Editing Titus Andronicus (section)

====Authorship====
{{Main|Authorship of Titus Andronicus {{!}} Authorship of ''Titus Andronicus''}}
Perhaps the most frequently discussed topic in the play's critical history is that of authorship. None of the three quarto editions of ''Titus'' name the author, which was normal for Elizabethan plays. However, [[Francis Meres]] does list the play as one of Shakespeare's tragedies in ''[[Palladis Tamia]]'' in 1598. Additionally, [[John Heminges]] and [[Henry Condell]] felt sure enough of Shakespeare's authorship to include it in the ''First Folio'' in 1623. As such, with what little available solid evidence suggesting that Shakespeare did indeed write the play, questions of authorship tend to focus on the perceived lack of quality in the writing, and often the play's resemblance to the work of contemporaneous dramatists.

The first to question Shakespeare's authorship is thought to have been Edward Ravenscroft in 1678, and over the course of the eighteenth century, numerous renowned Shakespeareans followed suit; [[Nicholas Rowe (writer)|Nicholas Rowe]], [[Alexander Pope]], [[Lewis Theobald]], [[Samuel Johnson]], [[George Steevens]], [[Edmond Malone]], [[William Guthrie (historian)|William Guthrie]], [[John Upton (Spenser editor)|John Upton]], [[Benjamin Heath]], [[Richard Farmer]], [[John Pinkerton]], and [[John Monck Mason]], and in the nineteenth century, [[William Hazlitt]] and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]].<ref>Vickers (2002: 152n11)</ref> All doubted Shakespeare's authorship. So strong had the anti-Shakespearean movement become during the eighteenth century that in 1794, [[Thomas Percy (bishop of Dromore)|Thomas Percy]] wrote in the introduction to ''[[Reliques of Ancient English Poetry]]'', "Shakespeare's memory has been fully vindicated from the charge of writing the play by the best critics."<ref>Quoted in Waith (1984: 12)</ref> Similarly, in 1832, the ''Globe Illustrated Shakespeare'' claimed there was universal agreement on the matter due to the un-Shakespearean "barbarity" of the play.

However, despite the fact that so many Shakespearean scholars believed the play to have been written by someone other than Shakespeare, there were those throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century who argued against this theory. One such scholar was [[Edward Capell]], who, in 1768, said that the play was badly written but asserted that Shakespeare did write it. Another major scholar to support Shakespeare's authorship was [[Charles Knight (publisher)|Charles Knight]] in 1843. Several years later, a number of prominent German Shakespeareans also voiced their belief that Shakespeare wrote the play, including [[August Wilhelm Schlegel]] and [[Hermann Ulrici]].<ref>See Vickers (2002: 150–156) for a summary of the pre-20th century pro- and anti-Shakespearean arguments.</ref>

Twentieth century criticism moved away from trying to prove or disprove that Shakespeare wrote the play, and instead came to focus on the issue of co-authorship. Ravenscroft had hinted at this in 1678, but the first modern scholar to look at the theory was [[J. M. Robertson|John Mackinnon Robertson]] in 1905, who concluded that "much of the play is written by George Peele, and it is hardly less certain that much of the rest was written by [[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Robert Greene]] or Kyd, with some by Marlow".<ref>Robertson (1905: 479)</ref> In 1919, T. M. Parrott reached the conclusion that Peele wrote Act 1, 2.1 and 4.1,<ref>Parrott (1919: 21–27)</ref> and in 1931, Philip Timberlake corroborated Parrott's findings.<ref>Philip Timberlake, ''The Feminine Ending in English Blank Verse: A Study of its Use by Early Writers in the Measure and its Development in the Drama up to the Year 1595'' (Wisconsin: Banta, 1931), 114–119</ref>

[[File:Illustration from Graves.jpg|left|thumb|Illustration of Aaron protecting his son from Chiron and Demetrius in Act 4, Scene 2; from Joseph Graves' ''Dramatic tales founded on Shakespeare's plays'' (1840)]]
The first major critic to challenge Robertson, Parrott and Timberlake was [[E. K. Chambers]], who successfully exposed inherent flaws in Robertson's methodology.<ref>Vickers (2002: 137)</ref> In 1933, Arthur M. Sampley employed the techniques of Parrott to argue ''against'' Peele as co-author,<ref>Sampley (1936: 693)</ref> and in 1943, [[Hereward Thimbleby Price]] also argued that Shakespeare wrote alone.<ref>Price (1943: 55–65)</ref>

