SOURCE: "The Shares of Fletcher and his Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon (VII)," in Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, Vol. 15, 1962, pp. 71-90.

In the following excerpt, Hoy surveys the linguistic evidence that distinguishes the work of Shakespeare and Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen.

This monograph concludes with an account of Fletcher's presumptive collaborations with Shakespeare, only one of which has a place in the standard Beaumont and Fletcher canon. About Fletcher's share in The Two Noble Kinsmen, there is no real difficulty. The linguistic evidence is sufficient to point with reasonable clarity to the specific scenes of his authorship. Shakespeare's presence in the play will have to be proved on other than linguistic grounds. All that can be said is that the linguistic pattern displayed in the non-Fletcherian scenes that are generally attributed to him is not...