Spelling Of Shakespeare's Name
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William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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 ...
's name has varied over time. It was not consistently spelled any single way during his lifetime (1564–1616), including by Shakespeare himself, in manuscript or in printed form; historians note that this was not unusual for documents in the
Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female ...
. After his death the name was spelled variously by editors of his work, and the spelling was not fixed until well into the 20th century. The standard spelling of the surname as "Shakespeare" was the most common published form in Shakespeare's lifetime, but it was not one of the inconsistent variations used in his own handwritten signatures. It was, however, the spelling used as a printed signature to the dedications of the first editions of his poems '' Venus and Adonis'' in 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 (Shakespeare poem), Venus and Adonis'' (1593), Shakespeare had included ...
'' in 1594. It is also the spelling used 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 ...
, the definitive collection of his plays published in 1623, after his death. The spelling of the name was later modernised, "Shakespear" gaining popular usage in the 18th century, which was largely replaced by "Shakspeare" from the late 18th through the early 19th century. In the Romantic and Victorian eras the spelling "Shakspere", as used in the poet's own signature, became more widely adopted in the belief that this was the most authentic version. From the mid-19th to the early 20th century, a wide variety of spellings were used for various reasons; although, following the publication of the Cambridge and Globe editions of Shakespeare in the 1860s, "Shakespeare" began to gain ascendancy. It later became a habit of writers who believed the
fringe theory A fringe theory is an idea or a viewpoint that differs significantly from the accepted scholarship of the time within its field. Fringe theories include the models and proposals of fringe science, as well as similar ideas in other areas of schola ...
that proposes up to 80 others who are the "someone else" who wrote the plays to use different spellings when they were referring to the "real" playwright and to the man from
Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon ( ), commonly known as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon (district), Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of Engl ...
. With rare exceptions, the spelling is now standardised in English-speaking countries as "Shakespeare".


Shakespeare's signatures

There are six surviving signatures written by Shakespeare himself. These are all attached to legal documents. The six signatures appear on four documents: * a deposition in the '' Bellott v Mountjoy'' case, dated 11 May 1612 * the purchase of a house in Blackfriars, London, dated 10 March 1613 * the mortgage of the same house, dated 11 March 1613 * his Last Will & Testament, which contains three signatures, one on each page, dated 25 March 1616 The signatures appear as follows: * Willm Shakp * William Shaksper * Wm Shakspe * William Shakspere * Willm Shakspere * By me William Shakspeare Most of these are abbreviated versions of the name, using breviographic conventions of the time. This was common practice. For example
Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; – 13 January 1599 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the House of Tudor, Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is re ...
sometimes wrote his name out in full (spelling his first name Edmund or Edmond), but often used the abbreviated forms "Ed: spser" or "Edm: spser". The three signatures on the will were first reproduced by the 18th-century scholar George Steevens, in the form of facsimile engravings. The two relating to the house sale were identified in 1768, and the document itself was acquired by
Edmond Malone Edmond Malone (4 October 174125 May 1812) was an Irish barrister, Shakespearean scholar and Literary editor, editor of the works of William Shakespeare. Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his ...
. Photographs of these five signatures were published by
Sidney Lee Sir Sidney Lee (5 December 1859 – 3 March 1926) was an English biographer, writer, and critic. Biography Lee was born Solomon Lazarus Lee in 1859 at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London. He was educated at the City of London School and ...
. The final signature was discovered by 1909 by Charles William Wallace. Though not considered genuine, there is a signature on the fly-leaf of a copy of John Florio's translation of the works of Montaigne, which reads "Willm. Shakspere"; it was accepted by some scholars until the late 20th century. Another possibly authentic signature appears on a copy of
William Lambarde William Lambarde (18 October 1536 – 19 August 1601) was an English antiquarian, writer on legal subjects, and politician. He is particularly remembered as the author of ''A Perambulation of Kent'' (1576), the first English county history; ''Ei ...
's ''Archaionomia'' (1568). Though smudged, the spelling appears to be "Shakspere".


