Title page William Shakespeare's First Folio 1623

Shakespeare attribution studies is the scholarly attempt to determine the authorial boundaries of the

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

canon, the extent of his possible collaborative works, and the identity of his collaborators. The studies, which began in the late 17th century, are based on the axiom that every writer has a unique, measurable style that can be discriminated from that of other writers using techniques of

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in ...

originally developed for

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

and

classical studies Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. The studies include the assessment of different types of evidence, generally classified as internal, external, and stylistic, of which all are further categorised as traditional and non-traditional.

The Shakespeare canon

The Shakespeare canon is generally defined by the 36 plays published in the

First Folio ''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...

(1623), some of which are thought to be collaborations or to have been edited by others, and two co-authored plays, ''

Pericles, Prince of Tyre ''Pericles, Prince of Tyre'' is a Jacobean play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions over its authorship, as it was not included in the First Folio. It was pu ...

'' (1609) and ''

The Two Noble Kinsmen ''The Two Noble Kinsmen'' is a Jacobean tragicomedy, first published in 1634 and attributed jointly to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. Its plot derives from "The Knight's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales'', which had ...

'' (1634); two classical narrative poems, '' Venus and Adonis'' (1593) and ''

The Rape of Lucrece ''The Rape of Lucrece'' (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Roman noblewoman Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, '' Venus and Adonis'' (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, ...

'' (1594); a collection of 154 sonnets and "

A Lover's Complaint "A Lover's Complaint" is a narrative poem written by William Shakespeare, and published as part of the 1609 quarto of '' Shakespeare's Sonnets''. It was published by Thomas Thorpe. "A Lover’s Complaint" is an example of the female-voiced co ...

", both published 1609 in the same volume; two passages from the manuscript play ''Sir Thomas More'', and a few other works. In recent years, the anonymous history play '' The Reign of King Edward III'' (1596) has been added to the canon, with

Brian Vickers Brian Lee Vickers (born October 24, 1983) is an American professional stock car and sports car racing driver. He last drove the No. 14 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing as an interim driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the injured Tony ...

proposing that 40% of the play was written by Shakespeare, and the remainder by

Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of ''The Spanish Tragedy'', and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, ...

(1558–1594).

''The Booke of Sir Thomas More''

''Sir Thomas More'' is an Elizabethan play that depicts scenes from the life of

Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

. It is believed that it was originally written by playwrights

Anthony Munday Anthony Munday (or Monday) (1560?10 August 1633) was an English playwright and miscellaneous writer. He was baptized on 13 October 1560 in St Gregory by St Paul's, London, and was the son of Christopher Munday, a stationer, and Jane Munday. He ...

and

Henry Chettle Henry Chettle (c. 1564 – c. 1606) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era, best known for his pamphleteering. Early life The son of Robert Chettle, a London dyer, he was apprenticed in 1577 and became a me ...

, then perhaps several years later heavily revised by another team of playwrights, including

Thomas Heywood Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was an English playwright, actor, and author. His main contributions were to late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. He is best known for his masterpiece ''A Woman Killed with Kindness'', a ...

, Thomas Dekker, and possibly Shakespeare, who is generally credited with two passages in the play. It survives only in a single manuscript, now owned by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

.Michael Dobson, Stanley W. Wells, (eds.) ''The Oxford companion to Shakespeare,'' Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 433 The suggestion that Shakespeare had a hand in certain scenes was first made in 1871–72 by Richard Simpson and

James Spedding James Spedding (28 June 1808 – 9 March 1881) was an English author, chiefly known as the editor of the works of Francis Bacon. Life He was born in Cumberland, the younger son of a country squire, and was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Trinit ...

, based on stylistic impressions. In 1916, the

paleographer Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

Sir

Edward Maunde Thompson Sir Edward Maunde Thompson (4 May 1840 – 14 September 1929) was a British palaeographer and Principal Librarian and first Director of the British Museum. He is noted for his handbook of Greek and Latin palaeography and for his study of Will ...

judged the addition in "Hand D" to be in Shakespeare's handwriting. However, there is no explicit external evidence for Shakespeare's hand in the play, so the identification continues to be debated.

A Funeral Elegy

In 1989, Donald Foster attribute
''A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter''
to William Shakespeare on the basis of a stylometric computer analysis of its grammatical patterns and idiosyncratic word usage. The attribution received much attention and was accepted into the canon by several highly respected Shakespeare editors. However, analyses published in 2002 by Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers showed that the elegy more likely was one of John Ford's non-dramatic works, not Shakespeare's, a view to which Foster conceded.

Footnotes

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

"An Application of Authorship Attribution by Intertextual Distance in English" by Thomas Merriam

at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...