The questionable Shakespeare plays

[shaxper]

Just trying to formulate a list of pays out there that have a reasonale chance of having been written by Shakespeare, but have not been attributed to him.  I thought I knew all or most of them, but the coming RSC season has taught me otherwise.  Here are the ones that I am aware of:

Love's Labour Won A play that was entered into the station's register and attributed to Shakespeare but was not printed in the Folios and has not survived in Quartos.  Many critics believe this was simply an alternate title for All's Well That End's Well.

Cordino I know almost nothing about this one, other than that a review of the play attributed it to Shakespeare and gave a basic plot synopsis, but no copies of the play have survived.

Two Noble Kinsmen Attributed to both Shakespeare and Fletcher.  The common belief is that Shakespeare was training Fletcher to replace him and helped Fletcher write it, but there is no agreement on how much of the play was written by Shakespeare.  It's even possible that his name was simply added to the play in order to attract more of an audience that would then ome to know Fletcher.

Ur Hamlet The earlier version of Hamet which no longer survives.  From what I understand, most critics believe it was either written by Kydd or Shakespeare.

Edward III I'd never heard of this one until The RSC decided to produce it this season, claiming that is is often attributed to Shakespeare.


That's all that comes to mind, at the moment.  Does anyone know of any others?  

[Bardolph]

The list of WS's apocrypha is generally taken to refer to these fourteen plays.  In some cases there are different schools of thought.  Charles Hamilton holds that a play called The Second Maiden's Tragedy is actually Cardenio by a working subtitle.  There is not widespread scholarly acceptance of his claim.  This list includes the known and existing writings that were attributed to him during or near his lifetime.  Love's Labour's Wonne doesn't appear on the list because it's a 'lost' play or possibly a misidentified play such as Shrew or Much Ado.  Those who don't subscribe to Hamilton's views likewise class Cardenio as a lost play.  The Ur Hamlet is also subject to much debate.  There is evidence to suggest it's existence but that evidence is anecdotal rather than consisting of something like a entry in the Stationer's Register.  Anyway here are the fourteen.  

   ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM
   LOCRINE  
   EDWARD III  
   MUCEDORUS          
   SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE  
   THOMAS LORD CROMWELL  
   THE LONDON PRODIGAL  
   THE PURITAN  
   A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY  
   THE MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON  
   FAIR EM  
   THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
   THE BIRTH OF MERLIN
   SIR THOMAS MOORE


Here's a link to a comprehensive web article on the above plays:

www.webincunabula.com/html/english/books/a/shakapoc.html

[MelanieS]

Eric Sams in his Shakespearean biography seems to
think that "The Taming of A Shrew" was WS's first
version of "The Taming of The Shrew". Apart from
Katarina and Christopher Sly, all the other characters
have different names, and the plot takes place in
Athens.

MelanieS

[shaxper]

Thank you for those thorough answers  

[Ganymede]

Hey, man, maybe Shakey didn't want us to attribute those plays to him.  Has anyone read any of them?  Are they any good?  If I ever become famous, I hope they don't dig through my hard drive and find the crap that I wrote in my "early years."  

[Bardolph]

It's hard to say what WS might have wanted if he had written these works.  It's even hard to say what he would have wanted for The Sonnets.  These were published in 1609 under the name Shakespeare's Sonnets, apparently without influence from him.  Since he left no books in his will, assuming they hadn't all been burned in the fire at The Globe, perhaps the idea of a literary legacy wasn't on his mind at all.  Of the plays listed I've read his excerpt from Thomas Moore.  It's very good.  I believe that he wrote that.  I've also read a great deal of praise for Edward III, perhaps the most staged of the listed works.  I can't speak for the others.  I have The Birth of Merlin right here but I've never really studied it.  

Many historians and literary critics have dug through his known works, looking for early dramatic experiments.  Many of them consider R&J and Titus to be apprentice Tragedies, with LLL and Shrew as apprentice comedies.  Others claim that the list above might show early WS with an unformed idea of the stage.  Still others think that he cut his teeth on now lost court masques for Southhampton and his friends.  I wish that WS had left a hard drive for us to dig through.  I also hope that Ganymede does become famous.  But I still promise to respect the privacy of your hard drive.  

[shaxper]

I'd better make a detailed account of my relationship to Ganymede now.  That way, when she does become famous, I'll be Ganymede scholars' primary source.  Maybe I should commission a painting of myself in drag.  That'd do it  

[Harry]

A friend on another board once posted an outline of a play about Shakespeare:

It's late at night and Shakespeare hears a knock on his door. He opens it to find the Earl of Oxford who has a manuscript. As London's foremost "script doctor" Shakespeare agrees, for a hefty price, to see if he can salvage it. The script is pretty awful and even Shakespeare can only make it about halfway decent. The play is Edward III. Over the years, Oxford comes around with several more scripts. Each time, Shakespeare agrees to fix it and the result is another play in the Shakespeare apochrypha.

