This is really one of most striking pieces of evidence and the most beautiful illustration proving North's authorship at one glance. Once you know who the real author was, all the pieces "magically" line up. The orthodox Shakespeare timeline reminds me of the "mental gymnastics" meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2010805-mental-gymnastics-cartoon
As I commented to one of your recent articles, some of the standard dating is based on the provenance of known/supposed source texts. For example, most scholars believe that Greene's Pandosto was the source for Winter's Tale and that Lodge's Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie was the source for As You Like It. You invert the order and hypothesize that Shakespeare's (North's) plays came first. In addition there are various topical references as well as Shakespeare's evolving linguistic style and evolving theater conventions that are used to date the plays.
Of course there's a certain amount of leeway given your premise that Shakespeare adapted all these plays -- i.e. any particular topical allusion could have been added by Shakespeare. And there's also the possibility that North revised the source plays (which you indicate several times in your timeline -- any evidence for that?). But wholesale discrepancies in linguistic and stylistic evolution as well as alleged source conflicts will be harder to explain in that same manner.
Any timeline (including yours) requires a lot of play-by-play analysis (stylistic, linguistic, allusions, sources, etc) beyond biographical links to North's life. I know you've done some (a lot?) of that. But ultimately I'd love to see this debated with orthodox scholars. Much of the orthodox dating is based on the performance and publishing dates of the plays (which would no longer be relevant in the North theory) as well as the actual textual and topical arguments. These would need to be disentangled.
Hi Bob, Great comment. Yes I have written quite a lot on the dating of the plays and it is clear that according to sources, topical references, style, and external allusions the canon is decades older than commonly believed. Moreover, I have proved beyond all rational doubt that Shakespeare couldn’t have been following Greene. Rather both had to have been following an early play of North’s. Check here: On the “Picture Proof of Thomas North’s Authorship” https://dennismccarthy.substack.com/p/picture-proof-of-thomas-norths-authorship.
Here's a passage on the subject in Schlueter’s and my book, “Thomas North’s 1555 Travel Journal: From Italy to Shakespeare:” The discovery of the circumstances of North’s penning of Henry VIII and The Winter’s Tale helps increase our understanding of both plays. The North family history—particularly the circumstances of Edward, 1st Lord North, Thomas’s father—helps explain why the main storyline of the first four acts of Henry VIII focuses on the extravagance and demise of Cardinal Wolsey. The blatant Catholicism of both Henry VIII and The Winter’s Tale also makes sense for plays originally written during the reign of Queen Mary, as does the focus on and deification of Mary’s mother, Katherine. The old-fashioned qualities of the play are also consistent with this earlier chronology. Jay L. Halio, an editor of Henry VIII, sees in the falls of Katherine and Wolsey “a throwback to the de casibus tradition of medieval tragedy, as in Chaucer’s ‘Monk’s Tale’ or later in The Mirror for Magistrates.” Its seminal sources, Hall’s Union (1548) and Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey (1554-55), are early Tudor too.
Similarly, The Winter’s Tale frequently relies on a medley of English and continental sources that date between 1544 and 1557. This includes Amadis de Grecia (1546-48), Florisel de Niquea (1552) , Rogel de Grecia (1554), Pierre de Ronsard’s poem “L’Alouette” in Nouvelle Continuation des Amours (1556), John Heywood’s The Play of the Four P’s (1544), the anonymous Respublica (1553), John Brende’s English translation of The History of Quintus Curtius (1553), and George Ferrers’ “The Fall of Robert Tresilian” in A Memorial of Such Princes (1554). But why would Shakespeare, writing in 1610, become so focused on English and continental literature originally written in such a remote and narrow period of time? Plausible reasons are difficult to imagine. However, a reliance on these sources does make sense if North was the original author of the play in 1556-57.
