It is not surprising to find many of the methodologies of the Authorship question wielded in behalf of these theories of Mr. Pearce and others. They began in earnest in the 19th century. Lists of shared vocabulary and imagery have been developed over that time in support of them. Several of the major assertions that underpin them depending upon lack of knowledge of the works and times, however, they tend to be founded, in the end, upon desire.
In the case of the brief article in question, Shakespare's handling of various characters could only be catalogued. No detail analysis is offered. Only names and claims.
Among the first is that of Joan of Arc in the first part of the Henry VI plays. It is an inauspicious start as it has long been agreed among scholars that Shakespeare wrote little or nothing of the play. Almost certainly nothing of the scenes relating to Joan of Arc.
In his final analysis, in 1787, Edmond Malone decided that Shakespeare could have written nothing of the play and that became the dominant theory. For a time, some hundred years later, the theory of Frederick Fleay, that Shakespeare wrote the Act IV, scenes vi-ix, depicting the death of Talbot, dominated debates on the matter. The First Folio once again properly included 1 Henry VI Shakespeare being a co-author.
While Fleay's reputation supported his theory, however, little else did. The key scenes were written in end-stopped rhyming couplets. Like much of the vocabulary and imagery, the style is distinctly that of George Peele.
With the collapse of the Fleay theory followed a bit of a scholarly free-for-all in which each assigned their own passages purportedly written by Shakespeare. All the more reason, then, to declare 1 Henry VI to have been “written by Shakespeare,” without clarifying commentary, for the general public. In the end, however, what can not be said is that any particular part of the play was certainly written by the purported author.
It very much bears mentioning that, among the scholarly scrum, “Chairman of the Department of English University of Southern California,” Allison Gaw's The Origin and Development of 1 HENRY VI appeared in 1926. Ms. Gaw quietly provided what is likely the correct answer to what and how much Shakespeare contributed to the play and why he added it well after the fact to the original text of the play. None of it touched on Catholic subjects. More on that another day.
Mr. Pearse's problems do not end there. In his short article he has managed to assert a number of examples that are questionable, at best. The reader is informed:
Another saint who makes an appearance in Shakespeare’s plays, at least allusively, is St. Francis. He is present in the depiction of holy Friars, such as Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, Friar Francis in Much Ado About Nothing, Friars Laurence and Patrick in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and by several Franciscan friars and Poor Clare sisters in Measure for Measure.
Friar Laurence, though, was not created by the playwright. He was a character taken from the poem, “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet,” by the young Englishman, Arthur Brooke, and an Italian novella by Matteo Bandello source to both the poem and play. Bandello, in turn, was also retelling the still older tale with its franciscan friar. Versions of both go back as far as the very early 14th century. The characters in Measure for Measure were taken from another Italian novella, this one by Giraldi Cinthio. Etc.
Italian novellas have Catholic characters. It would be all but impossible to turn them into Protestants.
The poor quality of the examples in this brief arcticle do not disprove Pearse's claim that Southwell influenced Shakespeare. But they do reflect poorly upon the author's knowledge of his subject.
Unfortunately for Pearse, an interview datelined February2 continues the troublesome pattern. Among his go-to examples, the following:
Shakespeare’s intertextual referencing of the works of Southwell enables us to understand Shakespeare’s specifically Catholic approach to the plays. It’s as if seeing the intertextuality enables us to see the plays through Shakespeare’s eyes. Take, for instance, Portia’s words after the Prince of Aragon’s failure in the test of the caskets: “Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth.” (2.9.78) And compare it to lines from Southwell’s “Lewd Love is Losse”: So long the flie doth dallie with the flame,/Untill his singed wings doe force his fall.”
It turns out that the young courtier who went under the moniker Si fortunatus infoelix in the 1573 anthology An Hundreth Sundrie Flowers liked the image as well.
YOu must not wonder though you thinke it straunge,
To see me holde my lowring head so lowe:
And that myne eyes take no delyght to raunge,
About the gleames which on your face doe growe.
The mouse which once hath broken out of trappe,
Is sildome tysed with the trustlesse bayte,
But Jyes aloofe for feare of more mishappe,
And feedeth styll in doubte of deepe deceipte.
The skorched flye which once hath scapt the flame,
Wyll hardlye come to playe againe with fyre.
Whereby I learne that greevous is the game,
Which followes fansie dazled by desire.
So that I wynke or eke holde downe my head,
Because your blazing eyes my bale have bred.
The italics are my own. The reason he liked it was not because he was a young Shakespeare ̶ which I argue he was in my Shakespeare in 1573: Apprenticeship and Scandal (2021)3 [link] ̶ but because it was a common saying at the time.
1Pearce, Joseph. “Shakespeare and the Saints.” The Imaginative Conservative. October 31, 2022. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2022/10/shakespeare-saints-joseph-pearce.html
2“The Jesuit martyr who inspired Shakespeare.” The Catholic World Report.. February 21, 2022. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/02/21/the-jesuit-martyr-who-inspired-shakespeare/
3Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Shakespeare in 1573: Apprenticeship and Scandal (2021). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096GSQV14/
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Edward de Vere and Marlowe’s Dido of Carthage. July 5, 2022. “It was an historical effort and an historical two years for Elizabethan theater.”
- The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice. May 25, 2022. “The reader may recall that Polonius calls upon Reynaldo to suggest to Laertes’ friends that he is privy to minor misbehaviors, at which he winks,…”
- The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
- How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
- Enter John Lyly. October 18, 2016. "From time to time, Shakespeare Authorship aficionados query after the name “John Lyly”. This happens surprisingly little given the outsized role the place-seeker, novelist and playwright played in the lives of the playwright William Shakespeare and Edward de Vere."
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Be sure to check out the Browser's Guide to the Library of Babel.
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