Eric Sams


Eric Sams was a British musicologist and Shakespeare scholar.
Born in London, he was raised in Essex. His early brilliance in school earned him a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge at the age of sixteen. His lifelong passion for puzzles and ciphers stood him in good stead in his wartime service in British Intelligence. After the war he read modern languages at Cambridge, 1947–50; upon graduation he entered the Civil Service. In 1952 he married Enid Tidmarsh, a pianist. Their elder son, Richard, is a Japanese scholar and chess master working in Tokyo; their younger son Jeremy Sams is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and theatre director.

Musicology

In music, Sams wrote on and studied a range of subjects and genres, though his specialty was German lieder. He wrote volumes on the songs of Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. His theory of song-motifs is one of the 20th century's most important contributions to the research in the field of German song studies. From 1965 to 1980 he was a regular contributor to The Musical Times with essays and reviews. Most notably, he wrote on Schumann's and Brahms's ciphers and music codes, on Elgar's Enigma and on Schubert's and Schumann's pathologies. His New Grove articles include Schubert and Schumann work-list, "Wolf" and Wolf work-list, "Mörike", "Hanslick" and "Musical Cryptography". He reviewed opera performance for the New Statesman, 1976–78 and wrote record reviews for Gramophone 1976–78.

Shakespeare

In the field of Shakespeare studies, Sams specialized in the early phases of Shakespeare's career. He published over a hundred papers on the subject and wrote two books, The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early Years, 1564-1594 and The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Later Years, 1594-1616 . Building on the work of W. J. Courthope, Hardin Craig, E. B. Everitt, Seymour Pitcher and others, Sams' thesis was that "Shakespeare was an early starter who rewrote nobody's plays but his own", and that the young playwright "may have been a master of structure before he was a master of language". Far from being a plagiarist, Shakespeare found accusations of plagiarism offensive. Trusting the early 'biographical' sources John Aubrey and Nicholas Rowe, Sams re-assessed Shakespeare's early and 'missing' years, and argued through detailed textual analysis that Shakespeare began writing plays from the mid-1580s, in a style not now recognisably Shakespearean. In full critical editions of the two plays, he defended the attributions of the anonymous Edmund Ironside and Edward III to Shakespeare. The so-called 'Source Plays' and 'Derivative Plays', and the so-called 'Bad Quartos', are his own first versions of famous later plays. As many of the Quarto title-pages proclaim, Shakespeare was an assiduous reviser of his own work, rewriting, enlarging and emending to the end of his life. He "struck the second heat / upon the Muses' anvil," as Ben Jonson put it in the Folio verse tribute. Sams dissented from 20th-century orthodoxy, arguing strongly against the concept of memorial reconstruction by amnesiac actors, which he called a "wrong-headed" theory. "Authorial revision of early plays is the only rational alternative." The pirated copies referred to in the preamble to the Folio were the 1619 quartos, mostly already superseded plays, for "Shakespeare was disposed to release his own popular early version for acting and printing because his own masterly revision would soon be forthcoming". Sams believed that Shakespeare in his retirement was revising his oeuvre "for definitive publication". The "apprentice plays" which had been reworked were naturally omitted from the Folio. Sams also rejected 20th-century orthodoxy on Shakespeare's collaboration: with the exception of Sir Thomas More, Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII, the plays were solely his, though many were only partly revised. By Sams' authorship- and dating-arguments, Shakespeare wrote not only the earliest "modern" chronicle play, The Troublesome Reign, c.1588, but also "the earliest known modern comedy and tragedy", A Shrew and the Ur-Hamlet.
