'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 83
Page xii
... suggest , ' counterfeits ' of the authentic work . I believe that neither poem has any claim to be included in the canon , and that the arguments by which Taylor and Foster have managed to get them accepted fail to meet correct ...
... suggest , ' counterfeits ' of the authentic work . I believe that neither poem has any claim to be included in the canon , and that the arguments by which Taylor and Foster have managed to get them accepted fail to meet correct ...
Page 4
... suggest that it could hardly have been written by any other known poet ' ( Taylor 1985a , p . 12 ) . Well , you may call these categories ' scholarly jargon ' if you are writing in a non - scholarly journal , such as the New York Times ...
... suggest that it could hardly have been written by any other known poet ' ( Taylor 1985a , p . 12 ) . Well , you may call these categories ' scholarly jargon ' if you are writing in a non - scholarly journal , such as the New York Times ...
Page 5
... suggest that the line - division reflects scribal practice rather than authorial composition.1 That such variations were often made by scribes is shown , appropriately enough , by Tobias Alston , compiler of the Yale miscellany , who ...
... suggest that the line - division reflects scribal practice rather than authorial composition.1 That such variations were often made by scribes is shown , appropriately enough , by Tobias Alston , compiler of the Yale miscellany , who ...
Page 6
... suggests that in the period 1570 to 1630 eight - 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 ...
... suggests that in the period 1570 to 1630 eight - 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 ...
Page 16
... suggests that any such search is likely to be fruitless . ( 1985a , pp . 12–13 ; 1985b , p . 1447 ) On the basis of only a few weeks ' research , as he himself recorded , Taylor in effect challenged scholars to find any other candidate ...
... suggests that any such search is likely to be fruitless . ( 1985a , pp . 12–13 ; 1985b , p . 1447 ) On the basis of only a few weeks ' research , as he himself recorded , Taylor in effect challenged scholars to find any other candidate ...
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