Owning William Shakespeare

Shakespeare at Work: Four Kings and Two Shrews

“…The choice of his name [on a title page] may reflect not his authorship, in any traditional sense, but rather his centrality to the company in multiple capacities (as playwright, actor, shareholder), not to mention his distinctive loyalty to the company for which he wrote exclusively. 51 But even if, according to recent bibliographical theory, the name 'Shakespeare' is a sign of ownership rather than authorship, and the printed versions of dramatic texts are inherently unstable, there is a clear distinction between the earlier and later printed versions of King John, King Lear and The Taming of the Shrew. In all three cases, the differences can be characterised as a move from relative simplicity to relative complexity, allowing for greater latitude in interpretation -and in productions of The Shrew, such latitude is encouraged by the instability of the Folio text.…”

Shakespeare’s Sonnets Dated

“…Below, in the "References", this author lists four books (Ellis, 2012;Knutson, 2001;Marino, 2011;Schoone-Jongen, 2008) which are admirable examinations of many of the issues alluded to here with regard to difficulty of dating Shakespeare's works, and attribution of works to him (e.g., prior to Meres' list, all Shakespeare plays were anonymous, and the first title-page to ever have Shakespeare's name on it was 1598 LLL "good" Q1). Indeed, Marino's general opinion (e.g., 2011, pp.…”