Perhaps most significantly, as we shall see in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, North’s journal also gives us a new perspective on The Winter’s Tale, for all of the play’s mysterious and wondrous exotica, from its strange settings to its striking visuals, derive from North’s trip to Rome and the circumstances surrounding them. This includes the far-flung settings of Bohemia and Sicily and the kings that rule them; a Catholic trickster trying to con crowds with fake relics; a very honest Camillo; a pastoral feast with the goddess Flora handing out flowers; Apollo dressed as a shepherd; and a dance of satyrs. Indeed, everything that makes The Winter’s Tale seem dreamlike and otherworldly comes from North’s remarkable journey. We even find the origins of the lifelike statue of Giulio Romano, the only Renaissance artist mentioned by name in the canon, as well as the scene of Perdita kneeling and praying before the saintly statue of her dead mother, Hermione, just moments before she comes back to life. Finally, North’s journal confirms that The Winter’s Tale is an historical allegory and the story that it relates is true.
This all makes a lot of sense to me. However, I'd like to hear the counterarguments and your responses to those, etc. It's the best way for a non-expert (like me) to more fully evaluate it. And not just about Winter's Tale but about all the plays. All the puzzle pieces have to fit together, and chronological evidence is one important part of that.
The same applies to all the main pillars of your theory. E.g. I don't understand why the orthodox Stratfordians are so resistant to the idea that Shakespeare was primarily a play adaptor. Well actually I do partly understand. If you accept that Shakespeare primarily adapted plays that others wrote then he's no longer necessarily the great literary genius, since it then depends on whether the great poetry and other literary qualities were in the source plays or in what he added. Even asking that question upsets the apple cart.
Excuse me: I don’t know bout any of this stuff and I just thought the colored chart was very nice looking.
Do we have plays with Thomas North’s name on the front? You mention this as important for showing W.S. wrote the oft-supposed apocryphal plays.
Also, would North or his own have protested to W.S. getting credit for his work? Again, this seemed like an important argument in your apocrypha post, so I wondered if it was pertinent here.
Interesting stuff. I love ideas that can make a body of work coherent.
Edit: I was also wondering why the English history plays fit in the Plutarchan period. Is there some influence from Plutarch on them?
Hey D. Luscinius, welcome aboard. Yes, the English history plays are extremely Plutarchan. The early group, for example, repeatedly make comparisons of various English leaders to Julius Caesar --and Richard III to Brutus. For the full story to answer your questions, you can check: https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-North-Original-Author-Shakespeares-ebook/dp/B0BKC66VFP/
Hi Dennis, your date for the composition of King Lear is just a couple of years prior to when the anonymously authored play King Leir was entered into the stationers’ register.
Presumably you have subjected King Leir to the same analysis as the other plays. So, does King Leir contain any Northern DNA? Is this how you arrived at a date? Also, whilst Leir shares many similarities with the canonical Lear, it is much inferior. Does this mean that King Leir is, in your view, also a ‘bad quarto’ - one of Shakespeare’s inferior adaptions?
One thing that puzzles me is why Q1 Romeo and Juliet, which was published anonymously, is regarded as a Shakespeare ‘bad quarto’, whereas the anonymous King Leir is not - although it is recognised as a source play.
1) Interestingly, it is not at all clear that it was “King Leir” rather than North’s (i.e. Shakespearean/authentic) “King Lear” that was entered into the Stationers Register in 1594. White’s 1594 rights were passed through this widow to a Jane Bell who printed “King Lear” in 1655—and she printed North/Shakespeare’s version not “King Leir.”
2) There is no North in King Leir. The date of North’s King Lear (early 1590s) comes from sources and topical commentary—and satirical allusion.
3) King Leir is not exactly a bad quarto in the way Hamlet Q1 or R&J Q1 are bad quartos. Sabrina Feldman does think Shakespeare did write “King Leir.” Regardless, whomever wrote it made significant changes to North’s King Lear –borrowing very few lines. The bad quartos are simplified adaptations which retain much of the language of the original. If Shakespeare is responsible for King Leir and Troublesome Raigne then he rewrote more in the beginning of his career--perhaps because he didn't own North's plays at that point and had to create "new" versions.
