# Shakespeare **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [October 14, 2005, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207 "2005-10-14T11:53:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/161 "2005-10-24T14:28:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I believe that Cervantes is generally reckoned to be the greatest Spanish-language writer, and I think that Dante might be considered the best in Italian. And, of course, both _Don Quixote_ and _The Divine Comedy_ have also been widely translated and widely influential. Shakespeare has undoubtedly been more influential on English-speaking people, but that’s only to be expected… Can anyone say how Shakespeare’s influence on English compares to Cervantes’ on Spanish, or compare the two of them in some third language? The obvious place to start is the fact that “Cardenio” was based on an episode in _Don Quixote_. Since the three mostly worked in different forms (all of them wrote lyric poetry, but it is not what any of them are known for, and Cervantes wrote some plays, but they are not what he is known for), there is more than the difference in language to make comparisons difficult. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/162 "2005-10-24T15:47:43Z")
> [@John W. Kennedy](#): > > Theobald, in fact, was one of the mildest of the offenders, at least when he was wearing his editor’s hat; he always insisted that editors should try to establish what Shakespeare actually wrote, rather than what they thought Shakespeare should have written. (He is regarded as the father of scientific textual criticism in modern languages.) Yes. Poor Theobald. I’ve always thought that his enthronement by Pope as King of the Dunces in the 1728 Dunciad was undeserved. Predictable though, Pope didn’t take kindly to criticism, even when justifed, and Theobald’s _Shakespeare Restored_ must have been a bitter pill to swallow, correcting as it did the many errors and misreadings in Pope’s own edition of Shakespeare. I’ll always recall Theobald best for his wonderful resolution of the crux in Henry V, II,iii. The Hostess’ lines stood in the early editions as “His nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of green fields.” Theobald’s inspired emendation was “His nose was as sharp as a pen and a’babbled of green fields” which is how it now reads in all modern editions. I’m sure I’m telling you nothing that you don’t already know but it may be of interest to others. BTW one of the most enjoyable reading experiences of my life was working my way through the Furness Variorum Shakespeare and watching the 18th/19th century editors battling it out in the footnotes. Nobody employs acerbic wit to such withering effect as a Shakespearian editor commenting on an earlier editor’s emendations! ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/163 "2005-10-24T18:08:55Z")
> [@wissdok](#): > > Modern music has multiple tempos, the appreciation of voice, and the variety that these “classical” artist never dreamed of. Bruce Hornsby once wrote a whole piece only using only sharps and flats…something the “masters” could never do. The ignorance you flaunt in these statements is staggering, and, frankly, embarrassing. Kindly embarrass yourself no more about this subject, concerning which you clearly know almost nothing. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/164 "2005-10-24T22:49:50Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > The ignorance you flaunt in these statements is staggering, and, frankly, embarrassing. > > Kindly embarrass yourself no more about this subject, concerning which you clearly know almost nothing. Now, now, just because he hasn’t heard of C# Major or C-flat Major, and has no concept of what sharps and flats really are, or what musical literature there is out there dealing in such concepts, doesn’t mean he’s ignorant… Ok, well, I guess it does. 😛 Still, at least in his most recent long post, he did make points about Shakespeare as literature that have to be addressed carefully, more carefully than his basic rant about Shakespeare not being “popular.” ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/165 "2005-10-25T16:05:42Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Still, at least in his most recent long post, he did make points about Shakespeare as literature that have to be addressed carefully, more carefully than his basic rant about Shakespeare not being “popular.” Granted. I suppose I’ll let others deal with that. It was the misstatements about classical music that offended me. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/166 "2005-10-25T17:27:43Z")
