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Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography lists a selection of the articles consulted by the team regarding the authorship of the apocryphal plays.

  • Jackson, MacD. P., 'Pause Patterns in Shakespeare's Verse: Canon and Chronology', Literary and Linguistic Computing, 17 (2002), 37-46. Uses the 'Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)' program on the data gathered by Ants Oras (1960) to correlate all 38 canonical plays with each other. Found extremely strong matches between plays of similar periods, thus consolidating the chronology of Shakespeare's plays as outlined in the Oxford Textual Companion (1988). King John caused difficulties, this test giving it a relatively late date which reduces the possibility that The Troublesome Reign of King John (1591) is based on the Shakespeare play. The Shakespearean sections of Pericles matched Shakespeare's late plays, while the other sections had a strong correlation to George Wilkins' The Miseries of Enforced Marriage.

  • Jackson, MacDonald P., 'The Date and Authorship of Hand D's Contribution to Sir Thomas More: Evidence from 'Literature Online', Shakespeare Survey, 59 (2006). Uses LION to conduct an unbiased, scientific search for collocations and phrases from Hand D of Sir Thomas More in the works of all other dramatists between 1590-1610, and provides a full list. Of the fifteen plays of the period with the most parallels, ten are Shakespeare plays (and another is Thomas Lord Cromwell). The Shakespearean parallels are varied in date and context. In the case of rare collocations, there are more positive results for Shakespeare than for all other dramatists combined. Finally, the results indicate a likely early 17th century date for the additions.

  • Jackson, MacDonald P./ 'Shakespeare and the Quarrel Scene in Arden of Faversham', Shakespeare Quarterly, 57.3 (2006), 249-293. Taking Keith Sturgess' remarks that Scene 8 of Arden of Faversham seems Shakespearean, uses LION to search for collocations and phrases in all English drama published between 1580-1600. Of 132 plays searched, 28 had four or more links to this scene, 18 of which are Shakespearean. The top four are all early plays (2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, Two Gentlemen, Shrew). The early date of Arden makes it unlikely that anyone would be imitating or reporting Shakespeare's style. He finds rare collocations and parallels between this scene and Shakespeare, particuarly The Rape of Lucrece. Finally notes that Eliot and Valenza's 1998 tests place this play as inauthentic, but similar to 1 Henry VI. Jackson concludes that the quarrel scene is authentically Shakespearean, the rest of the play probably collaborative.

  • Kukowski, Stephen, ‘The Hand of John Fletcher in Double Falsehood’, Shakespeare Survey, 43 (1991). Uses parallels with Fletcher's plays, and occurrences of certain words, feminine endings and certain images, to establish Fletcher's hand in Double Falsehood. Uses this to discredit Harriet Frazier's claims (1971) that this was a forgery of Shakespeare by Theobald; it is unlikely that Theobald would, in claiming a Shakespearean play, have accidentally so clever forged a Fletcherian play. Notes Betterton and Davenant's adaptation of The Two Noble Kinsmen excised the vast majority of Shakespeare's section, and reasons that this may have been the case with the manuscript of Cardenio that Theobald used, which was once in Betterton's possession. Concludes that a forgery is unlikely, though it is doubtful that much of Shakespeare's contribution has survived.

  • Lowe, David and Robert Matthews, 'Shakespeare vs Fletcher: a stylometric analysis by radial basis functions', Computers and the Humanities, 29 (1995), 449-461. Uses computer neural networking predictions to distinguish between Shakespearean and Fletcherian usage of function words. Results: method distinguishes excellently between 'core' Shakespeare and Fletcher canons, so is potentially valuable tool. Findings: Two Noble Kinsmen acts 1 & 5 by Shakespeare, act 2 by Fletcher, act 3 mostly Fletcher with some Shakespeare, act 4 mostly Shakespeare with some Fletcher. London Prodigal mostly Fletcher, but less certain result and some marks of Shakespeare. Double Falsehood much closer to Fletcher than Shakespeare, but no account taken of Theobald's rewriting.

  • Merriam, Thomas, 'Marlowe's Hand in Edward III', Literary and Linguistic Computing, 8 (1993), 59-72. Sums up the opposing views of Slater/ Everitt/ Wentersdorf and Muir – the first that Muir’s divisions ‘A’ and ‘B’ are both Shakespeare, at different stage of his career, the latter (Muir) that ‘B’ is a Shakespearean revision of another playwright’s composition. Following Gary Taylor's use of certain function words, Merriam finds certain stable statistical patterns in the First Folio, and then demonstrates that the ratios for Edward III 3.1 and 3.2 (and the whole of Locrine) are more similar to those of Marlowe's Tamburlaine. Test specifically demands a choice between one author or the other; does not test for collaboration. Charts of selected tests demonstrate a clear correlation to Marlowe’s patterns in Edward III. Merriam admits that the dissociation from Shakespeare is more telling than the connection to Marlowe, thereby casting doubt on single authorship. As an additional line of thought, explores Muriel Bradbrook’s ‘parallels’ between Edward III 3.1 and Henry V Act 3 Chorus, but finds more telling parallels with Tamburlaine. Suggests the implication that Marlowe and Shakespeare actively collaborated together before the former’s death. Includes detailed appendices of results.

