Come Ox, Hit Me! Early Shakespeare Authorship Doubts, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, and a Stratfordian Dilemma

This article, posted in its own right in 2018, has since also been published as Part IV.2 of the author's book, "Early Shakespeare Authorship Doubts" (2019). Free excerpts of the manuscript of the book (though not including Part IV.2) have been separately posted on SSRN, as TJSL Research Paper No. 3007393 (originally posted July 26, 2017). Just type in the usual "SSRN abstract" URL equal-sign 3007393. Any scholars wishing to review the final version of Part IV.2, or any other portions of Part IV of the book, are welcome to contact me to request a copy of those portions. Please note that I have not updated this posted article since December 2018, and will no longer make updates or corrections to it. I have since then benefitted from a number of very helpful comments and corrections, including by Katherine Chiljan, a scholar upon whose work I rely heavily in this article and in the larger book. Those corrections and updates are largely reflected in Part IV.2 of the published book. The book is independently published by Zindabad Press, and sold through Lulu dot com (the original printer) or Amazon dot com, in both hardcover and paperback editions (identical pagination and contents) (should also be available on Barnes & Noble online). For best customer price and product quality, search "Wildenthal" on Lulu dot com (where the paperback edition has a discounted cost of about $18). Amazon sells a lower-quality physical book product for a much higher price (due to Amazon's profit share), with substantially lower author royalty. The author cordially requests that you therefore purchase directly from Lulu, but please consider reviewing it on Amazon. This particular article focuses on the famous passage in "Groats-Worth of Wit, Bought With a Million of Repentance" (GW), a 1592 Elizabethan pamphlet published by Henry Chettle as supposedly written by Robert Greene, a playwright who died shortly before it was published. GW has long been said to be the first public notice of William Shakespeare as an up-and-coming actor and playwright (supposedly attacked as the "upstart Crow" and "Shake-scene"). The article explores GW’s implications for the Shakespeare Authorship Question (SAQ) and whether GW should actually be viewed as an early indication of doubt about the traditional authorship theory (that the true author was William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon, 1564–1616). The article also discusses the related apology for GW issued a few months later in 1592 by Chettle, the publisher, who may have ghost-written it, using Greene's name. The article concludes that Chettle’s apology had nothing to do with the Crow (Shake-scene) attacked by GW. Furthermore, the Crow was not mainly attacked as a writer. And in any event, while the reference to "Shake-scene" may well make a pun on the authorial name "Shakespeare," GW does not appear to be directly attacking that author (nor the actor Shakspere of Stratford). Rather, it seems to attack the Crow for pretentiously thinking of himself as Shake-scene (perhaps pretending to be a writer or posturing as the greatest Shakespearean actor of the time). The Crow himself appears very likely NOT to have been either Shakespeare (the author) or Shakspere of Stratford (the actor), but rather the far more famous actor Edward Alleyn, who (the evidence indicates) acted during 1592 in plays written by both Shakespeare (whoever that was) and Greene. By contrast, there is no other evidence from the early 1590s of any acting career by Shakspere, and only very scant evidence overall for Shakspere's acting career between 1595 and the end of the actor's life in 1616, evidence which furthermore, very oddly, provides almost no indication whatsoever of any literary or writing career by Shakspere. Other evidence suggests very strongly that the author "Shakespeare" (whoever was hiding behind that pseudonym) died by around 1604. At least five separate indications published during 1605-15 indicate the author was viewed as already deceased and now "ever-living." (See Part IV.30 of the book, summarizing this evidence.) Thus, even if Chettle did apologize to the Crow for the GW attack, he was not apologizing to Shakespeare (whether actor or writer or both), and even if the Crow was viewed (to some extent) as a writer, that writer was not Shakespeare. The result is to deprive Stratfordians of crucial and long-cherished evidence supposedly recording the launch of Shakespeare’s career as an author (in a way supposedly fitting with other evidence about him as a businessman from Stratford and a London theatre investor and sometime actor). However, retargeting GW to Alleyn does not eliminate it as evidence about Shakespeare the author, whoever that was. It just changes its evidentiary character and strength. Even if Alleyn was the Crow, it is still probably true (and very interesting) that GW refers for the first time by name in print (albeit punningly) to Shakespeare, the year before that author’s name (or pseudonym) first appeared in haec verba under the dedication to Henry Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton) in Venus and Adonis (1593).