Episode 71 - Shakespeare Apocrypha

The incomparably funny and poignant comedian Hannah Gadsby said it best: “This adoration of the artist as a lone genius is quite misled, I think, because they are very much a part of their time and their community.”

Sometimes we all need a community. Whether it’s because our own expertise has fallen short or because two heads are better than one, no one among us can say that we are perfectly capable of living life without the help of our friends.

Not even William Shakespeare.

Join us as we examine Shakespeare's Apocrypha, a series of plays, poems, and other writings variously attributed to the Bard as well as a whole host of other Tudor/Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. It's a veritable who's-who of the extended theatre community to which Shakespeare undoubtedly would have belonged in late 16th/early 17th century London, which leads us to question: just how many people had a hand in writing the Shakespearean canon? Along the way, we'll explain some of the handwriting analysis and stylometry results that recent researchers have used to point to their favoured candidates for the authorship of this collection of works. 

It's a jam-packed episode. We hope you'll enjoy!

Notes:

• Folio, Quarto, and Octavo bookmaking techniques, as depicted on Wikipedia:

• Full text of The Shakespeare Apocrypha by C.F. Tucker Brooke
• Full text of William Shakespeare A Study Of Facts And Problems Vol I by E.K. Chambers
• Shakespeare's Collaborators - shakespeare.org
• New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition
• Example of Secretary Handwriting in Hand D, purportedly Shakespeare's own handwriting, in the play The Booke of Sir Thomas More:

• YouTube clip of a one-man play by Keir Cutler about Shakespeare and the authorship question
• All available text of The Booke of Sir Thomas More, courtesy of The British Library
• "Shakespeare By The Numbers: What Stylometrics Can and Can't Tell Us" - a book review by Ramon Jimenez for the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship
• "The Stylometric Debate Over Authorship" - Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship
• "Stylometry and the Shakespearean Clinic" and "Response to Criticisms on Stylometry" by David Kathman and Terry Ross
• Dr. Michael Delahoyde's analysis of Two Noble Kinsmen
• Petr Plechac's stylometric analysis of Henry VIII

Ancient Bickerings: Which play would you most like to revise alongside Shakespeare?