Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T05:07:23.183Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Shakespeare’s Handwriting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2007

Stanley Wells
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

On the controversy over Shakespeare's handwriting in Sir Thomas More, the best arguments supporting Shakespeare are to be found in Shakespeare and the Play of Sir Thomas More (Cambridge, 1923), edited by A. W. Pollard. Here, the most persuasive contributions are those of Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, J. Dover Wilson, and R. W. Chambers. A chapter by the last of these in his Man's Unconquerable Mind (London, 1939) made a further cogent contribution.

All the best work on the subject up to 1948 is reviewed and expanded by R. C. Bald in his 'Booke of Sir Thomas More and its Problems' in Shakespeare Survey 2. Bald believed that the attribution of the 147 lines of Hand D was correct. Greg a little later concurred in that view. In my own view, Thompson's article in the book cited above, 'The Handwriting of the Three Pages Attributed to Shakespeare Compared with his Signatures', by itself leaves little room for doubt. Yet the steady stream of contrary argument runs on apace, and most of those who count themselves believers are but 90 per cent believers. Had it been otherwise when the 1983 meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America was being planned, the need for a seminar on 'Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More' would hardly have been felt.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare Survey , pp. 119 - 128
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×