Monday, May 17, 2010

The Loneliness of Shakespeare Apocrypha

It occurred to me that we could have played our Shakespeare Apocrypha game with a number of plays, including Thomas of Woodstock, which Ernst and I discussed a couple years ago. There's also things like Yorkshire Tragedy, Locrine, and The Second Maiden's Tragedy. A little research suggests that scholars before us have pretty much settled the authorship of these. (It's surprising how often the answer seems to be a committee.) Not that that would have reduced the enjoyment of rooting around in the periphery of the Shakespearean experience.

As we begin Edward III, where I'm less interested in an authorship debate than I am in exploring stylistics, I thought I'd share Ron Rosenbaum's latest for Slate.com, a heap of righteous indignation aimed at Arden's attempt to "extend the brand" to a play Rosenbaum considers laughably undeserving:

The Double Falsehood of "Double Falsehood."

Enjoy,
Randall

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