Shakespearean - Shakespearian - Shaksperean - Shaksperian

The adjective meaning 'to do with William Shakespeare' has several different forms.

• The latest edition of Fowler's MEU says, s.v. Shakespeare: "Now universally spelled thus ... The corresponding adj[ective] (and noun) may be written as Shakespearian (thus in the house style of OUP) or Shakespearean (in The Times)." These are quoted as authorities, so whether to use Shakespearian or Shakespearean is a free stylistic choice.

That article points out the changes in style through the years:

• Shakespere "was the more usual form" in the early decades of the twentieth century "and was recommended by the OED (1913 [i.e. during the compilation of its first edition] and by Fowler (1926)" - the first edition, again. OED now uses Shakespearian.
  • Fowler's original (1926) article reads: "Shakspere, Shakespear(e), -erian, -earian, -ean, &c. The forms preferred by the OED are Shakspere, Shaksperian. It is a matter on which unanimity is desirable, & on which, in view of the conflicting arguments, it will never be reached unless an authoritative decision is accepted as such. Shakspere, Shaksperian, [sic] are therefore recommended."
  • By the second edition, (1956), the editor, Sir Ernest Gowers had amended this to ""Shakspere, Shakespear(e), -erian, -earian, -ean, &c. The forms preferred by the OED are Shakspere, Shaksperian. It is a matter on which unanimity is desirable, and it is unfortunate that the OED's verdict has not been accepted as authoritative. But the preference today is undoubtedly for Shakespeare. It is no use trying to withstand a strong popular current in such a matter; even the SOED [SOD] has had to conform. Shakespeare, Shakespearian are therefore recommended."
    • Shakespeare himself, writing in a time when there was no uniformity or conformity of spelling in English, signs his own name in different forms. One difficulty is that he signed in an abbreviated from, without using abbreviations consistently. On 11th May 1612, he signed a statement of his evidence in a lawsuit as "Willm Shakp"On March 10th 1613, it was "William ShakspÄ“r", where the '-Ä“-' indicates a shortening. This was his signature to the conveyance of a house; the next day, he signed a mortgage-deed to the same property as "W^m ShakspÄ“", where the 'W^m' is a conventional abbreviation for his forename, and the '-p-' has a horizontal line through its descending 'tail', the standard abbreviation in manuscript for the Latin per, either as a word or a prefix. The three pages of his Will, signed, presumably, at the same time - when he may well have been ill - are also different. The last sheet has "By me William Shakspeare": this appears to be the most carefully formed,as on might expect. The first, now illegible, is recorded as "William Shakspere" ; the second has "Willm Shakspere". So two things are clear:
      • The writer himself is inconsistent in the spelling of his own name;
      • Not one recorded signature spells his surname as Shake/speare.
    • From the first of these (as from the most irregular and inconsistent spelling, by modern standards, of the texts of his plays and poems), we may deduce that he himself would have been bemused by the time spent by modern academics on debating the 'correct' way to write his name. From the second of these, one might be led to sympathise with the early twentieth century standardisation on Shak[e]spere, while noting that it still contains a variable - but that since then, we have standardised on the spelling on the top of the title page of the First Folio - the original collected edition of his plays. This reads in full "Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories. & Tragedies", and the word set in the largest type, occupying a single line and attracting the reader's attention, is Shakespeares. Scholars rely on books; and the spelling used by this book (one of the most sought after in the world) appears to outweigh all other evidence. It agrees with a majority of the ascriptions on the title pages of the various first quartos, although it is not the same as the spelling on the funerary monument in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is "Shakspeare"

[Scholarly note:] The spellings in the quartos, derived from the collection of e-texts of Shakespeare's plays the "Internet Shakespeare Editions" maintained by the University of Victoria in Canada [[1]] and from the various reproductions of title pages available in Wikipedia are: Loues labors Lost (Q1, 1598) "W. Shakespere"; A Midsommer nights dreame. (Q1, 1600) "William Shakespeare"; Henry IV, part 2 (Q1 1600), "Written by VVilliam Shakespeare"; MV (Q1, 1600) "William Shakespeare"; Much adoe about Nothing (Q1 1600) "William Shakespeare";Hamlet (Q 1 - 'bad' - 1603) "William Shake-speare.", (Q 2, 1604-5) "William Shakespeare."; King Lear (Q1, 1608) "M. William Shak-speare"; Syr Iohn Falstaffe; and the merrie Wiues of Windsor "William Shakespeare"; Troylus and Cresseid (Qq 1609 - there are two states of the First Quarto) "William Shakespeare"; Pericles (Q1 1609 and Q2 1611) "William Shakespeare"; Othello (Q1 1622) "VVilliam Shakespeare"; Two Noble Kinsmen (Q1 1634) "Written by the Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakspeare. Gent." The nine quartos printed before 1598 have no writer's name on their title pages.

In B Jonson's Every Man in his Humour (Q 1598), a list of actors is given, which begins: "The Principal COMEDIANS were, WILL. SHAKESPEARE."

The speklkings used by two other writers may be interesting. G.B. Shaw, a great believer in spelling reform, uses Shakespear in the Preface to Saint Joan, where he also spells the adjective Shakesperean (1924, xxvii). This is ionconsistent. T.S.Eliot aims to mock the rhythms of popular song when he writes, in The Waste Land (ll. 128 - 130):

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag -

It's so elegant

So intelligent