Category Archives: Shakespeare

IS EDWARD III GOOD ENOUGH TO BE BY SHAKESPEARE? Putting aside statistical analysis, I think that the opinions on attribution come down to judgments of whether Edward III is up to Shakespeare’s lofty standard. It is puzzling that even with … Continue reading →

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHETHER SHAKESPEARE WROTE EDWARD III? The large number of suggested attributions shows that there is no dispositive evidence of authorship. Using the First Folio test would give a clear answer to to the question of authorship. … Continue reading →

WHO WROTE EDWARD III?—-SOME CANDIDATES. Edward III is rarely done (Thank you Hudson Shakespeare Company!). The production history in this wikipedia entry lists only a few items. The candidates for the authorship are more in number than the productions. The … Continue reading →

A COMPLETIST GOES FOR EXTRA CREDIT. I have posted several times about my efforts to see all of Shakespeare’s plays. I announced here on March 7 of this year that I had decided to drop The Two Noble Kinsmen and … Continue reading →

SHAKESPEARE FAVORED MULTIPLE MEANINGS EVERY CHANCE HE GOT. Here is my post about William Empson’s analysis of some eight meanings or overtones in the line “Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”. Here is my post about Empson’s … Continue reading →

THINKING IN A WORLD WITHOUT STANDARD SPELLING. Rosenbaum says that: “At its deepest level Andrews’s argument is that this is not a question of Shakespearean spelling habits, but the nature of Shakespearean THOUGHT, his original way of using language to … Continue reading →

DISAMBIGUATING SHAKESPEARE. Rosenbaum’s discussion of Shakespeare’s spelling is based on his interviews with John Andrews, the founder of the Shakespeare Guild. Andrews is one of the leading advocates of using Shakespeare’s original spelling. In the Everyman edition of Hamlet, edited … Continue reading →

THE AIR BITES “SHROUDLY”—DOES SHAKESPEARE’S SPELLING MATTER? When Hamlet enters with Horatio and Marcellus just before he sees the ghost, he says: “The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.” Or does he? That is what he says in the … Continue reading →

HAMLET—A YOUNG MAN’S VOICE. The other night I walked down the hill to see Shakespeare on the Sound’s production of Hamlet. It was the third Shakespeare play directed by Claire Kelly that I’ve seen, and it was very good, as … Continue reading →