A Question Of Authority

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30895, 30 October 1965, Page 4

A Question Of Authority

Shakespeare’s “A Lover’s Complaint.” Its date and authenticity. By Mac. D. P. Jackson. University of Auckland. 39 pp.

Shakespeare’", poem, “A Lover’s Complaint,” first appeared in 1609, in Thomas Thorpe’s Quarto of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. It is an uneven work, thought by most scholars to be of doubtful authenticity. Mr Jackson finds it easier to believe that Shakespeare wrote the worst lines in the poem than that somebody else wrote the best ones, and in this short monograph he has assembled internal evidence pointing to Shakespeare’s authorship. A detailed study of the poem’s vocabulary has revealed many links with the diction of Shakespeare’s other plays; of these, links with the later plays are between two

and three times as frequent as links with earlier works, indicating that “A Lover’s Complaint” was composed by Shakespeare in his maturity—probably in the early years of the seventeenth century. Similarly, Mr Jackson finds the imagery and stylistic devices thoroughly Shakespearian, and the poem contains some exquisite passages which, in Mr Jackson’s opinion, could hardly have been written by anyone but Shakespeare. Finally, Mr Jackson discusses the poem’s subjectmatter, finding once again, in its preoccupation with illusion and reality, and in its psychological insight, further evidence of Shakespeare's authorship. Mr Jackson’s arguments are, on the evidence of his textual analysis, as conclusive as one could hope for without more positive external evidence, and his monograph should, as he hopes it will, revive interest in a neglected poem.