Shakespeare鈥檚 plays meet plagiarism-detection software
The 鈥渞ogue scholar鈥� referred to in Michael Blandings鈥� captivating book, 鈥淣orth by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar鈥檚 Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard鈥檚 Work,鈥澛爄s a researcher who has confronted one of the most entrenched literary orthodoxies: that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the plays that bear his name.聽
Dennis McCarthy, an amateur independent researcher, is hardly the first to challenge that orthodoxy, of course. For well over a century, iconoclasts of all stripes, including such public figures as Sigmund Freud, Helen Keller, Henry James (who came to think that 鈥渢he divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world鈥�), and of course Mark Twain, whose little 1909 book 鈥淚s Shakespeare Dead?鈥� still makes hugely entertaining reading.聽
As Blanding relates, McCarthy鈥檚 approach to this vexing question centers on Elizabethan courtier and famed Plutarch translator Sir Thomas North. McCarthy鈥檚 innovation isn鈥檛 to contend that North actually wrote the plays that bear Shakespeare鈥檚 name; instead, he argues that Shakespeare wrote the plays by plagiarizing liberally from North鈥檚 earlier works, some of which were published and are now lost.
Years ago, McCarthy impulsively self-published a book outlining some of his earliest thoughts on the subject. He called it 鈥淣orth of Shakespeare,鈥� and in a neat gesture of writerly magnanimity, Blanding adapts that title in order to tell the story of McCarthy鈥檚 journey, North鈥檚 adventures, and, ultimately, the whole Shakespeare authorship question.聽
How on Earth could the man from Stratford, with his apparently limited education and experience, possibly be the author of the plays of Shakespeare, which bristle with higher learning and echo with an enormous range of exotic life-experiences? Traditionally, as Blanding points out, experts have looked to Shakespeare鈥檚 鈥渓ost years鈥� between 1585 and 1592. 鈥淪cholars have tried to stuff everything Shakespeare could possibly need for his plays into this period,鈥� he writes, 鈥渃onjecturing that he traveled in Italy, fought in wars in Flanders, or even sailed to America.鈥� But still the gap between the man and the works remains.
This disconnect has led generations of doubters to conclude that Shakespeare didn鈥檛 write the plays 鈥� and to put forward all kinds of candidates for who did.
As Blanding makes clear, McCarthy is side-stepping that approach聽鈥� and, he hopes, most of the instant dismissal it tends to provoke. He employed an open-source plagiarism detection software called WCopyfind in order to compare the writings of Thomas North and Shakespeare, looking for identical word choices, combinations, and phrasings. The computer screen 鈥渃ame alive鈥� with thousands of common phrases, Blanding writes. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 believe it,鈥� McCarthy told him. 鈥淚t lights up all over the screen.鈥澛�
Blanding dramatizes very effectively the thrill of this literary investigation, giving readers a revelation-by-revelation account of the developments in McCarthy鈥檚 thinking without ever drowning them in trivia. The book likewise does a virtuoso job of evoking both the realities of Shakespeare鈥檚 world and the twists and turns of the whole Shakespeare question.聽
If, in addition to his poems and translations, Thomas North wrote a raft of plays rooted in his own reading and experiences, and if Shakespeare then used those works to write his own plays, then both McCarthy鈥檚 obscure original and this account by the bestselling journalist Blanding 鈥� is the most elegant proposed solution to the authorship question to appear in many decades.聽
It will still ruffle feathers, particularly scholarly feathers. But Blanding urges readers to remember that collaboration and plagiarism were the rule rather than the exception in Elizabethan England. Quite apart from the compelling case made through plagiarism detection software, Blanding and McCarthy assert that it would have been something of a miracle if Shakespeare didn鈥檛 collaborate and plagiarize as often as the market demanded.聽
鈥淣orth by Shakespeare鈥� gives a curiously invigorating glimpse of that jobbing, hustling Shakespeare, a business-minded theater man with an eye for the main chance, somebody who freely borrowed good lines from other writers (something Robert Greene famously noted as early as 1592) and wouldn鈥檛 have hesitated to mine a trove of plays that drew on the kind of wide and wild life he himself didn鈥檛 lead.
鈥淚f Shakespeare had originated the canon rather than adapted it, it would be about the people he met in Stratford, and contemporary London events, which there were plays on during the period,鈥� says McCarthy, whereas that鈥檚 not what鈥檚 in the Shakespeare canon, which consists instead of event after event from the life of Thomas North, who McCarthy describes as 鈥渙ne of the most autobiographical writers there is.鈥�
Does 鈥淣orth by Shakespeare鈥� finally settle the Shakespeare authorship question? It鈥檚 unlikely anything ever will 鈥� that鈥檚 the nature of orthodoxies. But this isn鈥檛 some silly conspiracy theory. Orthodox scholars who simply ignore it do so at the peril of their reputations.
