Different Ideas about Language

Abstract

Additions II and III D to the anonymous early modern play Sir Thomas More are believed by many influential scholars to be the only poetic text penned in Shakespeare’s own hand that has made it to our times. The critical interest in this text, however, has been almost exclusively directed towards supporting or questioning Shakespeare’s authorship. The present study sets aside this controversy and explores the particularities of the original text against the background of one of its most popular modernized versions to uncover fundamental differences between the author’s idea about language and that of the modernizing editor – a representative of our own times.