er) V
Hengist 3.3.35; 62-79; 105 (by’t; with’t...ne’er; by’t) PV
Hengist 3.3.136—46, 225 (witht...ne’er; by’t) P
Hengist 3.3.266-80 (neer...int) V
Hengist 4.4.76-87 (neer...for’t) V
*Hengist 4.4.87-108 (for’t... by’t...in’t) V
Women Beware 1.2.63-71, 99, 123 (ne’er...in't; by’t; ne’er) V
Women Beware 1.2.194-212, 25 (neer...for’t...neer) V
Women Beware 2.1.2-14, 169 (by’t... fort... for’t; witht) V
Women Beware 2.1.105 (ne’er was fitter time nor greater cause for’t) V
Women Beware 2.2.160-9 (ne er... witht) V
Women Beware 2.2.169-82 (witht...in’t) V
Women Beware 2.2.251, 310-31, 447 (by’t; ne’er... by’t; by’t) V
Women Beware 3.1.8-21 (ne'er... by’t) V
Women Beware 3.1.21-32 (byt... int) V
*Women Beware 3.1.62—80 (neer...fort...neer... witht) V
Women Beware 3.2.244-61 (ne’er...for’t) V
Women Beware 3.2.346 (with’t. He that died last in’t) V
*Women Beware 5.1.11-17 (wit’t...int... fort) PV
Changeling 2.1.31-51 (fort... witht) V
*Changeling 3.4.19-39 (int... fort... witht) V
Changeling 3.4.99-100 (int... for’t) V
Changeling 5.1.1-5 (by’t...for’t) V
*Changeling 5.1.107-25 (ne’er...for’t...int) V
*Game 1.1.1-16 (neer...int... witht) V
[Game 2.1.63, 105, 234 (by’t...ith’t...for’t)] V
Game 3.1.2-7 (neer... for’t) V
Game 3.1.189-207 (witht...neer) V
Game 4.2.8-14 (ne'er... for’t) V
667
668 DATASETS
Dataset 5.2
(in support of Gary Taylor, “All's Well that Ends Well: Text, Date, and Adaptatior).
OSEO checks on 1.1 passage: Shakespeare v. Middleton
Asterisked items occur in one canon but not the other. Double asterisks indicate collocations
which, outside All’s Well, occur in only one other play in Literature Online drama 1576-1642.
Away with't] both: Widow 1.1, 1.2
*I will stand] R3, KJ, WT, Temp (twice)
I will stand for] neither
*Will stand for] Changeling 5.3.64 (Rowley?)
Stand for’t] neither
For’t a] neither. Changeling 4.1.255-6 has these two words in sequence, but they belong to
two different sentences; consequently, they do not constitute a ‘cognitive unit, and this
parallel has not been counted. If it were counted, it would add to the number of Middleton
parallels, because the only example in the Shakespeare canon is Two Noble Kinsmen 2.2
(a scene written by Fletcher, where again the two words are in separate sentences).
Throughout this dataset, I have systematically dismissed verbal sequences that are divided
between different sentences (unless the same division occurs in the same place in All’s
Well and elsewhere in the Shakespeare or Middleton canons).
A little] both restricted canons
A little though] neither
*Little though] WT
though therefore] neither
therefore I] both restricted canons
therefore I die] neither
I die a] neither
Die a virgin] neither
There’ little] both
Little can] neither
*Can be said] TN, AIT 5.1.127
Said in’t] neither
Said in] both: A&C
*Be said in] Yorkshire
*in't ’tis] Changeling 3.4.19, Roaring 9.147 (Dekker?)
tis against] both (only WS example TN ‘I do assure you ’tis against my will’ [Viola, about
drawing in a duel against Aguecheek: context not at all similar]
*tis against the] ‘tis against the laws of Chaste Maid [addressed to his ‘Mother’, in the context
of ‘thrust’ sexually, and mock logic]
*tis against...nature] ‘tis against nature Mad World (to ‘keep a courtesan to hinder your
grandchild; used as an excuse for him to rob his uncle; prose); Tis against nature Widow
against...of nature] against all rules of nature Othello; against the use of nature Macbeth 1.3;
against the course of nature Fair Quarrel 5.1.398-9 (Middleton)
**against the rule of] against the rule of game A Game [unique with or without ‘of’]
the rule of] both: A Game
*the rule of [noun]] A Game
rule of nature] neither
DATASETS 669
of nature] both restricted canons
of nature to] neither
nature to speak] neither
to speak on] both
speak on the] neither
on the part] both
*on the part of] 3H6 9.67
the part of] both; neither restricted canon [no WS restricted canon; only TM in the
restricted period is The Peacemaker, non-dramatic]
part of virginity] neither
*of virginity] Michaelmas (male addressing a country wench, trying to talk her into
prostitution, prose)
*virginity is] four times in this dialogue between Helena and Paroles: 1.1.112, 119, 124, 136;
elsewhere only Middleton: Michaelmas ‘virginity is no city trade; immediately following
‘Let a man break, he’s gone, blown up, A woman's breaking sets her up’: again Hellgill
trying to persuade a country wench], Revenger [Mother trying to persuade Castiza to
prostitution: she is accusing her mother], No Wit (spoken by clown Savorwit, measuring
virginity’s value vs a dowry), A Game (‘thy nice virginity| is recompense too little... Thy
loss is but thy own’)
is to] both restricted canons
is to accuse] neither
*to accuse] MM 4.6.2, 5.1.291, Cym, AIT 2.4.120 (+ ‘Shall I die’)
accuse your] neither
*your mothers] Dishonour not your mothers Hs5
mothers which] neither
which is most] both: only parallel is either author which belongs to the right date range is
Sun in Aries (1621), but it is a city pageant and so not included in the restricted canon
*which is most infallible] which is most impossible Black Book (paradoxical: ‘to be a right
bawd and poor’)
*most infallible] is most infallible LLL
infallible disobedience] neither
disobedience he] neither
he that] both restricted canons
*he that hangs] AYLI (‘he that hangs the verses on the trees’ —utterly different context)
*hangs himself] Microcynicon (‘And in a humour goes and hangs himself’); Tennis (Rowley)
himself is] both restricted canons
himself is a] neither
is a virgin] 1H6 5.7.83 [not WS]
virgin virginity] neither
virginity murders] neither
murders itself] neither
itself and] both restricted canons
itself and should] neither
*and should be] Several Weapons 5.2.32, Hengist (twice, once in prose), Women Beware
be buried] both: MM 5.1.438, A&C
should be buried] Meeting of Gallants 537-8 (probably Dekker)
be buried in] both; neither restricted canon
*be buried in highways] be buried in the king’s highway R2
670 DATASETS
in highways] neither
highways out] neither
out of all] both; neither restricted canon, but Middleton’s Owl’s Almanac (1618) is in the
right period
all sanctified] neither
sanctified limit] neither
limit as] neither
a desperate] both: Oth, Lear
as a desperate] neither
desperate offendress] neither
*against nature] Mad World, Widow, Phoenix (twice)
nature virginity] neither
virginity breeds] neither
breeds mites] neither
mites] neither
much like a] both: Women Beware, Nice Valour, Witch.
like a cheese] neither
a cheese] both; neither restricted canon
*a cheese... paring] a cheese paring 2H4
cheese consumes] neither
consumes itself] neither
itself to the] neither
to the very] both; MM 5.1.400, AeéC, Lear, T&C, Oth (twice); also Mac 5.3.56
very paring] neither
paring and] neither
and so] both restricted canons
**and so dies] Ado [But Middleton alone has ‘and so died’ (Lady’s Tragedy, twice).]
so dies with] neither
*dies with] Sonnet 3, ReJ, TNK 3.6.297 (Fletcher)
*with feeding] Cor (starve with feeding)
feeding his] neither
his own] both restricted canons
his own stomach] neither
*own stomach] Peacemaker
stomach besides] neither
besides virginity] neither
*is peevish] TGV
peevish proud] neither
proud idle] neither
idle made] neither
made of] both restricted canons
made of self] neither
of self] both: TexC, Oth
of self-love] both; neither restricted canon
self-love...is...sin] self-love is a sin Fair Quarrel 3.2.33; sin of self-love Sonnets
love which] both restricted canons
*love which is] LLL, Oth
which is the] both restricted canons
DATASETS 671
*which is the most] which is the most unsuspected Father Hubburd’s Tales
most inhibited] neither
inhibited sin] neither
*sin in the] Dissemblers
in the canon] neither
*the canon] KJ 2.1, Cor
Canon keep] neither
Keep it not] both: Mac 4.3.201
It not you} neither
Not you] both restricted canons
*You cannot choose but] Hengist, Women Beware
choose but lose] neither
but lose] both restricted canons
lose by’t] both (TNK 5.3.122, Widow, No Wit)
*you...lose by’t] youre not like to lose by’t Widow
by’t out] neither
*out witht] TGV (Elizabethan)
with’t within] neither
*within ten] within ten nights Witch, Honourable Entertainments. Some but not all editors
since G. B. Evans (1974) emend ‘ten’ to ‘tone. The emendation would eliminate this
parallel. A parallel for ‘tone’ occurs in Richard II, and in Anything for a Quiet Life 5.1.155
(a scene ‘most’ of which was ‘probably’ written by Webster); neither play is in the
restricted canon. Moreover, the distinction between ‘t’one’ and ‘th one’ may be composi-
torial or scribal, and is therefore unreliable evidence of an authorial distinction: ‘thone’
occurs in both restricted canons (MM 4.2, Hengist). For the purposes of the test, I have
included the unemended phrase in my results, as the more conservative choice. Emended
or unemended, the phrase is more characteristic of late Middleton than of Shakespeare.
See next notes.
one year] The only parallel for this emended phrase in the Shakespeare canon (3H6 scene 2)
occurs in a scene not by Shakespeare. The emended phrase appears in Middleton's Sherley
(1609) in a prose discussion of propagation: ‘so much they thirst after human fruitfulness,
that the kings themselves propound great gifts and rewards to those that in one year brings
forth the greatest harvest of mankind’ (338-41). See also Roaring Girl scene 7 (‘one
year...sever’), Dissemblers, and Love and Antiquity (1619): ‘one year..? (68). Though none
of these occurs in the restricted canon, Antiquity belongs to the suspected date range for the
adaptation, and is excluded only because it is a pageant.
(?) ten year] MM 2.2.202, 204, (probably Shakespeare); Gravesend 899 (probably Dekker);
but ‘ten years’ is much more frequent in Middleton. In A Game at Chess Middleton's obso-
lescent use of ‘year’ as a plural was modernized to ‘years’ by a number of different agents
of transmission. The distinction between singular and plural in that particular word is
non-substantive and unreliable, and I have therefore treated this digram as neutral
evidence.
year it] neither; years it Solomon Paraphrased
*it will make] AYLI, TGV, Mac, R2, JC
will make itself] neither
*make itself] A&C, WT
itself two] neither
two which] neither
672 DATASETS
which is a] both: Witch, Women Beware, Nice Valour.
*is a goodly] Per. 15, WT
goodly increase] neither
increase and] both; neither restricted canon, but Honourable Entertainments and Peacemaker
belong to the Middleton date-range
increase and the] neither
the principal] both
and the principal] neither
principal itself] neither
itself not] both restricted canons
not much the] neither
not much] both restricted canons
much the worse] both, but WS Elizabethan: 2H4, Banquet 3.1.54 (Middleton), Changeling 1.2
(Rowley), Several Weapons 4.1 (Middleton)
worse away] neither
away with't] both: Widow
how might one] neither
*how might] MM 4.4.22, 2H4, MWW
*might one] WS Luc
*one do] Oth, Tim 1.70 (WS)—Chaste Maid example is not parallel, split between 2 sentences
do sir] both: Widow, Witch, Nice Valour, Women Beware
do sir to] neither
*sir to lose] Phoenix, Roaring 7.213 (Dekker)
*to lose it] both. But only in Revenger's Tragedy is the reference for ‘it’ a young woman's
‘virginity. However, Shakespeare's restricted canon has an example in Lear, and
Middleton's restricted canon has no examples.
lose it to] neither
it to her] TN, Ado, VeA, WT—but none of the parallels has the same meaning
to her own] both restricted canons
*to her own liking] to her own pleasures Michaelmas.
*own liking] MM 4.1.461
let me see] both restricted canons
let me see marry] neither
see marry] neither
marry ill] neither
ill to like] neither
ill to] both restricted canons
to like] both: Women Beware
to like him] neither
like him] both restricted canons
like him that] both: A&C (different meaning)
him that neer] neither
that neer] both: Witch, Hengist, Women Beware, Nice Valour
that neer it] neither
neéer it] neither
it likes] both; neither restricted canon
likes ’tis] neither
tis a commodity] neither
DATASETS 673
is a commodity] neither
a commodity] both: MM 4.3.4 (Middleton, 1621)
a commodity will] neither
commodity will] neither
will lose the] neither
*will lose] LLL, E3 scene 2, MND, AWW 5.3, Ham, Cor, Err, R3
*lose the gloss] neither. [But compare ‘cloth shall lose the nap within’ Owl]
lose the] both restricted canons
*the gloss] Oth; Banquet 1.1 (Dekker)
gloss with] neither
*with lying] Hengist
lying the] neither
the longer] both: Nice Valour ‘(love's suit is so, the longer it hangs, the worse it is); Hengist
[Only WS is Elizabethan and a different sense Rey: ‘and the longer liver take’]
*the longer... the less] “The longer grows the tree, the greater moss’: Solomon
**lying the longer] referring to clothing: ‘the longer it lies, the more charges it puts you to’
MT. Only LION drama example of ‘the longer’ near ‘lies’ or ‘lying’
*the longer] referring to clothing: ‘and love's suit is so, the longer it hangs ..” Valour; ‘Greater
methinks the longer it is worm Hengist; No Wit
*longer kept] ‘no longer kept in caves’ Solomon. See also ‘kept no longer. Away with hin’
Lady (no Shakespeare parallel for the juxtaposition).
kept the] both: A Game, Sun in Aries (1621)
kept the less] neither
the less] both restricted canons
less worth] neither
worth off] neither
*off witht] Roaring 9.131
with’t while] neither
while ’tis] both: Nice Valour
tis vendible] neither
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INDEX
Emboldened entries indicate particularly important discussions of the subject at hand.
Abrams, Richard 597
Achelley, Thomas 490
actors 17-19, 89, 418, 450, 486, 488,
501, 538, 547, 552 see also
evidence, size of cast
acts
counting of xix, xxiii-xxvii
division of 69, 70n.1, 71, 401
length of 498
Adamson, Glenn 24
adaptation (of works) 3, 21, 363,
394, 398-9, 401, 403-5,
413-15, 432, 477, 584-5
Augustan 393, 398
aesthetics 355-6
Agincourt 527
Alcaron of Barefoot Friars, The 233
Alden, John 596
Alexander, Peter 493-4, 497,
516, 553
Alexander, William, First Earl of
Stirling
Alexandrean Tragedy, The 53,55;
635N.17
Croesus 647.65
Darius 55, 604
Julius Caesar 275
Allde, Edward 129, 132, 139, 528
Allde, Elizabeth 139
Alleyn, Edward 240, 579
Allot, Robert
England’s Parnassus 512
Amsterdam 359
Andrews, Chad 99n.7
Andrews, Lancelot
Sermons 325
Anna of Denmark (Queen to James
Iof England) 543
annotations 339-40, 342, 363
anonymous publications 3, 201,
210, 212, 218, 366, 490, 526
Birth of Hercules 65, 188, 646n.61
Caesar and Pompey or Caesar's
Revenge 189
Charlemagne 53-5
Club Law 186
Clyomon and Clamydes 189, 487,
646n.46
Edmond Ironside 185, 188, 2.48,
592-3, 598
Edward III 3, 35
attribution of 34-5, 47 see also
Shakespeare, William,
apocrypha, Edward III
Every Woman in Her Humour
188, 635N.16, 646n.55
Fair Em the Miller’s Daughter
49, 186, 201 see also
Shakespeare, William,
apocrypha, Fair Em
Fair Maid of Bristow, The
594, 603
Faithful Friends, The 54
Famous Historie... of Captaine
Thomas Stukeley 121n.19,
187, 266, 594, 604
Famous Victories, The 187
Free Will 65
Guy Earl of Warwick 188
Hieronymo 247, 273
Jack Straw 186
1Jeronimo 52-4, 187, 658n.88
King Darius 65
Knack to Know an Honest Man, A
62, 187, 317N.47
Knack to Know a Knave 129, 187,
492, 500
Larum for London, A 187
Locrine 189, 429, 515,579
Look About You 65, 188,
251-2, 254
Love and Fortune 54, 188,
646n.47
Lust’s Dominion 189, 264
Maid’s Metamorphosis, The 186
Merry Devil of Edmonton,
The 187, 592, 597, 599
Mucedorus 189, 600
Nebuchadnezzar’s Fiery
Furnace 55
Nice Wanton 65
Pedlar’s Prophecy, The 65
Pilgrimage to Parnassus 52,
54, 186
Pill to Purge Melancholy, A
233, 531
Pimlyco 571
Rare Triumphs of Love and
Fortune 506
Return from Parnasus 324
St Peter’ Tears 238
Taming of the Shrew 187
Telltale, The 52-3
Thomas Lord Cromwell 189, 603
see also Shakespeare,
William, apocrypha,
Thomas Lord Cromwell
Thorney Abbey 187
Thracian Wonder, The 188, 603
Timon 659n.95
Trial of Chivalry, The 187
1 Troublesome Reign of King
John 187, 499, 521, 604
2 Troublesome Reign of King
John 188, 271, 521, 604
True Chronicle History of King
Leir 49, 119n.13, 187, 201,
368, 370-1, 372Nn.2, 488,
560, 594
True Tragedy of Richard III
128-9, 135, 188, 200, 498,
594, 604
Two Merry Milk Maids 274,
6590.97
Two Noble Ladies 635n.21,
658n.92
Two Wise Men and All the Rest
Fools 129, 251-2, 254, 274,
635n.16
Warning for Fair Women, A 187,
266, 594, 604, 658n.88
Wars of Cyrus, The 187
Wasp, The 635n.15
Weakest Goeth to the Wall,
The 186, 193, 275
Wily Beguilde 274,594,
6590.94
Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll,
The 188
Woodstock 512
anti-materialism 5, 7, 13
Antonia, Alexis 37, 56
Archer, Edward 123, 140, 488,
593-4, 600
Arden, Edward 533
Arefin, Ahmed Shamsul 502, 577
Argyll, Earl of 345
Ariosto, Ludovico
Isuppositi 21
Orlando Furioso 112
712 INDEX
Aristophanes tests for see tests for attribution Badham, Charles 362
The Frogs 5 (of authorship) Baker, Gerald 585
Aristotle 358 uncertain 113, 118, 122, 142, Bald, R. C. 550
Armin, Robert 531, 554, 557 584 154, 162, 167, 185, 225, 227, Bale, John
Italian Tailor and his Boy,
The 572
Time Triumphant, The 554
Two Maids of Moreclack 349
Valiant Welshman 328n.7
King John 627
Ballard, George
History of Susanna 125
Bancroft, Thomas 228
Bandello, Matteo 505
230, 245, 264, 267, 340,
357, 410, 526
Aubigny, Lord 538
Aubrey, John 591
audiences 492, 523, 530, 533,
Armstrong, Edward A. 438, 590 538, 541 Barentz, William 534
Art of Courtship by Which Augustine of Hippo Barker, Christopher 232
Young Ladies, Gentlemen City of God 328 Barker, Robert 120
and... 595 Austin, William 609, 612 Barker-Benfield, Bruce 220
artiginality 25 Austria 344 Barkstead, William 114, 116
Aspinall, Alexander 427, 508-509 authors see also authorship Hiren 115
Aston, Elizabeth 533 and booksellers 7 Insatiate Countess 629 (with
attribution (of authorship) 22, function of 13-14, 23-6 John Marston)
27-40, 42-6, 48, 55-60,
66, 77, 92-9, 102, 104-111,
113 and n.5, 120, 126, 129,
140, 146, 148, 156-9,
161-2, 165-6, 170, 173-4,
179 and n.21, 197, 201, 210,
213, 221, 227, 230, 263,
266, 268, 293n.28, 321,
347, 352; 365, 408-11, 416,
418-20, 428, 430, 436,
438, 484, 489, 529, 547,
644n.42
assertions regarding 116, 218,
427, 430, 432-3
computational 141 see also
computers
confident/certain/known 143-4,
149, 151, 153-4, 156-62,
167-70, 173-5, 179-80,
183-4, 213.3, 438,
461, 627
disputes about 28, 48, 58-61,
68, 123, 131, 185, 225,
262, 264-5, 317n.48,
325, 337) 340, 357, 407,
417, 433, 490, 504,
525, 552; 570, 589, 598,
600-1, 646n.59,
655nn.82-3
false 224-6, 247-9, 266, 427,
488, 593
field of 145
history of Shakespearean 27, 33,
46, 247
methods of see methods (of
testing); tests for
intentions of 108
and property law 7 see also law
style of see style/stylistic features
work of 20, 26
authorship
change of 256
collaborative see collaboration
(act of)
contested/contestable see
attribution (of authorship),
disputes about
definition of 22
determinations of 10n.9, 12, 36,
45, 149, 151, 153, 182, 191N.2,
408 see also attribution
(of authorship)
disguised 12
distinguishing between 162
ideas about 425
investigation of 246, 436
known 42, 44 see also
attribution (of
authorship), confident/
certain/known
nature of 3-6, 14, 23-6 see also
authors, function of
sole 29, 154, 156-9, 166-70,
173-5, 179, 183-4, 449
see also Shakespeare,
William, attribution of
works/scenes/passages to,
as sole author
studies of 56, 73, 417, 484, 594
Authorship Advisory Board (of
New Oxford Shakepeare)
301, 568
Barley, William 237
Barnes, Barnabe 228-9, 519, 569
Devil’s Charter 269n.16, 420,
569, 646n.47
‘Divine Century Spiritual
Sonnets’ 228
Barnfield, Richard 112-14,
116-18, 526
Complaint of Poetry 526
Encomion of Lady Pecunia,
The 115
Barnstaple 442
Baron, Alistair 145
Barroll, J. Leeds 367, 441, 443-5,
448, 568-9, 577-8
Barry, Lording
Family of Love 273
Ram-Alley 65, 441, 635n.15,
646n.56
Barthes, Roland 23
“The Death of the Author’ 3
Bartlett, Henrietta 596
Barton, Anne 538-9
Barton, Thomas Pennant 595
Basse, William 223, 608, 613
Bastard, Thomas 596
Bate, Jonathan 70 and n.1, 71,
433, 435, 489-92, 504, 525,
540, 561, 576, 593-5
599-600, 602
Bate, Jonathan and Eric Rasmussen
William Shakespeare and Others
599-600, 602
Bath 442
Baxter, Nathaniel 114, 116
Sir Philip Sidney’s Ourdnia 115
BBC, the 90, 278
Beal, Peter 119, 218n.1
Index of Literary Manuscripts
1450-1700 (CELM) 119,
220, 429
Beaumont, Francis 37, 120, 129,
219, 222, 284n.14, 410,
415, 418, 423, 427, 502,
529, 540, 584, 586, 608,
613, 647N.62
attribution (of
authorship)
possible 81, 84
problems of/with 30, 34-5, 38, 49,
56, 59, 84, 117, 152-3, 197,
339, 417, 426, 437, 449,
484, 547
proof of/evidence for
see evidence
task of 84, 436
Awdely, John
Fraternity of Vagabonds 233
Ayton, Robert 225, 609-10, 612
Babeau, Albert 24
Babington, Gervase
Very fruitful exposition, A 324
