APPENDIX C
The Authorship of the Play
I. Shakespeare's Concern in It
With regard to the connection of Shakespeare with 1 Henry VI four different opinions have been put forward:
(1) Shakespeare had no part in the play. This was apparently the view of Richard Farmer, who says (Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, 1767): 'Henry the sixth hath ever been doubted; and [Nashe's allusion in Pierce Penniless] may give us reason to believe it was previous to our Author. . . . I have no doubt but Henry the sixth had the same Author with Edward the third.' Malone[1] and Drake[2] took the negative position strongly, and Collier flirted with it,[3] while more recently Dowden (Shakspere: His Mind and Art, 173; Shakspere Primer, etc.) and Furnivall (Introduction to Leopold Shakspere) have virtually denied any real trace of Shakespeare in the work.
(2) Shakespeare wrote the entire play. Samuel Johnson favored this hypothesis, arguing that 'from mere inferiority nothing can be inferred; in the productions of wit there will be inequality.' He was supported by his colleague Steevens, who remarks:
- ↑ Boswell—Malone Shakespeare, 1823, v. 246: 'I am therefore decisively of opinion that this play was not written by Shakspeare'; ibid., xviii. 557: Part I is 'the entire or nearly the entire production of some ancient dramatist.'
- ↑ Shakspeare and his Times, 1817, ii. 293: 'The hand of Shakspeare is nowhere visible throughout the entire of this "Drum-and-Trumpet-Thing," as Mr. Morgan [Maurice Morgann] has justly termed it.'
- ↑ Annals of the Stage, 1831, iii. 145: 'It is plausibly conjectured that Shakespeare never touched the First Part of Henry VI as it stands in his works.'
