Shakespeare's Tutor - by Darren Freebury-Jones (Paperback)

About the Book

Shakespeare's tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd defines Thomas Kyd's dramatic canon and indicates where and how Kyd contributed to the development of Shakespeare's drama. Groundbreaking in its implications for our understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic development, the book aims to revolutionise our understanding of the early modern canon.

Book Synopsis

Shakespeare's tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd adds to the critical and scholarly discussion that seeks to establish the early modern playwright Thomas Kyd's dramatic canon, and indicates where and how Kyd contributed to the development of Shakespeare's drama through influence, collaboration, revision and adaptation. A further, complementary aim of the book is to demonstrate various ways in which it is possible to combine statistical analysis with reading plays as literary and performative works.

The book summarises, extends, and corrects all of the scholarship on Kyd's authorship of anonymous plays, and reveals the remarkable extent to which Shakespeare was influenced by his dramatic predecessor. The book represents a significant intervention in the field of early modern authorship studies and aims to revolutionise our understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic development.

From the Back Cover

Shakespeare's tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd defines the early modern playwright Thomas Kyd's dramatic corpus and indicates where and how Kyd contributed to the development of Shakespeare's drama. Scholars have yet to recognise the extent to which Kyd influenced Shakespeare, nor the full extent of his surviving dramatic corpus.

This book collects and sifts a wide range of evidence in favour of an 'enlarged' Kyd canon while introducing cutting-edge digital resources for authorship attribution purposes. Through a combination of computational and traditional literary-critical analysis, Darren Freebury-Jones makes a case for Kyd's authorship of six sole-authored plays: The Spanish Tragedy, Soliman and Perseda, King Leir, Arden of Faversham, Fair Em, and Cornelia. The book demonstrates the fibrous influence that Kyd exerted on Shakespeare's phraseology, verse style, and overall dramaturgy, and proposes that Shakespeare's dramatic output was, in part at least, dependent on processes of adaptation and collaboration with Kyd. A wealth of evidence indicates that Shakespeare and Kyd's relationship extended to revision and co-authorship in plays such as Henry VI Part One, Edward III, and the 1602 additions to The Spanish Tragedy.

The book situates Kyd and Shakespeare's plays in their original historical context: the narrow and intensely competitive as well as collaborative world of the London theatres. Dramatists such as Shakespeare were also actors, and would develop an intimate familiarity with plays in which they had performed. Groundbreaking in its implications for our understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic development, the book aims to revolutionise our understanding of the early modern canon.

Review Quotes

"Freebury-Jones has delivered an important book on Kyd, strengthening the evidence for an expanded canon, and breaking new ground."
Brian Vickers, Shakespeare Quarterly

"Shakespeare's Tutor: The Influence of Thomas Kyd is an accessible, lively, and deeply learned book. With admirable attention to both linguistic minutiae and the likely interests of an audience comprised of a wide range of readers, Freebury-Jones builds a compelling case for expanding the canon of works authored by Thomas Kyd and for rethinking the depth of the dramatist's influence on Shakespeare ... Freebury-Jones advances a compelling argument that remains generous to his interlocutors, charting--in both aspects--a clear path forward for future scholarship."
Christopher Crosbie, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England

"Darren Freebury-Jones works meticulously, using a clearly explained methodology, to give us a much-expanded canon of Kyd's work ... This does look like a plausibly coherent grouping of dramas, and it gives Freebury-Jones a lot to work with when he examines Kyd's influence on Shakespeare, looking at features such as vengeful female characters, foreboding dreams, dramatic structure and multi-layered staging".
Bart van Es, Times Literary Supplement

"Darren Freebury-Jones's latest book represents a continuation of his revisionary scholarship on adaptation, imitation, and attribution ... this path-breaking monograph ... reveals deep, subtle, and multiform stylistic interaction between Shakespeare and his contemporaries ... the author manages to convey an astonishing amount of evidence with concision in accessible and direct critical language".
Goran Stanivukovic, Modern Language Review

"This stimulating book boldly claims a much more relevant role for Kyd in relation to Shakespeare. The two main objectives of the study are to prove that Kyd's dramatic canon was larger than the three extant plays attributed to him and that his influence on Shakespeare has so far been underestimated ... The book confidently asserts that Kyd played a far more important role than has been acknowledged so far."
Cristina Paravano, The Year's Work in English Studies

About the Author

Darren Freebury-Jones is Lecturer of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust