David Baxter Connelly ENGL1301 December 10, 2012 Did Shakespeare Plagiarize His Work?

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and Macbeth: These stand as some of William Shakespeares most well known pieces. But what if another playwright penned these famous stories instead? Now, some scholars are proposing that very idea. In 1599, William Jaggard published The Passionate Pilgrim, a collection of plays entirely attributed to William Shakespeare. The book contains twenty-one poems, but only four can actually be credited to the Bard. William Jaggard published the book without the knowledge of the authors of the poems and decided on his own to stamp Shakespeares name on the front. Authors? As in more than one author? That is exactly right! The book contains works written by as little as six additional poets; Richard Barnfield, Bartholemew Griffin, Thomas Deloney, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Weekes, and Christopher Marlowe (Cummings). I know what you are probably saying: Since Shakespeare didnt have a say in publishing the collection, he is completely innocent of the accusations, right? Wrong. Shakespeare knew about the book being entirely

credited to him, but he never attempted to share the credit with his fellow poets. He willingly took the praise and glory for the book. According to Dictionary.com, Plagiarism is an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author. Old Willy did exactly this. No, he did not imitate the language of other authors, but he definitely represented their work as his own. Later, Thomas Heywood published a little story of his own. In Apology for Actors, Heywood explains that he wrote two of the poems from The Passionate Pilgrim. He also explains that Jaggard published the book without his knowledge and pressed all the blame on Jaggard, not Shakespeare. That must be it! We should let Bill off the hook now: No one blamed him for the publication. I guess you could excuse him on this offence, but this is not the first instance of the Bard stealing blame. More blatant offences await us. Sir Brian Vickers, a Literature Scholar at the University of London, did a study on the possibility of plagiarism in Shakespeares historical fiction, The Reign of Edward III. For years scholars debated over whether or not William Shakespeare wrote this play solely by himself, or if another playwright aided him in the process (Faure). Vickers realized that today, college professors everywhere run their students papers through plagiarism detection software to assure the turn in completely original works. If this software helped teachers catch students, it could surely catch the Bard as well. He

plugged the play in question into the plagiarism software and it proved just that. Vickers tells us that in most works you find about twenty threads of at least three words that match another work. In Edward III there were over two hundred (Faure). After inspecting the matching threads, Vickers believes Thomas Kyd, another very famous playwright of the Elizabethan Era, not only helped Shakespeare write this play, but also wrote almost all of it. Sir Vickers concluded that William Shakespeare only wrote five scenes in the entire play; four in the beginning and one near the end. This form of collaborative play writing was definitely not unheard of in the time. Very competitive theater companies would hire multiple playwrights to work together on a single play, paying each by the scene, in order to turn out a play every few weeks. The companies would then stamp their name on the play instead of the playwrights. This stands as the most likely situation since William Shakespeare owned a theater company out of the Globe Theater in England. Every once in a while gutsy Shakespeare would rip out entire phrases from other works and plug them right into his plays. He did this in Antony and Cleopatra (Cummings). His description of Cleopatra on her barge suspiciously imitates the same description by Plutarch written some 1600 years earlier. Some writers find this completely acceptable. Throughout literary history, authors, poets, and playwrights quote directly other writers without crediting the original source. They assume their

readers are intelligent enough to realize the reference. They use this device of allusion, a device widely accepted and encouraged, to pay homage to other writers they admire. Did William Shakespeare really purposefully take the credit of other poets and playwrights out of laziness or a lack of creativity? Or did he come up with every word he wrote by himself and is just suffering from hate groups, bitter because they didnt get recognition? Could there be another conspiracy behind the reason people think Mr. Shakespeare plagiarized? All I know is what facts are given to me, and they all seem to point in no specific direction.

Works Cited

Cummings, Michael. "Did Shakespeare Plagiarize?." Cummings Study Guides. Web. 7 Dec 2012. Faure, Galle. "Plagiarism Software Finds a New Shakespeare Play." Time Entertainment. 20 2009: Web. 9 Dec. 2012.