Bacon, Francis 219, 222, 359,
609, 612
Sylua Syluarum 358
works/canon of 34, 51, 586
Captain, The 82-3, 606-7, 628
(with John Fletcher)
Coxcomb, The 659n.102 (with
John Fletcher)
Cupid’s Revenge 411, 580, 604
(with John Fletcher)
Fifty Comedies and Tragedies
(with John Fletcher) 35
Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn
Masque 589
King and No King, A 411, 628
(with John Fletcher)
Knight of the Burning Pestle,
The 116, 411, 564, 628
Love’s Cure 349n.6, 647n.62
(with John Fletcher and
Philip Massinger)
Philaster 327, 411, 580, 599
(with John Fletcher)
Scornful Lady 269n.16 (with
John Fletcher)
Beckett, Samuel 3n.2, 4 and nn.2-3,
5-6, 11
Textes Pour Rien 3
Bednarz, James P. 534
Belleforest, Francois de
‘Amleth 547
Benedetto, Dario 408, 413
Benson, John 596
Bentley, Gerald Eades 343,
444, 556
Bently, Thomas
Monument of Matrons, The
270Nn.19
Bergeron, David 329n.11, 330
and n.12, 331
Berkeley, Sir Thomas 521
Bernard, Richard 140
Bertram, Paul 590
Bevington, David 572
Bhaskara of India 32
Bible, the 6
Geneva 369, 380
Bilson, Thomas
Survey of Christ’s Sufferings, The 55
Bishop, T. G. 577
Blayney, Peter W. M. 20, 233-4,
2370.11, 239, 549
Blount, Charles 527
Blount, Edward 534, 568, 570
Bluett, Henry 587
Blunt, Sir James 434, 507
Boas, F. S. 331, 565
Boccaccio, Giovanni 558
Decameron 579
Bodmer Library 599
Boel, Cornelis 120
Boethius 581
books
format of 235-9
production of 23, 238 see also
printing
booksellers/bookselling 7, 20-1,
232-5, 488, 596
Booth, Stephen 597
Boston Public Library 595
Boswell, James 556
Bourdieu, Pierre 4
Bourus, Terri 18, 82, 302, 307,
309, 320, 337, 362, 386,
446, 486, 488, 490, 545-8,
553, 555-8
Bowers, Fredson 338n.1, 586
Boyd, Ryan L. 585
Boyle, Robert 33, 364
Boys, John
Autumn part, The 327
Bradbrook, M. C. 518
Bradshaw, Richard 487
Brainerd, Baron 435-6, 455, 487,
495; 497; 521; 590
Computers in the Humanities 435
Braithwaite, Richard 119, 120n.14,
121N.17, 596
Penitent Pilgrim, The 273
Remains After Death 591
Brandl, Alois 46
Brandon, Samuel
Octavia 52-3, 188, 628
Breton, Nicholas 112
Old Man Cap 238
Will of Wit, The 594
Bridges, John
Defense of Government, A
270N.19
Bridgnorth 442
British Library 77, 487 see also
under manuscripts
Britton, John 595
Bristol 442
Brome, Richard 76n.6, 444, 588
City Wit, The 635n.18, 659n.109
Damoiselle 604
English Moor 607
Jovial Crew 628
Mad Couple Well Matched
658n.93
New Academy, The 659n.103
Northern Lasse 269nn.16-17,
271, 275
Queen and Concubine
588, 603
Sparagus Garden 271
Brooke, Arthur
The Tragical History of Romeo
and Juliet 486
Brooke, C. F. Tucker 593-4,
597, 600
Apocrypha 597,599-602
Brooke, Nicholas 567
Brooke, Samuel 224, 610, 613
Brooks, Harold E. 455, 520
Broughton, Hugh 232
Brown, Keith 527
Browne, William 608-9, 613
INDEX 713
Brun, Andres 9
Bruster, Douglas 52-4, 246, 248-9,
261, 263, 471, 486, 501,
506-7, 510-11, 513, 520,
522-4, 527, 529, 5325 535>
5375 544, 5545 560, 564, 571,
579, 582
Bryan, George 547
Bryskett, Lodowick
Discourse of Civil Life, A 270n.19
Buc, Sir George 420
Buckingham, Duke of 221, 364
Budé, Guillaume 9
Bulletin de la Société Francaise de
Philosophie 6
Bullough, Geoffrey 511, 580-1
Burbage, Cuthbert 17
Burbage, James 17
Burbage, Richard 15, 17-18, 418,
444, 446, 488
Burbie, Cuthbert 233
Burghe, Nicholas 120, 223, 591
Burrow, Colin 108n.1, 114 and n.6,
116-17, 597
Complete Sonnets and Poems 597
Burrows, John 40, 44, 50, 146,
150-1, 194, 489, 497
Burton, Dolores 586
Burton, Robert
Anatomy of Melancholy 65
Bushell, Thomas 596
Byrne, Muriel St Clare 34, 4o,
66, 116
Cadiz 505, 522
Caglioti, Emanuele 408, 413
Cain, Tom 538, 541
Calendar of State Papers 579
Calverley, August 367, 372, 378
Calvin, Jean 20
Calvo, Clara 261n.1, 262
Cambridge 442
Cambridge University 223-4, 495,
546, 586
King’s College 232
Trinity College 565
Camden, William
Remains 572
Campbell, Gordon 121n.18, 535
Capell, Edward 342, 503, 597, 599
Carnegie, David 386, 401, 585
Cartwright
Royal Slave 250
Chadwyck-Healey (company)
42-3, 92
Chamberlain, John 89
Chamberlain, Robert
Swaggering Damsel, The 659n.99
Chambers, E. K. 33-4, 43, 71, 77 3435
445, 501-2, 532, 535, 543,
561-2, 567, 586, 590, 593
“The Disintegration of
Shakespeare’ 33, 339
714 INDEX
Chambers, R. W. 48, 58-9, 339, 461
canons (of authors) 31, 251
see also Shakespeare,
William, canon of
Carew, Thomas 219, 221, 224-5,
228, 609-11, 613
Carey, Elizabeth 521
Mariam 628
Carey, Sir George, second
Baron Hunsdon (Lord
Chamberlain) 15,
524-5, 532
Carey, Henry, first Baron Hunsdon
(Lord Chamberlain) 15
Carey, Thomas 613
Carlell, Lodowick 129, 252
Arviragus 274-5
Passionate Lover, Part 2 251
Carr, Frances, Countess of
Somerset 225
Carr, Katherine, Countess of
Suffolk 225
Carson, Neil 261
Cary, Elizabeth
Miriam 271, 275
Cary, Henry 507
Catholicism 6, 221, 233, 344-5, 533,
564, 581, 588
Cecil, Robert 445, 512
censorship 522
Centre for Literary and Linguistic
Computing (University
of Newcastle,
Australia) 103
Cervantes, Miguel de 584
Don Quixote 583, 585
Chapman, George 37, 112, 117, 129,
183, 247, 367, 423, 529, 5345
538-40, 560, 577, 598-9;
and possible collaboration on
Sejanus 538-40
works/canon of 51
All Fools 52-4, 628
Blind Beggar of Alexandria,
The 54, 125, 186, 193, 196,
199, 326, 628
Byron's Tragedy 628
Caesar 275, 628
Conspiracy of Charles Duke of
Byron, The 573, 628
Gentleman Usher 628
and Henry VI plays 203
Humorous Day’s Mirth, A 186,
199, 628, 635n.14
translation of Homer’s Iliad
110, 112, 272, 527, 536
May Day 628
Monsieur d’Olive 628
translation of Homer’s
Odyssey 110, 112, 270n.19
Revenge of Bussy Dambois 54,
269N.16, 326, 628,
659n.101
Sir Giles Goosecap 628
Widow’ Tears 628
characters 152, 522-3, 547, 557-8
Charlecote 533
Charles (Prince of England) 221,
618, 621
Charles I (King of England) 219,
584, 595, 597; 600, 608,
613, 615
Charles II (King of England)
220, 597
Chartier, Roger 6
Chaucer, Geoffrey 529, 545
works/canon of 5
Chaucer Society 29
Cheney, Patrick 494, 597
Chester, Robert 112
Annals 124
Love’s Martyr 113, 534, 537
Chettle, Henry 37, 114, 116, 247, 270,
423, 536, 549-51, 595, 598
Blind Beggar of Bedlam 187, 605
(with John Day)
Downfall of Robert, Earl of
Huntingdon, The 186,
192, 270 and n.19, 274,
607 (with Anthony
Munday)
Forrest of Fancy, The 115, 506
John of Bordeaux 54, 187 (with
Robert Greene)
Patient Grissl 646n.52
Sir Thomas More 188, 548-51,
595 (with Anthony
Munday)
Tragedy of Hoffman 275, 344,
551, 593, 628
Chillington, Carol 527, 549
Cholmley, Henry 609, 613
Christian IV (King of Denmark)
564, 569
chronology 94, 134.3, 340, 352, 353
and n.10, 366, 383, 435,
438-40, 444-6, 447-51,
453-5, 461-2, 467, 471,
484-5, 559, 574, 625-6,
635n.14 see also dating
(of texts); influence/
indebtedness; under
Middleton, Thomas;
under Shakespeare,
William
Churchyard, Thomas 112, 117
Honour of the law 324
Light bondell of lively discourses,
A 323
Musical Consort of Heavenly
Harmony, A 269n.17
Chute, Antony 500
Beauty Dishonoured, Written
Under the Title of Shore’s
Wife 500
Cibber, Colley 585
Cinzio, Giambattista Giraldi 21
Clapham, Enoch 324
Three parts of Solomon his song of
SONS 323
Tract of Prayer, A 233
Clare, Janet 262
Claremont McKenna Shakespeare
Clinic 39, 489, 576
Clark, Sally 45
Clark, W. G. 29, 31, 345, 362, 565
Clarke, Mary Cowden 30
class (social) 330, 333
Clavell, John
Soddered Citizen, The 647n.63
Clemen, Wolfgang H. 455
The Development of Shakespeare’s
Imagery 455
Co. G.
Brief narration... William
Sommers, A 325
Cocker, Edward
Young Clerk's Tutor Enlarged 125
Coeffeteau, Nicholas
Table of Human Passions
267N.10, 328
Cohen, Walter 597
Cokayne, Aston 418
Trappolin Supposed a Prince 65
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 304,
362, 384
collaboration (act of) 3, 22-3, 26,
29, 335 42, 63, 123, 142,
180, 193-4, 264, 282n.8,
286-9, 313N.19, 317n.48,
319, 3375 341, 349-50,
3530.11, 371, 381, 405,
413-15, 422-5, 428, 447,
477, 490-1, 502, 515, 539,
594 see also Shakespeare,
William, collaborators of
Collier, John Payne 429
Combe, John 121, 590-2
Comedies and Tragedies Written by
Francis Beaumont and
John Fletcher 418
compressibility 407, 412 see also
tests (for attributing
authorship), compression
compression algorithms 408-9
see also tests (for
attributing authorship),
compression
BCL 408, 410, 413
LZ 408-410, 413
Compton, William, Earl of
Northampton 219, 225,
612, 613
computers 38, 42, 44-6, 48-9, 51,
61-3, 81N.12, 99, 103, 131,
145, 182, 242, 263, 411,
435-6, 467, 504, 550
and plagiarism detection
software see plagiarism
concordances 34
Condell, Henry 417-22, 424-6
Congleton 443
Connor, Francis X. 218 and n.1, 249,
417, 437, 484, 519, 525, 591
Conrad, Herman 478
Constable, Henry
Catholic moderator, The 325
contractions 346-51, 355, 361, 482,
502-3, 586, 664
Cooke, Joshua (?)
Greene’s Tu Quoque 55, 349n.6
Coombe, John 427
Coombes, the 507
Cooper, Helen 579
Cooper, Keegan 99n.7, 218n.1,
490, 504
Cope, Walter 445
Corbett, Richard, Dean of Christ
Church 120, 219, 224-5,
608, 611, 613, 615
Cotton, Roger 233
Council on Library and
Information Resources
(CLIR) 43
couplets 149, 377, 396
capping 329n.10
heroic 321 and n.1, 322, 327,
329, 331
rhyming 325, 334 see also metre,
iambic pentameter
court, the 17
performances before 17, 19,
445-6, 471, 479, 497,
520-1, 524-5, 532; 534,
548, 554, 578, 581-3, 587
Court of Wards, the 557
Coventry 442-3
Coverdale, Miles
Fruitfull lessons 327
Cowley, Abraham 273
Guardian, The 354
Love's Riddle 273, 604
Cox, Brian 87-8
Craig, Alexander 112
Craig, Hardin 581, 597
Craig, Hugh 44, 55-6, 66, 103-4,
126-7, 131, 133, 150-1,
179n.21, 182-3, 184 and
N.1, 190, 192, 217, 246-9,
261, 263 and n.2, 265-6,
269N.14, 272, 284,
316nN.42, 432, 436,
489, 496-7, 502, 514-15,
529, 551, 562, 577% 597
600, 627
Craig, Hugh and Arthur Kinney
Shakespeare, Computers, and
the Mystery of
Authorship 182
Crane, Milton 263
Crane, Ralph 555
Critz, John de 16
Crossick, Geoffrey 23-4
Crowley, Laura 224
Crum, Margaret 220, 430, 596,
600, 602
Crundell, H. W. 264
Crystal, David 145n.4
Dictionary 574
Culliford, S. G. 429
culture 20n.13
Daborne, Robert 423
Christian Turned Turk 628
Dahl, Marcus 51, 105-6, 278-80,
283, 3131.16, 319; 337% 343,
346-8, 355, 362, 567
‘A New Shakespeare
Collaboration? All’s Not
Well in the Data’ 280
Daily Mail, The 278
Dallagher, Mark 27, 41
Daneau, Lambert
Fruitfull commentarie, A 328
True and Christian friendship
329n.8
Daniel, Samuel 5, 110-11, 114, 129,
518, 546, 574
Cleopatra 188, 568, 628
Complaint of Rosamund 517
Delia 235
First Four Books of the Civil
Wars, The 513, 522
Hymen'’s Triumph 520
Musophilus 528
Queen’ Arcadia 323, 328
Tethy’s Festival 659n.109
Works 235, 237
Danter, John 491, 517
Danvers, Sir Charles 518
Danvers, Sir Henry 518
data 103, 105, 124, 128, 130, 135n.5,
149, 1551.10, 1920.4, 243,
265, 269-72, 298, 307-8,
326, 348, 462, 467, 471,
473» 475» 478-9, 487,
501, 515
Database of Early English
Playbooks (DEEP) 61-2,
109-10, 140, 198, 243
and n.2
dating (of texts) 69, 78, 119,
185, 222, 322N.3, 344,
3490.6, 352-3, 355, 411,
438-9, 444, 484, 552, 575,
625-6, 659n.96 see also
chronology; under
individual Shakespeare
plays
determinations regarding
10N.9, 253
incorrect/uncertain 185, 229
Davenant, William 77, 80, 90, 394,
398, 401-4, 406-7, 410-11,
414-16, 585
INDEX 715
adaptations of Shakespeare 22
Macbeth 395-6, 401, 403-4
Albovine 411-12
Cardenio 385
Cruel Brother, The 54, 411-13, 603
Distresses, The 411-13
Fair Favourite, The 411-12,
646n.59
Just Italian, The 328n.7, 411-13
Law Against Lovers, The 393-4,
401-2, 404
Love and Honour 604
News from Plimouth 605
Platonic Lovers 604
Rivals, The 393, 396-8, 401,
403-5, 411-13,
Unfortunate Lovers, The 404,
411-13, 628
Davenport, Robert
History of Henry the First 598
New Trick to Cheat the Devil
119.13, 646n.54
David (King of Scotland) 503
Davies of Hereford, John 109, 112,
114, 116, 120 and n.14, 121,
131, 1340.3, 228, 427, 436,
580, 609, 613
attribution of ‘A Lover's
Complaint’ to 107,
108N.1, 124, 125.1, 126,
131-2, 134, 576-7
works/canon of 131
Microcosmos 115
Muses Sacrifice 323
Nosce Teipsum 528
Orchestra 118
‘Select Second Husband for
Sir Thomas Overbury’s
Wife, A 120n.14
Wit’ Pilgrimage 134n.4
Davies, Neville 564, 569
Davis, Tom 11 and n.10
Davison, Francis et al.
Proteus and the Rock
Adamantine 188
Daw, Jack
Vox Graculi 267n.10
Dawson, Anthony 562-3
Dawson, Giles 549-50
Dawson, Thomas 232
Day, John 37, 432
Blind Beggar of Bedlam 187, 605
(with Henry Chettle)
Isle of Gulls 628
Parliament of Bees, The 129
Travels of Three English Brothers,
The 55,571 (with William
Rowley and George
Wilkins)
Day, Matthew 120
Deacon, John
A summarie answer to all the
material points 325
716 INDEX
decision trees 149, 155n.10
Dejong, Ian 124
Dekker, Thomas 20-1, 25, 3755, 77%
183, 248-9, 252-3, 263,
265-6, 268-70, 273-8, 329
and n.11, 350, 423, 425, 437
529, 536, 549, 590; 599-600
attributions to 108n.1, 261,
284n.13, 289nN.22, 317N.47,
437 525
and additions to Sir Thomas
More 548-9, 595
and additions to The Spanish
Tragedy 264, 267, 529
works/canon of 51, 64, 80, 247
Bloody Banquet, The 88-9,
253-4, 264, 287, 3720.2,
630n.3, 673 (with Thomas
Middleton)
and Henry VI plays 203
If It Be Not Good 628
Magnificient Entertainment,
The 20-1, 284, 286-7
(with Harrison, Ben
Jonson and Thomas
Middleton)
Match me in London 603
Meeting of Gallants at an
Ordinary, The 286-7, 383,
670 (with Thomas
Middleton)
Merry Devil of Edmonton,
The 55,599
Noble Spanish Soldier,
The 129, 646n.47
Old Fortunatus 199, 325, 628,
659n.109
Patient Man and the Honest
Whore, The 63, 65, 87,
274, 282n.8, 284n.13,
286-8, 317N.48, 323, 425,
553, 603, 606, 628,
643n.37, 644nn.38 and 40,
659n.106 (with Thomas
Middleton)
News from Gravesend 287,
643N.36, 644n.41, 654n.77,
657n.84, 672 (with
Thomas Middleton)
Noble Soldier, The 274
Northward 323 (with John
Webster)
Roaring Girl, The 14, 270n.18,
287, 378, 6530.73, 672
(with Thomas
Middleton)
Satiromastix 272-3, 275, 535,594
Seven Deadly Sinnes of
London 590
Shoemakers’ Holiday, The
24, 52-4, 188, 199, 525,
528, 628
Sir Thomas Wyatt 628 (with
John Webster)
Spanish Gipsy, The 63, 286-7,
335 (with John Ford,
Thomas Middleton and
William Rowley)
Virgin Martyr, The 264,
270nn.18-19, 604 (with
Philip Massinger)
Westward Ho 53 (with John
Webster)
Whore of Babylon, The 54, 628
Witch of Edmonton 658n.89
(with Philip Massinger)
Wonder of a Kingdom,
The 129, 604
Deloney, Thomas 114, 117, 526, 528
Garland of Good Will, The 118
and n.12, 505
ballad ‘Of King Edward’ 505
Gentle Craft, The 115, 528
DelVecchio, Doreen 432, 570
Denham, Henry 234
Denham, John
Sophy, The 274
Denmark 543, 581
Dennis, John 533
Comical Gallant, or the Amours
of Sir John Falstaff,
The 533
Derby, Earl of (Lord Strange)
521, 596
De Rojas, Fernando
Spanish Bawd 273
Derrida, Jacques 9 and n.6
Of Grammatology 8
Descartes, René 6
Dessen, Alan C. 437
Dessen, Alan C. and Leslie Thomson
Dictionary of Stage
Directions 437
Dickenson, David
Short explanation, A 325
Dickenson, John
Euphues his Slumbers 267n.10
Dickey, Bruce 339
Diderot, Denis 23
Digby, Sir Kenelm 596
Digges, Leonard 418-19, 422-3, 527
Dobell, Bertram 429
Dobson, Michael 351 and n.8
Dobyns, Robert 591
Dohna, Count 344
Dominik, Mark 594
Donne, John 110, 114, 201, 219,
221-2, 226, 228, 356, 389,
427, 540, 609-11, 613-14
Poems 223
Doran, Gregory 87
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 343
Dover 442-3
Dowdall, John 591-2
Dowland, John 610, 614
Pilgrim’s Solace, A 226
Downes, John 585
Downs, Gerald E. 52, 550
Downton, Thomas 528
Dramatic Works in the Beaumont
and Fletcher Canon,
The 586
dramaturgy 305, 477, 493
Drayton, Michael 110-11, 114, 120,
253, 423, 434, 436, 490,
529, 546, 592
Sir John Oldcastle 129, 187, 600-1
(with Richard Hathaway,
Anthony Munday and
Robert Wilson)
Works 600
Drummond, William 13
Dryden, John 394
Conquest of Granada, The 394-5
Du Bartas, Guillaume de
Saluste 517
Du Bartas, Sylvester
Divine Works and Weeks 110,
267N.10
Purchas His Pilgrims 22n.14
Du Moulin, Pierre
Heraclitus 327
Dubravius, Janus
New Book of Good Husbandry,
A 233
Dudley, Robert, Earl of
Leicester 488
Dugdale Sykes, H. 50, 521, 562, 602
Duhaime, Douglas 73-4, 81, 98,
249, 437, 491, 603, 605
Duncan-Jones, Katherine 108n.1,
114, 120, 121n.18, 371, 526,
534-5, 574s 576, 592
Dunwich 443
Dusinberre, Juliet 531
Dutton, Richard 17, 382, 444, 446,
479; 494-5, 497; 512, 527,
532, 534s 543, 573» 580
Earle, John 224, 614
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
43 see also EEBO-TCP
Early English Texts Society 29
Eccleston, William 342
Eckhardt, Joshua 219-20, 222
Eco, Umberto 22n.14 and 23n.15
economics 330 and n.14, 331
Edinburgh 553
editors 25, 29, 71, 427-8
Edward III (King of England) 505
Edwards, Richard
Damon and Pythias 628
EEBO-TCP 22n.14, 56, 57n.3,
59-60, 64-6, 73, 79-80,
83-4, 102, 109-10, 124,
128, 131, 133-5, 145, 254-6,
259-60, 264, 266, 284-5,
288, 322, 327, 358, 519,
525, 541, 543; 547, 572,
588, 590, 603, 605,
606n.1, 607
Egan, Gabriel 51, 63, 79, 141,
248, 435-6, 462, 486, 504,
528, 567
Ege, Karl 586
Eliot, Sir John 518, 608
Ortho-Epia Gallica 517
Eliot, T. S. 91
elision 41
lizabeth (Princess) 582-4, 587
lizabeth I (Queen of England) 15,
118, 220-1, 441, 446,
532-5, 542-3, 548, 551,
574, 614
lliott, Jack 44, 56, 436, 490
lliott, Ward E. Y. 38-40, 113n.5,
142, 489, 504, 576,
597-8, 600
Ellis-Fermor, Una 561
endings (of lines) 32, 35, 391-2, 503,
550, 575, 586
dactylic 391
feminine 34-5, 39, 50N.2, 72, 84,
93, 335» 391-3, 399, 405-6,
498, 513, 550
masculine 391
England 5, 7, 344, 346, 358, 384, 388,
393, 515, 556; 569, 578
Civil War 219, 589, 595
culture of 8-9, 13
England’ Helicon 111n.4, 135
English Stock 234n.6
Enheduanna 8
enjambment 35
Erasmus, Desiderius 9, 25, 356n.14
Seven Dialogues 267n.10
Erne, Lukas 20, 141, 224, 262, 303,
529, 595
Essex, Earl of 527, 537, 542, 545
Etherege, George 394
ethics 20
Eton 232
Evans, G. Blakemore 218n.1, 445,
518, 520, 525, 549, 671
Everitt, E. B. 598, 601-2
evidence 28, 31, 34, 55, 117, 183, 227,
248, 263, 268, 339, 342-3,
383, 425, 434-7, 445;
447-55, 484-5, 514, 517,
552, 575-6, 588, 672
see also tests (for
attribution of authorship)
ambiguous 316nn.42
biographical 434-5, 496,
505; 571
chronological 435, 561, 574
correlation coefficients 468-9
cue burden 451
to to
E
E
documentary 428, 431, 438-9,
441, 445
dramaturgical 493
echos 448
external 111, 122, 141, 417,
426-7, 438, 440, 455, 484,
498, 509, 554-5, 571; 580,
587, 600
image cluster 438, 561
internal 30, 140, 430-1, 435,
447-8, 451, 454, 484, 498,
504, 509, 519, 537; 541,
552; 555s 557% 559s 567 5725
574, 600
interpretation of 130, 346, 465
lack of 507
lexical 291, 296-8, 300, 308, 322,
333) 335-6, 519, 530, 556,
563, 576, 598
linguistic 346, 436-7, 478, 496,
502, 551-2, 562, 571, 590,
594, 665n.116
memorial reconstructions
448, 548
metrical 435, 462, 487, 493,
502-3, 511, 520, 522, 525,
528, 537, 544, 550, 554-5,
558, 565; 569, 571, 579,
581, 586, 590 see also
tests (for attribution of
authorship), metrical
mislineation 562
nature of 30-1
oaths and interjections 436, 562
palaeographical 434, 545, 549
quotations 448
rhetorical 454-5
rhyme 451-4, 479, 562, 574, 576
size of cast 450, 487
sources 447, 561, 590
speech length 462-5, 523,
552, 569
stage directions 437, 562, 567
stylistic/stylometric 226-7, 230,
241, 338, 431-2, 451, 455,
461, 477-8, 493, 501-2,
511, 513, 520-2, 524-5, 532;
535» 53% 543-4; 550,
554-6, 560, 562, 562-3,
565, 569, 571, 573, 579, 581,
585-6, 600
supplementary 102
textual 342
theatrical provenance 435,
440, 447
topical allusions 448-9, 518, 520
use of 319
useless/unreliable 73, 394, 420
verbal 437-8, 461-2
vocabulary 291, 435-6, 455,
461, 493, 550, 552, 554,
560, 562, 581
INDEX 717
experiment design 102
Fairfax, Edmund 117
Fairfax, Edward 112
Fane, Francis 508-9, 591
Farmer, Alan 109
Farmer, Richard 71, 407
Essay on the Learning of
Shakespeare 407
Farnham, W. E. 35, 586
Farringdon, Jill 41-2
Faversham 442
Fernie, Ewan 85
Field, Nathan 37, 76, 423, 540
works/canon of 80
Amends for Ladies 275, 628,
635n.15
Fatal Dowry 371 (with Philip
Massinger)
possible author of Four Plays
in One 647n.64 (with
John Fletcher)
Honest Man's Fortune 628
(with John Fletcher and
Philip Massinger)
Field, Richard 434, 508
Fielding, Henry
Joseph Andrews 41
Fisher, Jasper
Fuimus Troes 324
Fitch, John G. 462, 465-6
Flanders 543
Fleay, F. G. 29-33, 50, 479
Fletcher, Giles 608
Fletcher, John 24, 37, 77-8, 81-3,
109, 120 and n.14, 129,
183, 219, 248, 252, 284n.14,
386, 392-3, 404-7, 410,
415-16, 418, 420, 423, 425,
436, 438, 444, 447, 483,
501-2, 540, 586-7, 590,
594, 599; 609, 614,
647nN.62
as a collaborator of Shakespeare’s
35-6
style of 396-8, 404-6
works/canon of 34, 51, 259,
401, 586
All is True/Henry VIII 29,
45-6, 191N.3, 343, 356, 361,
392-3, 402, 405, 413, 465,
467, 482-3, 584, 586-8,
590, 653n.74 (as
co-author)
Bloody Brother, The 425, 556
Bonduca 324, 392-3, 402, 604,
606-7, 628
Captain, The 82-3, 606-7,
628, 659n.102 (with
Francis Beaumont)
Cardenio 34, 109, 123, 218, 307,
385-6, 394, 399, 401,
718 INDEX
Fletcher, John (cont.)