The Famous Victories of Henry VWritten by Shakespeare c.1586 or earlier.Released for printing c.1598 as Shakespeare nearing completion of Henry IV-Henry V trilogy.
King LeirWritten by Shakespeare c.1587.Rewritten as the Quarto King Lear, the Folio text being further revised.
Pericles, Prince of TyreWritten by Shakespeare late 1580s, as Jonson and Dryden reported.Acts III-V rewritten for Quarto.
Edmund IronsideWritten by Shakespeare c.1588 or earlier. Sams believes the manuscript is Shakespeare's hand.Sequel Hardicanute lost; Ironside withdrawn because anti-clerical & completely rewritten as Titus Andronicus.
Ur-HamletWritten by Shakespeare c.1588 or earlier; substantially = Hamlet Q1.Rewritten and enlarged as Q2 Hamlet, the Folio text being further revised.
The Troublesome Reign of King JohnWritten by Shakespeare c.1588.Rewritten as King John.
The Taming of a ShrewWritten by Shakespeare c.1588.Rewritten as The Taming of the Shrew.
Titus AndronicusAct I derives from an early version, written by Shakespeare c.1589 ; rest revised c.1592.Scene added for Folio text.
The True Tragedy of Richard IIIWritten by Shakespeare c.1589-90.Rewritten as The Tragedy of King Richard III.
Edward IIIWritten by Shakespeare c.1589, revised 1593-94.Omitted from Folio because anti-Scottish.
Thomas of Woodstock, or The first Part of the Reign of King Richard IIWritten by Shakespeare c.1590.Unpublished. Richard II the sequel.
The First Part of the ContentionWritten by Shakespeare c.1589-90.Rewritten as Henry VI, Part 2 for Folio.
The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of YorkeWritten by Shakespeare c.1589-90.Rewritten as Henry VI, Part 3 for Folio.
Henry VI, Part 1Written by Shakespeare c.1590-91.-
The Comedy of ErrorsWritten early 1590s. "A version played in 1594", but "no reason to suppose it was the Folio text".
The Tragedy of King Richard IIIFirst Quarto is Shakespeare's early version, written c.1593.Folio text revised and enlarged.
SonnetsAutobiographical and mostly written c.1590-94; earliest from early 1580s, latest written 1603 & 1605.Southampton the addressee; Venus and Adonis and A Lover's Complaint also written for and about him.
Love's Labour's LostA drame à clef, contemporaneous with the Sonnets.Later revised and enlarged.
The Two Gentlemen of VeronaA drame à clef, contemporaneous with the Sonnets, written by Shakespeare post-1594. Sams follows A. L. Rowse's identifications.
Richard IIWritten c.1595 or earlier.Deposition scene added after 1598, the Folio text being further revised.
A Midsummer Night's DreamSams follows A. L. Rowse's suggestion that this was played at the wedding in May 1594 of Mary Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton and Sir Thomas Heneage.
Romeo and JulietFirst Quarto is Shakespeare's early version, written c.1594-5."Corrected, augmented and amended" in Second Quarto, with minor revisions thereafter.
The Merchant of VeniceSams accepts the suggestion that this was written in 1596, after the capture at Cadiz of the San Andrés, to which it refers.
Written soon after Love's Labour's Lost and rewritten as All's Well That Ends Well, a drame à clef.All's Well revised c.1602.
The Merry Wives of WindsorFirst Quarto is Shakespeare's early version, written late 1590s.Substantially revised and enlarged for Folio.
Henry IV, Part 1 & Part 2Written c.1597-98.Apologetic altering of Sir John Oldcastle to Sir John Falstaff.
Henry VFirst Quarto is Shakespeare's 'middle' version, written 1590s.The Folio text revised and enlarged, 1599.

Critical reaction to Sams' 1995 book was largely favourable. "Much of what is postulated for boyhood years seems convincing," wrote Jonathan Keates, "including a background in Catholic recusancy and a schooling interrupted by family financial crisis. Neither is the idea of the poet as a reviser of his own early work implausible, and Sams is a persuasive salesman of his big idea that so-called 'bad quartos' represent valuable first thoughts." "His unwillingness to collude with academics against actors," wrote Professor Stephen Logan, "springs from a deep respect for the past. He would sooner trust eyewitness testimony, however informal, than the authority of consensus."

Selected works