B 1.3 Hand D - Spelling Argument

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From the course by University of London

Introduction to Who Wrote Shakespeare

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University of London

Introduction to Who Wrote Shakespeare

70 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

Whereas the handwriting argument attempts to establish Shakspere as

Hand D, the spelling argument attempts to establish Hand D as Shakespeare.

There are five unusual spellings in the Hand D section that are also

found in early printed texts of Shakespeare plays.

This is how Hand D spells 'silence' ('scilens').

The same error is found 18 times in Henry IV Part Two,

where it hasn't been automatically corrected because it is a character's name.

In the same play,

and in Hand D's text,

'German' is spelled 'Iarman',

an error only found elsewhere in the manuscript play John of Bordeaux,

apparently created by the transcriber.

Three other odd Hand D spellings: 'elamentes' for 'elements',

'a levenpence' for 'eleven pence',

and 'deule' for 'devil' occur in editions of Shakespeare's plays.

They do occur in other works too,

mostly poems, and 'a leven' for 'eleven' is in fact reasonably common until you add the pence.

But as Jackson puts it,

"all five exceptional Hand D spellings appear in early printed texts of Shakespeare's,

Whereas only one makes so much as a single appearance in all of the rest of

Literature Online: English Drama, some 1,200 works."

This sounds impressive, until you realize we have

absolutely no idea how

Shakespeare's play texts were transmitted from author to print house.

Scholars believe they can identify which texts were printed directly from

the author's papers, but we have no firm evidence that any of them were.

Here, we need to introduce an important point.

Penmanship does not equate to authorship.

The original script, it has been agreed,

was written by Anthony Munday.

Yet very few people believe Anthony Munday was the sole author of this play.

Not all of the hands identified as contributing to this manuscript were dramatists.

There is agreement that Hand C was a copyist, a scribe.

Hand D, just like Hand C,

uses phonetic spellings, indicating that

the text has been expanded from some kind of shorthand.

Let's imagine for sake of argument,

that the scribe responsible for writing out part of

Sir Thomas More also had a Hand in copying out the texts of John of Bordeaux,

Henry IV Part Two,

Love's Labour's Lost and Henry V,

where these odd spellings occur.

The spellings would not belong to the author, but to the scribe.

If Hand D was a theater company scribe,

that would be a perfectly good explanation for the shared spellings

between this part of Sir Thomas More and three Shakespeare plays.

We'll come back to this idea towards the end of this lesson.

Here's another thing to ponder.

Hand D is an appalling speller.

Jackson, enthusiastically endorsing his identity as Shakespeare,

lists 16 spellings which are unique to him across

all searchable texts on the LION database of early modern English literature.

Adicion, aucthoryty, ffraunce, inhumanyty,

liom, obedienc, another version of obedience,

offyc, parsnyp, quallyfy, shreef,

shrevaltry, supposytion, sylenet, thappostle, ynnovation.

But in enthusiastically supporting the case for Shakespeare as Hand D,

through five rare shared spellings,

the disparity between this instinctive phonetic speller and

the likely spelling habits of a widely-read author is forgotten.

Scholars have demonstrated that Shakespeare was a voracious reader.

From Holinshed's Chronicles to Philip Sidney's Arcadia,

from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Foxe's Book of Martyrs,

Shakespeare's reading across English literature covers hundreds of sources.

And not just English sources,

for it is apparent that Shakespeare read dozens of texts in

other languages, including the short stories of Bandello in Italian,

Ovid's Fasti in Latin,

and Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques in French.

Though variations in spelling were common in the period,

the spellings of the words that Hand D mangles so uniquely

were far more standardized than his versions suggest.

And given that Shakespeare could read the romance languages - Italian, Latin, and French -

it would seem extraordinary if he misspelled so comprehensively,

so many words with Latinate roots.

One only has to look at the spellings in letters

by other professional writers of the period,

to see that their spelling is far more standardized than

that of Hand D. See the letters of Thomas Nash,

Thomas Decker or Samuel Daniel for example.

Jonson, like Shakespeare, was a big reader.

He had a library of his own.

He came from humble beginnings but

his grammar school education and voracious reading habit

led to a relatively standardized spelling habit not

exhibited by Hand D. The spelling argument,

in other words, counts against itself.

Unless you are happy to believe these are the spellings of a well-read man.

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