The Facts About Shakespeare

by William Allan Neilson; Ashley Horace Thorndike

CHAPTER VIII

Questions of Authenticity

Owing to the conditions of publication described in Chapter VII there are questions as to the authenticity of a number of the poems and plays ascribed to Shakespeare. Of the poems, "The Phœnix and the Turtle" and "A Lover's Complaint" have been sometimes rejected as unworthy, but there is no other evidence against the ascription to him by the original publishers. The case of The Passionate Pilgrim is different and is interesting as illustrating the methods of piracy practised by booksellers and as affording the only record of a protest by Shakespeare against the free use which they made of his name. This anthology was published by W. Jaggard in 1599 as "by W. Shakespeare." The third edition in 1612 added two pieces by Thomas Heywood. Heywood immediately protested and in the postscript to his Apologie for Actors, 1612, declared that Shakespeare was "much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." Of the twenty poems that made up the volume, only five are certainly by Shakespeare, two appearing also in The Sonnets and three in Love's Labour's Lost. Six others can be assigned to contemporary poets. The authorship of the remaining The Shakespeare Apocryphanine is unknown, but probably only one or two are by Shakespeare.

In addition to the thirty-seven plays now included in all editions of Shakespeare, some forty others have been, for one reason or another, attributed to him. The First Folio contained thirty-six plays; and it is a strong evidence of the honesty and information of its editors, Heming and Condell, that subsequent criticism has been satisfied to retain the plays of their choice and to make but one addition, Pericles. Of these plays, however, it is now generally agreed that a number are not entirely the work of Shakespeare, but were written by him in part in collaboration with other writers, e.g., Titus Andronicus, 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI, Timon of Athens, Pericles, and Henry VIII. Of two of these, Titus Andronicus and 1 Henry VI, some students refuse to give Shakespeare any share. Of the forty doubtful plays, there is not one which in its entirety is now credited to Shakespeare; and only three or four in which any number of competent critics see traces of his hand. Only in the case of The Two Noble Kinsmen is there any weight of evidence or opinion that he had a considerable share.

The second Folio kept to the thirty-six plays of the First Folio; but the second printing of the third Folio (1664) added seven plays: Pericles Prince of Tyre, The London Prodigal, The History of Thomas Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, The Puritan Widow, A Yorkshire Tragedy, The Tragedy of Locrine. These seven plays were also included in the fourth Folio, and as supplementary volumes to Rowe's, Pope's, and some later editions. They were all originally published in quarto as by W. S., or William Shakespeare, but except in the case of Pericles, this has been regarded as a bookseller's mistake or deception without warrant. Locrine, "newly set forth, overseen, and corrected by W. S., 1595," is a play of about the date of Titus Andronicus, and is probably by Greene, Peele, or some imitator of Marlowe and Kyd. Sir John Oldcastle appeared in 1600 in two quartos, one of which ascribed it to William Shakespeare, but it was clearly composed for the Admiral's men as a rival to the Falstaff plays which the Chamberlain's men had been acting. Thomas Lord Cromwell (1602) and The Puritan (1607) were ascribed to W. S., on their title-pages, but offer no possible resemblances to Shakespeare. The London Prodigal (1605) and A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608) were both acted by Shakespeare's company, and bore his name on their first editions, and the latter also on a second edition, 1619. The external evidence for his authorship is virtually the same as in the case of Pericles, which also was acted by his company, appeared under his name during his lifetime, but was rejected by the editors of the First Folio. No one, however, can discover any suggestion of Shakespeare in The London Prodigal. A Yorkshire Tragedy is a domestic tragedy in one act, dealing with a contemporary murder. It gives the conclusion of a story also treated in a play, The Two Noble KinsmenThe Miseries of Enforced Marriage (1607) by George Wilkins, the author of a novel The Painful Adventures of Pericles, and sometimes suggested as a collaborator on the play Pericles. A Yorkshire Tragedy is very unlike Shakespeare, but it has a few passages of extraordinarily vivid prose, which might conceivably owe something to him.

The Two Noble Kinsmen was registered April 8, 1634, and appeared in the same year with the following title-page "The Two Noble Kinsmen: Presented at the Blackfriars by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time;

Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakespeare

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Gent.

Printed at London by the Tho. Cotes for Iohn Waterson; and are to be sold at the signe of the Crowne in Paul's Church-yard. 1634." The exclusion of the play from the First Folio may be explained on the same basis as the exclusion of Pericles; for in each play Shakespeare wrote the minor part. There is now general agreement that The Two Noble Kinsmen was written by two authors with distinct styles, and that the author of the larger portion is Fletcher. The attribution of the non-Fletcherian part to Shakespeare has been upheld by Lamb, Coleridge, De Quincey, Spalding (in a notable Letter on Shakespeare's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1833), Furness, and Littledale (who edited the play for The New Shakespeare Society, Series II, 1, 8, 15, London, 1876-1885); but there are still many critics who do not believe that Shakespeare had any part in the play. This question will probably always remain a matter of opinion; but the evidence of various verse tests confirms esthetic judgment in assigning about two fifths of the verse to Shakespeare. The Shakespearean portion, here and there possibly touched by Fletcher, includes, I. i; I. ii; I. iii; I. iv. 1-28; III. i; III. ii; V. i. 17-73; V. iii. 1-104; V. iv, and perhaps the prose II. i and IV. iii.

The dance in the play is borrowed from an anti-masque in Beaumont's Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn, presented at court, February 20, 1613. This fixes the date of composition for the play in 1613, the same year as Henry VIII, on which it is now generally agreed that Shakespeare and Fletcher collaborated. On both of the plays the collaboration seems to have been direct; i.e., after making a fairly detailed outline, each writer took certain scenes, and, to all intents, completed these scenes after his own fashion.

One other play must be mentioned in connection with The Two Noble Kinsmen. Cardenio, entered on the Stationers' Register, 1653, was described as "by Fletcher and Shakespeare." It seems probably identical with a Cardenno acted at court by the King's men in May, 1613, and a Cardenna in June, 1613. Attempts have been made to connect it with Double Falsehood, assigned to Shakespeare by Theobald on its publication in 1728.