SHAKSPER 2005: 1 Richard II

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 08/11/05 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1321  Thursday, 11 August 2005

[1]     From:   Bill Lloyd <Bnklloyd@aol.com>
        Date:   Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 09:30:43 EDT
        Subj:   Re: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

[2]     From:   Jonathan Hope <jonathan.r.hope@strath.ac.uk>
        Date:   Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 14:50:15 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

[3]     From:   Marcus Dahl <marcus@blackheartstudios.co.uk>
        Date:   Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 18:00:42 +0100
        Subj:   RE: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

[4]     From:   Al Magary <al@magary.com>
        Date:   Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 12:29:18 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Bill Lloyd <Bnklloyd@aol.com>
Date:           Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 09:30:43 EDT
Subject: 16.1316 1 Richard II
Comment:        Re: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

Michael Egan drmichaelegan@hawaii.rr.com writes:

 >"I'd like my 1,000 pounds sterling, please...  if Elliott could refute my
 >non-stylometric evidence and show that the anonymous Elizabethan play
 >Richard II, Part One (also known as Woodstock) is not by Shakespeare, I
 >would pay him his one thousand pounds. But if he could not, he would
 >write me a check for the equivalent amount."

As I asked before, how are we to judge who has won? Michael and his
partisans will believe he has made his case and Ward and his partisans
will believe he has not.

 >"I challenge him [Mac Jackson] to explain how he
 >reconciles his claim that Rowley wrote the play ca. 1610 (Jackson, op.
 >cit., p. 55) but the same play was actually written ca. 1595, as he
 >asserts in his more recent book,  Defining Shakespeare (2003), p. 46.
 >So, Mac, which is it? Is 'Woodstock' Jacobean, as of 2001, or
 >Elizabe­than, as of 2003?"

A close look at the cited passage from Defining Shakespeare will show
that Mac is quoting a communication he made to Eliot Slater in 1982 in
which he mentions Woodstock in a group of history plays then considered
to date from the 1590s. The first suggestion of a connection between
Woodstock and Rowley (and a Jacobean date) was made by David J. Lake in
his 1983 Notes and Queries article, and then was solidified by Mac's
2001 MaRDiE article.

 >"...Samuel Rowley, Jr..."

Junior? Michael seems to know something about Sam's family that no one
else does.

 >"It's time to call the stylomeretricious bluff."

Does Michael reject any and all 'stylometric' work? Hoy on Beaumont and
Fletcher? Lake on Middleton? Jackson on Pericles?  Certainly some
stylometric studies have been flawed, and in the nature of the thing all
arguments (including Michael's non-stylometric ones) that don't include
a videotape of the authors[s] sitting at desk pen in hand must be held
to be provisional, but it seems rash to dismiss them wholesale.

Bill Lloyd

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Jonathan Hope <jonathan.r.hope@strath.ac.uk>
Date:           Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 14:50:15 +0100
Subject: 16.1316 1 Richard II
Comment:        Re: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

Ok, I'll do an auxiliary 'do' count on Woodstock (using the Oxford Text
Archive text) and report back.

The details of auxiliary 'do' as an attribution test are in my 1994
book, *The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays* (CUP), chapter 2.

For that book, I counted regulation rates of auxiliary 'do' in 16 plays
generally accepted as Shakespeare's (list and figures in the Statistical
Appendix, page 156).  I found that over the course of a play (where
N=640 or more), Shakespeare has a range of regulation between 79% and 84%.

 From my point of view, if Woodstock comes out between those figures, it
might be by Shakespeare; if it is higher or lower, then it is very
unlikely to be his.

Jonathan Hope
Strathclyde University, Glasgow

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Marcus Dahl <marcus@blackheartstudios.co.uk>
Date:           Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 18:00:42 +0100
Subject: 16.1316 1 Richard II
Comment:        RE: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

Dear All,

Gosh what confidence eh? Bit too reminiscent of Don Foster if you ask me!

Just for the record - I don't think 1 Richard II is by Shakespeare and
though I haven't yet read all of Michael's evidence I am doubtful he
will be able to resolve traditional doubts as to the play's authorship.

I wonder also what he is to do with the fact that the text itself is
clearly a 'bad quarto' and bears considerable signs of being memorially
transmitted?

All best,
Marcus 'doubt first, regret less later' Dahl

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Al Magary <al@magary.com>
Date:           Wednesday, 10 Aug 2005 12:29:18 -0700
Subject: 16.1316 1 Richard II
Comment:        Re: SHK 16.1316 1 Richard II

It seems to me that Michael Egan has, as it were, the prosecutor's
burden of proof in trying to pin the Woodstock crime on Shakespeare.
Ward Elliott may or may not want to man the defense table but is free to
sit idly while the DA sweats to establish his case.  In the end, the
defense need only provide disproof of what the prosecution alleges.  In
such a case it is possible to do this by pricking the balloon of one
broad assumption and ignore every other point the DA makes.  However,
this doesn't strike me as a real live case and the judge may toss it out
as frivolous.

I once transcribed Woodstock and my truly humble opinion is that it just
doesn't feel like Shakespeare even on an off day during his period as a
fast learner.  It is a poor play, not even up to Henry VI standards--not
even redeemed, as Edward III is by the Countess of Salisbury episode, by
one good scene.

Woodstock has attractions only as prequel to Shakespeare's eight-part
Lanc-York drama.  Certifying prequels and sequels by Peele, Davenport,
Ford, Greene, Marlowe, Munday & Chettle, et al., plus works by that
celebrated playwright Anonymous, is attractive because it's summertime
fun to imagine stringing together all the mediocre to bad chronicle
plays of the period into the fictional history of England.  Make the
case for E3, then fill in the time gap with 1R2, then see what can be
done with Jack Straw...

Cheers,
Al Magary

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