Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day Wishes to Anne Shakespeare from William Shakespeare
(As Forged by William-Henry Ireland)

Schoenbaum, S. William Shakespeare: Records and Images. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Last Valentine's Day, I wrote about Samuel Schoenbaum's Shakespeare’s Lives and the account of Willam-Henry Ireland's forgery of love poems from Will Shakespeare to Anne Shakespeare (for which, q.v.).

At that time, I tried to find a facsimile (as opposed to a transcription) of the original forgeries.

Perseverance paid off. I tracked down the poems in Schoenbaum's earlier work William Shakespeare: Records and Images. The image above contains "Shakespeare's Verses to Anna Hatherrewaye" (124), which is how Ireland spelled Anne's maiden name. My favorite is still the one in the image below (the transcription follows):


Is there inne heavenne aught more rare
Thanne thou sweete Nymphe of Avon fayre
Is there onne Earthe a Manne more trewe
Thanne Willy Shakespeare is toe you.
Ah, young love. It gets you every time.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
Links: Wikipedia's article on William Henry Ireland.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

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