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A review by Darren Freebury-Jones.
The blurb (and publicity surrounding this book) states confidently that Shakespeare’s hand can be detected in Arden of Faversham. I myself have analysed the famous quarrel scene in this play and detected numerous distinct collocation matches with Thomas Kyd’s accepted works, as well as plays in Brian Vickers’ ‘extended’ canon.[ii] Vickers’ results, however, are frequently snubbed in this edition, as insecurely attributed. Vickers’ methodology of collecting ‘partly idiosyncratic formations’, encompassing verbal and semantic patterns, often in the context of verse structure, is the most advanced and reliable authorship test currently available I feel (a view, I realise, that conflicts with exponents of the status quo ante bellum), and it would have been nice if his findings had been explicated here. Nevertheless, the edition never really takes sides when you delve inside anyway. Will Sharpe touches upon MacDonald P. Jackson’s views[iii] in his essay within the book, ‘Authorship and Attribution’ but concludes, frustratingly, that the domestic tragedy can be deemed ‘one of the finest plays that a young Shakespeare, possibly, never wrote’.[iv] This extent of ambiguity and an unwillingness to expand properly upon opposing scholarly arguments leaves one to ponder what the real purpose of compiling these plays was in the first place. Why works such as Thomas Middleton’s A Yorkshire Tragedy are included, and The Merry Devil of Edmonton is patently rejected, is anybody’s guess.
Unfortunately, from a scholarly perspective, William Shakespeare & Others: Collaborative Plays provides an unsatisfying exploration of models of authorship, while its publication and the way in which its compositors have promoted themselves with talk of fingerprints and decisive evidence (surely confusing for the general public, caught in the cross-fire of affirmation and rejection) cannot be deemed healthy for modern attribution studies.
Visit the publisher’s website here.
Darren Freebury-Jones is a PhD candidate at Cardiff University specialising in imitation and collaboration in Shakespeare’s early plays.
[i] Bate’s recognition of Shakespearean co-authorship through literary fingerprints contrasts somewhat with his prior assertion that ‘with all the arguments based on verbal parallels’ Shakespearean ‘imitation is always as likely as authorship’. Titus Andronicus: New Arden Shakespeare (London: Arden Shakespeare, 1995), p.82.
[ii] Brian Vickers, ‘Thomas Kyd, Secret Sharer’, Times Literary Supplement, 13th April, pp. 13-15.
[iii] Jackson first argued for Shakespeare’s hand in this play in 1963. See MacDonald P. Jackson, ‘Material for an edition of Arden of Faversham’ (B.Litt. thesis: Oxford University, 1963).
[iv] Will Sharpe, ‘Authorship and Attribution’, in William Shakespeare & Others: Collaborative Plays (London: Palgrave Macmillian, 2013).
[v] ‘From Script to Stage: Interviews by Peter Kirwan’, in William Shakespeare & Others: Collaborative Plays (London: Palgrave Macmillian, 2013).
Also recently published by Palgrave: The Creation and Re-creation of Cardenio: Performing Shakespeare, Transforming Cervantes (2013) “Did Shakespeare really join John Fletcher to write Cardenio, a lost play based on Don Quixote? In 2009, the world’s first academic symposium dedicated to the “lost play” was convened in New Zealand. Since then, a flurry of activity has confirmed the play’s place in the literary canon. Drawing on cutting-edge scholarship and organized around the first full-scale production of Gary Taylor’s recreation of the Jacobean play, these sixteen essays suggest the play was not “lost” but was instead deliberately “disappeared” because of its controversial treatment of race and sexuality. Breaking new ground, this collection gives equal attention to Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Fletcher. With an emphasis on the importance of theatrical experiment and performance, a copy of Taylor’s script, a photographic record of Bourus’s production, and historical research by respected scholars in the fields of early modern England and Spain, this book makes a bold and definitive statement about the collaborative nature of Cardenio.” Find out more here.
Cesario is actually Viola – Viola loves Orsino but Orsino loves Olivia – Olivia loves Cesario who, you might remember is actually Viola. Confused? Mistaken identity and unrequited love flow through the play’s topsy turvy plot making it one of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies.
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