Other spellings

The writer David Kathman has tabulated the variations in the spelling of Shakespeare's name as reproduced in Samuel Schoenbaum's ''William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life''. He states that of "non-literary references" in Shakespeare's lifetime (1564–1616) the spelling "Shakespeare" appears 71 times, while "Shakespere" appears second with 27 usages. These are followed by "Shakespear" (16); "Shakspeare" (13); "Shackspeare" (12) and "Shakspere" (8). There are also many other variations that appear once or in small numbers. Critics of Kathman's approach have pointed out that it is skewed by repetitions of a spelling in the same document, gives each occurrence the same statistical weight irrespective of context, and does not adequately take historical and chronological factors into account. R.C. Churchill notes that name variations were far from unusual in the
Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female ...
: Kathman notes that the spelling is typically more uniform in printed versions than in manuscript versions, and that there is a greater variety of spelling in provincial documents than in metropolitan ones.


Printed spellings

Fifty-eight
quarto Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...
(or ''Q'') editions of Shakespeare's plays and five editions of poetry were published before 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 ...
. On 20 of the plays, the author is not credited. On 15 title pages, his name is hyphenated, "Shakespeare", 13 of these spellings being on the title pages of just three plays, ''
Richard II Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent. R ...
'' ( Q2 1598, Q3 1598, Q4 1608, and Q5 1615), ''
Richard III Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Boswor ...
'' (Q2 1598, Q3 1602, Q4 1605, Q5 1612, and Q6 1622), and ''
Henry IV, Part 1 ''Henry IV, Part 1'' (often written as ''1 Henry IV'') is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. The play dramatises part of the reign of King Henry IV of England, beginning with the Battle of H ...
'' (Q2 1599, Q3 1604, Q4 1608, and Q5 1613). A hyphen is also present in the first quarto of ''
Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'' (1603) and the second of ''
King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...
'' (1619). The name printed at the end of the poem '' The Phoenix and the Turtle'', which was published in a collection of verse in 1601, is hyphenated, as is the name on the title page and the poem '' A Lover's Complaint'' of '' Shake-speares Sonnets'' (1609). It is used in the cast list of Ben Jonson's '' Sejanus His Fall'', and in six literary
allusion Allusion, or alluding, is a figure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context, so that the audience must realize the connection in the ...
s published between 1594 and 1623.John Louis Haney, ''The Name of William Shakespeare'', Egerton, 1906, pp. 27–30. The un-hyphenated spelling "Shakespeare" (or Shakeſpeare, with a
long s The long s, , also known as the medial ''s'' or initial ''s'', is an Archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter , found mostly in works from the late 8th to early 19th centuries. It replaced one or both of the letters ''s'' in a double-''s ...
) appears on 22 of the 58 quartos. It is spelled this way in the first quartos of ''
The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan taken out on behalf of his dear friend, Bassanio, and provided by a ...
'' (1600), ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...
'' (1600), ''
Much Ado About Nothing ''Much Ado About Nothing'' is a Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.See textual notes to ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in ''The Norton Shakespeare'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ) p. ...
'' (1600), ''
The Merry Wives of Windsor ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' or ''Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a ref ...
'' (1602), ''
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 p ...
'' (1609), ''
Troilus and Cressida ''The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida'', often shortened to ''Troilus and Cressida'' ( or ), is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1602. At Troy during the Trojan War, Troilus and Cressida begin a love affair. Cressida is forc ...
'' (1609), ''
Othello ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'', often shortened to ''Othello'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare around 1603. Set in Venice and Cyprus, the play depicts the Moorish military commander Othello as he is manipulat ...
'' (1622). The second, or "good", quarto of ''Hamlet'' (1604) also uses this spelling. It is also spelled this way on the misattributed quarto of '' Sir John Oldcastle'' (1600; 1619) and on the verse collection ''
The Passionate Pilgrim ''The Passionate Pilgrim'' (1598 or 1599) is an anthology of 21 poems collected and published by William Jaggard that were attributed to " W. Shakespeare" on the title page, only five of which are considered authentically Shakespearean. These ...
'' (1599). Rarer spellings are "Shakspeare" on the first quarto of ''King Lear'' (1608), and "Shakeſpere", in the first quarto of ''Love's Labour's Lost'' (1598). On the misattributed quarto '' A Yorkshire Tragedy'' (1608) his name is spelled "Shakſpeare", a spelling that also appears on the quarto of '' The Two Noble Kinsmen'' (1634), which was published after the First Folio. James S. Shapiro argues that Shakespeare's name caused difficulties for typesetters, and that is one reason why the form with the "e" in the centre is most commonly used, and why it is sometimes hyphenated. Kathman argues that any name that could be divided into two clear parts was liable to be hyphenated, especially if the parts could be interpreted as distinct words.


