ABSTRACT
As Margareta De Grazia has discussed in Shakespeare Verbatim, the mid-century publications of William Shakespeare’s, Ben Jonson’s, and Francis Beaumont’s and John Fletcher’s folios are central in determining the value accorded to each playwright’s works during the seventeenth century. Amongst Restoration play critics—whom Genest describes as both ample and often undistinguished—Margaret Cavendish has often been credited with providing “the most enthusiastic and sympathetic account” of Shakespeare’s work. Many of Cavendish’s comments are quite conventional, offering Jonson the laureate status frequently granted to him in commendatory poems. Her opening lines attribute his most famous plays with “Crown[ing] the Author with exceeding praise”. Cavendish draws upon traits associated with Jonson and Shakespeare to align herself with one of the “Triumvirate” of English playwrights: Shakespeare. Cavendish’s act of memorializing herself through her writings extends her affiliation to Shakespeare by drawing on memorializing language from the 1623 Folio.