405-7, 411, 416, 447, 590,
601 (with William
Shakespeare) see also
Fletcher, John, works/
canon of, Double
Falsehood; Theobald,
Lewis, Double Falsehood
Chances, The 78, 593, 607, 628,
6590.97
Coxcomb, The 659n.102 (with
Francis Beaumont)
Cupid’s Revenge 411, 580,
604 (with Francis
Beaumont)
Double Falsehood 109, 2.47,
307, 326, 385, 393-4, 401,
406-8, 410-11, 413-14,
416, 584-8 (with William
Shakespeare) see also
Fletcher, John, works/
canon of, Cardenio
Double Marriage 354, 628
(with Philip Massinger)
Faithful Shepherdess, The
411, 628
Fifty Comedies and Tragedies
(with Francis
Beaumont) 35
Four Plays in One 75, 604,
607, 647N.64
Honest Man's Fortune 628
(with Nathan Field and
Philip Massinger)
Humorous Lieutenant,
The 411, 628
Island Princess, The 65, 76,
628, 658n.90
King and No King, A 411,
628 (with Francis
Beaumont)
Little French Lawyer, The 65
Love’ Cure 349n.6, 647n.62
(with Francis Beaumont
and Philip Massinger)
Love’ Pilgrimage 65
Lover's Progress, The 658n.93
(with Philip Massinger)
Loyal Subject, The 77-8, 82,
604, 606-7, 628, 659n.109
Mad Lover 77-8, 82-3, 604,
606, 628
Maid’ Tragedy 354, 605
Monsieur Thomas 65, 335,
411, 628
Night Walker, The 646n.59
Philaster 327, 411, 580, 599
(with Francis Beaumont)
Pilgrim 76, 628
Rollo, Duke of Normandy
see Fletcher, John,
works/canon of, Bloody
Brother, The
Rule a Wife and Have a
Wife 11, 411, 628
Scornful Lady 269n.16 (with
Francis Beaumont)
Shrew: The Woman's Prize; or,
The Tamer Tamed, The
501, 605
Spanish Curate, The 65
Thierry 326 (with Philip
Massinger)
Two Noble Kinsmen 22n.14,
29, 46, 191N.3, 218, 343,
349N.6, 392-3, 396-8,
401-5, 437, 467, 482, 584,
587, 589-90, 604, 606,
640n.26, 642n.34, 668,
670 (as co-author)
Valentinian 402, 411, 628
Very Woman, A 646n.45 (with
Philip Massinger)
Wife for a Month 605, 628
Wild Goose Chase 607, 628
With Without Money 411
Women Pleasd 251, 254, 501-2
Fletcher, Phineas
Purple Island 272
Sicelides 604
Florence 344-5
Florio, John 371, 423, 542
Second Frutes 500
World of Words 135
Foakes, R. A. 45, 367, 587
Folger Shakespeare Library 295,
429, 432, 536, 595-6
Folkstone 443
Ford, Emanuel
Most Pleasant History of Ornatus,
The 269n.17
Ford, John 37, 107n.1, 183, 251-2,
436, 598
Broken Heart, The 251, 628
Fancies Chaste and Noble
605, 628
Fancies Chest, The 659n.105
Funeral Elegy 226
Lady’s Trial 628
Love’ Sacrifice 251, 268n.11,
272-3, 628
Lover’ Melancholy 628
Perkin Warbeck 54, 628
Queen, The 54, 129
Spanish Gipsy, The 63, 286-7,
335, 640.27, 642.34,
643n.35 (with Thomas
Dekker, Thomas
Middleton, and William
Rowley)
Tis Pity She’s a Whore 251, 628
Fordwich 442
Forey, M. A. 429
forgery 416, 429
Forker, Charles R. 512, 521, 549, 602
Forman, Simon 564-6, 577-9, 582
Fort, J. A. 575
Fortinbras 543
Foster, Donald 40, 43, 60, 107 and
n.1, 108n.1, 120 and n.14,
519, 597
Foucault, Michel 3 and nn.1-2, 4
and n.2, 5, 6 and n.4, 7-9,
11, 13, 21-2, 24-6
Les Mots et les choses 4
‘What is an author?’ 4
France 7, 344-6, 393, 451, 515,
570, 588
Fraser, Russell 357
Fraunce, Abraham 114, 116-17
Countesse of Pembrokes
Yuychurch 114
Frazer, Winifred 141n.2
Frazier, Harriet 407
Frederick (Elector of Palatine) 221
Freebury-Jones, Darren 126-8,
130, 133
Freedman, Barbara 532
Freehafer, John 385, 407, 585
Freeman, Arthur 198
Freimuth, William 88
Froissart, Jean 505
Fuller, Thomas
Andronicus 658n.92, 659.105
History of the Worthies of
England 537
Funny Thing Happened on the Way
to the Forum, A 21
Furness, Howard 581
Furnivall, F. J. 29, 586
Gabrieli, Vittorio 553
Gaines, James F. 504
Gant, David 583
Gardner, Helen 201
Garnet, Father Henry 564
Garnier, Robert
Cornélie 49, 198, 504, 529
Garrick, David
adaptation of The Winter's
Tale 425
Gascoigne, George 5, 21, 329n.11
Gataker, Thomas
Discussion of Popish doctrines,
A 328
Gayton, Edmund 584
Gdarisk 505-6
genres 111N.4, 143-4, 254, 436,
453-4, 475, 483, 501-2,
551, 561, 584
Gheeraerts the younger,
Marcus 15
Gifford, Humphrey
A posie of Gilloflowers 229
Gilbourne, Samuel 342n.3
Gildon, Charles 584
Giustinian, Zorzi 570
Glapthorne, Henry
Ladies Privilege 323, 647n.65
Lady Mother, The 659n.101,
659n.110
Revenge for Honour 658n.93
Tragedy of Albertus, The 335
Goddard, William 114-16
Mastiff whelp, A 115
Godshalk, W. L. 505
Goffe, Thomas 37, 76, 601
Amurath 628
Careless Shepherd, The 503
Orestes 274
The Raging Turk 269n.16
Goldacre, Ben 123, 135
Goldberg, Jonathan 8-9, 1
Writing Matter 8, 9 and nn.6-7
Golding, Arthur 21, 117, 581
Goldman, M. 5
Goldring, Beth 543
Gollancz, Israel 321, 362
Gondomar, Count 346
Gooch, J. L. 599
Goodal, Thomas 552
Gossett, Suzanne 432, 580
Gosson, Henry 570
Gough, Alexander 285
Gough, I. 279
Strange Discovery, The 271, 604
Gough, Robert 342
Lady’s [or ‘Second Maiden’s’
Tragedy, The 342, 592-3
Sir John van Oldern
Barnavelt 342
Gower, John 570
Grahame, Simon 112
grammar 81, 97, 104, 250, 404-5,
462, 590
variations in 74, 110, 293
grammatical inversions 393, 398
Granger, Thomas
Looking Glass for Christians,
A 124
Grant, Teresa 578
Granville-Barker, Harley 581
Gravesend 344
Greeks, the 5
Green, William 532
Greenblatt, Stephen 435, 597
Greene, Robert 19, 21-2, 72, 77, 114,
116, 119, 126, 129, 140, 143,
146, 154, 166, 194, 197,
201-2, 204-5, 207-8, 248,
423, 437%, 454, 495, 497,
504, 514, 520, 545, 598
works/canon of 39-40, 44
Alphonsus, King of Aragon
143, 161N.13, 189, 199, 628
Farewell to Folly 597
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
83, 143, 161N.13, 187, 196,
199, 201, 269nNn.16-17,
594, 628
George a Greene 186, 190,
193, 594
Groatsworth of Wit 498, 547
and Henry VI plays 32, 196,
203, 497
James IV 143, 186, 199,
604, 628
John of Bordeaux 54, 187 (with
Henry Chettle)
Looking Glass for London, A
185, 192, 323, 629 (with
Thomas Lodge)
Mamillia 506
Menaphon 499-500, 519, 547
Orlando Furioso 143, 163n.14,
189, 199, 628
Pandosto 21
Selimus 52-3, 129, 189, 594,
599, 603
Titus Andronicus 35 (as
possible co-author)
Greenham, Richard
Two Learned and Godly
Sermons 232
Greg, W. W. 68, 70-1, 140, 241, 337,
488, 545, 549-50, 552, 560
Greville, Fulke
Alaham 189
Mustapha 189, 628
Grierson, Sir Herbert 222
Griffin, Bartholomew 114, 116, 117
and n.10, 533
works/canon of 117n.10
Fidessa More Chaste than Kind
113-14, 116, 117N.10, 526
Grimeston, Edward 135, 541
Grosart, A. B. 594
Guidobaldi, Bonarelli
Filli Di Sciro 604
Guilpin, Edward
Skialetheia 439
Gunpowder Plot, the 379, 383,
55% 564
Gurr, Andrew 20n.13, 303, 443,
445, 507, 512, 517, 543, 548,
552, 574, 580
Gustavus Adolphus (King of
Sweden) 220-1, 609
Gutenberg, Johannes 23
Guthrie, Tyrone 71
Guy-Bray, Stephen 90
Hackel, Heidi Brayman 88
Hackett, Helen 108n.1, 525
Hakluyt, Richard
Principal Navigations 327
Voyages 534
Haldane, J.B.S. 44
Hall, John 572, 592
Hall, Joseph 114, 116
Contemplations upon the
Principal Passages
270N.19
Kings Prophecie, The 115
Short Answer, A 327
INDEX 719
Two Guides to a Good Life 135
Virgidemiarum 115
Halliwell-Phillipps, James 595
Halstead, William P.
Shakespeare as Spoken 304
Hamilton, Alexander 37
Hamilton, Charles 549, 601
Hamlett, Katherine 547
Hammond, Anthony 432, 570
Hammond, Brean 385, 407, 583, 585
Hamond, John 618
Hampton Court Conference 555
handwriting 8, 9 and n.7, 10-14, 25,
34, 48, 52, 58-9, 68, 221,
241, 339, 342; 348, 415,
548-50, 552-3, 598
Hanmer, Thomas 28, 363
hapax legomena 30, 94
Harari, Josué 4 and n.2
Harbage, Alfred 635n.14
Annals of English Drama 53, 135,
142, 198, 635n.14
Hardin, Richard 218n.1
Harington, John 112, 114, 116-17,
219, 224, 611, 614
Epigrams 114
Orlando Furioso 114-15
Harraway, Donna
‘Cyborg Manifesto’ 23
Harrington, John 541
Harris, John 611, 614
Harris, Robert 141
Harrison, Stephen 543
Magnificient Entertainment,
The 20-1, 284, 286-7
(with Thomas Dekker,
Ben Jonson, and Thomas
Middleton)
Harsnett, Samuel
Declaration of Egregious
Popish Impostures, A
366, 560
Hart, Alfred 57, 128, 135n.5, 495,
504, 590
Hart, H.C. 196, 497
Harvey, Gabriel 418-19, 545, 548
Hastings, W. T. 433
Hathaway, Anne 434,574
Hathaway, Richard 490
Sir John Oldcastle 129, 601 (with
Michael Drayton,
Anthony Munday, and
Robert Wilson)
Hattaway, Michael 108n.1, 525
Haughton, William
Devil and his Dame 628
Englishmen for My Money 53-5,
65, 188, 192, 199, 628
Grim the Collier 188, 192, 594
and Henry VI plays 203
Hausted, Peter
The Rival Friends 269n.16,
646n.58
720 INDEX
Hawkins, Thomas
Apollo Shroving 605
Origins of English Drama 198
Hay, James 581
Hayman, Robert 228-9
Hazlitt, William 91
Heappe, John 614
Heath, Benjamin 71
Heidegger, Martin 5, 25
Heminge, William 77, 80, 252
Heminges, John 114, 417-22, 424-6
The Fatal Contract 80, 250-1,
603-5
Jew’s Tragedy 603
Henderson, Robert 141
hendiadys 471, 473-8, 501, 537, 544,
558-9, 565
Henning, Standish 597
Henry (Prince of England) 220,
222, 520, 580, 583, 587,
608-9, 613, 617, 621
Henry IV (King of France) 580
Henry V (King of England) 527
Henry VIII (King of England) 551
Henshaw, Joseph
Spare Hours of Meditations 272
Henslowe, Philip 141, 247, 248,
252-2, 254, 262, 418, 420,
428, 441, 491, 499, 516,
527-8, 539; 544, 546, 5525
563, 578-9, 595
Diary 141, 240, 261, 491-2, 494,
515, 520, 527, 529-30,
536, 601
Hentschell, Roze 330n.13
Herbert, George 110, 219, 224-5,
610, 614
Temple, The 225
Herbert, Henry 428, 598
Herbert, Philip, first Earl of
Montgomery 15, 17
Herbert, William, third Earl of
Pembroke 15-16
Herberts, the 613
Heresbach, Conrad
Four Books of Husbandry
270n.19
Herford, C. H. 539
Herrera, Alonso Nunez de 522
Herrick, Robert 120, 219, 224-5,
608-11, 614
Hertford, Countess of 614
Heywood, John 5
Heywood, Thomas 37, 55, 66, 76,
112, 117-18, 120N.14, 121
and n.17, 142, 183, 204,
248-9, 252-3, 255-60,
263-72, 273-4, 276-7,
287, 329 and n.11, 372, 423,
427, 432, 436-7, 530, 549,
551, 594
attributions to 109, 257, 260-1,
266-7, 432, 437
works/canon of 80, 247, 258-9
Apology for Actors 198,
427, 529
Brazen Age 11, 257, 646n.46
Captives, The 659n.106
Challenge For Beauty, A
257-8, 327
Curtain Lecture 255, 257
1 Edward IV 129, 187, 251, 253,
256-9, 266, 372, 503, 594,
598, 646n.52
2 Edward IV 11, 186, 257, 503,
594, 598, 646n.52
England’ Elizabeth 257
English Traveller, The 635n.14
Escapes of Jupiter 252
Exemplary Lives 257-8
Fair Maid of the Exchange,
The 129, 255, 257-9, 266,
268 and nn.11 and 13,
274-5, 324, 6590.96
1 Fair Maid of the West 189,
267nn.9-10
2 Fair Maid of the West
54, 258
Felicity of Man 255-7
Fortune by Land and Sea
255-6, 258-9
Four Prentices of London,
The 65, 189, 198-9, 251,
253-4, 256, 258, 267,
271-2, 274, 628
General History of Women,
The 255
Golden Age, The 580
Gynaikeion 255-8
and Henry VI plays 203
Hierarchie of Blessed Angels,
The 112, 255-7
How a Man may Choose a
Good Wife from a Bad
257-9, 266, 267NN.9-10
If You Know Not Me 55, 251,
253-8, 270n.18, 551, 628
Iron Age 256-8, 267n.9,
603-604, 646n.50
Jupiter and Io 271
Life of Merlin 256-7
Londini Emporia 256
Machiavel’s Ghost 256, 258
Maidenhead Well Lost
269n.16
Oenone and Paris 508
Philocothonista 256
Phoenix of these late times,
The 256
Play of Love, A 81n.12
Pleasant Dialogues 256-8
Rape of Lucrece 253-5, 257,
260, 264, 267N.9, 628
Richard Whittington 257-8
Royal King, The 11, 324,
646n.54
Sallust 255
additions to Sir Thomas
More 548-9, 551, 595
possible additions to The
Spanish Tragedy 252-3,
255-61, 263-4, 266-8,
270, 530
Troia Britannica 112, 255-8
Troubles of Queen Elizabeth,
The 551
Wise Woman of Hoxton
269n.16, 628
Woman Killed With Kindness,
A 250-1, 253-5, 257-8,
260, 264, 267-8, 269n.14,
270-2, 628
Hibbard, G. R. 533, 542
Hickson, Samuel 29, 33, 586
Hieatt, A. Kent 574-5, 577
Hieatt, Charles W. 574-5
Higgins, John
Falls of Unfortunate Princes,
The 269n.17
Hilliard, Nicholas
Hinman, Charlton 37, 342, 562
Hirsch, Brett D. 44, 436, 486, 490
Hirsh, James 7on.2, 184, 190
Hobday, C. H. 113-14, 116-17, 590
Hobson, Robert 141
Hoby, Sir Edward 512
Hodgson, William 221, 224, 609, 614
Hoeniger, F. D. 568
Holdsworth, Roger 38, 77, 281,
282n.5, 284-6, 289,
3351.15, 341, 347-9,
3530.12, 437, 447, 559-60,
562-5, 567, 602
Holinshed, Ralph 567, 598
Chronicles of England, Scotland,
and Ireland, The 21, 139,
269N.17, 423, 447, 487,
498, 507, 512, 515, 521,
546-7, 580, 587
Holland 359
Holland, Compton 120n.14
Holland, Philemon 135, 262, 530, 543
Holland, Robert
The Holie History of Our Lord
and Saviour Jesus
Christ 112
Holmer, Joan Ozark 511, 517, 522
Holy Roman Empire 344
Holyday, Barten Technogamia 54,
328n.7, 635n.22
Homer 110, 112
Honigmann, E. A. J. 435, 486,
493-4, 499, 507, 521, 537,
545, 553, 561
Hoover, David 490
Hope, Jonathan 41, 407, 436-7,
504, 549, 562, 566, 586,
590, 595, 599
Hornback, R. B. 561
Hoskyns, John 219, 223-4, 609,
611, 614
Hotson, Leslie 532, 535, 581-2
House of Cards (television series) 22
House of Lords 379
Houston, John Porter 586
Howard, Thomas, first Earl of
Suffolk 15-16
Howarth, R. G. 264
Howell, Jane 90
Hoy, Cyrus 35-6, 38, 348, 483,
586, 590
Hubbel, L. W. 593
Hubert, Francis
History of Joseph, The 270n.19
Hughes, Alan 491
Hughes, Thomas, et al.
Misfortunes of Arthur, The 189
Hulme, Hilda 574
Hume, Robert D. 108n.2, 584-5
Hunnis, William
Hive Full of Honey 272
Hunter, G. K. 340, 344
Hunter, William B. 520
Huntingdon, Earl of 83
Hythe, 443
IM.
