One or Two Katherines in Henry VIII?
Thomas Merriam · Notes and Queries · 2020
Word frequency can distinguish parts of Henry VIII by Fletcher and by Shakespeare: using the combined raw frequencies of eighteen words preferred by Fletcher, again, all, are, can, dare, do, may, more, must, now, only, still, sure, there, these, too, ye, yet, and a second set of eighteen Shakespeare-preferred words, which includes the combined raw frequencies of being, did, doth, each, hath, hence, in, itself, might, of, rather, that, the, to, very, which, who, with. A simple discriminating ratio is obtained by dividing Set 1 by (Set 1 + Set 2 combined).1 Although Spedding’s division of the play in 1850, with I.i, I.ii, II.iii, II.iv, III.ii.1–203, V.i assigned to Shakespeare and I.iii, I.iv, II.i, II.ii, III.i, III.ii.204–459, IV.i, IV.ii, V.ii, V.iii, V.iv assigned to Fletcher, is the generally accepted authorship attribution endorsed by the New Oxford Shakespeare, suspicions have been raised concerning the co-authorship of several of the listed scenes. Cyrus Hoy questioned the homogeneity of II.i, II.ii, III.ii.204–459, IV.i, and IV.ii.2 More recently, Petr Plecháč applied R Stylo’s rolling attribution to the play and detected mixed authorship in II.i, II.ii, IV.i., and IV.ii, much in agreement with Hoy’s findings.3