Let me slightly disagree with you. You say that "the Shakespeare chronology just makes no sense", but I think that actually the orthodox Shakespeare chronology better demonstrates that people (smart people, no less!) can "make sense" of anything, including theories that prove utterly wrong.
After all, scholars have actually made lots of sense of the standard chronology of plays, and indeed plenty have dedicated entire careers doing so: they have explainations for everything! Just like the creationists have their own explanations for species diversity, or for the fossil record; or how heliocentric models of the universe did a very good job at integrating problematic facts about planetary motion - all it takes is stretching the model, and adding in post hoc explanations for every little exception. The history of science is - as you know - full of incorrect theories that, up til their ultimate cracking point, did a serviceable job at explaining all of the known facts as far as their adherents were concerned.
Your framing of the canon according to genre, source material and immediate political context is of course backed up by the incredible body of evidence you've found to support it, and does a much better job of explaining all of the known facts than the orthodox chronology and its explanation, but the orthodox scholar is very unlikely to accept any of that that framing simply because they have their own understanding of the plays' styles and genres that "make sense" of it all perfectly to their satisfaction!
The Winter's Tale is a late play (they'll argue) - we know this because of it's tonal and structural complexity, as well as its written style. From this point of view, labelling it an Early Catholic play is not just wrong, it's wilfully perverse, right?
Sweet Song of Avon has nailed it with that mental gymnastics meme, but keep in mind that this is *weapons grade* mental gymnastics, because it's working to justify an entire theory of literature: and because the stakes are so high, it will prove completely invulnerable to your own chronology and the way you've framed it in spite of the fact that you're completely correct.
This is really one of most striking pieces of evidence and the most beautiful illustration proving North's authorship at one glance. Once you know who the real author was, all the pieces "magically" line up. The orthodox Shakespeare timeline reminds me of the "mental gymnastics" meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2010805-mental-gymnastics-cartoon
Nice to see this!
As I commented to one of your recent articles, some of the standard dating is based on the provenance of known/supposed source texts. For example, most scholars believe that Greene's Pandosto was the source for Winter's Tale and that Lodge's Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie was the source for As You Like It. You invert the order and hypothesize that Shakespeare's (North's) plays came first. In addition there are various topical references as well as Shakespeare's evolving linguistic style and evolving theater conventions that are used to date the plays.
Of course there's a certain amount of leeway given your premise that Shakespeare adapted all these plays -- i.e. any particular topical allusion could have been added by Shakespeare. And there's also the possibility that North revised the source plays (which you indicate several times in your timeline -- any evidence for that?). But wholesale discrepancies in linguistic and stylistic evolution as well as alleged source conflicts will be harder to explain in that same manner.
Any timeline (including yours) requires a lot of play-by-play analysis (stylistic, linguistic, allusions, sources, etc) beyond biographical links to North's life. I know you've done some (a lot?) of that. But ultimately I'd love to see this debated with orthodox scholars. Much of the orthodox dating is based on the performance and publishing dates of the plays (which would no longer be relevant in the North theory) as well as the actual textual and topical arguments. These would need to be disentangled.
Hi Bob, Great comment. Yes I have written quite a lot on the dating of the plays and it is clear that according to sources, topical references, style, and external allusions the canon is decades older than commonly believed. Moreover, I have proved beyond all rational doubt that Shakespeare couldn’t have been following Greene. Rather both had to have been following an early play of North’s. Check here: On the “Picture Proof of Thomas North’s Authorship” https://dennismccarthy.substack.com/p/picture-proof-of-thomas-norths-authorship.