  • Merriam, Thomas, and Robert A.J. Matthews, 'Neural Computation in Stylometry II: An Application to the Works of Shakespeare and Marlowe', Literary and Linguistic Computing, 9 (1994), 1-6. Uses multi-layer perceptron neural network (MLP), as used in a previous article on Shakespeare and Fletcher (LLC 8), and extends the application to the canons of Shakespeare and Marlowe, with Edward III included. Uses five stylometric ratios demonstrated in the previous article to be significant indicators of Marlowe (vs. Shakespeare). Training and testing concluded that the Merriam-based Shakespeare-Marlowe network (MERMAR) met criteria with high levels of accuracy. Interestingly, the test gave Henry VI Part III to Marlowe – Merriam notes that Brooke (1912) argued for this play being a revision of The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, which Brooke considered to be Marlowe’s. Edward III was tested and results showed it to be essentially Shakespearean, but it received the lowest Shakespearean characteristic measure of any ‘Shakespeare’ play, falling close to Marlowe's boundaries.

  • Merriam, Thomas, 'Marlowe's Hand in Edward III Revisited', Literary and Linguistic Computing, 11 (1996), 19-22. Follows up the 1993 article and decides that Marlowe is definitely the author of III.i and ii, confirms Shakespeare as the author of Act II and the rest as relatively un-Shakespearean. Merriam first notes that theories regarding the composition date of the play allow for Marlowe – if it was written shortly after the 1588 Armada, there are several years before Marlowe’s death in 1593 in which he may have written sections. The remainder of the article re-examines the data from the 1993 article using four new tests. He again demonstrates that only Act II has a strong claim to Shakespeare and shows that, statistically speaking, Act 2 of Edward III attaches itself to the Shakespeare cluster while Locrine prefers the Marlowe cluster. He confirms that III.i and ii resemble the Tamburlaine plays. However, to confirm Marlowe’s presence in Edward III as a whole would require further study. Lengthy appendices of data are attached.

  • Merriam, Thomas, 'Heterogeneous Authorship in Early Shakespeare and the Problem of Henry V', Literary and Linguistic Computing, 13 (1998), 15-28. Uses letter frequency tests on the canons of Marlowe and Shakespeare, having established that, across the 26-letter alphabet, their patterns of use are surprisingly similar. Applying this to the five individual acts of Edward III, and also the first act of Locrine, Gary Taylor (results used by Merriam) found that Locrine had a particular affinity with Acts 3 and 5 of 1 Henry VI, which he gives to an unknown author. With Edward III, acts 1 and 3-5 tended more towards the Marlovian range, while Act 2 was dramatically different, well within Shakespeare’s usual range. This study also suggested a Marlovian influence/involvement in Act 1 of Henry V.

  • Muir, Kenneth, 'A Reconsideration of Edward III', Shakespeare Survey, 6 (1953). (N.B. revised version appears in Shakespeare as Collaborator (Methuen, 1960) as Chapter II). Notes that Hart's use of his 'Compound Adjective Participle' test shows a close correlation to Shakespearean frequencies of use. Applies a count of new words to Parts 'A' (supposedly Shakespearean) and 'B' (the rest), finds the frequency in Part A twice that of Part B. Within Part A, Muir finds high frequencies of image clusters and iterative image groups associated with Shakespeare's authentic plays. Finally, he considers the relationship of the 'Countess' scenes to the temptation of Isabella by Angelo in Measure for Measure, suggesting that the latter is a reworking of the former by the same dramatist. Concludes by advancing the theory that, rather than sole authorship or collaboration, Edward III may represent Shakespeare revising and reworking an earlier dramatist's material.

  • Pujante, A. Luis, 'Double Falsehood and the Verbal Parallels with Shelton's Don Quixote', Shakespeare Survey, 51 (1998). Uses parallels to demonstrate a stronger reliance than previously realised of the Double Falsehood authors on Shelton's translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote. Following John Freehafer, this article finds no evidence that a source later than Shelton's 1612 translation was used. Setting out the parallels between the two texts, it is to be noted that most of the parallels appear in scenes attributed to Fletcher, in a similar manner to Davenant's adaptation of The Two Noble Kinsmen which similarly preferred Fletcher's sections to Shakespeare's. This further supports the belief that Theobald would not have created a Shakespearean forgery which instead primarily mimicked Fletcher.

  • Smith, M.W.A., 'The Authorship of The Raigne of King Edward the Third', Literary and Linguistic Computing, 6 (1991), 166-174. Uses a statistical model based on the number of occurrences of frequently-used words in texts and chi-square calculations. Edward III is split into its two sections as assigned by Kenneth Muir (1960). First using tests on words other than first words, testing against plays definitely attributed to eight dramatists, Part A (I.iv.263-, II, IV.iv) most closely correlates to Shakespeare. Part B generally closely correlates to Shakespeare. In tests of first-words and collocations, using the play in its entirety, Shakespeare is found to be the most likely sole author. As a control, the test is then applied to 2 Henry VI and Richard II, showing that overall 2H6 can be shown to be entirely Shakespearean. Richard II, however, while still showing primarily Shakespearean authorship, found a tendency towards Marlowe. Smith concludes that the evidence for Edward III being entirely Shakespearean is stronger than the equivalent evidence for Richard II.