The Works of Shakespeare - 33 Author:William James Craig Volume: 33 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1904 Original Publisher: Methuen Subjects: Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Drama / Shakespeare Literary Criticism / Drama Literary Criticism / Shakespeare Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there... more » may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION In discussing the authorship of a play attributed to Shakespeare, especially one so much in dispute as Titus Andronicus, it is necessary to confine ourselves as far as possible to views which have some reasonable amount of probability, and not to spend strength and space in fighting mere phantoms. It will not, for instance, be necessary to deal here with the Baconian theory in general, because I take it that the least sober Baconian would neither claim nor wish to claim a play of this character, so startlingly replete with horrors, for Francis, Lord Verulam. For the Baconian theory, or the anti-Shakespearian theories generally are founded on the supposed impossibility of Shakespeare having had the learning, the knowledge, and the philosophic cast of mind displayed in his greater plays; whereas the argument against his having written this particular play is entirely founded on what we moderns conceive to be 'tfs faults. The Baconian would think -- if one dare guess at Baconian thought -- that the beauties of the play, which are really great, would argue against Shakespeare; while the crudities, or indeed barbarities, it contains might well be set down to the credit, or discredit, of this supposed Warwickshire ignorarnus. I may candidly say I am not a Baconian, because in the first place there are to my mind such a stupendous difficulties in the way of conceiving of Bacon as the author, not only of his own mighty works...« less