Sue,

Well, here I part ways with Mr. Swilley. While I certainly agree that knowing that "S" wasn't really "S" adds nothing to an appreciation of the plays themselves, the biographical and historical data -- there is such a thing, after all as a history of literature quite apart from lit crit. -- are perfectly interesting and worth having in their own right. A study of an author's life or the history of work of literature, including who may or may not have written it, needs no defense from anyone. I want to know who wrote the interpolations in Macbeth. Which translation of Dr. Faustus are you using, by the way? I think Lowe-Porter's butchering of the book is about as bad as bad can be. There is a new translation by John Wood, but I haven't looked at it. The novel in the original is an absolute marvel, but it does present monstrous difficulties for someone trying to render it into anything close to idiomatic English.

Lee