Edward III (play)

For the later play, see Edward III (1690 play).

Edward III
Title page of the first quarto (1596)
Written bypossibly: William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd
Date premieredc. 1592
Original languageEnglish
SubjectKing Edward III experiences personal and military struggles
Genrehistory play
SettingFourteenth century: England and France

The Raigne of King Edward the Third, often shortened to Edward III, is an Elizabethan play printed anonymously in 1596, and at least partly written by William Shakespeare. It began to be included in publications of the complete works of Shakespeare only in the late 1990s.[1] Scholars who have supported this attribution include Jonathan Bate, Edward Capell, Eliot Slater,[2] Eric Sams,[3] Giorgio Melchiori[4] and Brian Vickers.[4] The play's co-author remains the subject of debate: suggestions have included Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, Michael Drayton, Thomas Nashe and George Peele.

The play contains several gibes at Scotland and the Scottish people, which has led some critics to suggest that it incited George Nicholson, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Edinburgh, to protest against the portrayal of Scots on the London stage in a 1598 letter to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. This could explain why the play was not included in the First Folio of Shakespeare's works, which was published after the Scottish King James had succeeded to the English throne in 1603.

The play also contains an explicit reference to its having been produced not only for the stage, but also for the page. In the final sequence, the Black Prince states: "So that hereafter ages, when they read / The painful traffic of my tender youth, / Might thereby be inflamed” (scene 18).[5]

  1. ^ Dunton-Downer, Leslie. Riding, Alan. Essential Shakespeare Handbook. Publisher: DK 2004. P. 97 ISBN 978-0789493330
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference slat was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Sams, Eric. Shakespeare's Edward III: An Early Play Restored to the Canon (Yale UP, 1996) ISBN 978-0300066265
  4. ^ a b Melchiori, Giorgio, ed. The New Cambridge Shakespeare: King Edward III, 1998, p. 2.
  5. ^ Stanco, Michele. "Il regno di Re Edoardo III: copione teatrale o testo letterario?", in William Shakespeare: artigiano e artista, a cura di Franco Marenco, il Mulino, 2021, pp. 229–241.