A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen Part 17

There is nothing improbable in this. After Shakspere retired to Stratford, Fletcher may have found the play amongst the MSS. of the Theatre, and then produced it after due changes made--not giving the author's name. At that time it was the custom that a play remained the property of the company of actors who produced it. That the Blackfriars Company did _not_ regard the play as Shakspere's is pretty plain--for in the edition of 1623, published by Heminge and Condell of that company, Shakspere's own fellow-players, the play is not included. Nor does the part authorship account for the omission, as plays with less of Shakspere's undoubted authorship are there included. But the omission is intelligible if the play had been so Fletcherised that it was, when acted, generally regarded as Fletcher's. Fletcher was alive in 1623 to claim all as his property; but in 1634 he was dead. Then the publisher, knowing or hearing that Shakspere had a share, printed _his_ name, after _Fletcher's_, as part dramatist. Thus I return to the older verdict of Coleridge and Lamb, that Shakspere wrote pa.s.sages of this play, perhaps also the outlines, but that Fletcher filled up, added an underplot, and finally revised.

FOOTNOTES:

[115:1] Does not this as much imply that Fletcher knew he had spoiled what Shakspere would have done well?--H. L.

[115:2] But this is confessedly the case with Chaucer's _Troilus_.--F.

[Not quite. In _Troilus_ the travestie is intentional: in the _Two N.

K._ Chaucer is solemnly Cibberised.--J. H. S.]

[116:1] Also my view--though I hesitate to express a firm opinion on the matter--PERHAPS Shakspere worked on the 1594 play as a basis?--H. L.