Actually, we only have Theobald’s word that \*Cardenio \* was based on an episode in Don Quixote–as we only have his wrod for the existence of those two manuscripts. _Double Falsehood_, as far as I can see, was not based on the Cardenio episode either; it uses none of the names or the plot. After threee years fo studey–inspired by Hamilton’s book–I a m mostly convinced that \*The Second Maiden’s Tragedy \* (a) \*\*is not \*\* Cardenio, and (b) \*\*is \*\* a Shakespeare/Middleton collaboration (like _Timon of Athens_). FWIW, I don’t buy most of Hamilton’s conjecture, but I was amused how he “found” Shakespeare’s handwriting in Bacon’s notebooks, thus turning the Baconian theory around on itself. I do think he’s right about Shakespeare’s will being in his own handwriting. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/167 "2005-10-25T18:29:59Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > Actually, we only have Theobald’s word that \*Cardenio \* was based on an episode in Don Quixote–as we only have his wrod for the existence of those two manuscripts. > _Double Falsehood_, as far as I can see, was not based on the Cardenio episode either; it uses none of the names or the plot. > After threee years fo studey–inspired by Hamilton’s book–I a m mostly convinced that \*The Second Maiden’s Tragedy \* (a) \*\*is not \*\* Cardenio, and (b) \*\*is \*\* a Shakespeare/Middleton collaboration (like _Timon of Athens_). > > FWIW, I don’t buy most of Hamilton’s conjecture, but I was amused how he “found” Shakespeare’s handwriting in Bacon’s notebooks, thus turning the Baconian theory around on itself. I do think he’s right about Shakespeare’s will being in his own handwriting. That’s interesting; I hadn’t seen Middleton’s name in connection with _Timon_ before (admittedly I don’t keep abreast of these things). Didn’t he revise _Macbeth_ after Shakespeare’s death putting a couple of songs from one of his own plays in (and perhaps cutting the play in size, it’s extremely short in relation to the other great tragedies)? Certainly the text of _Timon_ as we have it is incomplete; it has the appearance of a work not quite finished. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207/168 "2005-10-25T18:54:05Z")
> [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > Actually, we only have Theobald’s word that \*Cardenio \* was based on an episode in Don Quixote–as we only have his wrod for the existence of those two manuscripts. Actually, he claimed to posses three mss. > [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > _Double Falsehood_, as far as I can see, was not based on the Cardenio episode either; it uses none of the names or the plot. No-one knew in 1727 that there ever had been a missing play named _Cardenio_, and _Double Falshood_ does, in fact, closely follow the plot of the “Cardenio” episode in _Don Quixote_ (which _The Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ does not, although the B plot is a twisted version of _DQ_’s episode of “The One Who Was Too Curious for His Own Good”). There are even distinct verbal echoes, and character names mean nothing in an adaptation of an adaptation. Indeed, Theobald’s concern with _Don Quixote_ is to point out that the obvious derivation of _Double Falshood_ from _DQ_ is not a bar to Shakespearean authorship, as Part 1 of _DQ_ had been available in England in time. > [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > After threee years fo studey–inspired by Hamilton’s book–I a m mostly convinced that \*The Second Maiden’s Tragedy \* (a) \*\*is not \*\* Cardenio, and (b) \*\*is \*\* a Shakespeare/Middleton collaboration (like _Timon of Athens_). I see no earthly reason to suppose it to be by Shakespeare at all (although, as it was in the possession of the King’s Men, there is always the possibility that he contributed a line or two). No real paleographer thinks it to be in his hand, and it is grossly unlike him in many respects, _viz.:_[ul][li]The characters all have either no names at all or Latinate type names.[_]The action is set in no particular time or place.[_]The A plot and B plot have nothing to do with one another, except that when (literally ) all the characters of the B plot have murdered each other, a character from the A plot, though on his way to an urgent A-plot appointment, makes a detour into the B plot solely in order to direct the servants to clear the bodies off the stage.[/ul][/li]Beyond all these is the simple fact that _The Second Maiden’s Tragedy_ is a rumbustious tale of bloody revenges, written at the time when Shakespeare was busying himself with such plays as _The Winter’s Tale_ and _The Tempest_. I just can’t imagine him, at that time in his life, writing anything like it, unless, perhaps, as a joke. > [@Dr. Rieux](#): > > FWIW, I don’t buy most of Hamilton’s conjecture, but I was amused how he “found” Shakespeare’s handwriting in Bacon’s notebooks, thus turning the Baconian theory around on itself. I do think he’s right about Shakespeare’s will being in his own handwriting. Palaeographers don’t. One (alas, I cannot now find the reference) complained, “Charles Hamilton thinks everything in secretary hand is by Shakespeare.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakespeare/326207.md?page=8)