18-06-2025
‘Angry co-writer' compared Shakespeare to an upstart crow
William Shakespeare's co-writer for his first history play has been identified as the anonymous source who branded the playwright an 'upstart crow'.
Textual analysis using artificial intelligence has fingered Thomas Nashe as the culprit behind the caustic attack on Shakespeare, in a 1592 pamphlet that suggested the fledgling playwright from the provinces had ideas above his station.
A new academic paper has suggested that the pair's collaboration on Henry VI Part 1 could have prompted Nashe to dismiss Shakespeare in the pamphlet as one who 'supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you'.
Nashe is thought to have written the first act and other segments of the play, which was first performed at the Rose Theatre in London in 1592 and quickly followed by two further instalments.
