Shakespeare apocrypha


The Shakespeare apocrypha is a group of plays and poems that have sometimes been attributed to William Shakespeare, but whose attribution is questionable for various reasons. The issue is not to be confused with the debate on Shakespearean authorship, which questions the authorship of the works traditionally attributed to Shakespeare.

Background

In his own lifetime, Shakespeare saw only about half of his plays enter print. Some individual plays were published in quarto, a small, cheap format. Then, in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell compiled a folio collection of his complete plays, now known as the First Folio. Heminges and Condell were in a position to do this because they, like Shakespeare, worked for the King's Men, the London playing company that produced all of Shakespeare's plays.
In addition to plays, poems were published under Shakespeare's name. The collection published as The Passionate Pilgrim contains genuine poems by Shakespeare along with poems known to have been written by other authors, along with some of unknown authorship. Unattributed poems have also been assigned by some scholars to Shakespeare at various times.
The apocrypha can be categorized under the following headings:

Plays attributed to Shakespeare during the 17th century, but not included in the First Folio

Several plays published in quarto during the seventeenth century bear Shakespeare's name on the title page or in other documents, but do not appear in the First Folio. Some of these plays are believed by most scholars of Shakespeare to have been written by him. Others, such as Thomas Lord Cromwell, are so atypically written that it is difficult to believe they really are by Shakespeare.
Scholars have suggested various reasons for the existence of these plays. In some cases, the title page attributions may be lies told by fraudulent printers trading on Shakespeare's reputation. In other cases, Shakespeare may have had an editorial role in the plays' creation, rather than actually writing them, or they may simply be based on a plot outline by Shakespeare. Some may be collaborations between Shakespeare and other dramatists. Another explanation for the origins of any or all of the plays is that they were not written for the King's Men, were perhaps from early in Shakespeare's career, and thus were inaccessible to Heminges and Condell when they compiled the First Folio.
C. F. Tucker Brooke lists forty-two plays conceivably attributable to Shakespeare, many in his own lifetime, but dismisses the majority, leaving only most of those listed below, with some additions.
  • The Birth of Merlin was published in 1662 as the work of Shakespeare and William Rowley. This attribution is demonstrably fraudulent, or mistaken, as there is unambiguous evidence that the play was written in 1622, six years after Shakespeare's death. It is unlikely that Shakespeare and Rowley would have written together, as they were both chief dramatists for rival playing companies. The play has been called "funny, colourful, and fast-paced", but critical consensus follows Henry Tyrrell's conclusion that the play "does not contain in it one single trace of the genius of the bard of Avon", supplemented by C. F. Tucker Brooke's suggestion that Rowley was consciously imitating Shakespeare's style.
  • Sir John Oldcastle was originally published anonymously in 1600. In 1619, a second edition was attributed to Shakespeare as part of William Jaggard's False Folio. In fact, the diary of Philip Henslowe records that it was written by Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, and Robert Wilson.
  • A Yorkshire Tragedy was published in 1608 as the work of Shakespeare. Although a minority of readers support this claim, the weight of stylistic evidence supports Thomas Middleton.
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre was published under Shakespeare's name. Its uneven writing suggests that the first two acts are by another playwright. In 1868, Nicolaus Delius proposed George Wilkins as this unknown collaborator; a century later, F. D. Hoeneger proposed John Day. In general, critics have accepted that the last three-fifths are mostly Shakespeare's, following Gary Taylor's claim that by the middle of the Jacobean decade, "Shakespeare's poetic style had become so remarkably idiosyncratic that it stands out—even in a corrupt text—from that of his contemporaries."
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen was published in quarto in 1634 as a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher, the young playwright who took over Shakespeare's job as chief playwright of the King's Men. Mainstream scholarship agrees with this attribution, and the play is widely accepted as a worthy member of the Shakespeare canon, despite its collaborative origins. It is included in its entirety in the Oxford Shakespeare, and in the Riverside Shakespeare.
  • Edward III was published anonymously in 1596. It was first attributed to Shakespeare in a bookseller's catalogue published in 1656. Various scholars have suggested Shakespeare's possible authorship, since a number of passages appear to bear his stamp, among other sections that are remarkably uninspired. In 1996, Yale University Press became the first major publisher to produce an edition of the play under Shakespeare's name, and shortly afterward, the Royal Shakespeare Company performed the play. In 2001, the American professional premiere was staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre, which received positive reviews for the endeavour. A consensus is emerging that the play was written by a team of dramatists including Shakespeare early in his career—but exactly who wrote what is still open to debate. William Montgomery edited the play for the Second Edition of the Complete Oxford Shakespeare, where it is attributed to "William Shakespeare and Others".
  • The London Prodigal was printed in 1605 under Shakespeare's name. As it is a King's Men play, Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation, but according to Tucker Brooke, "Shakespeare's catholicity and psychological insight are conspicuously absent". Fleay hypothesized that Shakespeare wrote a rough outline or plot and left another playwright to the actual writing.
  • The Second Maiden's Tragedy survives only in manuscript. Three crossed-out attributions in seventeenth century hands attribute it to Thomas Goffe, Shakespeare, and George Chapman. Professional handwriting expert Charles Hamilton attempted to argue that the play was Shakespeare's manuscript of the lost Cardenio. However, stylistic analysis strongly indicates Thomas Middleton as the true author of The Second Maiden's Tragedy.
  • The "Charles II Library" plays: in Charles II's library, an unknown seventeenth-century person had bound together three quartos of anonymous plays and labelled them "Shakespeare, vol. 1". As a seventeenth-century attribution, this decision warrants some consideration. The three plays are:
  • * Fair Em, the Miller's Daughter of Manchester, written c. 1590. Another candidate for its authorship is Robert Wilson.
  • * Mucedorus, an extremely popular play; it was first printed in 1598 and went through several editions despite the text's manifestly corrupt nature. As it is a King's Men play, Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation or revision, but its true author remains a mystery; Robert Greene is sometimes suggested.
  • * The Merry Devil of Edmonton, first published in 1608. As it is a King's Men play, Shakespeare may have had a minor role in its creation, but the play's style bears no resemblance to Shakespeare.

