B 1.1 Shakespeare and the Hand D additions to Sir Thomas More

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From the course by University of London

Introduction to Who Wrote Shakespeare

65 ratings

University of London

Introduction to Who Wrote Shakespeare

65 ratings

This free course from the University of London explores critical thinking, and the interpretation of texts, through the Shakespeare authorship question. Using doubt about Shakespeare’s authorship as our playground, we will explore the key concept of authorship attribution, while developing skills in literary analysis, interpretation, and argument. Through forensic exploration of key texts, you will learn why Shakespeare’s authorship is questioned, and what evidence is cited on both sides of the debate. For those of you interested in exploring the works of Shakespeare from a new angle, or just wanting to hone your analytical thinking skills, this course offers an introduction to a fascinating area of interest. Those of you already interested in the Shakespeare authorship question will be encouraged to question your own assumptions in fruitful ways. Whether undertaken as a standalone course, or as preparation for the University of London BA in English, this course will be food for thought.

From the lesson

The Man and the Author

In this module we’ll look at questions of identity; chiefly at arguments that attempt to link William Shakspere the man to William Shakespeare the author – or to sever that link. The arguments surrounding “Hand D” in Sir Thomas More claim to establish a firm link between Shakspere and Shakespeare, and Shakespeare’s authorship of the “Hand D” pages is now being presented as fact, so it’s important to understand the evidence, arguments, and reasons for this attribution. You’ll look in detail at the non-Stratfordian argument that Shakespeare authorship doubt was first expressed within only four years after the first “Shakespeare” publication in the works of John Marston and Joseph Hall. You’ll consider some of the key Stratfordian and non-Stratfordian arguments related to William Shakspere’s coat of arms. And lastly, you’ll look critically at an important cornerstone of Shakespeare biography, Robert Greene’s reference to a plagiarising actor, the “upstart Crow”.

B 1.1 Shakespeare and the Hand D additions to Sir Thomas More4:21

B 1.2 Hand D - Handwriting Argument8:58

B 1.3 Hand D - Spelling Argument5:51

B 1.4 Hand D - Content Argument6:42

B 1.5 Hand D - Author or Scribe?8:20

Meet the Instructors

Ros Barber
Dr
English and Comparative Literature

[MUSIC]

When it comes to the work of Diana Price on literary paper trails,

there is one item which many orthodox scholars disagree with,

and that is the claim that Shakespeare left no manuscripts in his hand.

Most, but not all, orthodox scholars believe that we have a sample of

Shakespeare's handwriting in a play called Sir Thomas More.

Sometime in the late 16th century, a playwright called Anthony Munday

wrote a history play which we know as Sir Thomas More.

We have the manuscript of this play,

and it shows that the text was altered by several people

who can be differentiated by their handwriting.

When the manuscript was first analyzed,

the writing of each contributor was given a letter of the alphabet:

Hand A, Hand B, Hand C, etc.

A person identified originally as Hand D added three pages to the manuscript.

In the second half of the 19th century,

it was first suggested that Hand D might have been William Shakespeare.

But before we go further,

let me give you some background to this apparent discovery.

In 1857, Delia Bacon launched the Shakespeare authorship question by

publishing a book called The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded,

which proposed the works had been jointly authored by a number of different writers,

possibly under the direction of her namesake, Sir Francis Bacon.

Her doubts about the authorship of the Shakespeare works,

like the doubts of many people before and since,

had been provoked partly by the absence of personal and contemporaneous testimony

linking the supposed author to the works attributed to him.

One of the things that seemed most problematic was the absence of any

manuscript or partial manuscripts in Shakespeare's own hand.

It is probably not surprising, therefore, that the search for

such evidence intensified at this point.

And that in 1871, 14 years after Delia Bacon's book was published,

a scholar claimed to have found a piece of the missing evidence.

The suggestion was that Shakespeare had made the additions to Sir Thomas More,

because elements of Hand D could be matched to William Shakspere's six

signatures.

Remember what we learned about confirmation bias, and

how it leads people to search for evidence that backs up what they already believe.

The arguments made for this theory were not strong, however,

and the authorship question rumbled until in 1920 it received a strong boost

from the publication of J Thomas Looney's book, Shakespeare Identified.

Which proposed Edward de Vere,

17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of Shakespeare's plays and poems.

Oxfordianism became very popular,

and those who were persuaded by Oxfordian theory included many prominent figures,

including the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

The need to shore up the traditional authorship at this point became intense

and three years later, a group of scholars published a book of essays,

all of which argued from different perspectives that Shakespeare did indeed

have a hand in Sir Thomas More,

and attempted to demonstrate that Shakspere was Shakespeare by tying

the signatures to the manuscript.

This was explicitly in order to counter the growing interest in the authorship

question, and Oxfordian theory in particular.

In the introduction to the volume, the editor A W Pollard wrote:

"if Shakespeare wrote these three pages, the discrepant theories

which unite in regarding the Stratford man as a mere mask concealing

the activity of some noble lord come crashing to the ground.""

In the next lecture we'll look at the evidence and arguments in detail.

[MUSIC]

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