Beginning in 1948, with John Dover Wilson, many scholars have tended to favour the theory that Shakespeare and Peele collaborated in some way. Dover Wilson, for his part, believed that Shakespeare edited a play originally written by Peele.<ref>Dover Wilson (1948: xxxvi–xxxvii)</ref> In 1957, R. F. Hill approached the issue by analysing the distribution of [[rhetorical device]]s in the play. Like Parrott in 1919 and Timberlake in 1931, he ultimately concluded that Peele wrote Act 1, 2.1 and 4.1, while Shakespeare wrote everything else.<ref>Hill (1957: 60–68)</ref> In 1979, Macdonald Jackson employed a rare word test, and ultimately came to an identical conclusion as Parrott, Timberlake and Hill.<ref>''Studies in Attribution: Middleton and Shakespeare'' (Salzburg: Salzburg University Press, 1979), 147–153</ref> In 1987, Marina Tarlinskaja used a quantitative analysis of the occurrence of [[Stress (linguistics)|stresses]] in the [[iambic pentameter]] line, and she too concluded that Peele wrote Act 1, 2.1 and 4.1.<ref>''Shakespeare's Verse: Iambic Pentameter and the Poet's Idiosyncrasies'' (New York: P. Lang, 1987), 121–124</ref> In 1996, Macdonald Jackson returned to the authorship question with a new metrical analysis of the function words "and" and "with". His findings also suggested that Peele wrote Act 1, 2.1 and 4.1.<ref>Jackson (1996: 138–145)</ref>

However, there have always been scholars who believe that Shakespeare worked on the play alone. Many of the editors of the various twentieth century scholarly editions of the play for example, have argued against the co-authorship theory; Eugene M. Waith in his ''Oxford Shakespeare'' edition of 1985, Alan Hughes in his ''Cambridge Shakespeare'' edition of 1994 and again in 2006, and Jonathan Bate in his ''Arden Shakespeare'' edition of 1995. In the case of Bate however, in 2002, he came out in support of Brian Vickers' book ''Shakespeare, Co-Author'' which restates the case for Peele as the author of Act 1, 2.1 and 4.1.<ref>Chernaik (2004: 1030)</ref>

As well as analysing the distribution of a large number of rhetorical devices throughout the play, Vickers also devised three new authorship tests; an analysis of polysyllabic words, an analysis of the distribution of [[alliteration]] and an analysis of [[Vocative case|vocatives]]. His findings led him to assert that Peele wrote Act 1, 2.1 and 4.1.<ref>Vickers (2002: 219–239)</ref> Vickers' findings have not been universally accepted.<ref>Carroll (2004)</ref> Subsequent investigation by the ''New Oxford Shakespeare'' published in the edition's ''Authorship Companion'' found that scene 4.1 is in fact by Shakespeare not Peele<ref>Pruitt (2017)</ref> and that the Fly Scene (3.2), present only in 1623 Folio edition, is a late addition to the play, probably made by Thomas Middleton after Shakespeare died in 1616.<ref>Taylor and Duhaime (2017)</ref> These findings are disputed by Darren Freebury-Jones in ''Shakespeare's Borrowed Feathers'', who provides fresh evidence for Peele's authorship of 4.1 and argues that the Fly Scene, though absent from earlier editions, probably formed part of the original play but was omitted when Shakespeare and Peele's scenes were merged.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Freebury-Jones |first=Darren |title=Shakespeare's Borrowed Feathers: How Early Modern Playwrights Shaped the World's Greatest Writer |date=2024 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-1-5261-7732-2 |location=Manchester}}</ref>

[[Thomas North]]'s 1557 translation of ''Dial of Princes'' has led to North being recognized as the author of the lost ''Titus and Vespasian'', written in 1562, and that ''Titus Andronicus'' should be added to Shakespeare's list of 'borrowed' Roman plays.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schlueter |first=J. |date=2014 |title=A Shakespeare/North Collaboration: Titus Andronicus and Titus and Vespasian |url=https://ldr.lafayette.edu/concern/publications/x346d459z |journal=Cambridge University Press |pages=85–101}}</ref>