As I understand it, all of the furnishings of New Place, including whatever books Shakespeare might have had, remained with the house and passed to Susanna Shakespeare Hall and her husband Dr. John Hall. None of the furnishings (aside from the odd "second-best bed") were mentioned in the will individually. All went to the Halls. There's little mystery about "what happened to Shakespeare's library?"

[shaxper]

(I'd love to see that play about Shakespeare and Bacon   )


So, the next logical question: Has anyone actually read or seen anything from the apocrypha?  Are they any good?  Do they resemble Shakespeare's works, or is there just as good a chance that some other playwright wrote them?

I know that Edward III is being performed by the RSC this summer.  I'm interested in seeing it.

[Ganymede]

Whether the other works are good or bad is obviously not concrete proof as to whether Shakespeare wrote them or not.  Perhaps people are skeptical of these plays precisely because they are "not up to par."  Yet every writer must begin somewhere.  While Shakespeare may or may not have wanted to own up to some of them, I will grant that such early works are interesting in that they might give us a glimpse of the author's progress, from upstart amateur to stellar bard.  

[actaeon]

I have a copy of the 'Shakespeare Apocrypha' by tucker Brooke, linked to by Bardolph.

The only ones I've read are The Yorkshire Tragedy and The Birth of Merlin, neither of which reads anything remotely like Shakespeare. The Birth of Merlin (which is Merlin's early life) is actually quite fun though, and I could see it being staged. If anyone is interested, I have an online copy I could send, as I began working on this for Project Gutenberg, but couldn't find a proffreader as no one seemed able to find a copy to use to check! PG has several of the apocrypha from other sources.

I saw the RSC's rehearsed reading of Edward III last year (they are doing a full production this year), and have also read it in Eric Sam's and New Cambridge edition. Most of it is pretty dull stuff, but the Countess of Salisbury scenes (2 or 3 of them) are wonderful, and could well be WS. I have long thought that if this was a complete Shakspeare work, the Countess of S. would be recognised as one of the great female roles. She's very intelligent and very sexy!

There's another one you haven't mentioned - Edmund Ironside, which Eric Sams claims as an early work. Can't remember who it was published by (Yale?), but his edition is quite informative, about the play and about his 'proof' (take it how you will, I'm no expert to judge). It contains a full script. There are quite a few similarities to Titus Andronicus and other plays, and he bases a lot of his belief on the use of certain word-clusters. All I can say is that it did read, to me, a lot like other early plays, and I could quite happily slot it in as an early work if it got published in one of the serious cannons - Oxford, Penguin, Cambride, Arden.

[shaxper]

Welcome to the board, actaeon! I'd love a link to The Birth of Merlin, if you don't mind. I'm very curious.

The main problem I find with the argument that Shakespeare may have written plays that resemble his own is that Shakespeare was an unabashed copier. I have no doubt that he was the best playwright the Elizabethan stage had to offer, but much of that came from his ability to assimilate. The second Henriad, for example (1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V) borrows heavily from Marlowe's Tamburlaine in many places (see my post in Shakespeare's Contemporaries). Characters, phrases, dramatic tension, and political over and undertones are all borrowed, though there is little doubt that the second Henriad contains the richer plays. You could also argue that Shakespeare WAS Marlowe, but I find it more likely that he was simply borrowing, seeing as how he borrowed from so many sources. Just look at the basic stories he uses for his plays. To the best of my knowledge, all but The Tempest were either clearly borrowed from earlier plays and tales (Hamlet, R+J, Lear), or were written with a dramatic basis that was very familiar to the Elizabethan stage (Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night). Shakespeare made these his own. There is no doubt of that in my mind. However, much of "making them his own" involved the assimilating of various different ideas he'd seen elsewhere.

Really, this is mostly an opinion and an underdeveloped theory. I'd have to write at least one whole book before I could argue this with any true confidence.

[actaeon]

Link to a plain text file (115k) is here, on my website:

www.republicofheaven.org.uk/merlin.htm

Opinions are awaited with interest

[shaxper]

Fantastic! I don't have time to read much of it at the moment, but I'll get to it very shortly.

Thanks!!


And, if you don't mind my asking, where did you find a text of the play, since Project Gutenberg couldn't find another against which to compare it?

[actaeon]

Found a copy in a second hand shop - after a number of years of looking.

Other plays in the volume are:
Arden of Feversham (sic)
Locrine
Edward III
Mucedorus
Sir John Oldcastle
Thomas Lord Cromwell
The London Prodigal
The Puritan
A Yorkshire Tragedy
The Merry Devil of Edmonton
Fair Em
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Sir Thomas More