Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 7, No. 0110.  Tuesday, 13 February 1996.

(1)     From:   Joanne Woolway <
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        Date:   Monday, 12 Feb 1996 18:04:04 +0000 (GMT)
        Subj:   Natural born characters

(2)     From:   Helen Vella Bonavita <
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        Date:   Tuesday, 13 Feb 1996 13:36:30 +0800 (WST)
        Subj:   Re: Bastards


(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Joanne Woolway <
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Date:           Monday, 12 Feb 1996 18:04:04 +0000 (GMT)
Subject:        Natural born characters

David Reinheimer,

You could try reading Alison Findlay's _Illegitimate Power: Bastards in
Renaissance Drama_ Manchester UP/ St Martin's Press, 1994.

There's a review of it in EMLS 1.1:
http://unixg.ubc.ca:7001/0/e-sources/emls/emlshome.html

Joanne Woolway

(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Helen Vella Bonavita <
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Date:           Tuesday, 13 Feb 1996 13:36:30 +0800 (WST)
Subject:        Re: Bastards

Dear David Reinheimer,

Having just finished a thesis on bastardy in Shakespeare's histories, I leapt
at your question like a trout to a fly. I would be very interested to know
which bastards you have come across - yes, there are lots. The threat of
bastardy tends to be used more than the actuality - *A Fair Quarrel* is the
obvious example, which in itself is curious. Actually, Middleton uses bastardy
with great enthusiasm and force in several of his plays. There is also
Webster's *The Devil's Law-Case*, where a woman attempts to prove her son
illegitimate. You  might also be interested in *The Bastard*, a play attributed
to Cosmo Manuche, and published in 1652. If you read it though, it seems much
more like an early Jacobean drama, and there's really very little evidence that
Manuche wrote it.

Best wishes,
Helen Vella Bonavita (University of Western Australia)