    Plays attributed to "W. S." during the 17th century, and not included in the First Folio

Some plays were attributed to "W. S." in the seventeenth century. These initials could refer to Shakespeare, but could also refer to Wentworth Smith, an obscure dramatist.
  • Locrine was published in 1595 as "Newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W. S."
  • Thomas Lord Cromwell was published in 1602 and attributed to "W. S." Except for a few scholars, such as Ludwig Tieck and August Wilhelm Schlegel, "hardly anyone has thought that Shakespeare was even in the slightest way involved in the production of these plays."
  • The Puritan was published in 1607 and attributed to "W. S." This play is now generally believed to be by Middleton or Smith.

    Plays attributed to Shakespeare after the 17th century

A number of anonymous plays have been attributed to Shakespeare by more recent readers and scholars. Many of these claims are supported only by debatable ideas about what constitutes "Shakespeare's style". Nonetheless, some of them have been cautiously accepted by mainstream scholarship.
  • Arden of Faversham is an anonymous play printed in 1592 that has occasionally been claimed for Shakespeare. Its writing style and subject matter, however, are very different from those of Shakespeare's other plays. Full attribution is not supported by mainstream scholarship, though stylistic analysis has revealed that Shakespeare likely had a hand in at least scene VIII. Thomas Kyd is often considered to be the author of much of Faversham, but still other writers have been proposed.
  • Edmund Ironside is an anonymous manuscript play. Eric Sams has argued that it was written by Shakespeare, arguing that it is his earliest extant work, but has convinced few, if any, Shakespearean scholars.
  • Sir Thomas More survives only in manuscript. It is a play that was written in the 1590s and then revised, possibly as many as ten years later. The play is included in the Second Edition of the Complete Oxford Shakespeare, which attributes the original play to Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, with later revisions and additions by Thomas Dekker, Shakespeare and Thomas Heywood. A few pages are written by an author whom many believe to be Shakespeare, as the handwriting and spellings, as well as the style, seem a good match. The attribution is not accepted by everyone, however, especially since six signatures on legal documents are the only verified authentic examples of Shakespeare's handwriting.
  • Thomas of Woodstock, sometimes also called Richard II, Part I, is an anonymous late-sixteenth or early-seventeenth century play depicting the events leading up to the murder of Thomas of Woodstock and which occur immediately prior to the opening scenes of Shakespeare's history play Richard II. Thomas of Woodstock survives only as an anonymous and untitled manuscript lacking its final page, part of the Egerton Collection deposited in the British Library. Because the play describes the events immediately prior to those set forth in Richard II, some scholars have attributed the play to Shakespeare or suggested that it influenced Shakespeare's own play. Few of its editors, however, have supported the attribution to Shakespeare. Stylistic analysis led MacDonald P. Jackson to propose Samuel Rowley as a possible author in 2001. Later scholars, most notably Michael Egan, have tried to revive the attribution to Shakespeare.
  • The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd, is a play with elements reminiscent of Hamlet. Recent handwriting analysis suggests that portions may have been revised by Shakespeare. In 2013 the Royal Shakespeare Company published an edition attributing the play, in part, to William Shakespeare.
  • A Knack to Know a Knave. Hanspeter Born has argued that Shakespeare rewrote some scenes in the romantic subplot of A Knack to Know a Knave, tentatively attributed by some scholars to Robert Greene.