Here's a passage on the subject in Schlueter’s and my book, “Thomas North’s 1555 Travel Journal: From Italy to Shakespeare:” The discovery of the circumstances of North’s penning of Henry VIII and The Winter’s Tale helps increase our understanding of both plays. The North family history—particularly the circumstances of Edward, 1st Lord North, Thomas’s father—helps explain why the main storyline of the first four acts of Henry VIII focuses on the extravagance and demise of Cardinal Wolsey. The blatant Catholicism of both Henry VIII and The Winter’s Tale also makes sense for plays originally written during the reign of Queen Mary, as does the focus on and deification of Mary’s mother, Katherine. The old-fashioned qualities of the play are also consistent with this earlier chronology. Jay L. Halio, an editor of Henry VIII, sees in the falls of Katherine and Wolsey “a throwback to the de casibus tradition of medieval tragedy, as in Chaucer’s ‘Monk’s Tale’ or later in The Mirror for Magistrates.” Its seminal sources, Hall’s Union (1548) and Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey (1554-55), are early Tudor too.
Similarly, The Winter’s Tale frequently relies on a medley of English and continental sources that date between 1544 and 1557. This includes Amadis de Grecia (1546-48), Florisel de Niquea (1552) , Rogel de Grecia (1554), Pierre de Ronsard’s poem “L’Alouette” in Nouvelle Continuation des Amours (1556), John Heywood’s The Play of the Four P’s (1544), the anonymous Respublica (1553), John Brende’s English translation of The History of Quintus Curtius (1553), and George Ferrers’ “The Fall of Robert Tresilian” in A Memorial of Such Princes (1554). But why would Shakespeare, writing in 1610, become so focused on English and continental literature originally written in such a remote and narrow period of time? Plausible reasons are difficult to imagine. However, a reliance on these sources does make sense if North was the original author of the play in 1556-57.
Perhaps most significantly, as we shall see in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, North’s journal also gives us a new perspective on The Winter’s Tale, for all of the play’s mysterious and wondrous exotica, from its strange settings to its striking visuals, derive from North’s trip to Rome and the circumstances surrounding them. This includes the far-flung settings of Bohemia and Sicily and the kings that rule them; a Catholic trickster trying to con crowds with fake relics; a very honest Camillo; a pastoral feast with the goddess Flora handing out flowers; Apollo dressed as a shepherd; and a dance of satyrs. Indeed, everything that makes The Winter’s Tale seem dreamlike and otherworldly comes from North’s remarkable journey. We even find the origins of the lifelike statue of Giulio Romano, the only Renaissance artist mentioned by name in the canon, as well as the scene of Perdita kneeling and praying before the saintly statue of her dead mother, Hermione, just moments before she comes back to life. Finally, North’s journal confirms that The Winter’s Tale is an historical allegory and the story that it relates is true.
This all makes a lot of sense to me. However, I'd like to hear the counterarguments and your responses to those, etc. It's the best way for a non-expert (like me) to more fully evaluate it. And not just about Winter's Tale but about all the plays. All the puzzle pieces have to fit together, and chronological evidence is one important part of that.
The same applies to all the main pillars of your theory. E.g. I don't understand why the orthodox Stratfordians are so resistant to the idea that Shakespeare was primarily a play adaptor. Well actually I do partly understand. If you accept that Shakespeare primarily adapted plays that others wrote then he's no longer necessarily the great literary genius, since it then depends on whether the great poetry and other literary qualities were in the source plays or in what he added. Even asking that question upsets the apple cart.
Excuse me: I don’t know bout any of this stuff and I just thought the colored chart was very nice looking.
Do we have plays with Thomas North’s name on the front? You mention this as important for showing W.S. wrote the oft-supposed apocryphal plays.
Also, would North or his own have protested to W.S. getting credit for his work? Again, this seemed like an important argument in your apocrypha post, so I wondered if it was pertinent here.
Interesting stuff. I love ideas that can make a body of work coherent.
Edit: I was also wondering why the English history plays fit in the Plutarchan period. Is there some influence from Plutarch on them?
