Literary and Linguistic Computing Advance Access published online on August 14, 2009
Literary and Linguistic Computing, doi:10.1093/llc/fqp029
Two tough nuts to crack: did Shakespeare write the ‘Shakespeare’ portions of Sir Thomas More and Edward III? Part I1
Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California, USA
Correspondence: Ward E. Y. Elliott, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA 91711-6420, USA. E-mail: welliott{at}cmc.edu
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Using ‘new-optics’ stylometric measures of comparative Shakespeare discrepancy we calculate the odds that the ‘Shakespeare’ scenes in STMO and Edw3 could have come by chance from a person of Shakespeare's writing habits. For STMO, if written in the 1600s, the ‘Shakespeare’ Hand D-plus verse portion is seven to twenty-six times less likely to be Shakespeare's than Shakespeare's own farthest-outlier baseline threshold block. Shakespeare authorship for it in the 1600s seems to us improbable but not impossible. In STMO were written in the 1590s, it would be ten times less probable, and not such a close call. The odds that Shakespeare could have written the entire play at any time are vanishingly low. In terms of Shakespeare discrepancy, we would say that Hand D-plus belongs more in the high Apocrypha than in the Canon. Taken separately, four of the five ‘Shakespeare’ blocks of Edw3 fall inside our Shakespeare ballpark. So does a sixth block, scenes 4.05 to 4.09. If we followed the consensus strictly, all five Shakespeare blocks, taken as a group, would not make a probable solo Shakespeare ascription. However, if we switched 4.04 to ‘non-Shakespeare,’ and 4.05-.09 to ‘Shakespeare,’ the revised Shakespeare blocks would be a plausible Shakespeare ascription even as a group, justifying the inclusion of Edw3 in the Canon as partly Shakespeare's: 1.02; 2.01–2.02; and 4.05–4.09. The odds that the ‘non-Shakespeare’ scenes, collectively, or individually (except for 4.05–4.09) could be his are vanishingly low. This is the first of a two-part series, addressed to Shakespeare's hand in Sir Thomas More. Part II, on Shakespeare's hand in Edward III, will appear in the next issue. The full article may be found online at http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/facultysites/govt/FacMember/welliott/UTConference/2ToughNuts.pdf