Servingman’s Comfort, The 510
IBM SPSS Statistics Version 242
Ilsemann, Helmut 523, 528, 537,
554, 569
image/imagery 116, 126, 373, 438,
455, 502, 504, 561, 576,
577 581, 586, 590
Index Librorum Proibitorum 6
influence/indebtedness 366,
369-71, 380-2, 384, 485,
507, 513, 517%) 521, 527, 536,
543, 560, 568-9, 602
see also adaptation
information 408
Ingelend, Thomas
Disobedient Child, The 65
Ingram, John K. 32, 34, 586
Inns of Court 223-4 see also
theatres, Inns of Court
Intelligent Archive, the 198, 436
Internet Shakespeare
Editions 102
interpretation 3, 55, 365
Ioppolo, Grace 550
Ipswich 442
Ireland 495, 527
Italy 384, 557, 588
Jackson, B. 37
Jackson, MacDonald P. 36, 38, 42,
75> 93-4, 96, 970.4, 99
and n.10, 124, 126, 134,
249, 262, 265, 283,
288-90, 293n.28, 317N.47,
319, 335.15, 347-9, 357,
359, 386, 415, 432-7, 455,
461-2, 473, 486, 488-90,
501, 504, 508-9, 512, 516,
520-1, 523-4, 528, 530,
535. 544, 549-50, 552,
554-5, 562-3, 569; 571,
574-7; 581-2, 585-6, 594,
597, 600-2
assertions of 61, 68, 108n.1, 127,
140, 165n.16, 171, 242,
280-1, 288, 340-1, 358,
385, 407, 505, 558
methods of 36-8, 42, 92, 95, 100,
109, 507, 510
reworking of Ants Oras’s
data 467-8, 487, 493,
500, 518, 523-4, 532, 537
555, 560, 565, 569, 573) 579
works of
Defining Authorship 98
Determining the Shakespeare
Canon 123, 131-4, 182-3
“New Research on the
Dramatic Canon of
Thomas Kyd’ 56
‘A Supplementary Lexical
Test? 133
Jackson, Thomas 268
Nazareth and Bethlehem 268n.12
Treatise of the Consecration,
A 270n.19
Jacob, Edward 488
Jaggard, William 342, 348, 431,
526, 570
Bibliography 596
James, Elias 220, 223, 419, 427, 581-2
James I (King of England) 15-16,
21, 89, 221-2, 242, 344-5,
364, 446, 534, 538, 543-4,
551, 553-5, 559-60, 564,
569, 578, 582-4, 613
accession of 120, 554-5, 564, 574
Basilikon Doron 554
Lepanto, The 553
Workes 120
James VI (King of Scotland)
see James I (King of
England)
Jay, John 37
Jeffes, Abel 139, 233 and n.4, 528-9
Jeffes, Humphrey 499
Jeffries, John 224, 609, 615
Jenkins, Harold 542-3, 549
Jerome (Church Father) 356
Jerome, Stephen 141
Arraignment of the Whole
Creature at the Bar of
Religion, Reason, and
Experience, The 141
Jewel, John
Defence of the Apology of
the Church of England,
A 55
INDEX 721
Jewell, Simon 499
Johns Hopkins University 110
Johnson, Benjamin 609
Johnson, James 608, 615
Johnson, Samuel 71
Jones, Emrys 553
Jones, Richard 233, 235n.8
Jones, Robert
First Book of Songs or Airs 535
Musical Dream, A 229
Jones, William 232 and n.2
Jones-Davies, M.T. 599
Jonson, Ben 13, 20, 24, 37, 55,
76-7, 91, 114, 121, 142,
183, 219, 222, 224, 240,
248, 252, 262-6, 268-9,
274, 276-7, 328, 329n.11,
344, 367, 384, 418-20,
423-4, 427, 436-7, 493,
499; 509, 527, 534,
537-42; 548, 560, 5775
584, 588, 592, 608-10,
612, 615, 617
as an adapter of Shakespeare 32
attributions to 108n.1, 221, 241,
261-2, 437, 525
rivalry with William Shakespeare
28, 67, 509, 537 540
style of 262
works/canon of 51
Alchemist, The 304, 540,
603, 628
Bartholomew Fair 67, 493,
529, 577; 589, 603, 628,
646n.45
Case is Altered, The 188, 199,
247-8, 327, 604, 628,
635N.23
Catiline 262,540, 628
Christmas 344
Cynthia’s Revels 53, 188, 192,
247, 262, 628
Devil is an Ass, The 65,
349n.6, 628
Epicoene 572, 629, 646n.50
Every Man in his
Humour 199, 274, 523,
525, 540; 594, 629
Every Man out of his Humour
10, 129, 187-8, 192, 199,
268N.11, 528, 532, 629,
646n.52
Fortunate Islands, The 129
Gypsies Metamorphosed,
The 65, 604
and Henry VI plays 203
Hymenaei 323
Love’s Welcome 324
Magnetic Lady 251, 629
Magnificient Entertainment,
The 20-1, 284, 286-7
(with Thomas Dekker,
722 INDEX
Jonson, Ben (cont.)
Stephen Harrison, and
Thomas Middleton)
Masque of Oberon 578
Neptune’s Triumph 129, 327
New Inn 629, 646n.50
Poetaster 129, 247, 536-7, 629
Sad Shepherd 629
Sejanus 262, 269N.14, 421, 423,
446-7, 485, 538-42, 548,
588, 629
additions to The Spanish
Tragedy 241, 262-3
Staple of News 629, 659n.102
Tale of a Tub, The 188,
192, 629
Volpone 52-3, 269nn.16-17,
274, 384, 540, 551, 629
Works 13, 262, 538, 542, 572
Jory, John 304
Jourdain, Sylvester
Discovery of the Bermudas,
A 582
Jowett, John 33, 279, 283n.11,
379.4, 381, 495, 507, 514,
549-51, 553) 555-6, 562-3,
566, 576
Jowett, John and Gary Taylor
Shakespeare Reshaped 555-6
Judson (printer) 526
Jugge, Joan 231-2
Jugge, Richard 231, 233 and n.3
Kahan, Jeffrey 407
Kant, Immanuel 6-7, 23-4
Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde
der Rechtslehre 6n.4
Kapitaniak, Pierre 566
Karim-Cooper, Farah 82, 302, 307,
309, 320, 337, 362, 558
Katherine of Aragon 588
Kelliher, Hilton 582
Kenneth III (King of Scotland) 581
Kempe, William 17-18, 418, 511, 517,
52.4, 531, 547; 557
Kerrigan, John 574, 576
Kewes, Paulina 446, 543
Kiffin, Maurice
Andria 129
Killigrew, Henry
Conspiracy 274
Killigrew, Thomas 80
Claracilla 604
Parson’s Wedding 604
Prisoner, The 603
King, Edmund G. C. 585
King, Henry, Bishop of Chichester
219, 221, 224, 615
“To the Queen at Oxford’ 81n.12
King’s Cabinet Opened, The 595
King’s Chamber, the 583
Kinney, Arthur F. 126-7, 131, 133,
142, 145, 150-1, 179N.21,
182-3, 184 and n.1, 190,
192, 263 and n.2, 432, 436,
489-90, 562
Kinsale 527
Kirke, John
Seven Champions of
Christendom 267n.10,
635n.20
Kirkman, Francis 266, 594, 600
Kirwan, Peter 133-5, 421, 489-90,
504, 585, 593-4
Shakespeare Survey 133
Klein, Karl 562
Knapp, Jeffrey 5, 7, 23
Knight, Charles 37, 561
Knight, Wilson 581
Knowles, Richard 512, 531
History of the Turks 553
Knutson, Roslyn L. 68, 512, 542
Kokeritz, Helge 227
Koskenniemi, Inna 504
Kramer, Joseph E. 68-9, 71
Kuhl, E. PR. 502
Kukowski, Stephen 407, 416
Kyd, Thomas 31, 49n.1, 62, 127,
129-30, 133, 140-3, 146,
150-1, 167-79, 194, 197,
201-2, 205-7, 209-11,
214, 216-17, 436, 488, 490,
497, 504, 514, 520, 529,
547, 598
style of 126
works/canon of 39-40, 46-7,
49-51, 56, 61-2, 64, 132,
198
and Arden of Faversham
49-50, 56, 61-2, 126, 133,
142, 154-5, 157-9, 164,
166, 172, 175, 193, 490
Cornelia 50n.2, 61, 128, 132,
142, 143, 161N.13, 167,
176N.20, 198-9, 504, 629
attribution of 49, 201
and Edward III 49-50
and Fair Em the Miller’s
Daughter 49
and Henry VI plays 49, 194,
203-4, 217, 497
Householder’s Philosophy,
The 49n.1
Soliman and Perseda 50n.2,
56-7, 61, 126-9, 132, 142,
143, 161N.13, 163n.14,
167, 189, 193, 199, 202,
207, 436
attribution of 49, 198, 201
Spanish Tragedy, The 3, 46,
57-8, 61, 64, 67, 70, 126-9,
132-3, 140, 143, 159n.11,
160N.12, 163N.14, 164N.15,
167, 171, 172n.18, 176n.20,
187, 193-4, 196, 199,
201-2, 207, 231, 233,
239-40, 246, 251-2, 255,
261-2, 264, 342, 387, 390,
436, 488, 504, 529-30,
545, 629
1602 edition 231, 233-4,
237-40, 253, 270
additions to (ST Adds)
15.11, 49-56, 66, 112, 231,
241-2, 244-9, 253-4, 255,
259-64, 266-76, 362, 422,
424, 433, 440, 470, 475-6,
485, 528-31, 554, 593
‘Painter's Part’ (Fourth
Addition) 259-62,
266-8, 271-2, 276-7, 530
attribution of 31, 49 and
N.1, 198, 245-6, 259, 266,
273, 435, 529-30
Ben Jonson's possible
contribution to 241,
262-4, 529
date/dating of 493, 500,
528-30
Thomas Dekker’s possible
contribution to 263-4,
267, 529
Thomas Heywoods’s
possible contribution
to 252-3, 255-61, 263-4,
266-7, 270, 530
William Shakespeare’s
possible contribution
to 105, 112, 241-9, 255,
260, 263-4, 270, 276, 422,
42.4, 529-30
and True Chronicle History of
King Leir 49, 128-9
labour 330-2
Lake, David J. 36-8, 58, 281, 288-9,
348, 368, 436, 551, 562,
601-2
Lamb, Charles 91
Lancashire, Anne 488, 597-601
Lancashire, Ian 597
Langbaine, Gerald
Account of the English Dramatick
Poets 601
Lange, Johannes 358
language 103, 122, 341, 346, 551,
560, 568
features of 150, 408
nonsense 278
phenomena relating to 39
poetic 41 see also poetry
structure 356
translation 5-6, 85, 142, 262, 423,
436, 530, 534; 541-3, 550,
563, 581, 583, 585
use of 33, 37, 83, 105, 109, 131, 179,
252, 333, 347-8, 357, 360,
525, 551 see also
vocabulary; words
preferences regarding 36, 229,
296-8, 300, 308, 319-20,
431, 563, 590, 665n.116
languages 408
English 21, 37, 42-3, 140, 145,
234, 386, 408, 534
French 423, 546
Greek 10
Ttalian 423, 546
Latin 10, 68, 140, 423, 540-1, 588
Langworthy, Charles A. 462, 483,
510, 537; 586
Lanyer, Aemilia 114
Salue Deus Rex ludaeorum 115
Lapides, Fred 504-505
Lavagnino, John 63, 191n.3
law 6-7 see also laws/legislation
copyright 19, 21, 422
Lawrence, W. J. 339
Shakespeare’s Workshop 338
laws/legislation
Act to Enlarge the Statutes Now in
Force Against Usury 384
Act to Restrain the Abuses of
Players 307, 317n.48, 341,
382, 551, 602
Law of Re-entry 69
lawsuits
Bellott versus Mountjoy 13
Lawthorn, Mark 103n.17
Le Petit, Jean Francois
A General History of the
Netherlands 135
Le Sylvain, Alexandre
Orator, The 272
Lee, Jane 32-3
Leech, Clifford 486
Lefrevre de la Broderie,
Antoine 570
Legate, Bartholomew 561
Leggatt, Alexander 140, 340
Leighton, William 112
Lesser, Zachary 20n.13, 109, 548
LEstrange, Nicholas 540
Levenson, Jill L. 488, 597-600
Lever, J. W. 517,554
Lewis, William 224, 608, 610, 615
lexical value 36-7
lexicography 39, 82, 100, 113, 182,
598 see also evidence,
lexical; parallels, lexical
Ley, William 503
Lindley, David 339
line numbers 151 and n.8, 152
Linhart Wood, Jennifer 124
Littledale, Harold 437, 590
Lisle, William 114, 116
Faire Aethiopian, The 115
Literature Online (LION) 42-3, 46,
53-4, 56, 570.3, 58-60, 62,
64-6, 72-5, 76N.6, 79-84,
92-3, 95-106, 109-11, 113,
117-19, 1200.14, 121, 124-7,
130-1, 133-5, 142, 145,
183-5, 192-3, 228-9, 246,
249-51, 253-6, 259-60,
264, 285n.15, 293, 299,
308, 320, 322, 327, 344,
349, 351, 352N.9, 354, 368,
372, 375» 377; 379» 411, 489,
514-15, 525, 549, 572, 576,
588, 603, 606-7, 634-5,
636n.24, 645-6, 658, 673
Literature Online Automated
Mining Package
(LAMP) 73-4, 81,
98-102, 105
Livy
Roman History, The 135
Lodge, Thomas 114, 116-18, 143,
154, 166, 180, 204, 252,
423, 495, 544, 546, 598
Fig for Momus, A 116
and Henry VI plays 203
Looking Glass for London, A 185,
192, 323, 629 (with Robert
Greene)
Rosalynd 21, 114, 116, 531
Scillaes Metamorphosis 114, 116
Wounds of Civil War, The 143,
187, 199, 251, 273, 629
Loewenstein, Joseph 7
Logan, George M. 513
London 21, 109, 113, 134N.3, 232-4,
330-1, 336, 384, 418, 435,
441, 451, 511, 517, 522,
546-7, 551, 570, 572,
581-2, 584, 587
Cow Lane 237
Dowgate Hill 239
Drury Lane 585
guilds of 24
Finsbury Fields 492
Mile End 316nn.42, 318
Paul’s Cross Churchyard 568
Puddle Dock Hill 581
St Andrew’s Church at the
Wardrobe 581
St Giles Parish 232
St Mary Bothaw 239
theatres 51, 431, 441, 492, 504,
508, 515, 533, 538, 542, 580
see also theatres
Tower of 89
London Forum for Authorship
Studies (LFAS) 49,
61-2, 278
Longus
Daphne and Chloe 269n.17
Lord Chamberlain (position of) 17,
446, 507
Lord Mayor, the 329nn.9 and u1,
330 and n.13, 331, 333
Loreto, Vittorio 408, 413
Lotto (Secretary to the Duke of
Florence) 570
INDEX 723
Loughnane, Rory 75, 77, 82, 85, 141,
249, 252, 321, 326n.6,
3351.15, 337) 352s 3530.12,
363, 437% 491, 505, 558-9,
590, 630, 639, 651
Love, Harold 108
Low Countries, the 237 see also
Holland
Lower, William 268
Phoenix in her Flames 268nn.11
and 13
Lucy, Sir Thomas 533
Lucy, Sir William 434
Lugt, Cornelis van der 27
Lupton, Thomas
All for Money 635n.22, 646n.61
Lyly, John 143, 146, 153-4, 166, 184,
248, 329N.11, 436, 485-6,
488, 529, 546, 598
works/canon of 51, 64
Alexander and Campaspe 188
Campaspe 143, 159N.11,
160N.12, 163N.14, 164N.15,
199, 629
Endymion 143, 161n.13,
163N.14, 189, 199, 269n.16,
326, 328n.7, 488, 629
Euphues 485, 488, 506
Gallathea 143, 160n.12,
161N.13, 164N.15, 189, 199,
274, 629
and Henry VI plays 203
Love’s Metamorphosis 62,
143, 159N.11, 160N.12, 189,
199, 629
Midas 143, 164n.15, 187, 199,
485-6, 629
Mother Bombie 143, 161n.13,
189, 199, 629, 646N.55
Sappho and Phao 143, 160n.12,
189, 199, 629
Woman in the Moon, The 143,
186, 199, 275, 629
McCarthy, Dennis 56-7, 130
McDonald, Russ 586
McGee, C. E. 345n.4
McKerrow, R. B. 337, 514, 545
MacLean, Sally-Beth 492, 516
McMillin, Scott 551
McMullan, Gordon 588
Madison, James 37
Maguire, Laurie 278-80, 283,
319, 321-2, 336-7,
340-1, 343, 346, 348,
355, 361-2, 448, 492,
494, 497, 558, 597
Maidstone 442
Malone, Edmond 71, 73, 451, 486,
543, 545-6, 557, 570, 582
Biographia Dramatica 407
Malone Society 109, 139n.1, 151,
295N.30, 598-601
724. INDEX
Manley, Lawrence 330, 492, 495, 516
Mann, Francis Oscar 505
Manners, Lady Katherine 364
Manningham, John 534-5
manuscripts 230, 305, 338-9, 342,
405, 427, 429-30
Bodleian Library
MS Ashmole 38 223, 224
MS Eng. poet. C. 50 223
Rawlinson 119
Rawlinson poet. 142 600
Rawlinson poet.160 218-26,
228, 518-19, 608, 612, 616,
621, 625-6
Top. gen. e. 29 602
British Library
Add. MSS 21433 223
Add. MSS 25303 223
Add. MSS 30982 223
Add. MSS 33998 223
Add. MS 10449 (folio 4) 552
MS Egerton 1994 598
MS Harleian 7368 549
MS Harley 5353 (folio 10) 534
MS Sloane 1446 (folio 23v) 600
Stowe MS 962 223
Cambridge University Library
Ms. Dd. 5.75 (folio 46r) 524
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
MS 328 223
Dulwich College
MS xix 552
Folger Library
Lambarde 295-7
V.a.147 (folio 27v) 616
V.a.160 120
V.a.262 120, 223
V.a.345 223
Nottingham University
Portland MS PwV 37 220, 223,
295 and n.30, 295-7
Victoria and Albert Museum
Dyce MS 52 563
Yale University
MS Osborn b 197 223-4, 518
Markham, Lady, Countess of
Pembroke 222, 618
Markham, Gervase 112
Famous and Renowned History of
Merlin 267n.10
Farewell to Husbandry 358
Herod and Antipater 275-6, 428,
629, 659n.107 (with
Robert Sampson)
Marlborough 442
Marlowe, Christopher 24, 49, 59,
72, 129-30, 133, 140-1,
143-4, 155, 160, 167-79,
194, 197, 201-2, 205-7,
209-14, 216-17, 248, 252,
2.65, 270, 420, 423, 425,
437, 488, 490, 495-7, 499,
504, 514, 520, 526, 529, 598
attributions to 316nn.42, 437,
493-7, 499
style of 87, 212
works/canon of 39-40, 44, 51,
64, 80, 210, 249
and Arden of Faversham
154-9, 161-2, 164, 166,
170, 172, 175
Dido and Aeneas 199, 210,
212-13, 604 (with Thomas
Nashe?)
Dido Queen of Carthage 54,
142, 187, 629 (with
Thomas Nashe)
Doctor Faustus 127, 142, 187,
189, 199, 210, 212-13,
251, 253, 270N.19, 342,
489, 500
Edward II 56-8, 128-9, 143,
159N.11, 160N.12, 162,
163N.14, 164N.15, 167, 186,
194, 196, 199, 201-2, 212,
513, 594, 598, 629
and Henry VI plays 32,59,
194, 203-4, 217, 356,
493-9, 513, 515, 588
Hero and Leander 73, 531
Jew of Malta, The 65, 129, 142,
144, 159n.11, 160 and n.12,
163N.14, 164, 167, 177, 188,
199, 201, 210, 212, 249,
526, 629
Massacre at Paris, The 128,
144, 167, 176n.20, 186,
190, 194, 196, 199, 201,
212, 249, 629
1 Tamburlaine 141, 143,
159N.11, 163N.14, 167,
171, 1750.19, 189, 199, 212,
217, 371, 494, 515, 594,
604, 629
2 Tamburlaine 62, 141, 143,
159N.11, 161N.13, 162,
163N.14, 164N.15, 167,
172n.18, 175n.19, 189, 200,
212, 371, 515, 629
Marmion, Shackerley
Antiquary 629
Fine Companion, A 659n.94
Marotti, Arthur 108, 110
Marchburn, Joseph H. 488
Marcus, Leah S. 597
Marprelate, Martin 6
Marsden, Jean I. 585
Marsh, Henry 594
Marston, John 37, 55 77, 247, 273,
276, 423, 531; 534, 539-40,
560, 612, 615
Antonio and Mellida 65, 188, 192,
198, 200, 262, 273-5,
328N.7, 530, 629, 635.23
Antonio’ Revenge 65, 192,
543, 629
Dutch Courtesan, The 65, 629,
6590.94
Eastward Ho! 367, 423,
539-40, 560
Fawn, The 53, 555
and Henry VI plays 203
Historiomatrix 189, 594, 603
Insatiate Countess 629 (with
William Barkstead)
Jack Drum’s Entertainment 186,
190, 193, 603, 629
Malcontent, The 65, 629
Parasitaster 629
Sophonisba 383, 565, 629
What You Will 52-5, 629
Wonder of Women, The 272, 565
Martial 7
Selected Epigrams 269n.17
Martin, Randall 598
Mary, Queen of Scots 89, 547
Mary I (Queen of England) 231
Mason, J. Monck 542
Massinger, Philip 33, 37, 119n.13,
276, 388, 394, 407, 410,
414-16, 423, 444, 561
as a collaborator of
Shakespeare's 36
style of 415
works/canon of 51, 76
All Is True/Henry VIII 415,
586 (as co-author)
Bashfull Lovers 411
Believe as You List 54, 65, 420
Bond-man, The 411, 603
Cardenio/Double
Falsehood 415-16 (as
co-author)
City-Madam, The 659n.103
Double Marriage 354, 628
(with John Fletcher)
Fatal Dowry 371 (with Nathan
Field)
Great Duke of Florence,
The 65
Honest Man's Fortune 628
(with Nathan Field and
John Fletcher)
Love’ Cure 349n.6, 647n.62
(with Francis Beaumont
and John Fletcher)
Lover’s Progress, The 658n.93
(with John Fletcher)
New Way to Pay Old Debts
391-2, 411, 658n.90
Picture, The 588, 646n.49
Renegado 271-2, 323, 411
Roman Actor, The 593, 629
Thierry 326 (with John
Fletcher)
Unnatural Combat, The 271,
411, 629, 635N.23
Very Woman, A 646n.45 (with
John Fletcher)
Virgin Martyr, The 264,
270nn.18-19, 604 (with
Thomas Dekker)
Witch of Edmonton 658n.89
(with Thomas Dekker)
Master of Revels (position of) 367,
446, 549
material 320
dispensable 301, 305-6, 3110.5,
314n.29, 318
indispensable 302-4, 309, 310n.2,
312nn.6 and 8, 314n.31,
3150.40, 3170.44, 318
Matthews, Robert 415, 599
Maule, Jeremy 218n.1
Maxwell, Baldwin 368, 599
Maxwell, J.C. 433
May, Steven 108n.1, 524-5
Mayne, Jasper
City Match, A 588
Mead, Robert
Combat of Love and
Friendship 603, 605
Meadows, Sir Roy 45
meaning 25-6
media 40
print 8, 20-1 see also printing
theatrical performance 8 see also
theatrical performances
Melbourne, University of 422
Melchiori, Giorgio 505, 532, 551, 553
Meres, Francis 14, 166, 254, 419,
426, 439-40, 462, 483,
485, 494, 497, 501, 502,
507, 510-13, 517, 521-4,
527, 529-31; 534, 536, 542,
547; 574-5
Palladis Tamia 14, 108, 166, 419,
439, 519, 527, 529-30, 575
Merriam, Thomas 57n.3, 415, 504,
550; 599
messages 408
methods (of testing) 31, 33, 36-8,
40-3, 60, 72-4, 82n.13,
93-5, 975 99; 102-5, 106 and
n.18, 107, 110, 121, 128, 141,
155, 164, 166, 172, 174, 180,
191N.3, 207, 242-3, 248-9,
263, 265, 298, 321, 413, 415,
436-7, 462, 496, 498, 515,
530, 544, 585-6, 597 see also
evidence; tests (for
attribution of authorship)
explanation of 145, 147-53,
292-3, 308, 408, 462
invalid/weak 41, 48, 50-1, 53-4,
59, 61, 66, 117, 248-9,
484, 487
metre 33, 35, 83, 90, 226, 385, 388,
435, 462, 465-6, 482,
501-2, 512, 525, 550, 555>
586, 588, 590 see also
evidence metrical
and tests (for attribution
of authorship), metrical
elements of see stress/stressing;
syntactic/metrical breaks
iambic pentameter 32, 36, 321-2,
324-5, 329, 331, 333,
386-8, 394, 402
tetrameter 325n.5
Metz, G. Harold 491, 549
Meyerstein, E. H. W. 581
Michell, Edward 221
Middlesex Sessions 240
Middleton, Christopher 114, 116
Historie of Heauen, The 114
Middleton, Thomas 14, 20-1, 24,
54, 63-4, 76-9, 81-3, 86,
88-91, 183, 248, 252,
278-302, 307-11, 312N.12,
313.19, 314N.32, 314.32,
315N.37, 317nn.47-9 and
51, 318-23, 324n.4, 325-8,
329 and nn.g and 11, 331,
334-7, 343, 345, 348-53,
355, 357-66, 369-75,
377-84, 388, 420, 423,
425, 431, 435-6, 438, 477,
554-7, 560, 584, 594, 599,
607, 627, 630, 635-9,
645-7, 650-1, 657-60,
663-4
attributions to 37-8, 70, 75, 80,
90-1, 123, 288-92, 295,
299-301, 307-10, 317N.48,
318, 325, 328, 336, 340-1,
350, 353-4, 358, 359-65,
378, 438, 562-4, 566-7,
601-2, 671
chronology of works 75, 559
collaborators of 14, 287-8,
371, 381
entertainments by 330-1, 3335
336, 353
handwriting/signature of 9 and
n.8, 25
imprisonment of 6
Oxford Collected Works of 13,
123, 285-6, 288, 292,
294-5, 3210.1, 344, 352;
366N.1, 562, 566, 593,
601-2, 630N.2, 666n.117
poetry of 90
portraits of 17
style of 86-7, 90-1, 132, 278,
280-1, 285, 296-7, 310,
311N.4, 312, 321-2, 331,
349, 3515 353s 355-7) 360-2,
369, 373, 467, 471, 477-8,
510-11, 513, 563, 602
works/canon of 23-4, 36, 51, 63,
81, 247, 259, 284, 286, 289,
293, 295, 299, 326N.6, 335,
337, 347% 350-5, 647N.62,
672-3
INDEX 725
All’s Well that Ends well 84,
85n.14, 278, 280-4, 286,
289-92, 294-5, 297-302,
307-11, 319-23, 325,
327-9, 331-7, 340-1, 343,
345-52, 353 and n.11, 355,
358-65, 559, 630, 639, 651,
652N.70, 664, 665n.116,
668 (as co-author)
Anything for a Quiet Life 63,
76n.7, 81, 87, 286-7,
313.19, 3450.4, 631N.5,
632N.10, 652-3, 655 and
n.83, 657.85, 671 (with
John Webster)
Black Book, The 64, 285n.16,
316.42, 358-9, 383, 565,
600, 669
Bloody Banquet, The 88-9,
253-4, 264, 286-7,
312N.12, 372N.2, 607, 630
and n.3, 653, 656, 665,
672-3 (with Thomas
Dekker)
Bloody Murders 367-70,
372-80, 381 and n.6, 384
Changeling, The 80, 87-8,
286-7, 289n.20, 349, 362,
372N.2, 604, 607, 629,
643-4, 653, 667, 672 (with
William Rowley)
Chaste Maid in Cheapside,
A 64, 284nn.13-14, 359,
368, 372N.2, 629, 632, 652,
656, 666, 669, 672
Civitatis Amor 285n.16, 329
and n.10, 661
Collected Works of (Oxford
edn.) 62-4
Entertainment for Sir Francis
Jones at Christmas 54
Fair Quarrel, A 64, 87, 282n.7,
283n.9, 284n.13, 286-7,
349, 6310.5, 634, 637,
640Nn.28, 652n.71, 652,
654N.79, 661, 666, 669, 670
(with William Rowley)
Father Hubburd’s Tales (or The
Ant and the Nightingale)
7, 77, 85, 91, 285n.16, 360,
605, 640, 671
Game at Chess, A 6, 11, 25,
70N.2, 76, 252, 282n.8,
284nN.13-14, 322, 326,
3451.4, 346-50, 353-4,
360-1, 372N.2, 374,
556, 605, 629, 654,
667, 672-3
Ghost of Lucrece 64, 90-1,
285n.16, 358, 605
Hengist King of Kent 64, 77,
266, 284n.14, 295-7,
299-300, 308-9, 320, 322
INDEX
Middleton, Thomas (cont.)