Hey D. Luscinius, welcome aboard. Yes, the English history plays are extremely Plutarchan. The early group, for example, repeatedly make comparisons of various English leaders to Julius Caesar --and Richard III to Brutus. For the full story to answer your questions, you can check: https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-North-Original-Author-Shakespeares-ebook/dp/B0BKC66VFP/
Or: https://dennismccarthy.substack.com/p/answering-questions-on-explaining
Or: https://dennismccarthy.substack.com/p/how-we-know-thomas-north-wrote-the-f82
Hi Dennis, your date for the composition of King Lear is just a couple of years prior to when the anonymously authored play King Leir was entered into the stationers’ register.
Presumably you have subjected King Leir to the same analysis as the other plays. So, does King Leir contain any Northern DNA? Is this how you arrived at a date? Also, whilst Leir shares many similarities with the canonical Lear, it is much inferior. Does this mean that King Leir is, in your view, also a ‘bad quarto’ - one of Shakespeare’s inferior adaptions?
One thing that puzzles me is why Q1 Romeo and Juliet, which was published anonymously, is regarded as a Shakespeare ‘bad quarto’, whereas the anonymous King Leir is not - although it is recognised as a source play.
Thanks, Matt, for the questions.
1) Interestingly, it is not at all clear that it was “King Leir” rather than North’s (i.e. Shakespearean/authentic) “King Lear” that was entered into the Stationers Register in 1594. White’s 1594 rights were passed through this widow to a Jane Bell who printed “King Lear” in 1655—and she printed North/Shakespeare’s version not “King Leir.”
2) There is no North in King Leir. The date of North’s King Lear (early 1590s) comes from sources and topical commentary—and satirical allusion.
3) King Leir is not exactly a bad quarto in the way Hamlet Q1 or R&J Q1 are bad quartos. Sabrina Feldman does think Shakespeare did write “King Leir.” Regardless, whomever wrote it made significant changes to North’s King Lear –borrowing very few lines. The bad quartos are simplified adaptations which retain much of the language of the original. If Shakespeare is responsible for King Leir and Troublesome Raigne then he rewrote more in the beginning of his career--perhaps because he didn't own North's plays at that point and had to create "new" versions.
Let me slightly disagree with you. You say that "the Shakespeare chronology just makes no sense", but I think that actually the orthodox Shakespeare chronology better demonstrates that people (smart people, no less!) can "make sense" of anything, including theories that prove utterly wrong.
After all, scholars have actually made lots of sense of the standard chronology of plays, and indeed plenty have dedicated entire careers doing so: they have explainations for everything! Just like the creationists have their own explanations for species diversity, or for the fossil record; or how heliocentric models of the universe did a very good job at integrating problematic facts about planetary motion - all it takes is stretching the model, and adding in post hoc explanations for every little exception. The history of science is - as you know - full of incorrect theories that, up til their ultimate cracking point, did a serviceable job at explaining all of the known facts as far as their adherents were concerned.
Your framing of the canon according to genre, source material and immediate political context is of course backed up by the incredible body of evidence you've found to support it, and does a much better job of explaining all of the known facts than the orthodox chronology and its explanation, but the orthodox scholar is very unlikely to accept any of that that framing simply because they have their own understanding of the plays' styles and genres that "make sense" of it all perfectly to their satisfaction!
The Winter's Tale is a late play (they'll argue) - we know this because of it's tonal and structural complexity, as well as its written style. From this point of view, labelling it an Early Catholic play is not just wrong, it's wilfully perverse, right?
Sweet Song of Avon has nailed it with that mental gymnastics meme, but keep in mind that this is *weapons grade* mental gymnastics, because it's working to justify an entire theory of literature: and because the stakes are so high, it will prove completely invulnerable to your own chronology and the way you've framed it in spite of the fact that you're completely correct.
Up until it cracks, of course ;)