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Sir Brian Vickers |
The question is not whether there was revision [of Shakespeares late play texts in the first folio such as "King Lear"] — of course there was —
but who did it, and when, and why.?”
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| Holger Schott Syme |
Holger Schott Syme, raised in Germany, Associate Professor of the Department of English at the University of Toronto, wrote a harsh critique entitled - The Text Is Foolish: Brian Vickers’s “The One King Lear” - about the book of Sir Brian Vickers (Emeritus Professor at ETH Zurich) in the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), stating that the book should never have been printed.
He reignited an old debate on the coherence between the 2 different Shakespeare Texts of King Lear (quarto 1608 and First Folio 1623)
Without going into details of this debate Syme writes: „Even the most strident critics of the authorial revision theory concede that the Folio is a different version of the play“. And Vickers knows this, since he quotes one of those critics: “the question is not whether there was revision — of course there was — but who did it, and when, and why.?”
King Lear (Quarto 1608)
As long as Holger Syme isn’t ready, to even touch the possibility of a Shakespeare „Authorship Problem“, his rigorous dispute sounds hollow and empty: He at least should have answered essential key questions : such as:
Which author may have written the anonymous Play "The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella.", registered in 1594, the year after Marlowe's alleged death, but printed only a decade later, 1605 after it was re-registered?
Read also Blog (349) 2 Different Authors for "King Leir" and "King Lear"? Shakespeare Authorship inconsistencies: The common sense has been completely lost over the centuries...
Without going into details of this debate Syme writes: „Even the most strident critics of the authorial revision theory concede that the Folio is a different version of the play“. And Vickers knows this, since he quotes one of those critics: “the question is not whether there was revision — of course there was — but who did it, and when, and why.?” King Lear (Quarto 1608)
As long as Holger Syme isn’t ready, to even touch the possibility of a Shakespeare „Authorship Problem“, his rigorous dispute sounds hollow and empty: He at least should have answered essential key questions : such as:
Which author may have written the anonymous Play "The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella.", registered in 1594, the year after Marlowe's alleged death, but printed only a decade later, 1605 after it was re-registered?
Read also Blog (349) 2 Different Authors for "King Leir" and "King Lear"? Shakespeare Authorship inconsistencies: The common sense has been completely lost over the centuries...
