The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0513  Thursday, 28 August 2008

[1]  From:    Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
      Date:    Wednesday, 27 Aug 2008 11:58:53 -0400
      Subj:    Re: SHK 19.0503 Hand D and Sir Thomas More

[2]  From:    Michael Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
      Date:    Wednesday, 27 Aug 2008 06:15:59 -1000
      Subj:    Re: SHK 19.0503 Hand D and Sir Thomas More


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:       Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:       Wednesday, 27 Aug 2008 11:58:53 -0400
Subject: 19.0503 Hand D and Sir Thomas More
Comment:    Re: SHK 19.0503 Hand D and Sir Thomas More

I read the essay "A Question (not) to be Askt: Is Hand D a Copy?" in, I believe, 
the Shakespeare Yearbook for 2007.

Paul Werstine has also written extensively arguing that Hand D is a scribal 
transcript, and cannot be assumed to be Shakespeare's work

[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:       Michael Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:       Wednesday, 27 Aug 2008 06:15:59 -1000
Subject: 19.0503 Hand D and Sir Thomas More
Comment:    Re: SHK 19.0503 Hand D and Sir Thomas More

The MS. of 1 Richard II  (Woodstock) is not the author's original. Feuillerat 
identifies its writer as 'possibly a scrivener, who experiences a real pleasure 
when his pen accesses the rounded contours of letters such as h or y which he 
greatly enlarges . . . the ends of words are not only perfectly marked but are 
ornamented with flourishes, curls and useless horizontal strokes.' (The 
Composition of Shakespeare's Plays 1953). This has an important consequence, 
since 'There is an interesting similarity between the orthography of parts of 
the MS. [of Sir Thomas More] and the Egerton MS. Richard II.' (Eleanor Grace 
Clark: Ralegh and Marlowe, 1941).

A computerised comparison of the hand in Egerton 1994 and the Hand D 
reproductions of the More MS. in the Riverside Shakespeare (1997),  shows that 
they certainly seem close. But if they are from the same writer, then modern 
scholars are wrong in ascribing Harleian MS. 7368 'Hand D' to Shakespeare.

--Michael Egan


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