The Bard’s or Not the Bard’s? : That Is the Question About Verse Uncovered in Huntington Library

At first glance, the two pages of verse glued to the back of a 17th-Century manuscript in the Huntington Library’s massive archives seem unlikely fodder for a literary furor.

Not unless, as a British professor reportedly claimed in London Thursday, the words were authored by the master himself, William Shakespeare.

The scholar, Oxford University professor Peter Levi, told the Daily Telegraph in London that he discovered the untitled work in the course of researching a book on the poet and playwright. The newspaper reported that Levi will hold a news conference in London on Monday.

Huntington curator Sara Hodson said Levi wrote to the San Marino library requesting a photocopy of the undated verses in 1986 but said news of his conclusion came as a surprise to librarians there.

“We are waiting with great eagerness to see his reasons,” Hodson said. “We will look at it with some skepticism but we won’t discount anything until we see the evidence.”

Part of the library’s collection since 1917, the manuscript containing the fragments of verse has been examined through the years by a “goodly number of people,” Hodson said. Some 50 to 60 scholars, 17th-Century experts among them, visit the library each day to examine works in the 2.5-million-manuscript collection.

Levi is not the first to speculate that the pages glued inside the fragile manuscript were written by Shakespeare, the curator said. In 1932, for instance, a scholar named Samuel Tannenbaum saw a possible connection but, said Hodson, made no mention of it when he ultimately published a book on the poet.

“He presumably rejected the notion,” the curator said.

Levi apparently will be the first in the literary world to take speculation about the verses a step further. The Daily Telegraph said the verses will be released in booklet form by Macmillan Publishers Ltd. on Monday, two days after the 424th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.

Penned by ‘Big Bill’

Macmillan’s chairman, Lord Stockton, was quoted by the paper as saying, “Levi has to his satisfaction and I think to the satisfaction of a lot of other people--and certainly to us--authenticated this as poetry penned by ‘Big Bill.’ ” Stockton said the verses were in “original manuscript form” when the discovery was made.

The 20-page manuscript, which measures only 8 inches by 6 inches and is bound in limp parchment, is of a play by John Marston, an English playwright who was a Shakespeare contemporary.

Unlike the play, the verses glued to the back of the volume are not attributed except for a set of initials appearing at the bottom of the second page.

The initials are the “only physical clue” to the authorship, said Hodson, and can “be read in any number of ways. It might be WSH or it might be WSK or WSR, depending on who is reading it and what they want it to say.”

Scholars, she said, have speculated that the verses were stuck to the back of the play manuscript because “it looks like they were intended to be read right the same day.”

Marston’s play was scripted as entertainment for the 17th-Century dowager Countess of Darby and a portion of the attached verse, which apparently was to be recited as part of a gift-giving ceremony, was headed by Lady Darby’s name.

Believed Complete

Although the two-page fragment is untitled, “it doesn’t give the feeling of starting in the middle,” Hodson said. “We feel it’s complete.”

If Levi makes his claim next week as expected, however, the poetry almost certainly will be subject to closer scrutiny and to considerable scholarly wrangling.

Just three years ago, a furious debate erupted over an American scholar’s claim that a love poem found in an Oxford University library was written by Shakespeare. Scholars say the arguing over that claim could go on for years.

With that in mind, curators at Huntington Library are gearing up for a storm.

If the evidence produced by Levi is compelling, Hodson said, “I expect the Shakespearean world will beat a path to our door.”