and n.3, 324-7, 328 and
N.7, 336, 347, 349-50;
353-4, 361, 3720.2, 605,
629-31, 640-1, 651, 660,
667-8, 669, 673
Honourable Entertainments
63, 76, 285n.16, 329n.10,
641, 653, 671-2
Invention, An 285n.16, 329n.10
Lady’s Tragedy, The 63, 89,
280, 284.14, 349, 351,
384, 592, 601, 606, 637,
662, 665-6, 670
Lordship’s Entertainment
285n.16
adaptation of Shakespeare's
Macbeth 3, 31, 62, 81n.11,
84, 89, 279, 286-7, 320,
326, 336, 352, 3530-11, 361,
382, 396, 537, 564-8, 671
Mad World, my Masters, A 77,
249, 282nn.7-8, 283n.10,
284nN.13-14, 3130.19,
3240.4, 3251.5, 328, 336,
352, 359, 368, 384, 606-7,
629, 631-2, 638, 653-4,
656, 665, 669-70
Magnificient Entertainment,
The 20-1, 284, 286-7
(with Thomas Dekker,
Stephen Harrison, and
Ben Jonson)
Masque of Heroes 283n.10,
284n.13, 285n.16, 351N.7,
638, 666
adaptation of Shakespeare's
Measure for Measure 70
and n.3, 81n.11, 84, 89-90,
279, 286-7, 301, 320, 326,
331, 336, 347 352, 3530.11,
354, 361, 364, 425, 554-7,
630, 664, 670-1
Meeting of Gallants at an
Ordinary, The 286-7, 383,
565, 656, 669 (with
Thomas Dekker)
Michaelmas Term 65, 282n.7,
283n.9, 284nn.13-14, 326,
354, 359-61, 377; 384, 629,
632-3, 637, 643, 661, 665,
669, 672
Microcynicon 63, 91, 285n.16,
356, 360, 606, 669
More Dissemblers Besides
Women 88, 282n.7,
284nN.13-14, 3131.19, 344,
347, 350-1, 3720.2, 382,
604, 606, 629-30, 636,
652, 654, 656, 666, 671
News from Gravesend 287,
643.36, 644N.41, 654.77,
657n.84, 672 (with
Thomas Dekker)
Nice Valour, The 63, 77, 282n.7,
284N.14, 3130.19, 324, 346,
353-4, 360, 382, 556, 629,
633-4, 644, 670, 672-3
No Wit/No Help Like a
Woman 14, 80,
282nn.7-8, 283n.9,
284nn.13-14, 327-8, 347,
349, 351, 360, 603, 629,
634, 637, 644, 653-4, 656,
665, 669, 671, 673
Old Law, An/The 54, 63, 86,
109, 123, 140, 286-7, 488,
666 (with William
Rowley and Thomas
Heywood)
Owl’s Almanac, The 63, 85,
285n.16, 346, 607, 631,
642, 656, 670
Patient Man and the Honest
Whore, The 63, 65, 87,
274, 282n.8, 284n.13,
286-8, 290N.25, 317n.48,
323, 425, 553, 603, 606,
632, 637, 643.37,
644nn.38 and 40, 653,
657, 659n.106, 661,
662n.114 (with Thomas
Dekker)
Peacemaker, The 24, 87, 285n.16,
356, 631, 669-70, 672
Penniless Parliament 656
Phoenix, The 63, 251, 256,
284nn.13-14, 315n.37,
324-5, 359, 384, 555,
606-7, 629-31, 633, 643,
654, 661
Plato’ Cap 285n.16, 359n.18,
631, 654, 656
Puritan Widow, The 63, 65,
77, 81-2, 282n.8,
284nN.13-14, 324, 346,
349, 371, 379-80, 382-3,
429, 435, 565, 592-3, 601,
605-7, 629, 633-4, 652-4,
656, 665
date/dating of 382-3
Revenger’s Tragedy, The 58, 65,
86-8, 121N.19, 123, 132, 135,
282 and nn.7-8, 283n.9,
284nN.13-14, 336, 340-1,
366, 368-9, 371, 374N.3,
379, 380 and n.5, 381 and
N.6, 382-4, 432, 558, 629,
652, 662, 669, 672
Roaring Girl, The 14, 286-7,
316nN.42, 343, 378, 652,
653 and n.73, 654, 657,
665, 668, 671-3 (with
Thomas Dekker)
Second Maiden’s Tragedy,
The 592-3, 601, 629
Sir Robert Shirley 63, 77,
285n.16, 325, 632, 671
Solomon Paraphrased
285n.16, 326
Spanish Gipsy, The 63, 286-7,
335, 640n.27, 642n.34,
643n.35 (with Thomas
Dekker, John Ford, and
William Rowley)
Sun in Aries, The 63, 284n.13,
285n.16, 329N.10, 673
Timon of Athens 36, 38, 191n.3,
278-9, 281, 282nn.5 and 8,
284n.13, 286-7, 294, 297,
341, 343, 356, 361, 366,
374-9, 381, 383-4, 432,
437 447; 477; 482, 562-4,
602, 665 (as co-author)
Titus Andronicus 90-1, 287,
364, 490-1, 630 (as
contributor)
Trick to Catch the Old One,
A 9, 10n.8, 284nn.13-14,
324, 326-7, 384, 593, 629,
633, 654, 656, 662, 665
Triumphs of Honour and
Industry 285n.16, 329n.10
Triumphs of Honour and
Virtue 63, 285n.16,
329.10
Triumphs of Integrity 285n.16,
325-6, 329n.10
Triumphs of Love and
Antiquity 329n.10,
641, 671
Triumphs of Truth, The 63,
284n.13, 285n.16,
330N.12, 644
Two Gates of Salvation 285n.16,
3170.47, 356, 642, 653
Widow, The 282 and nn.7-8,
283n.9, 284nn.13-14,
285-6, 321, 347, 353 and
11.12, 354, 356, 358, 361,
368-9, 605-7, 629, 633-4,
652-6, 666, 668, 670-2
Wisdom of Solomon
Paraphrased, The 64,
85-6, 91, 118, 356, 358,
606-7, 653-4, 672-3
Wit at Several Weapons 63,
282nn.7-8. 284n.13,
286-7, 289n.20, 313N.19,
349, 351 and n.z, 378, 607,
631n.7, 632 and n.9, 633,
634N.12, 638, 640, 652,
654n.78, 655n.81, 662,
666n.117, 669, 672 (with
William Rowley)
Wit Without Money 629
Witch, The 29, 70n.2, 77, 82, 85,
89, 284n.14, 285, 288, 324,
347, 349, 353, 425, 565-6,
605, 607, 629, 632-3,
642-3, 653-7, 666, 670-3
Women Beware Women 64,
75> 77% 80, 82, 87, 91, 282
and nn.7-8, 284nn.13-14,
326, 347, 349-51, 353-4,
360-2, 392, 603, 605, 629,
642, 652, 654-5, 661, 667,
669
Women Pleased 629
Women’ Prize 629
World Tossed at Tennis,
The 63, 282n.8, 284n.13,
285n.16, 286-7, 329n.10,
344, 3451.4, 346, 349, 351
and n.7, 359n.18, 382, 556,
648, 667 (with William
Rowley)
Yorkshire Tragedy, A 28, 63,
87, 224, 284nn.13-14,
285-6, 327-8, 352, 366-84,
563-4, 570, 592-3, 602,
629, 633, 642-3, 668
attribution of 81n.11, 431-2,
434 see also
under Shakespeare,
William, apocrypha
date/dating of 367-9,
376, 383
Your Five Gallants 54-5, 63,
283n.9, 284nn.13-14, 327,
347, 350, 374N.3, 381, 441,
604-5, 607, 629, 631, 633,
654, 657, 661-2, 665
Midlands Revolt, the 572
Milford Haven 564
Mill, John Stuart 14
Milton, John 121n.18, 535, 596
An apology 324
Arcades 596
Mask presented at Ludlow Castle,
A 596
Mincoff, Marco 45-6, 455, 486,
495, 501, 507; 510, 514,
586, 590
Minton, Gretchen E. 562-3
Molyneux, Emery 510
monarchy, the 234n.6, 330n.13,
331-2, 444, 446, 511,
524-5, 532 see also
court, the
Monck Mason, John 71
Monsarrat, Gilles 40
Montagu, Richard
Apollo caesarem 326
Montagus, the 518
Montaigne, Michel de 21
Essays 371, 423, 542-3
‘Of Cruelty’ 371
Montgomery, William 218n.1
Moore, William H. 500
More, Thomas 5
Morley, Thomas
First Book of Airs 531
Mornay, Philip
True knowledge of a man’s own
self, The 329n.8
Morris, Brian 500-2
Morris, William 24
Morton, A. Q. 41
Moscato, Pablo 502, 577
Moseley, Humphrey 17, 583, 596,
598, 600
Mosse, Miles
Arraignment and Conviction of
Usury, The 522
Mosteller, Frederick 37
Mowat, Barbara A. 432-4
Mueller, Martin 128-30
Shakespeare and His
Contemporaries 128
Muir, Kenneth 433, 504, 506,
576-7, 590
Munday, Anthony 114-15, 142 and
N.3, 180, 249, 252, 270, 329
and n.11, 423, 541, 546-7,
549-51, 595, 597-8, 601
works/canon of 39-40
Downfall of Robert, Earl of
Huntingdon, The 186,
192, 270 and n.19, 274,
607 (with Henry Chettle)
Fidelio and Fortunio 142n.3,
187, 324, 629
and Henry VI plays 203
John a Kent and John a
Cumber 142, 186, 196,
200, 629
Sir John Oldcastle 129, 601
(with Michael Drayton,
Richard Hathaway and
Robert Wilson)
Sir Thomas More 188, 548,
550-1, 595, 635n.19 (with
Henry Chettle)
Munro, Lucy 20n.13, 573
Murder of John Brewen, The 127
Murray, David 596
Musgrove, S. 433
music 113, 339, 430, 573, 621 see also
songs
Nabbes, Thomas 588
Hannibal and Scipio 659n.100
Microcosmos 325, 327
Tottenham 274-5
Unfortunate Mother, The 328n.7
Nance, John V. 59, 66, 75, 79, 82,
109, 130, 133, 218N.1, 252,
259-60, 265, 269, 320N.53,
337, 364, 385, 415, 437,
INDEX 727
490-1, 496, 503-4, 514-15,
525, 530, 558, 585
Nashe, Thomas 24, 144, 154, 166, 180,
423, 425, 436, 438, 490,
495, 499, 514-15, 544-7, 599
works/canon of 44
Anatomie of Absurdities 529
Dido Queen of Carthage 54,
142, 187, 199, 604, 629
(with Christopher
Marlowe)
Have With You to Saffron
Walden 118n.12, 518
and Henry VI plays 49, 203,
343, 513-15, 661.113
Lenten Stuff 547
Pierce the Penniless 515
Summer's Last Will and
Testament 144, 159n.11,
160N.12, 164.15, 166, 187,
200, 437, 629
Navarre, King of 511
Nehemas, Alexander 25
Neill, Michael 262, 530, 553
Nesbitt, Molly 6-7
Ness, Frederic W. 321n.1, 322
New Bibliography 37, 337, 555
New Romney 443
New Shakespeare Society 29-33
‘Counting Committee’ 32
Transactions 30
New York Times 227
Newington Butts 141n.2, 546
Newman, Thomas
Andria 129
Newton, Thomas
Thebais 189
Nicholl, Charles 415
Nicholson, E. A. 577
Nielson, James 531
Ninagawa, Yukio 87
Nixon, Scott 224
Non Pariglia (ship) 505
Non-Shakespearian Drama
Database 61
Norden, John 324
Good Companion for a Christian,
A 269n.17
Labyrinth of Man’ Life,
The 267n.10
Sinful man’s solace, A 323
North, Thomas 21, 423, 543, 550, 563
North British Review, The 600
Northway, Kara 329
Nosworthy, J.M. 550, 565, 581
Nottingham
University of 220, 223, 295 see also
under manuscripts
Oliphant, E. H. C. 34, 123, 165n.16,
182, 385, 407, 415-16, 488
Oliver, Isaac 16
728 INDEX
O'Neill, Hugh 495
OpentText 81n.12
Oras, Ants 36, 43, 465-8, 487, 493,
500, 506-7, 511, 518, 520,
523-4, 532, 535, 537 544,
554-5, 560, 564-5, 569,
571s 573 579» 582s 586,
590 see also Jackson,
MacDonald P., reworking
of Ants Oras’s data
Pause Patterns in Elizabethan
and Jacobean Drama 386
Order of the Garter 532
Oregon Shakespeare Festival 304
Origen 134
Orsino, Don Virginio, Duke of
Bracciano 535
Ostend 543
Osterberg, V. 504-6
Ovid 21, 102, 116-18, 122, 423
Ars Amatoria 112
Metamorphoses 117, 234,
238-40, 581
Oxford 120, 442-3
Bishop of 429
Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) 10, 14, 22, 87,
135N.5, 358n.16
Oxford Scholarly Editions Online
(OSEO) 81, 83-4, 282,
285 and n.15, 286, 292,
299, 320, 322, 352, 356,
606n.1
Oxford University 495, 546
Bodleian Library 220-1, 223,
429-30, 595 see also
under manuscripts
Centre for Early Modern Studies
(CEMS) 278
Christ Church 429
Oxford University Press 29, 81, 99
pageants 21, 24, 76n.7, 329 and n.u,
330-1, 333, 336, 353, 671
Painter, William 505
Palace of Pleasure 563
Palatinate, the 344, 345n.4, 364,
583-4
Palmer, Kenneth 537
Palmer, Philip 598-9
pamphlets 24, 353, 366, 369-70,
372-4, 377-80, 382, 436,
498, 529, 531, 543, 554, 570
parallels 49, 51, 75-7, 80, 82-3, 106,
114, 118, 253, 257, 265,
268-72, 274-5, 295, 322-3,
328, 333) 350-1, 354-5,
369, 374, 500, 514-16,
520, 552-4, 575, 587, 607,
626, 668
lexical 248, 262, 296-7
verbal 48, 56, 248, 260, 437,
461-2, 495, 561-2, 577, 588
Parr, Anthony 330
Parrott, T. M. 71
Parsons, Sir Thomas 615
Partridge, A.C. 35
Pascucci, Giuliano 42, 585
Passe, Simon van de 120
Paster, Gail Kern 330
patronage 7, 15, 18, 23, 444, 447, 544
Patterson, S. H. 166
Paul, H.N. 564
pauses 36, 465-6, 468-71, 506, 513,
527, 552, 554, 564 see also
tests (for attribution of
authorship), pause
Pavier, Thomas 233, 238, 494, 497,
527, 570, 600
Pavier Quartos, the 238
Peachum, Henry 268
Coach and Sedan 268n.12
Pearlman, E. 514
Peele, George 24, 76, 93, 117 and
n.8, 154, 175, 185, 194,
196-7, 201-2, 207-8,
210-11, 248, 265, 329n.11,
423, 425, 435, 438, 490-1,
495, 497, 504, 514, 529,
545, 598, 602
style of 102
works/canon of 44, 51, 64,
98-9, 247
Alphonsus of Germany 129
and Arden of Faversham
154-5, 157-9, 161-2, 164,
165 and n.16, 166
Arraignment of Paris, The 144,
185, 192, 200, 593, 629
Battle of Alcazar, The 144, 161,
175, 189, 200, 499, 629
David and Bethsabe 129, 144,
161, 175, 188, 200, 629
Edward I 57-8, 144, 161n.13,
187, 200, 201-2, 269n.16,
569, 629
and Henry VI plays 203, 497
Old Wive’s Tale, The 144, 186,
190, 200, 487, 579, 629
Titus Andronicus 22n.14, 35,
68-72, 86, 95, 96 and n.3,
98, 101-2, 106, 184n.1,
191, 343, 433, 435, 490-1,
588 (as (possible)
co-author)
The Troublesome Reign of John,
King of England 21, 521
(possible author)
Pembroke, Earl of 507
Pendleton, Thomas 227, 229,
519, 582
Pennebaker, James W. 585
Percy, William
The Cuck-Queanes and Cuckolds
Errant 65, 659n.97
Perkins, William
Godly and Learned Exposition,
A 134
Peter, William 107
Petrarch 222
Phillips, Edward 141
Theatrum Poetarum 597
Phillips, John
Patient and Meek Grissill 629
philosophy 6, 13, 47
phrases/phrasing 34, 39, 47, 56, 58,
122, 360, 369, 381n.6, 384,
398, 416, 550, 586, 590,
6550.83
occurrence of specific 63, 74,
112-13, 121 and n.19,
644n.42, 647N.62,
649n.68
rare 111-12, 119n.13, 121, 183
unusual 373
Pindar 5
Pinkerton, John 71
Pitcher, John 218n.1, 577
plagiarism 49-51, 61-2, 128
plague, the 441, 446, 450-1, 487,
493-4, 501; 505, 510, 515,
542, 555, 577-8, 580 see also
theatres, closure of
ato 9
latter, Thomas 527-8, 531
lautus 21, 509
Menaechmi 604
Pliny 262
History of the World 269n.17,
270N.19, 530
Natural History 543
Plutarch 528, 543, 550, 581
Lives 21, 423, 543, 561, 563
poetry 14, 17, 41-2, 108, 110, 114,
116-17, 124, 132, 219, 224,
229, 430, 436, 483, 496,
513, 571, 574 see also
Shakespeare, William,
poems of
Pollard, A. W. 430
Pollard, A. W. and G. R. Redgrave
The Short Title Catalogue 64, 430
Poole, Jonas
Purchas his Pilgrimes 578
Pope, Alexander 28, 71, 388, 601
Moral Essays 394
Rape of the Lock, The 386,
388, 394
Pope, Thomas 547
Popkin, Richard H. 522
Porter, Henry 252
and Henry VI plays 203
Two Angry Women of
Abingdon 65, 188, 200,
251, 254, 629, 635N.23,
659n.98
Portsmouth 564
postmodernism 3,5
Potter, Lois 589
wud
Powers, Andrew J. 505
Prescott, Anne Lake 574-5
Price, Diana 550
Prince Royal (ship) 580
printers/publishers 8, 17,19, 20 and
1.13, 21, 132, 140, 231, 232
and n.1, 233 and nn.3-4,
234 and nn.5-6, 235 and
nN.7-10, 236-40, 322n.3,
342, 419, 425, 431, 434,
488, 526, 528-9, 541-2,
568, 570, 595
printing 21, 23, 233, 235n.7, 236-7,
239, 309, 348, 394, 421,
425, 562
technology of 8 and n.5, 9, 23
Privy Council, the 15, 89, 441, 542
probabilities 45-7, 244-5, 319,
460, 558
Project Gutenberg 411
ProQuest 43, 92
Protestantism 220-1
Puritanism 304, 359
Proudfoot, G. R. 504
Proudfoot, Richard 385, 500, 585
Pruitt, Anna 68, 73, 75, 191N.2, 249,
437 491, 504
public domain, the 22
Public Record Office, the 554
Purkiss, James 46
Puttenham, George
Art of English Poesy, The 561
Pythagoras 32
Quarles, Francis 120n.14
Virgin Widow, The 65
Quarles, John
Banishment of Tarquin 595
Quarmby, Kevin 554
Queen’s Chamber, the 418
quibbles 73
Quiller-Couch, Arthur 321, 355, 362
Radney, George 611, 615
Ralegh, Sir Walter 111, 118, 120, 122,
219, 222, 225, 526, 611, 615
poetry of 108, 221, 427
Randolph, Thomas 80, 224,
273, 615
Amyntas 273, 604
Jealous Lovers 328n.7
Muses Looking Glass,
The 269n.16
Rasmussen, Eric 123-5, 131, 134,
280, 489-90, 504, 525,
576; 593-5, 599-602
Ravenscroft, Edward 71
Rawlins, Thomas
Rebellion, The 270n.19
Rayment, John 224, 610, 615
Reade, Richard 232, 233n.3
readers 25
realism 364
Redgrave, G. R. 430
Redundant Array of Inexpensive
Drives (RAID) 46
Reilly, Terry 557
Renaissance, the 5
repetition 409-10, 414, 416,
461, 586
Research Opportunities in Medieval
and Renaissance
Drama 127
Restoration, the 589
Revels Plays editions 139n.1, 183,
368, 599, 602
Reynolds
Amintas 603
rhymes/rhyming lines 31-2, 38,
72Nn.4, 227-8, 278, 321-2,
329, 334, 451-4, 479, 483,
506, 510-11, 516-17, 519,
522, 537%) 550; 562; 574, 576,
625, 627 see also couplets,
rhyming; evidence,
rhyme; verse
rhythm 36, 386, 391-4, 402, 550
enclitic 401
trochaic 392, 525
ch, Barnabe
Brunasus 276
Richard III (King of England) 372
‘Richard Crockbacke’ (play) 240
Richards, Nathaniel
Messallina 326
Richeome, Louis
Pilgrim of Loreto, The 269n.17
Rickard, Jane 553-4
Rider, William
Twins, The 635n.18
Riess, Amy J. 517, 520
Ringler, William 108n.1, 524-5
Rittenhouse, Jonathan A. 601
Rival Poet sequence 575
Riveros, Carlo 502, 577
Robbins, Robin 227
Roberts, James 139, 431
Roberts, Jeanne 532
Roberts, Josephine A. 504
Robertson, John M. 33, 50, 166, 577
Rochester, Earl of 108, 122
Roe, Thomas 609, 615
Rogers, Richard 503
Rolland, John
Seven Sages, The 269n.17
rolling segments 212-13
Rollins, Hyder Edward 600
Romans, the 5, 7, 21 see also
languages, Latin
Romanticism 7, 22-3, 25
Rome 88, 528, 541, 588
Rose, Mark 7
Roussillon 345
Rowe, Nicholas 338, 591-2
Rowland, Richard 253, 329n.11
Rowlands, Samuel 528
Ri
ia
ia
INDEX 729
Crew of Kind Gossips, A
270N.19, 500
More Knaves Yet? 135
Rowley, Samuel
When You See Me You Know Me
129, 629, 646n.49
Rowley, William 37, 76n.6, 80,
350, 351N.8, 423, 432, 438,
594, 601
attributions to 284n.13, 432, 438
works/canon of 77
All’s Lost by Lust 324, 629
Birth of Merlin, The 188,
594, 601
Changeling, The 80, 87-8,
286-7, 349, 362, 3720.2,
604, 629, 648n.67, 672
(with Thomas
Middleton)
Fair Quarrel, A 64, 87, 282n.7,
283n.9, 284n.13, 286-7,
301, 349, 631.5, 640n.28,
652n.71, 654n.79 (with
Thomas Middleton)
New Wonder 629
Old Law, An/The 54, 123, 287,
488 (with Thomas
Middleton)
Shoemaker and a Gentleman,
A 80, 125, 324, 326,
604-5, 646n.54
Spanish Gipsy, The 63, 286-7,
335 (with Thomas
Dekker, John Ford, and
Thomas Middleton)
Thomas of Woodstock 187,
248, 594
Travels of Three English
Brother, The 55,571 (with
John Day and George
Wilkins)
Wily Beguiled 129 (possible
author)
Wit at Several Weapons 63,
282nn.7-8, 284n.13,
286-7, 349, 351 and n.7,
378, 607, 631N.7, 634N.12,
654n.78, 655n.81 (with
Thomas Middleton)
World Tossed at Tennis,
The 63, 282n.8, 285n.16,
287, 344, 3450.4, 346, 349,
351 and n.7, 359n.18, 361,
382, 556 (with Thomas
Middleton)
Rudick, Michael
The Poems of Sir Walter
Raleigh 108
Ruggle, George
Ignoramus 65, 646n.49
run-on lines 586
Russell, Thomas 418
Rutland 442
730 INDEX
Rutland, Countess of 222
Rutland, Earl of 14, 364
apocrypha, Cardenio;
Theobald, Lewis, Double
scripts (of plays) 371, 405, 422,
492, 552
Rutter, Joseph 527 Segarra, Santiago 515 Falsehood
Shepherd’s Holiday 326 Seneca 507,545 Duke Humphrey, A Tragedy
Rye 442 Serres, Jean de 594, 598
Edward III xxi, 6, 57-8, 133,
135, 186, 190, 248, 371,
422, 453, 470, 472, 481,
484, 489-90, 503-6,
593, 605, 633, 641N.31,
653n.74, 673
attribution of 34-5, 49, 50
and n.2, 51, 57, 184n.1, 191
and n.2, 192-3, 438, 487,
General inventory, A 323
&. 5. Seymour, Edward, Earl of
Honest Lawyer 349n.6, 646n.59 Hertford 614
Sabie, Francis 114, 116 Seymour, William 580
Fissher-mans Tale, The 115 Shakespeare, Edmund 572
Sackville, Thomas Shakespeare, Edward 572
Gorboduc 629 Shakespeare, Elizabeth 22
Saffron Walden 442 Shakespeare, Susanna 572
Salisbury 444 Shakespeare, William 8, 17, 219,
Salisbury, Countess of 505 335, 359N.17, 410, 616, 503-6, 547
Sambach, John 533 635-8, 645-7, 650-1, date/dating of 450, 454,
Sampson, William 429-30 657-60, 663-4 503-6
works/canon of 80
Herod and Antipater 428, 629
(with Gervase Markham)
‘Love's Metamorphosis, or
Apollo and Daphne’ 429
Virtus Post Funera Vivit, or
Honour Triumphing over
Death 429
The Vow Breaker 54, 325,
428, 603
Widow’ Prize 428
Sams, Eric 248, 500-1, 598
Sarrazin, Gregor 94-5, 455,575
Sasek, Lawrence A. 429, 600
Savage, James 580
Saviolo, Vencentio 511, 517
Saunders, David 6n.4
Saussure, Ferdinand de 26
scenes 75, 98n.6, 103N.17, 105, 180,
183, 190, 195, 203, 291-2,
304-6, 309-20, 338, 349,
501, 516 see also
under individual
Shakespeare plays
attribution of 67, 72 and n.4, 181,
195, 214, 349, 496-8, 504,
588, 602, 671
composition of 11
counting of xix—xxvii
division of 152, 178, 401, 515
Schafer, Elizabeth 532
Schanzer, Ernest 527
Schmidt, Alexander
Shakespeare-Lexicon 94-5, 227
Schoenbaum, Samuel 48, 50,
218n.1
Schoone-Jongen, Terence G.
