Subject
Shakespeare: Applejohn and primrose--one Nabokovian explanation
Date
Body
Dear List,
Thanks to Auckland's power shortages I have only just had access to
the discussion about Nabokov and the anti-Stratfordians.
Nabokov thought Schoenbaum's _Shakespeare's Lives_ (which if I
remember correctly Alfred Appel Jr gave him as a present) a superb
work of biographical scholarship.
His discussion of the anti-Stratfordian position in _Bend Sinister_
drips with contempt for bogus scholarship (like the contempt for
bogus directing and bogus translation in the rest of the chapter) and
contrasts with the real achievement of Ember's translation.
The standard of evidence used by anti-Stratfordians is sub-
Nostradamus stuff. Their methodology belongs with Elvis
sightings, alien abductions and (still purely in terms of standards
of evidence and argument) denials of the Holocaust.
Nevertheless there is a considerable body of superbly rigorous
recentish (1970s on) work on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays,
which shows that for instance Middleton wrote most of Act III of
_Timon of Athens_, that Fletcher and Shakespeare shared _Two Noble
Kinsmen_ and _Henry VIII_ almost equally, that George Wilkins wrote
the first two acts of _Pericles_, and that George Peele wrote Act I
of _Titus Andronicus_ (I've added a microgram to this last finding).
Those who contribute to the "disintegration" of the canon (mostly
only of very early or very late or semi-aborted bits, although
Middleton also wrote a scene in _Macbeth_) are called
"disintegrators," and the person acknowledged as the "best of the
disintegrators" is MacDonald P. Jackson, who happens to have the
office next to mine (see his _Studies in Attribution_ , his survey of
Shakespearean editing in _Shakespeare Survey_ in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, and pieces in _Notes and Queries_).
From: Brian Boyd
English Department
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand
Fax (64 9) 373 7429 Tel (64 9) 373 7599 ext 7480
Home fax: (64 9) 620 6520 Home tel: (64 9) 620 6597
e-mail: b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz
Thanks to Auckland's power shortages I have only just had access to
the discussion about Nabokov and the anti-Stratfordians.
Nabokov thought Schoenbaum's _Shakespeare's Lives_ (which if I
remember correctly Alfred Appel Jr gave him as a present) a superb
work of biographical scholarship.
His discussion of the anti-Stratfordian position in _Bend Sinister_
drips with contempt for bogus scholarship (like the contempt for
bogus directing and bogus translation in the rest of the chapter) and
contrasts with the real achievement of Ember's translation.
The standard of evidence used by anti-Stratfordians is sub-
Nostradamus stuff. Their methodology belongs with Elvis
sightings, alien abductions and (still purely in terms of standards
of evidence and argument) denials of the Holocaust.
Nevertheless there is a considerable body of superbly rigorous
recentish (1970s on) work on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays,
which shows that for instance Middleton wrote most of Act III of
_Timon of Athens_, that Fletcher and Shakespeare shared _Two Noble
Kinsmen_ and _Henry VIII_ almost equally, that George Wilkins wrote
the first two acts of _Pericles_, and that George Peele wrote Act I
of _Titus Andronicus_ (I've added a microgram to this last finding).
Those who contribute to the "disintegration" of the canon (mostly
only of very early or very late or semi-aborted bits, although
Middleton also wrote a scene in _Macbeth_) are called
"disintegrators," and the person acknowledged as the "best of the
disintegrators" is MacDonald P. Jackson, who happens to have the
office next to mine (see his _Studies in Attribution_ , his survey of
Shakespearean editing in _Shakespeare Survey_ in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, and pieces in _Notes and Queries_).
From: Brian Boyd
English Department
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019 Auckland New Zealand
Fax (64 9) 373 7429 Tel (64 9) 373 7599 ext 7480
Home fax: (64 9) 620 6520 Home tel: (64 9) 620 6597
e-mail: b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz