'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 xiv
... lines . But obviously ' W. S. ' might have written another elegy between 1600 and 1609 , or might have produced other forms of verse . Foster's sample was far too small to justify the absolute claims he made , having identified ...
... lines . But obviously ' W. S. ' might have written another elegy between 1600 and 1609 , or might have produced other forms of verse . Foster's sample was far too small to justify the absolute claims he made , having identified ...
Page xvii
... lines with gerunds ; both liked syntactical construc- tions of the kind If ... then . Ford's verse - style in his poems ( 1606 , 1613 ) was very similar to that of the Elegye ( 1612 ) , showing comparable frequencies in the use of run ...
... lines with gerunds ; both liked syntactical construc- tions of the kind If ... then . Ford's verse - style in his poems ( 1606 , 1613 ) was very similar to that of the Elegye ( 1612 ) , showing comparable frequencies in the use of run ...
Page 4
... line stanzas . Both newspaper versions set the short third and sixth lines of each stanza full out at the right hand margin , at least leaving open the possibility that they formed part of lines 2 and 5. However , in Taylor's own text ...
... line stanzas . Both newspaper versions set the short third and sixth lines of each stanza full out at the right hand margin , at least leaving open the possibility that they formed part of lines 2 and 5. However , in Taylor's own text ...
Page 5
... ( lines 38 , 46 , 54 , 62 , 70 ) . As for the concluding line , he divided it in the first four stanzas ( lines 8 , 16 , 24 , 32 ) , but changed the layout for the remaining five , setting the line full out left , as he had done with the ...
... ( lines 38 , 46 , 54 , 62 , 70 ) . As for the concluding line , he divided it in the first four stanzas ( lines 8 , 16 , 24 , 32 ) , but changed the layout for the remaining five , setting the line full out left , as he had done with the ...
Page 6
... line stanzas were much more common than those of ten lines.16 There is no reason to follow Taylor's arrangement , and in the subsequent discussion I have restored the eight - line stanza form . It may be convenient at this point to have ...
... line stanzas were much more common than those of ten lines.16 There is no reason to follow Taylor's arrangement , and in the subsequent discussion I have restored the eight - line stanza form . It may be convenient at this point to have ...
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