B 1.4 Hand D - Content 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

62 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

The third set of arguments also attempts to establish

Hand D as Shakespeare, and arise from the content.

Scholars argue that Hand D's additions were composed by

Shakespeare on the basis of certain parallelisms:

patterns of language and ideas that

Hand D's additions to Sir Thomas More shared with works in the Shakespeare canon.

Parallelisms are notoriously unsatisfactory proofs

of authorship as two writers can come up with the same metaphor,

derive their ideas from a common source or indeed from each other's work,

whether through influence or petty plagiarism.

One parallel lies in the idea expressed in Hand D's addition that degree,

(which is to say, social status)

must be respected, and that an ordered system of

government is necessary to prevent men from destroying each other,

expressed in a metaphor of feeding.

Here is the passage from the additions to Sir Thomas More:

"For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self same hand,

self reasons, and self right,

Would shark on you,

and men like ravenous fishes / Would feed on one another.

And from Coriolanus:

"You cry against the noble Senate who / (Under the gods) keep you in awe,

which else / Would feed on one another?"

A second parallel is the way that the difficulties of

speaking to an angry mob are compared in

a metaphor to a river that has burst, and the crowd's five repetitions of the word 'no'.

In Sir Thomas More,

the citizens say: "We'll not hear my lord of Surrey.

No, no, no, no, no."

And More comments, "While they are o'er the bank of their obedience

Thus will they bear down all things."

In Coriolanus, Cominius refers to the crowd "Whose rage doth

rend / Like interrupted waters and o'erbear / What they are used to bear."

45 lines later, when Menenius tells the crowd that Coriolanus is consul,

the citizens reply, "No,

no, no, no, no."

There are other resemblances.

In Coriolanus, a character is said to be holding a city "like

a fawning greyhound in the leash / To let him slip at will."

Whereas, in Sir Thomas More,

More speaks of how rioting against foreigners might "lead the majesty

of law in liom / To slip him like a hound."

But this is hardly compelling;

the image of slipping a hound from its leash isn't unique to

Shakespeare and is not used the same way in these texts.

In all, R. W. Chambers identified

eleven resemblances in the way those in authority spoke to the mob,

five or six of which he considered "striking".

He found further similarities between the way Shakespeare and the author of

the Hand D editions depicted the citizens, who are

absurd in speech, especially when most trying to be logical.

They resent scorn and are stung to passion by the contempt of the Sergeant and of Surrey.

They are easily swayed and excited and are in

a mood as murderous as that of the citizens who would kill

Marcius in Coriolanus or the citizens who do kill Cinna the Poet in Julius Caesar.

But the arguments from parallelisms are considered weak

when advanced in support of other causes.

When, for example, Calvin Hoffman promoted the case

for Christopher Marlowe as the author of Shakespeare's works,

he did it chiefly on the basis of 190 perceived parallels between the two canons.

Many of these are weak,

common turns of phrase,

or in one instance, a clear case of Shakespeare deliberately quoting Marlowe.

But there are also many parallel lines and phrases linking

the Marlowe and Shakespeare canons that are much

stronger than those found in the Hand D additions.

Peter Farey took a 32-line speech from Marlowe's Edward II and demonstrated that

every single line had a verbal parallel line or

phrase within the acknowledged Shakespeare canon.

No orthodox scholar to my knowledge has

accepted this as evidence that Marlowe wrote the works of Shakespeare.

But how can it be correct to use parallel modes of expression as

proof of authorship in one case but not in the other?

In the case of Hand D,

these patterns were advanced on the basis that the handwriting and spelling arguments

had already established a strong case for Hand D being Shakespeare.

But as I hope I've demonstrated,

the spelling and handwriting arguments are actually very shaky,

therefore any parallels of

expression between the works of Shakespeare and the contents of

the 147 lines written out by Hand D should be treated with extreme caution.

If a methodology is widely acknowledged a poor one,

it does not suddenly become a better one because we think our point already proven.

And there's another problem.

It was noticed early on that three pages added to Sir Thomas More by Hand D

have a great deal in common with the Jack Cade scenes of Henry VI Part 2.

R. W. Chambers found seven features which linked them.

But recent work in the fields of computer stylometry,

which attempts to identify

an author's style through various computational tests on the text,

suggests that the Jack Cade scenes of

Henry VI Part 2 are likely to have been written by Christopher Marlowe,

and in the New Oxford Shakespeare,

Marlowe was credited as co-author of the play and the writer of these scenes.

This would explain perhaps why Jack Cade,

who according to the historical sources of the time was an Irishman,

was given in Henry VI Part 2 to be a headstrong Kentish man;

Marlowe, having been born and raised in Kent, was claiming Cade as one of his county's own.

Given the acknowledged similarities between

Marlowe's plays and Shakespeare's early works and

the acknowledged similarities between Hand D's additions

and the Jack Cade scenes of Henry VI Part 2,

it is entirely possible that it was Marlowe's words which

Hand D added to the manuscript of Sir Thomas More.

In the next lecture,

I'll introduce a different reading of

the Hand D evidence that puts all of these arguments into context.

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