'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's Funerall Elegye'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare addresses the fundamental issue of what Shakespeare actually wrote, and how this is determined. In recent years his authorship has been claimed for two poems, the lyric 'Shall I die?' and A Funerall Elegye. These attributions have been accepted into certain major editions of Shakespeare's works but Brian Vickers argues that both attributions rest on superficial verbal parallels; both use too small a sample, ignore negative evidence, and violate basic principles in authorship studies. Through a fresh examination of the evidence, Professor Vickers shows that neither poem has the stylistic and imaginative qualities we associate with Shakespeare. In other words, they are 'counterfeits', in the sense of anonymously authored works wrongly presented as Shakespeare's. He argues that the poet and dramatist John Ford wrote the Elegye: its poetical language (vocabulary, syntax, prosody) is indistinguishable from Ford's, and it contains several hundred close parallels with his work. By combining linguistic and statistical analysis this book makes an important contribution to authorship studies. |
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Page xiii
... Foster's claim excited less inter- est than Taylor's , a sad comment on the way that media attention is only attracted by extreme positions . But a few years later , apparently urged on by Richard Abrams , Foster restated his case in ...
... Foster's claim excited less inter- est than Taylor's , a sad comment on the way that media attention is only attracted by extreme positions . But a few years later , apparently urged on by Richard Abrams , Foster restated his case in ...
Page xiv
... Foster was so convinced that the use of who for inanimate antecedents , also found in the Elegye , established ... Foster's whole enterprise rested on finding unique verbal quirks in the Elegye , shared by ' W. S. ' and Shakespeare alone ...
... Foster was so convinced that the use of who for inanimate antecedents , also found in the Elegye , established ... Foster's whole enterprise rested on finding unique verbal quirks in the Elegye , shared by ' W. S. ' and Shakespeare alone ...
Page xv
... Foster shifted his point of comparison . When comparing the Elegye's use of verses having an extra or hypermetric syl- lable ( so - called ' feminine endings ' ) , he no longer cited the late plays – where the difference between ' W. S. ...
... Foster shifted his point of comparison . When comparing the Elegye's use of verses having an extra or hypermetric syl- lable ( so - called ' feminine endings ' ) , he no longer cited the late plays – where the difference between ' W. S. ...
Page 32
... ( Foster 1987 , p . 64 ) . Foster drew attention to other linguistic details in ' Shall I die ? ' which point to a date later than Taylor's suggested 1595 the latest point at which he was willing to believe that Shakespeare could have ...
... ( Foster 1987 , p . 64 ) . Foster drew attention to other linguistic details in ' Shall I die ? ' which point to a date later than Taylor's suggested 1595 the latest point at which he was willing to believe that Shakespeare could have ...
Page 57
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Contents
1 | |
PART I Donald Fosters Shakespearean construct | 55 |
PART II John Fords Funerall Elegye | 261 |
Appendices | 467 |
Notes | 509 |
Bibliography | 554 |
Index | 563 |
Other editions - View all
'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's Funerall ... Brian Vickers No preview available - 2009 |
'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's Funerall ... Brian Vickers No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
Abrams abstract ascription attribution authorship studies Brian Vickers canon Christes Bloodie Sweat cited critics Cyrus Hoy death Dekker described diction discussion Donald Foster doth dramatist edition editors Elegy Elegye's Elizabethan Elliott and Valenza English essay evidence fair Fames Memoriall figure Ford's plays Ford's poems Foster claimed frequently Funeral Elegy Funerall Elegye Golden Meane hendiadys Henry instances John Ford Laws of Candy linguistic literary Love's Sacrifice Lover's Melancholy mind modern Monsarrat Mountjoy never Noble noun occurs opinion Oxford passage percent Perkin Warbeck phrase poem's poet poet's poetry praise prose published punctuation readers recurs refer Renaissance rhetoric rhyme Richard sample scenes scholars sequence Shakespeare's authorship Sonnets stanza statistics style stylistic Sun's Darling syntactical syntax Taylor tests thee Thomas thou tion usage verb verse line Vickers virtue vocabulary William Peter William Shakespeare Witch of Edmonton words writing wrote youth