Shakespeare, Arden of Faversham, and Four Forgotten Playwrights

This essay attempts to identify the primary author of Arden of Faversham, a play published anonymously in 1592, widely regarded as the first, and perhaps the best, domestic tragedy in English. Although many scholars now believe that Shakespeare wrote a small part of this play, there is no consensus about the authorship of most of it. This essay focuses on four Elizabethan playwrights whose extant work does not contain any securely identified single-author plays: Thomas Achelley, Michael Drayton, Richard Hathwaye, and Thomas Watson. It surveys the documentary evidence of their careers and reputations, and closely examines the literary style, originality, and variety of their extant work. This survey decisively rules out the first three, and provides strong and consistent evidence for Watson’s authorship. It identifies a new source for the play (Ovid’s Remedia Amoris), demonstrates its close connections to the 1591 royal entertainment at Elvetham, links the ahistorical role of Protector Somerset to Watson’s relationship with the Earl of Hertford, and argues that the play combines the earliest extant domestic tragedy with the earliest extant city comedy.

Oldcastle redivivus

This chapter focuses on Sir John Oldcastle, part I, a play that was clearly written to respond to, indeed, in some sense, to refute, Shakespeare's version of Falstaff in his original persona as Sir John Oldcastle. Written by Michael Drayton, Richard Hathaway, Anthony Munday and Robert Wilson, this play is precisely dateable to the autumn of 1599 when in October, Henslowe paid the authors over the odds for a 'new play' about Sir John Oldcastle. Both in the prologue and the text, Oldcastle or Cobham is unequivocally distinguished from Falstaff. In Shakespeare's play, Falstaff is identified with a distinctively puritan style of discourse, here the Falstaff figure is assimilated to a very different set of anticlerical stereotypes.

Jonson’s Miscellaneous Verse

This chapter discusses Ben Jonson’s miscellaneous poems, numbering about fifty or so, and how they might fit very neatly into a conventional critical narrative about his career, a narrative that traditionally focuses on the print publication of his folio Workes (1616). It considers the possible reasons why these poems were omitted from print, whether they tell a story of their own, and whether reading them as a group tells us anything about Jonson’s poetic career, and his preoccupations and prejudices. It also examines poems that are concerned with the dynamics of friendship and dedication, including those written for Michael Drayton, Nicholas Breton, and William Shakespeare. It suggests that Jonson’s miscellaneous poetry is a miscellaneous group and should not be read as a singular collection.