On 17.09.2018 17:19, T.J. Sellari wrote:
Re: Shakespeare authorship question
There are many theories that purport to cast doubt on Shakespeare's
authorship of the plays attributed to him, but scholars of English
Renaisssance literature consider them largely nonsense. I suggest you
take a look at _Contested Will_ by James Shapiro. A review of the book
can be found here:
This is an excellent book, indeed.
I am not "familiar" with it - I have read it twice :)
In fact, it has inspired my little puzzle. Howard almost solved it, but I
wonder if he used google :)
The letter in question is indeed a letter to his wife "written" by Shakespeare.
Of course, apart form the questionable pages from "Sir Thomas More" no longer
text attributable to Shakespeare has survived.
The "letter" was forged by the "famous" William Henry Ireland who wrote Vortigern and a
manuscript version ("by" Shakespeare) of King Lear.
The orthography is ridiculous and a few scholars immediately had serious doubts.
It is easy today to laugh but in those days (end of 18th century) forensic
palaeography was not even in its infancy.
Vortigern was even perform at the Drury Lane Theatre on 2 April 1796 and I
understand it is sometimes performed today as a joke.
Rainer
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