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IV.—A Type of Blank Verse Line Found in the Earlier Elizabethan Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Frank G. Hubbard
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Extract

Some time ago in an article on Locrine and Selimus I showed the futility of discussing questions of the authorship and chronology of plays written between 1585 and 1595 on the evidence of parallel passages. I endeavored to show that the occurrence of such parallels is much more likely to be evidence of different authorship than of common authorship. If, now, this kind of evidence, by itself, is to be considered of small value, where shall we look for other evidence that may have more weight and certainty? I believe that something of significance can be found if we search carefully for characteristics of style,—forms of expression more or less rhetorical, peculiar arrangement of terms, favorite collocations of words, devices to “bum-bast out” the blank verse.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , 1917 , pp. 68 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1917

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References

1 Shakespeare Studies by Members of the Department of English of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1916, pp. 31-35. Cf. Schröer, Ueber Titus Andronicus, pp. 67 f., 75 f.

2 Publications of the Modern Language Association, xx, pp. 360-379.

3 Cf. Shakespeare Studies, p. 18.

4 The Works of Christopher Marlowe, edited by C. F. Tucker Brooke, Oxford, 1910.

5 Gorboduc, Jocasta, I Tamburlaine.

6 The conjunction or is rarely found; only seven examples have been noted, and they have been counted as cases with and.

7 The Shakespeare Apochrypha, edited by C. F. Tucker Brooke, Oxford, 1908.

8 Supposes and Jocasta, edited by John W. Cunliffe, Boston, 1906.

9 “Brings quiet end to this unquiet life.”

10 Turbervile's Heroical Epistles of Ovid, and the 170 lines in Barnabe Rich's Don Simonides. Cf. A. Schröer, Ueber die Anfänge des Blankverses in England, Anglia, iv, pp. 5-9.

11 The Misfortunes of Arthur, with nine cases.

12 Tamburlaine is, of course, an exception to this statement.

13 In Norton's part the percentage is about 4½ per cent.; in Sackville's it is 2 per cent.

14 See p. 71.

15 See W. S. Gaud, Modern Philology, i, pp. 409-422; F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, ii, p. 404.

16 Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xx, p. 847.

17 Huth Library, Greene's Works. Temple Dramatists, Selimus.

18 See p. 69.

19 Marlowe 101, Peele 58, Greene 40, Kyd 35.

20 Cf. Boas, The Works of Thomas Kyd, Introduction, pp. xxxix-xliv; Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literatare, i, pp. 308-9. Thorndike, Mod. Lang. Notes, xvii, pp. 143-4.

21 See Hübener, Der Einfluss von Marlowe's Tamburlaine auf die zeitgenössischen und folgenden Dramatiker, Halle, 1901, pp. 5-15.

22 A. H. Bullen, The Works of George Peele, London, 1888, Introduction, p. xli.

23 Pp. x-xi.

24 History of English Dramatic Literature, i, pp. 376-7.

25 “The date of its composition is unknown.”

26 C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies, i, pp. 335-341.

27 F. E. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, 1908, i, p. 42.

28 Modern Philology, i, p. 410, n. 2.

29 David and Bethsabe, 29; The Battle of Alcazar, 12; Edward I, 9.

30 Bullen, The Works of George Peele, i, Introd., p. xxxvii; The Battle of Alcazar, Malone Society Reprint, Introd., p. v.

31 See pp. 72, 74.

32 Cf. tables, pp. 74, 76.