141.2
Schiicking, L. L. 550
science 358
Scot, Reginald
Discovery of Witchcraft 565
Scotland 446, 503, 564, 580-1
Scott, Robert 596
Scott, Thomas
Vox Dei 269n.17
as an adapter of plays 21
apocrypha 576
Ad lectorem, de Authore 592
Aeneas’ Tale to Dido 594
Alexander Menxzikov 594
All’s One 384, 431
Arden of Faversham 18, 81n.11,
123-33, 135, 139-40,
144-5, 151-83, 190, 192-3,
388, 484, 487-90, 493,
501, 505, 528, 593, 607
attribution of 49-50, 56-7,
62, 109, 131-3, 135, 141-3,
146-7, 153-9, 161-6,
170-2, 175, 179 and n.21,
180-1, 183, 190-3, 247,
326, 347, 422, 433, 437,
453-5» 461, 470, 472,
488-90, 547
date/dating of 440, 449,
455, 487-8
Quarrel scene 131, 171, 193,
453, 489
Birth of Merlin, The 592, 601
Cardenio 34, 109, 123, 218, 307,
385-6, 394, 399, 401,
405-7, 411, 415-16, 421,
423, 447, 583-5, 590, 601
(with John Fletcher)
see also Massinger, Philip,
Cardenio; Shakespeare,
William, apocrypha,
Double Falsehood;
Theobald, Lewis, Double
Falsehood
attribution of 583-5
date/dating of 440, 583-4
Cupid’s Cabinet Unlocked 224,
427, 484, 592, 595-6
Double Falsehood 109, 247,
307, 326, 385, 393-4, 401,
406-8, 410-11, 413-16,
585, 593 (with John
Fletcher and Theobald
Lewis) see also
Shakespeare, William,
Epistle to Mr. W—Fellow of
Trinity College
Cambridge... 592,596
Esther and Haman 594
Eurialus and Lucretia 592,596
Fair Em the Miller’s Daughter
592, 596-7, 599
attribution of 49
Funeral Elegy for William
Peter, A 224,592, 597-8
attribution of 40-1, 43,
108Nn.1, 113N.5
George a Greene 594, 604-5
Geylous Comedy 594
Henry I, Henry II 592, 598
History of King Stephen
594, 598
Iphis and Ianthe 594, 598
Isle of Dogs 594
Julio and Hypolita 594
Larum for London, A 594
Late Lancashire Witches,
The 594
Locrine 429, 579, 592-3, 599
London Prodigal, The 12, 28,
224, 419, 570, 592-3, 599
Love’s Labour’s Won 419, 484,
511-12
attribution of 421, 512
date/dating of 421, 512, 559
Mucedorus 342, 578-9, 592-3,
597, 599-600
addtions to 242, 244-5
Nobody and Somebody 594
Notable description of the
World, A 592, 600
Passionate Pilgrim, The 12,
108n.1, 110N.3, 111-12, 113
and n.5, 116-18, 121-2,
229, 426-7, 429, 484-5,
525-6, 573-4
additions to 224, 526
poetic 107-11, 114, 116, 121-2,
229, 526, 593 see also
Shakespeare, William,
poems of
‘Answeare of ye Countess of
hertford’ 225
‘Batter My Heart’ 228
‘Crabbed Age and
Youth’ 118 and n.12, 229
Daiphantus 548
‘Death Be Not Proud’ 228
‘From Count: Somerset
daughter to Katherine
Countesse of
Suffolke’ 225
‘Good friend, for Jesus
sake, forbear’ 485, 591-2
‘How eer he lived, judge
not’ 485,591
‘Lover’s Complaint, A 107,
108N.1, 109, 123-5, 131-3,
134 and n.3, 135 and n.5,
182, 436, 438, 485, 574,
575-7, 626-7
“Master Ben Jonson and
Master William
Shakespeare’ 485, 537
‘Oft when I look, I may
descry’ 592, 600
‘Shall I die’ 107 and n.1, 108,
110N.3, 113.5, 119-21,
218-19, 221-2, 225-6, 228,
230, 484, 518-19, 582
‘Sir Walter Raleighs
Pilgrimmage’ 225
“Ten in the hundred’ 485,
590-1
“To the King’ 122
“To the Queen’ 108n.1, 485,
524-5
‘Upon a pair of gloves’ 108,
484, 508-9
‘Upon the King’ 119-21
‘Upon the untimely Death
of the Author of this
ingenious Poem, Sr.
Thom: Overbury..?
592, 602
Venus and Adonis 14, 18, 38,
95n.2, 113, 114 and n.6,
115-19, 122, 286, 419,
426-7, 451-2, 480, 484,
506, 508, 509, 511, 516-18,
526, 546, 576, 598, 606,
626-7, 632-3, 640, 644,
656, 672
attribution of 432,
434, 508
date/dating of 440, 449,
508-9
‘Fair was the morn’ 113,
526
“Scarce has the sun’ 113,
116, 526
‘Sweet Cytherea, sitting
bya brook’ 113, 116,
526
“When God was pleasd@’
226, 230, 485, 519, 581-2
“Woman's Constancy’ 228
“Verses on the Stanley Tomb
at Tong’ 485, 535-6
“What worldly wealth, what
glorious state’ 592, 602
Prodigal Son, The 594
Sejanus 485, 538-42, 548
(with Ben Jonson?)
Sir John Oldcastle 28, 129,
224, 419-20, 527, 592-3,
600-1
Sir Thomas More 8n.5, 15n.11,
19, 248, 339, 348, 424, 427,
446, 461, 474, 481,
548-53, 593, 595, 643
additions to 81n.11,
241-2, 244-5, 260, 424,
548-53, 485
attribution of 34-5, 48, 52,
58, 289n.22, 421, 424,
434-5, 548-53
dating of 549, 551-2
Spanish Tragedy, The
additions to see under
Kyd, Thomas, Spanish
Tragedy, The
Thomas Lord Cromwell 12,
592-5
Titus and Vespasia 594
Troublesome Reign of John,
King of England, The 28,
419, 428, 592, 601-2
Wily Beguiled 594
Yorkshire Tragedy, A 28, 63,
87, 224, 284nn.13-14,
285-6, 327, 352, 366, 570,
592, 602 see also
Middleton, Thomas,
works/canon of, Yorkshire
Tragedy, A
attribution of 81n.11,
419-20, 431-2, 434, 602
as anartisan 24
attribution of works/scenes/
passages to 154, 156-9,
164-70, 172-7, 179-81,
183, 184 and n.1, 190,
191N.3, 192-3, 203-4,
207-9, 212-15, 217-19,
221, 225-7, 229-30, 242,
249, 255, 257, 261, 263,
290-2, 295-6, 301,
307-10, 318, 328-9, 337,
340, 3490.6, 350, 353-4,
357, 362, 406-7, 418-38,
461, 483-4, 530, 570, 592
598, 600, 602, 671 see
also Shakespeare,
William, as falsely
attributed author and
under individual plays
INDEX 731
as sole author 29, 31, 50, 78,
184, 213, 337, 348, 424,
432-3, 437, 449, 452, 471,
483, 558-9, 582, 590, 627
ruled out/doubts about 224,
227, 252, 433, 519, 550, 556,
570, 576, 582, 593-4,
597-600
canon of 30-1, 34, 38, 43, 46,
48, 56-7, 71-2, 94, 98,
100, 108N.1, 123, 134N.3,
252, 259, 265, 282, 284,
286, 319, 326N.6, 333, 347,
349, 353 356, 417, 420,
428-9, 438-9, 446, 449,
479, 484, 494, 502-3,
544, 671-3
career of 15, 28, 36, 478, 482, 571,
584, 592
chronology of works by 35, 38,
43, 78n.8, 417, 439-40,
444-51, 453-5, 461-2,
464, 467, 471, 474-5,
477-8, 482-3, 484-7,
494-5, 502, 508, 544-5,
559, 575, 588 see also
under individual plays
as a collaborator/co-author
(on works attributed
primarily to others)
29-31, 43-4, 50-4, 56,
105, 109, 112, 123, 127,
129-30, 180, 183-5, 191n.3,
193, 241, 270, 276, 279,
297, 313N.19, 335, 337%
342-3, 421-5, 431-2, 447,
453-4, 483, 489-90, 497,
502, 530, 537-42, 548, 584,
598, 602
collaborators of (those
contributing to works
attributed primarily to
Shakespeare) 5, 11, 29, 33,
35, 40, 44-6, 48, 50 and
n.2, 69, 81n.11, 83, 90-1,
98, 133, 184N.1, 194, 278-9,
281, 286-7, 295, 297, 337,
341, 343, 350, 3530.11, 365,
423, 432, 462-4, 466-7,
477, 502, 504-5, 513, 515,
537) 553, 562-4, 571, 581,
584, 589-90, 599, 602
collected works of 14, 118, 305,
337 431
1595 Octavio 213, 215-16, 497
1623 (First) Folio 10, 15, 28, 32,
68, 70, 74, 76, 104, 124,
126, 207, 213, 215-16, 290,
301, 316NN.42, 319-20, 337,
339, 342, 346, 348, 362,
417-21, 423-6, 431, 479,
486, 494, 496-8, 500,
502-3, 505; 507, 521, 523,
732 INDEX
Shakespeare, William (cont.)
527, 531-2, 534, 541-2, 5535
555s 557-9; 561-2, 566-8,
570-1, 573 575s 577s 582,
584, 586, 589
1664 Folio 536, 599-602
Arden Shakespeare 108n.1,
344, 3530.11, 367, 394, 407,
565, 583
Arden2 45
Arden3 548, 562
Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare's
Plays, As they are now
performed at the Theatres
Royal in London 304
Cambridge-Macmillan
Complete Works (Clark
and Wright 1863-6) 29,
74, 2.47, 345, 357, 362
Complete Works (Craig and
Bevington 1997) 597
Cumberland’s acting
edition 304
French’s acting edition 305
Mr. William Shakespeare's
Comedies, Histories
& Tragedies see
Shakespeare, William,
collected works of, 1623
(First) Folio
New Cambridge Shakespeare
(1984-2012) 432, 562,
570
New Cambridge Shakespeare
(1921-66) 196
Norton Shakespeare
(Greenblatt et al.
1997) 108n.1, 597
Norton Shakespeare (Greenblatt
et al. 2008) 108n.1
Norton Shakespeare
(Greenblatt et al.
2015) 553,597
Oxford University Press
Complete Works (1986)
98, 109, 121, 184n.1, 197N.1,
246, 417, 422, 446, 448,
470, 484, 518, 562, 566,
586
Textual Companion to
(1987) 484, 493-4, 497,
544, 555
‘Various Poems’ 107,
108n.1, 122
Oxford University Press
(revised) Complete Works
(2005) 340, 433, 503, 558
‘Poems Attributed to
Shakespeare in the
Seventeenth-Century
Miscellanies’ 428
Riverside Shakespeare (Evans
1974) 1970.1, 445, 525,
549, 671
Riverside Shakespeare (Evans
and Tobin 1997) 281, 285,
597
Royal Shakespeare Company’s
Complete Works (Bate
and Rasmussen
2007) 28, 108n.1, 433,
489, 491, 525, 593
Shakespeare’s Poems
(1640) 422, 427
death of 6, 279, 354, 362, 441,
558, 566
family of 22, 24, 572
handwriting/signature of 9 and
n.8, 14, 415, 420, 598
involvement with theatrical
companies 17, 19-20
library of 546
life of 8, 316nn.42, 434-5, 447,
507, 547, 572, 592
Lost Years (1586-91) 422
plays of 44
Allis True/Henry VIII 29, 36,
71, 95, 128, 130, 133,
282N.5, 3130.19, 392-3,
402, 413, 415, 424-5, 453,
457, 460-1, 464-5, 467,
469, 471, 473, 475-6, 479,
482-3, 485, 561, 581,
586-8, 589-90, 641-2,
649, 655, 665, 668-9
attribution of 30, 32-3, 44,
48, 81N.11, 191N.3, 413,
424, 432, 437, 586-8
date/dating of 440, 471, 581,
586-8
John Fletcher’s collaboration
ON 29, 33, 36, 45-6, 343,
356, 361, 402, 405, 413,
465, 467, 482-3, 586-8,
590, 653.74
Philip Massinger’s
collaboration on 33,
36, 415
All’s Well that Ends Well xxiv,
53) 77> 82; 91, 258, 280-4,
286, 289-92, 294-5,
297-302, 304, 307-23, 325,
327-9, 331-4, 335 and n.15,
336-50, 351 and n.8,
352-65, 389, 411, 413-14,
441, 446, 453, 459, 464-5,
467, 469-70, 472-3,
475-8, 482, 485, 502,
555s 557-9 560, 564-5,
577 605, 627, 629,
636, 644nn.39 and 42,
647N.62, 652Nn.70, 660,
664, 664 and n.116,
668, 673
attribution of 338-40,
342-3, 350-1, 3535 355s
360, 362, 364-5, 433, 435,
559, 652n.70
date/dating of 79n.9,
2790.1, 301, 326, 337,
340-2, 344, 347, 353 and
1.10, 446, 554-5, 557-9
final scene 338
King’s speech 321-3, 325,
327-8, 332-6, 364
Thomas Middleton's
collaboration on 84,
85n.14, 278, 280-4, 286,
289-92, 294-5, 297-302,
307-11, 319, 3200.53, 325,
327-9, 331-7, 343, 345-53,
355, 358-65, 559, 630,
639, 651, 652 and n.70,
665n.116, 668
revisions of/additions
to 30, 295, 307, 309,
319-21, 326-7, 337 342,
348-9, 362, 364, 559
scene 4.3 302-3, 307,
309-19, 3200.53, 364-5
Antony and Cleopatra xx-xxi,
66, 121N.19, 124, 135, 258,
281, 294-5, 297-300,
307-9, 320, 344, 354, 446,
452 457, 460, 463, 465-6,
469-70, 472-3, 475-7,
481, 485, 550, 565, 567,
568-9, 570, 573, 582, 627,
629, 631-2, 637, 639, 647,
654 and n.80, 662, 664,
668, 670, 673
attribution of 309, 568
basis of 21, 569
date/dating of 79n.9, 340-1,
353 and n.11, 383, 440,
446, 544, 558-9, 568-9,
573) 581
As You Like It xxiv—xxv, 21,
76, 116, 130, 186, 200,
269N.15, 354, 360, 371, 411,
414, 452, 455, 458-9,
463-6, 468-6, 471, 473,
475-6, 478-80, 485,
511-12, 520, 524, 528,
531-2, 535, 537; 561, 629,
631-2, 634, 641-4, 648,
649, 655, 669, 672
attribution of 439, 531
date/dating of 78n.8, 79n.9,
440, 530-2, 559
Comedy of Errors, A XXv, 31,
570.3, 76, 95N.2, 1190.13,
121, 130-1, 144, 167, 186,
200, 212, 313N.19, 392, 419,
444-5, 451-2, 454-5, 457,
461, 463-4, 466, 468, 470,
472-4, 476, 480, 484, 501,
506-7, 509-10, 511, 518,
520-1, 547, 606, 627, 629,
633, 636, 641, 644,
649, 673
attribution of 420
INDEX 733
basis of 21 270N.18, 289, 316nn.42,
date/dating of 79n.9, 440, 328N.7, 329, 343, 393, 419,
444-5, 449, 455, 486-7, 452, 458, 461-3, 465-6,
509-10 468-9, 472-3, 475-7, 480,
Coriolanus 58, 71, 76, 79n.9, 485, 510, 521, 523, 524,
attribution of 32, 49-50, 59,
191N.2, 192, 449, 461,
494-6, 498, 501
date/dating of 79n.9, 440,
448-9, 455, 493-5, 498,
80, 279n.1, 283-4, 318n.52,
350-1, 356-7, 393, 441,
452, 460, 463, 465-6,
469-70, 472-3, 475-7,
481, 483, 485, 550, 552,
561, 567, 571-3, 579-80,
582, 629, 631-3, 641,
643-4, 655-7, 662-3,
664, 670-1, 673
basis of 21
date/dating of 78, 79n.9,
448, 569, 571-3, 581-2
Cymbeline 13, 29, 31, 71, 75, 82;
133-4, 255, 271-2, 281,
282n.5, 289 and n.21,
312N.14, 350, 361, 391, 411,
436, 452, 455, 459-60,
463, 465-6, 469-70, 473,
475-6, 481, 485, 561, 565,
573, 577-8, 579-81, 582,
604, 607, 626-7, 632, 641
and n.29, 642-4, 653 and
n.74, 655-6, 664, 669
527-8, 532-3, 547, 588,
604, 630, 636-8, 640, 642,
644, 648, 653, 655, 672
date/dating of 78n.8, 449,
487, 523, 528
3 Henry IV xx, 193, 419, 626
Henry V xxvii, 52-4, 75,
121N.15, 133, 185, 192,
199-200, 238, 257, 267N.9,
269N.15, 271-5, 289n.22,
318N.52, 363, 42.4, 439, 448,
452, 454, 456, 458, 463,
465-6, 468-70, 472-3,
475, 477-8, 480, 485, 503,
523-4, 526-7, 528, 533-5,
574, 595, 604, 607, 630-1,
633, 637, 640, 642, 655
attribution of 527
basis of 21
date/dating of 78n.8,
440, 445, 448, 523, 528,
5325 544
Henry VI plays 197, 201-2,
501, 507, 512, 517
Christopher Marlowe's
collaboration on 356,
493-6, 588
3 Henry VI/Richard Duke of
York 52-3, 121N.15, 126,
128-31, 133, 135, 151, 184
and n.1, 186, 190, 193,
195-6, 200-3, 205-11,
213-17, 256, 424-6,
448-9, 451, 453, 456-7,
461, 463-4, 467-8, 470,
472-4, 476-7, 481, 484,
486, 489, 493, 496-9, 501,
506-7, 513, 516, 547, 574,
598, 603, 605, 641, 643-4,
648, 649n.68, 655
attribution of 32,191 and
01.2, 193-5, 200-1, 204,
213, 216-17, 449, 496-9,
501, 574
date/dating of 79n.9, 440,
448-9, 454, 486-7, 494,
attribution of 579-81
date/dating of 78 and n.8,
440, 471, 569, 579-81
Hamlet xxi, 13, 51-5, 58, 69, 74,
125, 135, 149, 185, 192,
422, 424-6, 445, 450, 461,
490, 493, 495, 497; 503,
506-7, 598, 664
attribution of 30, 418,
461, date/dating of 439,
496-9, 501, 512, 517
Christopher Marlowe's
collaboration on 496-9
scenes of 201, 203-4, 214
Julius Caesar xxv, 25, 55, 56,
255-7, 264, 269N.15, 273,
283-4, 344, 393, 411, 414,
422, 448, 452, 454-5,
458-9, 461, 463, 465-6,
469-70, 472-3, 475,
477-8, 481, 485, 503, 535,
541, 542-8, 549, 552-5,
577 580, 584, 626, 630-1,
445; 449-50, 505, 517, 527
1 Henry VI 53, 94, 133, 135, 140,
184, 187, 190, 249, 260,
363, 371, 424-6, 445,
453-4, 456-7, 461, 464,
467-70, 472-4, 476, 479,
481, 483-4, 486, 501, 506,
509, 511, 513-17, 598,
69, 76, 101, 125, 186, 193,
200, 257-8, 269N.15, 324,
363, 452, 458, 463-4, 466,
468, 470, 472-3, 475-6,
478, 480, 485, 501, 503,
523-4, 527-8, 531, 535, 541,
543, 552, 559, 595, 630,
643-4, 649, 655-6, 672
633, 640, 642-4, 654-5, 626-7, 670 attribution of 418, 439,
657, 661, 673 attribution of 49, 191 and 527-8
attribution of 418, 434, 461, N.2, 193, 362, 418, 424, basis of 21
542, 544, 547-8 434-5, 437, 461, 483,
date/dating of 78n.8, 513-17
3530.10, 440, 446, 448,
455, 471; 487, 510, 532, 537%
date/dating of 78n.8, 79n.9,
440, 527-8, 530, 532,
date/dating of 450, 483, 537 544
494, 498, 501, 513, 515-17 notion of Thomas Middleton
542-8 Christopher Marlowe's as acontributor to 31-2
revision of 68 collaboration on 513-15 King John xxv, 114, 130, 185,
1 Henry IV xxiii—xxiv, 186, Thomas Nashe’s 192, 200-2, 212, 256, 419,
200, 202, 212, 269n.15, collaboration on 49, 343, 444-5, 452, 455, 4575
270nn.18-19, 290n.24, 513-15 463-6, 468, 470, 472-4,
393, 419, 452, 458, 461-6,
468, 470, 472-3, 475-6,
480, 483, 485, 491, 521,
522-3, 524, 527, 532-3,
547, 601, 606, 630-1, 633,
638, 640-2, 655, 661N.113
2 Henry VI/The Contention of
York and Lancaster 52-3,
58, 76, 78, 80, 125, 127-31,
133, 135, 184 and n.1, 186,
190, 193, 316nN.42, 424-6,
448-9, 451, 453-8, 461,
476-7, 480, 483-4, 520,
521-2, 574, 594, 602-3,
605, 607, 630, 633, 637-8,
640-1, 643, 655, 668, 671
attribution of 483, 521
basis of 21
attribution of 522
date/dating of 78n.8, 449,
462, 483, 522-3
2 Henry IV xx, 53, 75; 101, 186,
200, 202, 256, 258, 269n.15,
463-4, 466, 468, 470,
472-4, 476, 481, 484, 486,
493-6, 499, 506, 513,
515-16, 549, 552, 588, 598,
631, 633, 655
date/dating of 78n.8, 342,
440, 445, 450, 454, 483,
487, 521-2, 532
King Lear xxi-xxii, 11-12, 53,
57N.3, 58, 69, 76, 80, 124,
INDEX
Shakespeare, William (cont.)
