Skip to content
Register Sign in Wishlist

'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare
Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's Funerall Elegye

  • Author: Brian Vickers, School of Advanced Study, University of Lonodn
  • Date Published: October 2009
  • availability: Available
  • format: Paperback
  • isbn: 9780521120357

Paperback

Add to wishlist

Other available formats:
Hardback, eBook


Looking for an inspection copy?

This title is not currently available on inspection

Description
Product filter button
Description
Contents
Resources
Courses
About the Authors
  • 'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare addresses the fundamental issue of what Shakespeare actually wrote, and how this is determined. In recent years his authorship has been claimed for two poems, the lyric 'Shall I die?' and A Funerall Elegye. These attributions have been accepted into certain major editions of Shakespeare's works but Brian Vickers argues that both attributions rest on superficial verbal parallels; both use too small a sample, ignore negative evidence, and violate basic principles in authorship studies. Through a fresh examination of the evidence, Professor Vickers shows that neither poem has the stylistic and imaginative qualities we associate with Shakespeare. In other words, they are 'counterfeits', in the sense of anonymously authored works wrongly presented as Shakespeare's. He argues that the poet and dramatist John Ford wrote the Elegye: its poetical language (vocabulary, syntax, prosody) is indistinguishable from Ford's, and it contains several hundred close parallels with his work. By combining linguistic and statistical analysis this book makes an important contribution to authorship studies.

    • Highly contentious field and this is a hard-hitting book
    • Rejects the ascription to Shakespeare of two poems which some have accepted into the canon
    • Uses linguistic and stylistic methods of analysis
    Read more

    Reviews & endorsements

    Review of the hardback: 'The reader of this long book, which largely consists of close stylistic analysis, is swept along by the power of its indignation … this battleship of a book delivers what are likely to be the final salvos of a hard-fought literary engagement.' The Times Literary Supplement

    Review of the hardback: 'No one doing attribution work can ignore this book … Vickers has set out a programme and an example for authorship studies …' Jonathan Hope, Literary and Linguistic Computing

    Review of the hardback: 'Brian Vickers, a scholar brilliantly suited in intellectual acumen and feisty temperament for such a controversy … [has produced] a very valuable study, and one that justifies its length and attention to technical detail … This book is a tour de force of considerable beauty'. David Bevington, Renaissance Quarterly

    Review of the hardback: 'Marshalling a fearsome array of stylometric tables and statistical charts Vickers demonstrates in detail that every one of the linguistic, prosodic and rhetorical features that supposedly stamp the Funerall Elegye as 24-carat Shakespeare prove nothing of the sort … Counterfeiting Shakespeare [is] a major contribution to the arcane domain of attribution studies, which has wider implications for our understanding of Shakespeare's poetry and plays. For, in the course of confuting misattributions … Vickers equips us with the means of identifying more confidently than was previously possible, the unmistakable music of Shakespeare's mind at play in language …' Kiernan Ryan, Timer Higher Education Supplement

    Review of the hardback: 'Counterfeiting' Shakespeare … demolishes the case for including either poem in Shakespeare's canon. The book would be impressive if it did only that, but it is also a teach-by-example on how to correctly do authorship studies to an exacting standard … It is an important work about the Ford canon'. Michael P. Jensen, The Shakespeare Newsletter

    Review of the hardback: 'Vickers is a well-informed and sympathetic reviewer of quantitative work in attribution, and has emerged as a notable practitioner … His book is a profoundly interesting one and thoroughly justified as an essay on method and good practice in scholarship. It also includes valuable and persuasive evidence about revising the Ford canon …'. Hugh Craig, Shakespeare Quarterly

    Review of the hardback: 'Counterfeiting Shakespeare is an admirable book, erudite, witty, incisive and vigorous in its narrative thrust. It makes important contributions to authorship studies as well as to Ford and Shakespeare scholarship and it authoritatively dispose once and for all of the 'counterfeit' claims of 'Shall I die?' and A Funerall Elegye.' Shakespeare in Southern Africa

    See more reviews

    Customer reviews

    Not yet reviewed

    Be the first to review

    Review was not posted due to profanity

    ×

    , create a review

    (If you're not , sign out)

    Please enter the right captcha value
    Please enter a star rating.
    Your review must be a minimum of 12 words.

    How do you rate this item?

    ×

    Product details

    • Date Published: October 2009
    • format: Paperback
    • isbn: 9780521120357
    • length: 600 pages
    • dimensions: 229 x 152 x 34 mm
    • weight: 0.87kg
    • availability: Available
  • Table of Contents

    Prologue: Gary Taylor finds a poem
    Part I. Donald Foster's 'Shakespearean' Construct:
    1. 'W.S.' and the Elegye for William Peter
    2. Parallels? Plagiarisms?
    3. Vocabulary and diction
    4. Grammar: 'the Shakespearean who'
    5. Prosody, punctuation, pause patterns
    6. Rhetoric: 'the Shakespearean hendiadys'
    7. Statistics and inference
    8. A poem 'indistinguishable from Shakespeare'
    Part II. John Ford's Funerall Elegye:
    9. Ford's writing career: poet, moralist, playwright
    10. Ford and the Elegye's 'Shakespearean diction'
    11. The Funerall Elegye in its Fordian context
    Epilogue: the politics of attribution
    Appendices:
    1. The text of A Funerall Elegye
    2. Verbal parallels between A Funerall Elegye and Ford's poems
    3. Establishing Ford's canon
    Bibliography.

  • Author

    Brian Vickers, School of Advanced Study, University of Lonodn

Related Books

also by this author

Sorry, this resource is locked

Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email lecturers@cambridge.org

Register Sign in
Please note that this file is password protected. You will be asked to input your password on the next screen.

» Proceed

You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.

Continue ×

Continue ×

Continue ×
warning icon

Turn stock notifications on?

You must be signed in to your Cambridge account to turn product stock notifications on or off.

Sign in Create a Cambridge account arrow icon
×

Find content that relates to you

Join us online

This site uses cookies to improve your experience. Read more Close

Are you sure you want to delete your account?

This cannot be undone.

Cancel

Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.

If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.

×
Please fill in the required fields in your feedback submission.
×