Eric Sams facts for kids

Eric Sams (born May 3, 1926 – died September 13, 2004) was a British expert in music and Shakespeare. He was known for his deep studies of German songs and his new ideas about Shakespeare's early plays.

About Eric Sams' Life

Eric Sams was born in London and grew up in Essex. He was a very bright student at Westcliff High School for Boys. He even won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge when he was only sixteen.

During World War II (1944–1947), Eric Sams worked for British Intelligence. His love for puzzles and secret codes helped him a lot in this job. After the war, he studied French and German at Cambridge University. He then joined the Civil Service, which is a part of the government.

In 1952, he married Enid Tidmarsh, who was a pianist. She passed away in 2002. They had two sons. Their older son, Richard, is a Japanese expert and a chess master. Their younger son, Jeremy Sams, is a well-known composer, writer, and theater director.

Eric Sams' Work in Music

Eric Sams was a musicologist, which means he studied music in a very detailed way. He explored many different types of music. His special area was German lieder, which are German songs for a singer and piano.

He wrote important books about the songs of famous composers like Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. One of his most important ideas was his "song-motifs" theory. This theory helped people understand German songs better.

From 1965 to 1980, he often wrote articles and reviews for The Musical Times magazine. He also wrote about secret music codes used by Schumann and Brahms. He even wrote about Edward Elgar's famous "Enigma Variations." Eric Sams also contributed to New Grove, a very important music encyclopedia.

Eric Sams' Work on Shakespeare

Eric Sams was also a famous Shakespeare scholar. This means he studied the plays and life of William Shakespeare very closely. He focused on Shakespeare's early career, the years when Shakespeare was just starting out as a writer.

He wrote over a hundred papers and two books on this topic. His main idea was that "Shakespeare was an early starter who rewrote nobody's plays but his own." This means Sams believed Shakespeare wrote his own plays from the beginning. He didn't just copy or rewrite other people's plays.

Sams thought that Shakespeare was good at planning plays even before he became a master of language. He also believed that Shakespeare was upset when people accused him of copying others.

Eric Sams looked at old records and writings about Shakespeare's early life. He argued that Shakespeare started writing plays around the mid-1580s. He said that some of Shakespeare's early plays might not sound like the famous ones we know today.

He also believed that some plays, like Edmund Ironside and Edward III, were actually written by Shakespeare. He also thought that plays sometimes called "Source Plays" or "Bad Quartos" were actually Shakespeare's first versions of his own plays.

Sams believed that Shakespeare often revised his own work. He would rewrite, add to, and fix his plays throughout his life. He disagreed with the idea that actors remembered plays incorrectly, leading to "bad" copies. Instead, Sams thought that Shakespeare himself revised his plays.

He also had different ideas about whether Shakespeare worked with other writers. Sams believed that most of Shakespeare's plays were written by Shakespeare alone. He thought only a few plays, like Sir Thomas More, Two Noble Kinsmen, and Henry VIII, were collaborations.

According to Sams, Shakespeare wrote some of the earliest modern plays. This included the first modern history play, The Troublesome Reign, and early comedies and tragedies.

Many people liked Eric Sams' 1995 book. Critics said his ideas about Shakespeare's early life seemed believable. They also found his idea that Shakespeare revised his own early work very convincing. People respected that he trusted old eyewitness stories more than some modern academic theories.

Selected Works by Eric Sams

• The Songs of Hugo Wolf, 1961 (revised 1983).
• The Songs of Robert Schumann, 1969 (revised 1993).
• Brahms Songs, 1972 (revised 2000).
• Shakespeare's Lost Play, Edmund Ironside, 1986.
• The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early years, 1564-1594, 1995.
• Shakespeare's Edward III: An Early Play Restored to the Canon, 1996.
• The Songs of Johannes Brahms, 2000.
• Essays and reviews on music, Shakespeare, and cryptography, 1966-1998, available online.
• The Real Shakespeare II: Retrieving the Later Years, 1594-1616, 2008, an e-book.