130, 135, 2.49, 258, 264,
269n.16, 270Nn.18, 281,
282n.5, 283-4, 366-7,
369-72, 376, 379-80,
382-4, 414, 452, 454,
459-61, 463, 465-6,
469-70, 472-3, 475,
477-8, 481, 485, 541, 552,
554-5, 559-61, 564-5, 567,
577 580, 630-2, 634.12,
637, 641, 643, 648-9, 661
and n.112, 670
attribution of 420, 435, 461,
559-61
date/dating of 79n.9,
3400.2, 353, 366-9, 376,
383, 440, 462, 558-61, 565,
569, 573
revision of 68, 560-1
Love’s Labour's Lost xxv, 38,
76, 95N.2, 111, 113, 117-19,
121, 185, 192, 200, 212, 283,
289N.22, 314N.32, 393, 419,
445, 452; 455-8, 461-4,
466, 468, 470, 472-4,
476, 480, 484, 500-1, 506,
510, 511-12, 513, 516,
520-1, 526, 574, 607,
626-7, 630, 636, 640, 643,
649, 655-6, 662, 664, 669,
671, 673
attribution of 28, 108n.1, 461
date/dating of 79n.9, 421,
440, 445, 510-11, 518
Macbeth xxvi, 3, 29, 32, 69,
76, 78, 91, 119N.13, 249,
275, 281, 283, 312N.11,
323, 326, 361, 382-3, 388,
394-6, 402, 404, 425, 451,
453, 459-61, 464-5, 467,
469, 472-3, 475, 477 482,
485, 552, 555, 558, 560,
563, 564-8, 569, 578-80,
626-7, 633, 643, 648-9,
653, 655, 670-2
adaptation of 67, 564-8
attribution of 109, 435, 437,
461, 564-8
date/dating of 79n.9, 367,
382-3, 440, 475, 544,
558-60, 564-5, 573
Thomas Middleton’s
collaboration on 31,
62, 81n.11, 84, 279,
286, 320, 326, 336, 352,
353N.11, 361, 382,
564-8, 671
Measure for Measure xxvi, 10,
70, 76, 78, 91, 125, 135, 2555
257-8, 294, 3130.17,
318n.52, 326, 328n.7, 329
and n.8, 347, 354, 361,
393-4, 402, 404, 425,
445-6, 451, 453, 459-60,
464, 467, 469-70, 472-3,
475; 477; 482, 485, 503;
541, 554-7; 560, 565, 579,
626-7, 631-3, 641-2, 644,
650, 654, 656, 661, 665,
669-73
adaptation of 67, 555-7
attribution of 420, 425,
435, 556
basis of 21
date/dating of 347, 353 and
1.10, 440, 445-6, 544,
554-5, 557-9
Thomas Middleton's
collaboration on 81n.11,
84, 279, 286, 301, 320, 326,
329, 331, 336, 347; 352,
3530.11, 361, 364, 425,
554-7, 630, 671
Merchant of Venice xxvi, 130,
185, 192, 200, 212, 257,
269N.15, 279N.1, 318nN.52,
371, 393, 419, 445, 452,
458, 463, 465-6, 468, 470,
472-3, 475-6, 480, 483-4,
519-20, 522, 523-4, 607,
627, 630, 632, 641, 644,
654-5, 664
attribution of 420
date/dating of 78n.8, 445,
449, 483, 522, 644n.42
Merry Wives of Windsor xxvi,
186, 198, 200, 255,
269nNn.15-17, 271-2, 445,
448, 452, 457-9, 463-6,
469, 471, 473, 475-6,
478-9, 481, 485, 501, 510,
523, 532-4, 535, 537 5545
567, 606, 630-1, 633, 640,
644, 648, 655, 672
attribution of 439
date/dating of 78n.8, 440,
445, 448, 532-4
revision of 479
Midsummer Night’s Dream, A
XXi, 13, 31, 38, 62, 70, 94,
101, 1190.13, 133, 185, 192,
200, 202, 227, 318n.52, 338,
393 419, 444-6, 452, 455,
457-8, 460-1, 463-4, 466,
468, 470, 472-4, 476, 480,
483-4, 506, 508, 510, 513;
517, 519-21, 564, 574, 607,
626, 630-1, 641, 648, 673
attribution of 519
date/dating of 445-6, 449,
483, 511, 519-20
Pyramus and Thisbe
scenes 227, 517, 626
Much Ado about Nothing
XXV-XXVi, 130, 186, 192,
200, 255, 267N.9, 269N.15,
271-2, 324, 452-3, 457-8,
462-4, 466, 468, 471, 473,
475-6, 480, 485, 511-12,
523, 524, 527, 532, 535>
630-3, 636, 638, 642-4,
648, 657, 660-2, 672
attribution of 418, 439, 524
date/dating of 78n.8, 440,
471, 524, 532
Othello xxvii, 66, 69, 130, 135,
255, 258, 264, 269nn.16-17,
274-5, 347; 354, 389,
445-6, 452, 458-61, 463,
465-6, 469-70, 472,
474-5, 477; 481, 485, 502,
535» 544, 551-2, 553-4) 555>
561, 569, 589, 630, 632,
637, 643-4, 648, 650, 655,
669-73
attribution of 418, 461, 553
basis of 21, 553
date/dating of 340n.2, 353,
440, 445-6, 462, 471, 544,
553-4, 558-60
revision of 68
Pericles xxii, 77, 135, 249,
282n.5, 289, 290N.24, 423,
448, 451, 453, 456-7,
459-62, 464-5, 467,
469-70, 472, 474-6, 482,
485, 560, 565, 568,
569-71, 573, 581-2, 584,
593» 627, 632-3, 640, 643,
648, 653, 672
attribution of 28, 30-2, 42,
44, 48, 109, 191N.3, 419,
421, 431-5, 462, 570-1
date/dating of 78, 340, 440,
448, 462, 558, 569, 570-1
George Wilkins's
collaboration on 40, 343,
447, 462, 482, 570-1
Richard II xxvii, 58, 67, 76,
95N.2, 119N.13, 121.15,
149, 185, 192, 196, 200-2,
256, 265, 267N.9, 270N.19,
275-6, 323, 388, 390, 394,
398-9, 401-2, 404, 419,
445; 452, 455-7; 461,
463-6, 468-70, 472, 474,
476-7, 480, 483-4, 506,
512-13, 516-18, 520-1,
574, 602, 605-6, 627, 630,
633, 638, 642-4, 656, 662,
671-2
attribution of 418, 483
date/dating of 79n.9, 440,
445, 449-50, 487,
512-13, 522
Richard III xxvii, 18, 22, 76,
95N.2, 101, 128, 130, 144,
1590.11, 160.12, 161n.13,
163N.14, 164N.15, 167,
175N.19, 184-5, 192, 196,
200-2, 212, 258, 269n.16,
363, 389, 392. 419, 425, 448,
452; 456-7, 461, 463-4,
466, 468, 470, 472, 474,
476, 478, 480, 483-4, 486,
501, 505, 506-8, 509-10,
513, 516, 520, 630, 641-3,
648, 653, 662, 668, 673
attribution of 418, 483, 507
date/dating of 79n.9, 440,
448-50, 471, 498, 507-8
Romeo and Juliet xxii-xxiii,
53> 95N.2, 130, 135, 185,
192, 200, 202, 227, 289,
328, 419, 445, 448, 452,
455-7; 461, 463-6, 468,
470, 472, 474, 476, 480,
483-4, 500, 506, 509-10,
513, 517-18, 520-1, 564,
574, 592, 626-7, 630, 640,
643, 649, 652N.72, 670
attribution of 418, 432, 461,
483, 517
date/dating of 440, 445,
448, 511, 517-18, 520
Taming of the Shrew xxiii, 13,
30, 75, 95N.2, 114, 117N.9,
125, 127-9, 144, 159N.11,
167, 175N.19, 186, 193, 200,
212, 273-4, 392, 422, 424,
426, 450-2, 455-8, 461,
463-4, 466, 468, 470, 472,
474-6, 478-80, 484, 493,
499-503, 506-7, 509-11,
603, 605, 630-1, 637,
640-1, 643, 649
555, 558, 561-4, 602, 631,
637, 642, 644, 648, 653,
661-2, 672
attribution of 30-2, 37, 44,
48, 191N.3, 281, 341, 343,
3531.11, 421, 424, 432, 435,
437 561-4
date/dating of 340n.2, 341,
3530.11, 376, 381, 383, 446,
558-61, 563-6, 581
Thomas Middleton's
collaboration on 36-8,
279, 281, 282nn.5 and 8,
286-7, 294, 297, 341, 343,
356, 361, 374-5; 377-9,
381, 383-4, 437, 447; 477
482, 562-4, 566, 602, 665
Titus Andronicus xxii, 30, 53,
67, 72-6, 78-80, 81 and
n.12, 82, 85-91, 94, 104,
106, 130, 133, 187, 190,
248-9, 269n.16,
270nn.18-19, 338, 361,
371, 419, 422, 424, 450-1,
453, 455-7; 461, 463-4,
468, 472, 474, 476, 481,
483-4, 490-3, 500-1,
506, 508-9, 516-17, 545,
588, 603, 605, 626-7,
640-1, 649-50, 655
adaptation of/additions
to 68,71, 90-1
attribution of 28, 44, 48, 69,
72, 90-6, 98, 99 and
nn.7-8, 100-2, 106,
184n.1, 191 and n.2, 193,
424, 432, 435, 461, 483,
491-3, 502, 506
INDEX 735
630-3, 636, 640, 642, 648,
653, 670-1
attribution of 324, 421, 536
date/dating of 353 and n.10,
440, 446, 528, 536-7, 544,
548, 555
revisions of 30
Twelfth Night xxiv, 12, 75, 101,
255, 269 and n.15, 270,
282n.5, 289n.22, 318n.52,
359, 446, 452-3, 458-9,
463-4, 466, 469, 471,
474-5, 477-8, 481, 485,
502, 524, 532, 534-5, 5525
554; 603, 605, 630, 632,
640, 642, 644, 650N.69,
656, 664, 668, 672
attribution of 418, 534
date/dating of 78n.8, 342,
440, 446, 528, 532, 534-55
537s 5445 555
Two Gentlemen of Verona
XXivV, 31, 95N.2, 117 and
n.8, 130, 144, 159N.11,
163N.14, 164N.15, 167,
170-1, 172n.18, 176.20,
185-6, 193, 200, 257-8,
289N.22, 347, 419, 422,
439, 451-2, 455-6, 462-4,
466, 468, 470, 472, 474,
476, 478, 480, 484-7, 501,
507-10, 516, 524, 607,
630-2, 641-2, 644, 649,
671-2
attribution of 28
date/dating of 486-7, 493
Two Noble Kinsmen 28, 71,
2790.1, 282n.5, 284, 338,
attribution of 30, 49-50,
42.4, 434, 499-503, 547
basis of 21
date/dating of 78n.8, 439,
449, 451, 455, 4755
499-502, 510
Tempest, The 71, 95, 274-5,
281, 327, 347, 402, 411, 452,
459-60, 463, 465-6, 469,
date/dating of 440, 449,
454-5, 486-7, 490-3, 510
Fly Scene (3.2) 67-72, 75,
7% 79; 84-8, 90-1, 94;
97.5, 98, 603-5 482-3, 485, 573, 582,
Thomas Middleton's 584-6, 589-90, 604, 665,
collaboration on 90-1, 668, 670-1
364, 490-1, 630 attribution of 32, 44, 48,
George Peele’s (possible) 191N.3, 193, 218, 421, 432,
347, 349N.6, 390, 392-3,
396, 398, 402-5, 423-4,
431, 453, 461, 464, 467,
469, 471, 473-6, 479,
471-2, 474-6, 481, 561,
569; 573 577% 580, 582-3,
607, 630, 633, 641-2, 644,
649, 668
attribution of 582
collaboration on 22n.14,
68-72, 86, 95, 96 and n.3,
98, 99n.8, 101-2, 106,
184N.1, 191, 343, 490-1,
588
437-8, 483, 502, 588-90,
655n.82
date/dating of 569, 581, 590
John Fletcher's
collaboration on 3,
basis of 21 scene 4.1 92-3, 96, 98, 22Nn.14 28-9, 36, 46,
date/dating of 78, 440, 471, 99n.8, 100-2, 104, 106 191N.3, 218, 343, 349n.6,
569, 581-3 Troilus and Cressida xxii, 397-8, 401-3, 405, 467,
Timon of Athens xxiii, 11, 14,
35, 287, 289n.22, 290nn.24
and 26, 294, 297, 341, 361,
371, 375-8, 379 and n.4,
381, 383-4, 424-5, 432,
441, 446, 451, 453, 459,
461, 464-5, 467, 469, 471,
473-7; 479, 482, 485, 503,
52-4, 58, 73, 125, 130, 135,
255, 269N.15, 271-2,
282N.5, 318N.52, 323, 331,
392, 446, 452, 454,
458-60, 463, 465-6,
469-70, 472, 474-5; 477,
481, 485, 503, 536-7, 552,
554-5, 558, 562, 565, 606,
482, 589-90, 606, 631n.6,
640N.26, 642n.34, 668,
670
Winter's Tale, The 22, 25, 29,
71, 121.15, 125, 135, 256-7,
273, 281, 283, 284n.12,
323-4, 343, 347; 350, 354,
361, 392, 401-2, 411, 425,
736 INDEX
Shakespeare, William (cont.)
446, 452, 455, 459-60,
463, 465-6, 469, 471-2,
474-6, 481, 485, 555, 561,
577-9, 580-2, 588, 633,
641 and n.29, 643, 656,
662, 664, 668, 672
attribution of 28, 418, 577
basis of 21
characters in 24
date/dating of 78, 342, 347,
440, 446, 471, 577-9
poems of 20, 28, 39-40, 108,
111-14, 116, 121, 218, 221,
22.4, 226, 293, 420, 422,
426-7, 429-30, 444, 450,
483-4, 502, 509-10, 526,
574-5, 595 see also
Shakespeare, William,
apocrypha, poetic
‘Let the bird of loudest
lay’ 107, 108n.1, 113, 121,
124, 428n.1, 484-5, 534,
626, 670, 672
“Phoenix and the Turtle, The
see Shakespeare, William,
poems of, ‘Let the bird
the loudest lay’
Rape of Lucrece 6, 14, 38, 102,
111, 117-18, 134n.4, 251,
273, 286, 360, 419, 426,
451-2, 480, 484, 506, 509,
517-18, 546, 576, 595-6,
626-7, 631, 655, 672
attribution of 434, 509
date/dating of 440,
449, 509
Sonnets 14, 108 and n.1,
113-14, 116-18, 221, 228,
286, 389, 391, 429, 450-1,
461, 485, 509, 573-7
date/dating of 440, 573-5
1-60 575
3 670
7 118
24 656
33 632
34 519
36 328, 626
37 229
38 519
43 627
53 626
56 627
59 13
60 627
61-77 575
67 606
71 627
73 574
75 627
76-100 575
78-86 575
82 112
83 627
85 627
87-103 575
88 627
98 631
101 627
104 114n.6
104-26 575
107 574
109 627
114 627
118 627
127-44 575
132 627
135 258
137 111
145 434,574
146-54 575
portraits of 17
status of 25
structure of plays by 305,
314N.25, 319, 504, 507, 520
style of 37, 52; 71, 87, 95, 122, 126,
212, 217, 227, 229, 2.41, 245,
252, 260, 269-70, 311N.4,
3210.1, 322, 343, 356-8,
360-1, 392-4, 405, 431,
449, 455, 483-4, 520-1,
524-5
will of 13, 418
works of 21-2, 48, 51, 64, 80, 114,
216, 318, 346, 352, 401,
420, 429, 450, 647N.62
see also Shakespeare,
William, canon of
Shakespeare Association of
America 26, 98
Shakespeare Quarterly 123
SHAKPER 52
Shannon, Claude 408
Shannon entropy 407-8, 410, 414
Sharpe, Leonel
Looking Glass for the Pope, A
2700.19
Sharpe, Lewis
Noble Stranger, The 604
Sharpe, Will 140, 242, 504
Sharpham, Edward
works of 76
Cupid’ Whirligig 65, 603, 630
Fleir, The 349, 383, 646n.57
Shaw, Anne 508
Sheen, Erica 519
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Revolt of Islam, The 389
Shelton, Thomas 583, 585
Sherley, Anthony 87, 534
Shirley, James 37, 76, 269-70, 394,
407, 410, 444, 646n.59
works/canon of 51
Ball, The 344
Cardinal 630
Gamester, The 269n.16, 354,
646n.60
Gentleman of Venice 382
Grateful Servant 269n.16,
323, 344
Humorous Courtier, The 274
Hyde Park 119n.13, 354
Lady of Pleasure 271, 411,
646n.61
Love’ Cruelty 630, 646nn.53
and 58
Martyrd Soldier 271
Politician 605
St Patrick 604
School of Compliment
267N.10, 268
Traitor 630
Wedding, The 659n.108
Witty Fair One, The 344
Shrewsbury 442
Shropshire 233
Sidnam, Jonathan 80, 604
Sidney, Mary 114, 135
Antonius 189, 606, 630
Sidney, Philip 222, 427
Astrophil and Stella 574
Lady of May, The 188
Sidney, Sir Robert 513
Simpson, Percy 539
Simpson, Richard 549
Simson, Frances 233n.3
Simson, Gabriel 232, 233 and n.3
Sinclair, John 105
Singer, John 552
Sinklo, John 501, 510
Sisson, C. J. 549
Skelton, John 5
Skinner, Quentin 340
Slater, Eliot 248, 455, 461, 486, 493,
501, 504, 507-11, 513, 516,
518, 520-1, 52.4, 532; 5355
53% 544, 554-5, 558, 563,
565, 569, 574, 581-2
Smallwood, R.L. 521
Smith, ?