Spellings in later publications

Later editions of Shakespeare's works adopted differing spellings, in accordance with fashions of modernised spelling of the day, or, later, of attempts to adopt what was believed to be the most historically accurate version of the name. When he was referred to in foreign languages, he acquired even more variant spellings. 18th-century French critics were known to use "Shakpear, Shakespehar, Shakespeart, or Shakees Pear."R.C. Churchill, ''Shakespeare and His Betters: A History and a Criticism of the Attempts Which Have Been Made to Prove That Shakespeare's Works Were Written by Others'', Max Reinhardt, London, 1958, p. 20.


Shakespear

A shift from "Shakespeare" to the modernised spelling "Shakespear" occurs in the second printing of the
Third Folio The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall volumes; quartos are smaller, roughly half the size. The publications of the latter are usually a ...
, published in 1664 by Philip Chetwinde. This retained the original title page, but included a section with additional plays. The title page of this new add-on adopted the new spelling. It was also adopted by other authors of the Restoration Era. John Downes and
Nahum Tate Nahum Tate ( ; 1652 – 30 July 1715) was an Anglo-Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became Poet Laureate in 1692. Tate is best known for '' The History of King Lear'', his 1681 adaptation of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'', and for his libr ...
both use the spelling. This was followed by 18th-century writers. Shakespeare's first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, also spelled the name "Shakespear", in his book ''Some Account of the Life &c. of Mr. William Shakespear'' (1709) and in his new edition of the works. This spelling was followed by
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...
in his edition of the ''Works of Shakespear'' (1725) and
George Sewell George Sewell (31 August 19242 April 2007) was an English actor, best known for his television roles, but also active on stage and in films. Early life and early career The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist, Sewell left school at the age o ...
(''The Works of Mr. William Shakespear'').Simon Jarvis, ''Scholars and Gentlemen: Shakespearian Textual Criticism and Representations of Scholarly Labour, 1725–1765'', Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 50. The spelling with an "e" at the end persisted, however. Pope's rival Lewis Theobald retained it in his edition, ''Shakespeare Restored'' (1726), which pointedly rejected attempts to modernise and sanitise the original works. The "Shakespear" spelling continued to be used by scholars throughout the 18th century, including William Warburton. However, many, like Theobald, preferred the First Folio spelling, most notably
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
. "Shakespear" was less widely used into the 19th and 20th centuries, increasingly by advocates of rational spelling.
William Hazlitt William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary criticism, literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history ...
used it in his book '' Characters of Shakespear's Plays''.
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
, a strong advocate of spelling reform, insisted on the use of this spelling in all his publications.


Archaising spellings


Shakspeare

Archival material relating to Shakespeare was first identified by 18th-century scholars, most notably Edmond Malone, who recorded variations in the spelling of the name. Malone declared a preference for the spelling "Shakspeare", using it in his major publications including his 1790 sixteen-volume edition of the complete works of the playwright. George Steevens also used this spelling. Steevens and Malone had both examined Shakespeare's will, and were convinced that the final signature was spelled this way, which also conformed to the spelling used on Shakespeare's tomb. However, Malone admitted that the signature was difficult to read and that the others were clearly spelled without the final "a". This spelling continued to be popular throughout the later
Georgian period The Georgian era was a period in British history from 1714 to , named after the Hanoverian kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. The definition of the Georgian era is also often extended to include the relatively short reign ...
. Indeed "virtually every edition" of the playwright's work in the early 19th century before 1840 used this spelling. Even German scholars such as
Friedrich Schlegel Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (after 1814: von) Schlegel ( ; ; 10 March 1772 – 12 January 1829) was a German literary critic, philosopher, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figures of Jena Roma ...
and
Ludwig Tieck Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romanticism, Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Tieck w ...
adopted it.John Louis Haney,
The Name of William Shakespeare: a Study in Orthography
', Egerton, 1906, pp. 42–50
The antiquarian Joseph Hunter was the first to publish all known variations of the spelling of the name, which he did in 1845 in his book ''Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare''. He gives an account of what was known at the time of the history of the name of Shakespeare, and lists all its variant forms, including the most idiosyncratic instances such as "Shagsper" and "Saxpere". He linked this to a history of the Shakespeare family and its descendants, though he was not able to add much to the material already identified by Edmond Malone. Hunter noted that "there has been endless variety in the form in which this name has been written." He criticised Malone and Steevens, writing that "in an evil hour they agreed, for no apparent reason, to abolish the e in the first syllable."Joseph Hunter,
Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare
', London, Nichols, 1845, pp. 5–8.
Hunter argued that there were probably two pronunciations of the name, a Warwickshire version and a London version, so that "the poet himself might be called by his honest neighbours at Stratford and Shottery, Mr. Shaxper, while his friends in London honoured him, as we know historically they did, with the more stately name of Shakespeare." Kathman argues that while it is possible that different pronunciations existed, there is no good reason to think so on the basis of spelling variations.


