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Topic: A Thought Experiment on the Shakespeare Authorship Question Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Steven Brake
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Posted: 09 May 2025 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
Michael Penn wrote: One question is what is the date any of the plays were written?

SB replied: Yes, this isn't absolutely settled. 

Michael Penn wrote:  A different one is does the admittedly problematic dating of the plays create a secondary problem in terms of who could've been the author?

SB replied: No. Stylistic analysis of the plays credited to Shakespeare prove - or, if that's too strong a word, strongly indicate - that they are the work of the same person, often working in collaboration with another writer. So the first three parts of Henry VI are written by Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe (the latter now officially credited by The New Oxford Shakespeare), Macbeth contains work by Thomas Middleton,  John Fletcher co-wrote Henry VIII (or "All Is True) and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

As posted before, the role of collaboration compounds the difficulties in arguing that someone other than Will of Stratford was the author, or co-author, of the plays attributed to him in the First Folio.
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Houston Mitchell
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Posted: 10 May 2025 at 1:10am | IP Logged | 2 post reply
If Shakespeare collaborated with another writer, how do we know how much Shakespeare contributed and how much the other writer contributed? Maybe the other guy wrote 98% of it. How do we know?
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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 10 May 2025 at 2:56am | IP Logged | 3 post reply
Houston: If Shakespeare collaborated with another writer, how do we know how much Shakespeare contributed and how much the other writer contributed? Maybe the other guy wrote 98% of it. How do we know?

**

There is no actual answer to that question, Houston.

Working in the TV writing business, I know what it's like to have a project reach audiences after going through many writers. I can speak from experience of how something can become successful for both the writers and the audience in a way that nobody is sure who has the best claim to any particular scene, much less the overall work. And there is a 100% chance that none of our friends, much less strangers born 100 years from now could ever tell either.

Watch one of the writer's room scenes from The Dick Van Dyke show and then imagine that scene going on for 8 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week for two weeks for an hours' worth of storytelling. Then add another week of one writer putting it together, then two to three weeks of rewrites from one to two other writers.

And look at the Sir Thomas Moore manuscript if you don't think that's how it was done in Shakespeare's day.

Marlowe's plays read like the work of a committee. Several of Shakespeare's plays read like the work of a committee. Some Stratfordians put great stock in their "scientific" "stylometric" methods for recognizing the work of different writers-- but their methods often have massive question marks like not being able to recognize HAMLET as being by Shakespeare. It's bad science and magical thinking.

Anyone who says they can tell who wrote what in a collaborative piece is selling snake oil. It is easy to be convinced you can tell-- but it is a very different thing to arrive at the truth of the matter.

Edited by Mark Haslett on 10 May 2025 at 3:18am
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Houston Mitchell
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Posted: 10 May 2025 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply
Mark: As a writer myself, that's what I thought. I mean, for all we know, they said "Hey Shakespeare, want to write a couple of words?" as a lark. I'm not sure how anyone can say Shakespeare was the writer if they also admit he had co-writers, because maybe the co-writers did 95% of the writing.   
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Steven Brake
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Posted: 10 May 2025 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply
Houston Mitchell wrote: I'm not sure how anyone can say Shakespeare was the writer if they also admit he had co-writers.

SB replied: As earlier posted, the role of collaboration is one of the most powerful rebuttals of the argument that someone else other than Shakespeare wrote the plays ascribed to him. Why did Nashe, Middleton, Beaumont, Fletcher etc keep quiet?  Threats? From whom? Or did the Stratford lad somehow fool them all into thinking he was the author?
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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 11 May 2025 at 3:53am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
Houston: for all we know, they said "Hey Shakespeare, want to write a couple of words?" as a lark.
**
What always strikes me as funny about these authorship debates? People talk like the past left us a clean audit trail.

But when you're in the thick of a creative process — especially a collaborative one — no one’s taking minutes. No one's documenting authorship percentages. Half the time, the only person who thinks they remember who wrote a line is the one who didn't. Attribution becomes mythology before the ink dries. I've lived it.

And sure, maybe some name gets attached to the final product. Maybe it's the guy who had the best penmanship. Or the one who picked up the bill at the Mermaid Tavern. Or the one who wasn’t there at all, but had a good story about how he was.

And the thing about Shakespeare's "collaborators" that gets me excited about solving this mystery is that all of those who worked in the 1580's and 1590's knew each other. They are documented as having worked together with Oxford, with Henslowe, around the Blackfriars, around Fisher's Folly,

...but NEVER with Will Shaksper of Stratford.
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Steven Brake
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Posted: 11 May 2025 at 5:52am | IP Logged | 7 post reply
Mark Haslett wrote: And the thing about Shakespeare's "collaborators" that gets me excited about solving this mystery is that all of those who worked in the 1580's and 1590's knew each other. They are documented as having worked together with Oxford, with Henslowe, around the Blackfriars, around Fisher's Folly...but NEVER with Will Shaksper of Stratford.

SB replied: Which "collaborators" from the 1580s and 1590s are you referring to? 

What details are there of any of them having written with De Vere? 

Why did none of them speak out when the work they'd produced with him was falsely credited to Will of Stratford?

Why did none of them leave private written accounts confirming their co-authorship with Shakespeare and complaining that it was being falsely credited to Will of Stratford?

It's odd that Alternative Authorship theorists get excited about exploring the role of collaboration, as it pretty much explodes the basis of their argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon wrote the plays that were credited to him in the First Folio.
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