Introduction

This chapter introduces the concept of non-traditional authorship attribution versus traditional authorship attribution. It goes on to discuss genre’s role in non-traditional attribution studies and comes to grips with the problem of considering or ignoring genre in these studies. The statement that “genre trumps authorship” is shown to be a bone of contention. The background of the debate over this statement is discussed. The definition of “intra-genre” as “nested genres” as used in this monograph is given. The reader is alerted to pay attention to the many references to early modern drama and the drama of William Shakespeare that appear throughout – not only in Chapter 13 . Each subsequent chapter is glossed.