Shakspere

According to Hunter it was in 1785 that the antiquarian John Pinkerton first revived the spelling "Shakspere" in the belief that this was the correct form as "traced by the poet's own hand" in his signatures. Pinkerton did so in ''Letters on Literature'', published under the pen-name Robert Heron. However, a later scholar identified a reference in ''
The Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1907, ceasing publication altogether in 1922. It was the first to use the term ''m ...
'' in 1784 to the deplorable "new fashion of writing Shakespeare's name SHAKSPERE", which suggests that the trend had been emerging since Steevens published facsimiles of the signatures in 1778. Nevertheless, Pinkerton gave it wide circulation. The "Shakspere" spelling was quickly adopted by a number of writers and in 1788 was given official status by the London publisher Bell in its editions of the plays.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...
, who published a large quantity of influential literature on the playwright, used both this and the "Shakspeare" spelling. His major works were published after his death with the new spelling. The spelling continued to be preferred by many writers during the Victorian era, including the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossett ...
in '' The Germ''. The matter was widely debated. ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' became the forum for discussion of the topic. There was a heated debate in 1787, followed by another in 1840 when the spelling was promoted in a book by Frederic Madden, who insisted that new manuscript evidence proved that the poet always wrote his name "Shakspere".
Isaac D'Israeli Isaac D'Israeli (11 May 1766 – 19 January 1848) was a British writer, scholar and the father of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. He is best known for his essays and his associations with other me ...
wrote a strongly worded letter condemning this spelling as a "barbaric curt shock". There followed a lengthy correspondence, mainly between John Bruce, who insisted on "Shakspere" because "a man's own mode of spelling his own name ought to be followed" and John William Burgon, who argued that "names are to be spelt as they are spelt in the printed books of the majority of well-educated persons", insisting that this rule authorised the spelling "Shakspeare". Various other contributors added to the debate. A number of other articles covered the spelling dispute in the 19th century, in which the "Shakspere" spelling generally was promoted on the grounds that it was the poet's own.
Albert Richard Smith Albert Richard Smith (24 May 181623 May 1860) was an English physician, author, entertainer, and mountaineer. Biography Literary career Smith was born at Chertsey, Surrey. The son of a surgeon, he studied medicine in London and in Paris, an ...
in the satirical magazine ''The Month'' claimed that the controversy was finally "set to rest" by the discovery of a manuscript which proved that the spelling changed with the weather, "When the sun shone he made his 'A's, / When wet he took his 'E's." In 1879 ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' published an article on the dispute, reporting on a pamphlet by James Halliwell-Phillipps attacking the "Shakspere" trend.
New York Times
', 27 December 1879.
Many of the most important Victorian Shakespeare publishers and scholars used this spelling, including Charles Knight, whose ''The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakspere'' was very popular, and
Edward Dowden Edward Dowden (; 3 May 18434 April 1913) was an Irish critic, professor, and poet. Biography He was the son of John Wheeler Dowden, a merchant and landowner, and was born at Cork, three years after his brother John, who became Bishop of Edi ...
, in ''Shakspere: a critical study of his mind and art''. In Britain the New Shakspere Society was founded in 1873 by
Frederick James Furnivall Frederick James Furnivall (4 February 1825 – 2 July 1910) was an English philologist, best known as one of the co-creators of the '' New English Dictionary''. He founded a number of learned societies on early English literature and made pion ...
and, in America, the Shakspere Society of Philadelphia adopted the spelling. The former folded in 1894, but the latter still exists under its original name. The spelling was still common in the early to mid 20th century, for example in Brander Matthews', ''Shakspere as a Playwright'' (1913), Alwin Thaler's ''Shakspere to Sheridan'' (1922), and T.W. Baldwin's ''Shakspere's five-act structure'' (1947).


