Defining Shakespeare: Pericles as Test Case'That very great play, Pericles', as T. S. Eliot called it, poses formidable problems of text and authorship. The first of the Late Romances, it was ascribed to Shakespeare when printed in a quarto of 1609, but was not included in the First Folio (1623) collection of his plays. This bookexamines rival theories about the quarto's origins and offers compelling evidence that Pericles is the product of collaboration between Shakespeare and the minor dramatist George Wilkins, who was responsible for the first two acts and for portions of the 'brothel scenes' in Act 4. Pericles serves asa test case for methodologies that seek to define the limits of the Shakespeare canon and to rdentify co-authors. A wide range of metrical, lexical, and other data is analysed. Computerized 'stylometric' texts are explained and their findings assessed. A concluding chapter introduces a new techniquethat has the potential to answer many of the remaining questions of attribution associated with Shakespeare and his contemporaries. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION TO PERICLES AND THE SHAKESPEARE | 11 |
EVIDENCE OF DUAL AUTHORSHIP | 40 |
3 | 47 |
7 | 61 |
53 | 68 |
IDENTIFYING THE AUTHOR OF PERICLES ACTS 1 AND 2 | 80 |
45 | 87 |
47 | 101 |
xi | 180 |
8 | 187 |
76 | 205 |
83 | 212 |
The Text of Pericles | 218 |
95 | 226 |
Literature Online Data | 233 |
109 | 234 |
Common terms and phrases
1-2 and Acts 1-2 of Pericles acts of Pericles Antiochus Arden Pericles attribution authorship of Pericles Bawd blank verse brothel scenes Cambridge chi-square collaboration Cymbeline dramatic dramatists editors Enforced Marriage evidence examples figures Fletcher Folio function words George Wilkins Gower choruses Hamlet Henry Henry VI Heywood Hoeniger instances John Law Tricks lines linkages Literature Online London Lysimachus Marina meaning metrical Middleton Miseries of Enforced Morton Noble Kinsmen non-Shakespearian noun occur Painful Adventures parallels passages pause patterns percentage play's playwrights Prince of Tyre prose quarto rates Renaissance Revenger's Tragedy Rowley Rowley's samples Scarborrow scholars Shakespeare canon Shakespeare plays Shakespearian share of Travels speech statistical style stylometric Sykes Table Tempest tests textual theory Thomas Thomas Middleton thou Three English Brothers Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus total number Tragedy Twine verb Webster Wilkins's authorship Wilkins's Miseries Wilkins's share Wilkinsian William Shakespeare Winter's Tale written Yorkshire Tragedy