Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

Picking up on Albert Henderson's comment, I'd have to agree that Shakespeare might still have existed even if he lacked "the ability to copy." His livelihood might have been different, though. The family glove business, perhaps...

In many of the history plays (e.g., Richard II, both Henry IVs, Henry V, Richard III), Shakespeare (or someone else with the same name) clearly made use Holinshed's "Chronicles." Even allowing that some of Holinshed's material is factual, opinions and "quotations" from the chronicles appear almost verbatim in the plays.

The chronicler himself did not shuffle off this mortal coil until 1580. Given protection for Holinshed's work for life-plus-seventy-years, the Richards and Henrys would have had to be written by, say, Oliver Cromwell (while off duty). Or perhaps James II, who had time on his hands after that unpleasantness near the banks of the Boyne.

Dave Ferguson
<david.ferguson[_at_]geis.ge.com>

....my opinions, not GE's...
....I am not a literature professor; reading this message does not make
you literate. Received on Tue Nov 03 1998 - 22:42:22 GMT