Abstract
This article engages with one of the current critical and bibliographical concerns of Shakespeare studies: the collaborative nature of Shakespeare’s work. Bibliographers have identified other hands in the fabric of Shakespeare’s plays. Here the focus is Shakespeare’s collaboration in the plays of others. Three such instances will be examined; The Book of Sir Thomas More, The Spanish Tragedy and The Chronicle History of King Lear. Substantially different as these cases may be, in all of them Shakespeare is working with the materials of others. Shakespeare’s King Lear is an adaptation of the older Leir play performed by the Queen’s Men and in that sense it is a deeply collaborative work. As this essay concludes, without a model there would be nothing to stimulate, or provoke or exceed.
Highlights
One of the major developments in the study of early modern drama over the past two decades has been an increased focus on the collaborative processes through which plays are brought to the public
James Marino (2011: 74) described the situation pithily “early modern plays were never finished; they were merely sent to the printers”
The first is Shakespeare’s revision —the only part of a play to survive in his hand— of a scene in the anonymous play Sir Thomas More which was censored by the Master of the Revels, probably in the mid 1590s
Summary
One of the major developments in the study of early modern drama over the past two decades has been an increased focus on the collaborative processes through which plays are brought to the public.1 Instead of author-centered textual theory, more emphasis is placed on a communally achieved play with a number of contributors in the playhouse and printing house. The second concerns the additions, recently attributed to Shakespeare, to the extremely popular Spanish Tragedy in 1602, and the third is his revisionary adaptation of the old King Leir play in 1606.
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