Shakespeare

The spelling "Shakespeare" was vigorously defended by Isaac D'Israeli in his original letter to the ''Gentleman's Magazine''. Joseph Hunter also expressly stated it to be the most appropriate spelling. D'Israeli argued that the printed spellings of the poems would have been chosen by the author. He also insisted that the spelling represents the proper pronunciation, evidenced by puns on the words "shake" and "spear" in Shakespeare's contemporaries. Hunter also argued that the spelling should follow established pronunciation and pointed to the poems, stating that "we possess ''printed evidence'' tolerably uniform from the person himself" supporting "Shakespeare". Although Dowden, the most influential voice in Shakespearean criticism in the last quarter of the 19th century, used the spelling "Shakspere", between 1863 and 1866 the nine-volume ''The Works of William Shakespeare'', edited by William George Clark, John Glover, and William Aldis Wright, all Fellows of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, had been published by the university. This edition (soon generally known as "The Cambridge Shakespeare") spelled the name "Shakespeare". A related edition, including Shakespeare's text from the Cambridge Shakespeare but without the scholarly apparatus, was issued in 1864 as "The Globe Edition". This became so popular that it remained in print and established itself as a standard text for almost a century. With the ubiquity and authority of the Cambridge and Globe editions, backed by the impeccable academic credentials of the Cambridge editors, the spelling of the name as "Shakespeare" soon dominated in publications of works by and about Shakespeare. Although this form had been used occasionally in earlier publications, and other spellings continued to appear, from that point "Shakespeare" gained the dominance which it retains to this day.


Shakespeare authorship question

When the advocates of the Shakespeare authorship question began to claim that someone other than Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays, they drew on the fact that variant spellings existed to distinguish between the supposed pseudonym used by the hidden author and the name of the man born in Stratford, who is claimed to have acted as a "front man". The use of different spellings was sometimes simply a convenience, to clarify which "Shakespeare" was being discussed. In other cases it was linked to an argument about the meaning supposed to be attached to "Shakespeare" as a pseudonym. In some instances it arose from a belief that different spelling literally implied, as R.C. Churchill puts it, "that there must have been two men: one, the actor, whom they mostly call 'Shaksper' or 'Shakspere', the other the real author (Bacon, Derby, Rutland, etc.) whom they call 'Shakespeare' or 'Shake-speare' (with the hyphen)." In some cases there were even imagined to be three Shakespeares: the author, the actor and the Stratford man. The choice of spelling for the Stratford man varied. Because he is known to have signed his name "Shakspere" when writing it out in full, this is the spelling sometimes adopted. However, H.N. Gibson notes that outlandish spellings seem sometimes to be chosen purely for the purpose of ridiculing him, by making the name seem vulgar and rustic, a characteristic especially typical of Baconians such as Edwin Durning-Lawrence: Some authors claim that the use of a hyphen in early published versions of the name is an indication that it is a pseudonym. They argue that fictional descriptive names (such as "Master Shoe-tie" and "Sir Luckless Woo-all") were often hyphenated in plays, and pseudonyms such as "Tom Tell-truth" were also sometimes hyphenated.. Kathman argues that this is not the case, and that real names were as likely to be hyphenated as pseudonyms. He states that the pseudonym " Martin Marprelate" was sometimes hyphenated, but usually not. Robert Waldegrave, who printed the Marprelate tracts, never hyphenated the name, but did hyphenate his own: "If hyphenation was supposed to indicate a pseudonym, it is curious that Waldegrave repeatedly hyphenated his own name while failing to hyphenate an undisputed pseudonym in the same texts."


See also

* List of Shakespeare plays in quarto * Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Shakespeare's contemporary, signed his surname as ''Cerbantes''. * Chespirito was a Mexican actor. His stage name means "little Shakespeare" as pronounced in colloquial Spanish: "shespir" + diminutive -"ito".


Notes


References

* * * * {{Authority control William Shakespeare Shakespeare authorship question Spelling Shakespearean scholarship Palaeography Early editions of Shakespeare
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 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 natio ...