'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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 80
Page xiv
... produced other forms of verse . Foster's sample was far too small to justify the absolute claims he made , having identified linguistic habits shared by ' W. S. ' and Shakespeare . It was not just the sample that was too small ...
... produced other forms of verse . Foster's sample was far too small to justify the absolute claims he made , having identified linguistic habits shared by ' W. S. ' and Shakespeare . It was not just the sample that was too small ...
Page xvi
... produced between 1606 and 1620. Ford's poetry includes two memorial poems to the Earl of Devonshire , Fames Memoriall ( 1606 ) and a shorter poem , ' In honorable memory ' ; Christes Bloodie Sweat ( 1613 ) , a long meditative poem in ...
... produced between 1606 and 1620. Ford's poetry includes two memorial poems to the Earl of Devonshire , Fames Memoriall ( 1606 ) and a shorter poem , ' In honorable memory ' ; Christes Bloodie Sweat ( 1613 ) , a long meditative poem in ...
Page xvii
... produced over the next two decades range through many emotional states , often sensa- tional , but they retain a strong concern with the link between virtue and constancy in the face of misfortune , William Peter's prime characteristic ...
... produced over the next two decades range through many emotional states , often sensa- tional , but they retain a strong concern with the link between virtue and constancy in the face of misfortune , William Peter's prime characteristic ...
Page xx
... producing the happy result that the odds on the Elegye having arisen by chance from one corpus or the other were at ... produced an excellent treatment of Ford's Stoicism , two valuable essays on his religious poems , and an outstanding ...
... producing the happy result that the odds on the Elegye having arisen by chance from one corpus or the other were at ... produced an excellent treatment of Ford's Stoicism , two valuable essays on his religious poems , and an outstanding ...
Page 10
... produced “ pretty chin ” in line 53 and then “ pretty bare ” in line 57 , much less the series “ fair love ” ( 18 ) , “ fair meadows " ( 28 ) , “ forehead fair ” ( 41 ) , “ fair brows " ( 43 ) , and “ Fairest neck ” ( 55 ) , not to ...
... produced “ pretty chin ” in line 53 and then “ pretty bare ” in line 57 , much less the series “ fair love ” ( 18 ) , “ fair meadows " ( 28 ) , “ forehead fair ” ( 41 ) , “ fair brows " ( 43 ) , and “ Fairest neck ” ( 55 ) , not to ...
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