Shakespearean Spellings and Handwriting in the Additional Passages Printed in the 1602 Spanish Tragedy
Douglas S. Bruster · Notes and Queries · 2013
SCHOLARS have offered increasingly persuasive arguments for Shakespeare’s authorship of the Additional Passages first printed in the 1602 fourth quarto (Q4) of Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.1 To a large extent, these arguments have been based on vocabulary—particularly, parallels of phrasing between the Additional Passages and Shakespeare’s undisputed work. However, further evidence suggesting Shakespeare’s authorship can be found in various spellings in the Q4 material, for many words in the Additional Passages replicate characteristic spellings found in the three pages of Sir Thomas More attributed to Shakespeare as well as elsewhere in the canon. Apparent misreadings in the Additional Passages also imply that the copy-text was composed of, or from, a poorly written document, one whose forms were consistent with what we know of Shakespeare’s handwriting. Both spelling and handwriting, then, shed light on aspects of the Additional Passages. One misreading in particular may provide a clue to Shakespeare’s presence, and another helps clear up a longstanding textual mystery.