Fayre Fowle One, The 428
Smith, Emma 278-80, 283, 319,
321-2, 336-7, 340-1, 343,
346, 348, 355, 361-2, 558
Smith, Geneviéve 471, 486, 501,
506-7, 510-11, 513, 520,
522-4, 527, 532, 535; 537 544,
554, 560, 564, 571, 579, 582
Smith, M. W. A. 40, 504, 562
Smith, Wentworth 428, 430, 595
Hector of Germany 275, 428, 630,
659n.101
St. George for England 428
(possible author)
Smith, William 428, 430, 573, 600
Chloris, or The Complaint of the
Passionate Despised
Shepherd 429
Snelling, William 429-30
Snyder, Susan 340, 356n.14
society 330-2, 345, 574 see also class
(social)
sociolingistics 41, 586, 590 see also
tests (for attribution of
authorship),
sociolinguistic
Socrates 6
Sokol, B. J. 516, 533
Soloman, Diana 585
Somerset, Earl of 221, 617
SONS 111, 119, 122, 425, 535-6, 556,
565-6, 621 see also music
Sophocles
Oedipus Rex 304
Southampton, Earl of 511, 518
Spain 344, 346, 584, 588
Spanish Armada, the 500, 504-6,
529
Spedding, James 29, 31, 33
Speght, Thomas 545
spelling/punctuation gn.8, 22n.14,
52-5, 88, 95, 124, 242, 249,
295N.30, 386, 482, 504,
513, 549, 562, 583
modernization of 145, 282n.6,
283, 601
rare 134, 549-50
variant 74, 81, 84, 95, 102,
106n.18, 110, 1113, 135N.5,
185, 265n.3
Spencer, Gabriel 499
Spencer, John 225, 621
Spenser, Edmund 114, 116, 118, 222,
529, 546, 574
Amoretti 116n.7
Faerie Queene, The 73, 115-16,
494, 499, 507
Spevack, Marvin 68, 95, 321
Concordance 284, 3210.1, 353.12
Spiller, Elizabeth 585
Spinola (Spanish general) 543
Spurgeon, Caroline F. 105, 438
Stafford, John 595
stage directions 98n.6, 104, 265,
285, 310, 332, 338 and n.1,
345-6, 373, 437, 513, 562,
567, 607
staging 517
Stalker, Archibald 514
Stallybrass, Peter 23n.15
Stamp, A. E. 420
Stanford, Henry 524
Stanley, Edward 535
Stanley, Sir Thomas 535
Stanley, William 428
Stanleys, the 121 and n.18, 427,
535-6
Stansby, William 583
Stanyhurt, Richard
Aeneis 546
Stapleton, Richard
as possible author of Phyllis and
Flora: The Sweet and Civil
Contentions of Two
Amourous Ladies 233
Star Chamber, the 235n.8
stationers 20
Stationers’ Company, the 24, 231-4,
239-40, 589
Poor Book 240
Stationers’ Register, the 5on.2, 235,
524, 527, 531, 590, 600
entries into 139, 141, 218, 222,
366-7, 407, 419, 431, 439,
487, 491-2, 494, 498,
503-5, 507-8, 512, 520,
522, 528, 532, 534, 536, 543,
545, 548, 553-4, 557 559»
561, 568, 570-1, 573, 576,
589, 594, 596, 598-9, 601
Statistical Package for the Social
Science (SPSS) 467
Stears, John 224, 609, 615-16
Steevens, George 71
Stein, Peter 88
Stephenson, Alan 238
Stern, Tiffany 111, 385, 407, 583, 585
Sternhold, Thomas and John
Hopkins
Psalter 73
Stevenson, Warren 52, 246, 248-9,
261, 263, 529
Stevenson, William
Gammer Gurton’s Needle 65
Steward, Sir Simeon 224-5, 616
Stewart, Patrick 87
Stoll, E. E. 264
Stone, P. W. K. 561
Stonehouse, Walter 429-30
Stoppard, Tom
Fifteen Minute Hamlet 304
Stow, John 487
Survey of London 223, 582
Strachey, William 429-30, 582, 602
Stratford-upon-Avon 8, 17, 38, 114,
434, 447, 486, 500, 508,
547, 572) 590-2
stress/stressing 387-92, 395-7,
399-400, 402, 404-5, 467,
470, 487, 510, 522, 544,
550, 554-5, 558, 565, 576,
582, 586
Strode, William 224, 226, 429-30,
609, 616
Stuart, Arbella 89-90, 222, 491, 580-1
Stuart, Elizabeth 221
style/stylistic features 29, 34, 38, 41,
52; 56, 67, 71, 83, 86, 91, 94,
102, 104, 120, 122, 126, 164,
201, 217, 229, 260, 262-4,
269-70, 318, 338, 353-7,
361-2, 392, 394, 396-402,
404-6, 409-10, 416, 431,
451, 455, 461, 477, 483, 485,
INDEX 737
491, 502, 510-11, 525, 542,
569, 581, 586, 600
see also evidence, stylistic/
stylometric
development/evolution of 449,
455, 471, 478, 484
as markers 101
stylistics 55, 83, 103, 131, 263
stylometrics 108, 486
subjectivity 6
Suckling, John 219, 224, 596, 609, 616
Aglaura 604, 630
Goblins, The 659n.104
Suffolk, Earl of 538
Sutcliffe, Chris 531
Sweden 221
Swinburne, Algernon Charles 488
syllables 387-9, 391-2, 395,
397-400, 402, 404-5, 465,
467, 470, 482, 487, 501,
510, 554-5, 558, 565, 576;
582, 586
Sylvester, Josuah 22n.14, 116, 219,
222, 610, 616
“Ode to Astraea 221
Sym, John
Life’s preservative against self
killing 329n.8
Syme, Holger Schott 561
syntactic/metrical breaks 386-7,
390, 394-400, 403-4, 467,
472-3, 487, 493; 501,
506-7, 522, 5375 544, 550;
554-5, 558, 581, 588
syntax 550
Tab Separated Values (TSV) 74
Tarlinskaja, Marina 39, 84, 432,
467, 471, 473, 487-90,
493, 496, 501, 503, 506,
510-11, 513, 516, 520,
522-3, 527-8, 537, 544,
549-50, 554-5, 558, 565,
567, 569, 576, 579, 581-2,
585, 588, 590
Shakespeare and the Versification
of English Drama 385
Tarlton, Richard 486, 547
News out of Purgatory 547
Tasso, Torquato 520
Tate, Nahum 394, 398, 402, 404-5
Brutus of Alba, or The Cruel
Husband 398, 402-403
Injured Love 398
Sicilian Usurper, The 398-9, 401,
403-4
Tatham, John
Distracted State, The 658n.92
Taylor, Estelle 478, 575
Taylor, Gary 69, 74-5, 82, 84, 88,
96, 97N.5, 98, 105, 107, 109,
130, 133, 141, 191nN.2-3,
264-5, 269, 279, 289,
738 INDEX
Taylor, Gary (cont.)
295N.29, 301-3, 307,
3200.53, 324.4, 3251.5,
335, 367 417; 434, 437, 462,
478, 484, 490, 495, 503-4,
515. 527; 543, 546, 551-2,
558-61, 567, 577 582,
584-5, 595, 598, 603, 605,
608, 612, 616, 621, 625-6,
630N.2, 664, 668
assertions of 62, 66, 319, 321, 326,
385-6, 407, 415, 491,
513-14, 518-19, 522, 530;
548-9, 555-7, 566,
works of
‘Canon and Chronology’ 340,
417, 433, 595
The Division of the
Kingdoms 68
Taylor, John 17, 117, 119, 120n.14,
121-2, 329, 356
“The Canon and Chronology
of Shakespeare’s Plays’
43, 71
Great O toole, The 327
Taymor, Julie 90
Telegraph, The 278
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord 361
Terence 5,129,140
tests (for attribution of
authorship) 31, 37, 40-7,
49, 73-4; 94-7, 99-106,
113N.5, 130, 174, 176, 180,
183, 190-3, 202, 204, 212,
216-17, 247, 249, 257, 263,
265, 268, 270, 282, 307,
320, 322, 383, 410-11, 413,
430, 461-2, 465, 487, 489,
551, 559, 585, 597
6-grams 57n.3
actlength 498
automated searches 67
bigrams 207-20, 250
chi-square test 79n.10
close association 101n.15
collocation 92, 96, 98, 101,
106, 193, 295, 298-9,
300 and n.31, 308,
324N.4, 438, 550, 636,
638, 648n.67, 650, 660,
661N.113, 663-4, 668
colloquialism-in-verse 478-83,
501, 503, 507, 513, 520, 527,
532, 537 544, 554-5, 558,
569, 579, 581-2, 586
compression 410-13
control 324n.4, 325, 327, 437
counting of function words
36-9, 40-1, 44, 166,
183-4, 198 and n.2, 207,
265, 284n.14, 436, 489,
496, 504, 598
Delta 44, 145-7, 150, 155,
157-8, 164-6, 172-4, 179,
194, 196-8, 201-3, 207,
214-17, 490
Tota 194
Zeta 44-5, 103, 145, 151-2,
159-65, 175-9, 182, 184,
194, 197-8, 204-14,
216-17, 247-8, 490
deep reading 67, 83
error rates for 175
exclusions 151
Fisher’s Exact Test 79 and n.10,
319, 351-2
four-word search 99n.7, 100,
102N.16, 105, 462
Jensen-Shannon divergence 103
lexical 131, 133, 182-4, 193, 198,
210-11, 271, 291, 296-8,
300, 308, 319, 489, 504
Linear Discriminant
Analysis 242-4, 248
methods of conducting
see methods (of testing)
metrical 31, 34-5, 84, 383, 462,
465-6, 484, 487, 489, 493,
511, 516, 518, 523, 544, 555;
569, 586 see also evidence,
metrical
n-grams 58, 72, 82 and n.13, 90,
197, 249, 260, 354, 514
Nearest Shrunken Centroid 145,
147-8, 150, 153, 155 and
N.10, 156-9, 164, 166,
169-70, 172-5, 179, 267N.9,
268n.12, 269nn.16-17,
270N.19, 272, 274, 490
negative-checks 34, 117, 159, 320
Check One 294-5
Check Two 295-7
pause 31, 465-6, 468-9, 500,
506-7, 511, 523-4, 527, 532,
537s 552, 554, 560, 564-5,
569, 571; 573s 579» 590
Principal Component Analysis
(PCA) 153 and n.9, 154,
166, 168, 183
quadgrams 250
Random Forests 145, 148-50,
152, 155 and n.10, 156-9,
164, 166, 170, 172-5, 179,
490
SHAXICON 40, 43, 60
single word 204
sociolinguistic 46, 437, 549, 551,
566, 586, 590, 595
Test Three 265
tetragrams 128-30
text segmentation 151
three-word search 102n.16
trigrams 51, 56, 58, 60-2,
210-11, 250
two-word search 100-1,
102N.16, 359
vocabulary 493, 508-9, 511, 516,
518, 521, 523-4, 532, 535»
552, 554-5, 558 560, 565,
569, 574; 579, 582
Text Creation Partnership (TCP) 43
see also EEBO-TCP
textual criticism 4, 23, 59, 365
textual likeness 153
theatres 18-19, 51, 382, 565
Blackfriars xix, 18-19, 69, 71,
307, 338-9, 342, 543, 561,
567, 573, 578-9, 581, 589
closure of 249, 384, 441, 443-4,
446, 450-1, 487, 492, 494,
501, 505, 508, 515, 529, 5325
555, 57% 580
Curtain, the 594
Globe, the xix, 10n.8, 18-19, 69,
71, 249, 302, 510, 527, 531,
555s 564, 573» 578-9, 584;
587, 589
indoor 69, 573, 589
Inns of Court 19, 120, 512
Gray’s Inn 509-11
Middle Temple 19, 534
outdoor 69
Rose, the 494, 527-8, 552
Shoreditch xix, 546
Swan, the 19
Theatre, the 18
theatrical companies 24, 140, 330n.13,
422, 441-2, 486, 540
Admiral’s Men 266, 439, 444, 499,
520; 524-5, 527, 546, 552
Brave Spirits Theatre 89
Children of her Majesty’s
Revels 572
Derby’s Men (Strange’s
Men) 491-2, 505, 507,
516, 521, 552; 596
Earl of Leicester's Men 17
King’s Men 15, 18, 69-71, 77, 80,
114, 123, 279, 307, 320,
338-40, 342, 345, 369, 372,
381, 384, 418, 431, 435,
441-2, 444, 446, 541, 552,
555-7 563, 569-71, 5735
578-9, 582-4, 587, 589,
594, 598-9
Shakespeare's involvement
with 19-20, 242, 372,
538-9
King’s Revels 635n.15
Lady Elizabeth’s Men 329n.11
Lord Chamberlain’s Men 12,
14-15, 17, 111-12, 263, 418,
422, 435, 439, 441-2,
444-5, 450, 494-5, 497,
499, 505, 510-12, 517, 521,
523-5, 531-2, 535» 539s 541,
546, 552, 584, 594 see also
theatrical companies,
King’s Men
Shakespeare’s involvement
with 17, 19-20, 269,
447, 517
Paul’s Boys 382, 384
Pembroke’s Men 451, 492, 499,
505, 507-8, 513
Prince Charles’s Servants 594
Queen Anne’s Men 329n.11
Queen’s Men 487
Royal Shakespeare Company 87
Sussex’s Men 492
Worcester’s Men 552
theatrical operations 8, 17-19, 20
and n.13, 23, 140, 431,
447,545
history of 197, 450
practice of 422
theatrical performances 8, 20,
303-4, 330, 341-2, 367,
373, 440, 442, 444-5, 485,
508, 517, 530-1, 542, 545,
565, 570, 572-3, 479, 600
see also court, the,
performances before;
dramaturgy; stage
directions
before the court see under court,
the
intervals during xix, 71
nature of 8, 70n.2, 393
profit from 19
records of 491-2, 494, 498, 504,
527, 569, 578, 580
Theobald, Lewis 71, 109, 385,
398-9, 403-7, 410-12,
414-16, 438, 585
Double Falsehood, or the
Distressed Lovers 34, 109,
393-4, 398, 401-8, 411,
413-14, 416, 585 (with
John Fletcher and
William Shakespeare)
see also Shakespeare,
William, apocrypha,
Double Falsehood
as an adaptation of
Cardenio 385-6, 399
Fatal Secret, The 393, 399-401,
403, 411-13
Happy Captive, The 411-12
Orestes 398-400, 402, 411-13
Perfidious Brother, The 411-13
Persian Princess, The 398, 402,
411-13
Plutus 412-13
Thiele, Joachim 514
Thirty Years War 221, 344-6, 364,
557-8
Thomas, Dylan
Collected Poems 41
Thompson, Ann 500, 590
Thompson, E. Maunde 549
Thomson, Leslie 437
Thorndike, Ashley 586
Thorpe, Thomas 132
Shakespeare’s Sonnets 123
Tiddington 547
Tilney, Sir Edmund 420, 549, 551
Timberlake, Philip 34-5, 72 and
n.4, 93, 498, 506
The Feminine Ending in English
Blank Verse 50n.2
Times Literary Supplement, the 49,
131, 278, 337 343
Tobin, J. J. M. 518, 597
Todd, Richard 110
Tofte, Robert 114, 117 and n.8, 118
Alba 510
Honours academie 229
tokens 150n.7, 293-8, 354 and n.13,
634, 641NN.29-30, 645
and nn.42-3, 650,
653.74, 654n.80
Tomkis, Thomas
Albumazar 129,594, 646nn.49
and 51
Lingua 565, 659nn.95 and 99
Tong 121, 535-6
Tossanus, Daniel
Exercise of the Faithful 55
Laura 118
Totaro, Rebecca 441
Tourneur, Cyril 37, 58, 123,
423, 584
Atheist’s Tragedy, The 134, 630
Travers, Robert
Learned and very profitable
exposition, A 323
Tronch, Jesus 261n.1, 262
Tuke, Sir Samuel
Adventures of the Five Hours,
The 585
Turberville, George 114-16
Twine, Laurence 433
Painful Adventures of Pericles,
The 433
Pattern of Painful Adventures,
The 571
Twiss, William
Discovery of D. Jackson, A 328
Tyndale, William 6
Ubaldini, Petruccio
Discourse Concerning the Spanish
Fleet Invading
England 505-6
dall, Joanna 594
dall, Nicholas
Ralph Roister Doister 630
Upton, John 28, 71
Critical Observations 28
Urkowitz, Steven 33, 448, 494, 497
ene
Vadnais, Matthew 451
Valenza, Robert J. 38-40, 113n.5,
142, 489, 504, 576,
597-8, 600
Van Dam, B. A. P. 550
van Es, Bart 269, 531
Nine Days Wonder 531
VARD 145
INDEX 739
VassarStats 184, 281, 352
Vaux, Lord 345
Veer, Gerrit de 534
Venice 522,570
Verdi, Giuseppe 90
Vere, Elizabeth 521
Vernon, Margaret 535
Verplanck, Gulian 362
verse 33, 69, 405, 452-4, 462, 464,
466, 480-3, 502, 506, 516,
524-5, 576, 586, 596,
621-5, 645n.43, 647
see also versification
versification 385, 392-3, 396, 399,
401, 405, 484
Vickers, Brian 5, 7-8, 14, 34, 43-4,
71, 101, 106, 108n.1, 227,
246, 263, 278, 319, 321N.1,
337, 343, 346-8, 355, 357
362, 432, 490-1, 504, 514,
516, 529, 561, 576, 586,
590, 602
assertions of 49, 56-8, 60-6, 68,
96, 98, 105, 107 and n.1,
119, 120n.14, 124, 125 and
Nl, 127, 131-2, 134.3,
191N.3, 192-3, 218, 222,
249, 261, 279, 283, 313n.16,
519, 521, 562, 567, 576
methodology of 49-51, 103,
128, 248
works of
‘Abolishing the Author’ 5
Artistry of Shakespeare's Prose,
The 356
‘Counterfeiting’
Shakespeare 597
“The Marriage of Philology
and Informatics’ 50
Shakespeare, Co-Author 43-4,
48, 362, 586
“Thomas Kyd: Secret
Sharer’ 50
“The Two Authors of
Edward IIT 50-1
Victoria and Albert Museum 563
Vienna 557
Villers, George 108n.2, 364
Vimieiro, Renato 502, 577
Vincent, Paul 75, 191n.2, 495,
514-15
Vincent, Thomas 552
Virginia 582
Virginian School of New
Bibliography 37
vocabulary 34, 40, 125, 127, 435-6,
455-62, 493, 512, 550, 552
see also tests, vocabulary;
words
rare 501, 508-9, 511, 516, 523-4,
532, 535» 554-53 558
560-3, 565, 569, 574,
579-82, 586
variants in 291, 295
740 INDEX
Wagner, Lewis
Life and Repentance of Mary
Magelene 65
Wagschal, Steven 585
Wales 359n.17
Wall, Wendy 356
Wallace, David L. 37
Waller, Edmund 219, 609, 616
Waller, Frederick O. 478, 495
Warburton, William 428
Ward, John 444
Ward, Roger 234
Ward, Samuel
Life of Faith, The 269n.17
Warner, William 114, 116, 604
Albions England 115
Menaechmi 189, 659n.101
Warner, Deborah 87
Warren, Roger 485, 561
Wars of the Roses 598
Warwick 114
Warwickshire 434, 500
Washington, D.C. 88
Waterson, Simon 233, 235 and n.10
Watkins, Richard 232 and n.1
Watson, Thomas 436, 487, 490,
520, 529
Heatopathia 506
Lamentations of Amyntas 519
Weber, William W. 68, 93, 96n.3,
98, 99 and nn.9-10,
100-4, 491
Webster, John 37, 55, 76, 261, 263-6,
268-9, 274, 276-7, 288,
329 and n.11, 347, 423,
438, 584, 587
works/canon of 51, 77, 80, 247
Anything for a Quiet Life 63,
76n.7, 81, 87, 287, 313n.19,
345.4, 631N.5, 632N.10,
657n.85, 671 (with
Thomas Middleton)
Appius and Virginia 659n.104
Devil’s Law Case, The 263,
604, 630
Duchess of Malfi, The 65, 77,
89, 263, 285n.16, 349n.6,
387, 390, 393, 399-401,
403, 405, 630
Malcontent, The 77, 263
Northward 323 (with Thomas
Dekker)
Sir Thomas Wyatt 628 (with
Thomas Dekker)
Westward Ho 53 (with
Thomas Dekker)
White Devil, The 71, 398, 401,
448, 587-8, 630
Weeks, Richard 587
Weever, John 121n.18, 419, 535
Ancient Funeral Monuments 535
‘Ad Gulielmum Warner’ 229
Epigrammes 418
Weis, René 435
Wenterdorf, Karl 35, 43, 93, 105,
462, 465-6, 502, 504-5,
537, 558
Wells, Stanley 69, 76, 88, 218n.1,
433, 486, 493, 502-3, 553,
558, 578, 597
Wells, William 562
Werstine, Paul 151, 303, 338 and n.1,
343, 432-4, 448, 550
Whalley, Peter 538
Whetstone, George
Promos and Cassandra 21
White, Edward 129, 139, 487-8
White, John 240
White, Martin 140
White, William 231-4, 235 and n.8,
236-40, 528-9
White, William Augustus 595
Whitehall Palace 560, 582
Whyte, Rowland 513
Wickham, Glynne 512
Wiggins, Martin 139-40, 253, 262,
266-7, 349N.6, 353N.11,
444, 446-7, 486-7, 490,
492, 495, 499-500, 505,
510, 512-13, 517, 521-4,
527-9, 531-2, 535, 537-8,
540, 543, 551; 560-1, 564,
566, 569, 573, 578, 581-2,
587-9, 602, 659n.96
Catalogue 447, 494, 511
Wightman, Edward 561
Wilcox, Helen 110
Wild, Robert
Benefice, The 659n.102
Wiles, David 511
Wilkins, George 24, 37, 40, 191n.3,
432-3, 436, 438, 571
Miseries of Enforced Marriage,
The 54, 129, 367, 560, 571,
646n.58
Painfull Adventures of Pericles
Prince of Tyre, The 570-1
as collaborator on Pericles 343,
431-3, 447, 462, 482,
570-1
The Travels of Three English
Brothers 55,571 (with John
Day and William Rowley)
Willet, Andrew
Hezpla upon Genesis and
Exodus 55
Williams, George Walton 517, 520
Williams, Gordon 382
Williams, Roger
Brief Discourse of Warre, A 272
Willis, John
Art of Stenographie 239
Wills, Gary 564
Wilmot, Robert (and others)
Tancred and Gismund 630
Wilson, E P. 441
Wilson, John Dover 72, 113-14,
196, 321, 343, 355, 362; 495,
497, 514, 516, 521, 543, 557,
567, 574
‘Bibliographical Links between
the Three Pages and the
Good Quartos’ 52
Wilson, Robert 144, 154, 249, 601
and Arden of Faversham 154-5,
157-9, 163-4, 165 and
n.16, 166
Cobbler’s Prophecy, The 144,
160N.12, 188, 200, 630
and Henry VI plays 203
Sir John Oldcastle 129, 601 (with
Michael Drayton,
Richard Hathaway, and
Anthony Munday)
Three Ladies of London, The 144,
160N.12, 189, 200, 630
Three Lords and Three Ladies of
London, The 144, 161n.13,
163n.14, 187, 200, 630
Winchester 443
Windet, John 583
Windsor 120
Wine, M. L. 127, 129, 181
Wing, Donald
The Short Title Catalogue 430
Wither, George 119, 120n.14
Faire-Virtue 119
Fidelia 119
Iwenilia 119
Wittreich, Joseph 561
Wodenfrides, W. H. 114
Wolf, John 234
Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas 588, 595
women 88
Woodes, Nathaniel
Conflict of Conscience, The 186,
646n.47
Woods, Dorothy 27
words 82n.13, 87, 90, 95, 97, 99N.7,
103, 111, 1450.5, 151-2,
155-6, 159-66, 169,
176-80, 182, 184-5, 190,
204-6, 211-12, 243-4,
249-50, 256, 259, 265, 291,
324, 326 and n.6, 345, 375;
388-9, 416, 435, 455, 460,
462-4, 478-9, 495, 546,
574, 650n.69, 672 see also
vocabulary
associations of 175
boundaries of 550
combinations of 263, 461
common 203, 242
consecutive 249, 352
counting of 284-6, 290 and n.26,
300, 326, 353 and n.12,
462, 464, 479, 641.30
see also under tests (for
attribution of authorship)
defintions of 94, 182
foreign 151
function 36-7, 145 and n.5, 149,
154-5, 157-8, 168, 172-5,
182-4, 198 and n.2, 207-9,
215N.4, 244-5, 436, 496,
562, 598 see tests (for
attribution of authorship),
counting of function words
grammatical 405
interesting 100
lists of 44
‘marker’ 150, 160, 162-4, 171,
175-7; 179, 185-7, 190-1,
205, 207, 210, 216, 279-80,
281 and n.4, 282-3,
290-4, 297-8, 300, 302,
310, 317.51, 319, 321,
3351.15, 644n.42
occurrence of specific 31, 63, 125,
145, 150, 203
frequency of 146, 150, 154, 159,
161-2, 165, 168, 170-2,
174-5, 179-80, 182, 193,
280n.3, 289, 349, 436, 467,
478, 482, 490
preference for certain 39, 149,
159, 165, 204-5, 212, 229,
311n.4, 319-20 see also
language, use of,
preferences regarding
rare 40, 54, 57N.3, 80, 82-3,
100N.11, 117, 120.14,
13.4N.3, 135, 150, 152, 159,
172, 298-300, 308,
456-60, 462, 501, 508-9,
513, 519, 523, 550, 554; 577
635 and n.13, 646n.44, 658
and n.86
sequences of 72-3, 79, 80, 82-3,
100 and nn.11-14, 101,
268n.12, 295-300, 308,
324N.4, 359-60, 630,
631N.4, 634N.12, 635n.13,
640, 641n.29, 652 and
nn.71-2, 653n.74, 654n.80,
658nn.86-7, 668
uncommon/infrequent 150,
159, 373
use of 86, 97, 102, 105, 131, 135,
229, 278, 280-1, 285, 289
and nn.20-3, 290, 293,
295, 299, 311N.4, 312N.9,
313nn.16-20 and 22-4,
314nN.25-34, 315nN.35—40,
316nn.41-3, 317N.44-51,
INDEX 741
317n.45 and 47-51,
318n.52, 348N.5, 350-1,
360, 363, 490, 499, 503,
550-1, 586, 658
Wotton, Henry 219, 221, 587,
610, 616
Woudhuysen, H. R. 108n.1, 114, 120,
121n.18, 526, 534-5, 592
Wren, Christopher 224, 616
Wright, George T. 226, 471, 544
Shakespeare’s Metrical Art 226
Wright, W. Aldis 29, 31, 345,
362, 565
Wrighters’ Guild 24
Wriothesley, Henry, third Earl of
Southampton 14, 17-18
Yachnin, Paul 288
Yale University 223-4
Yarrington, Robert 126
works of 80
Two Lamentable Tragedies 62,
129, 188, 489, 604
Yong, Bartholomew 117n.8, 119
York 367
Zarca, Bernard 25
Zhirmunsky, V. M. 389