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The Evolution of The Taming of the Shrew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Raymond A. Houk
Raymond A. Houk*
Affiliation:
Washington, D. C.
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Extract

Most Shakespeare scholars have believed that an earlier form of The Taming of the Shrew once existed, whether it was The Taming of a Shrew or some other version. There are scholars also who hold that an earlier form of The Taming of a Shrew must be postulated. Some have suggested a theory of a common source.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1942 , pp. 1009 - 1038
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Note 1 in page 1009 “Shakespeare's Part in the Taming of the Shrew,” PMLA (1890), v, 201–278; see p. 228. Tolman credits the theory to Bernhard ten Brink (pp. 227–229), and recurs to the theory in The Views about Hamlet and Other Essays (Boston, 1904), p. 302.

Note 2 in page 1009 “The Taming of the Shrew,” N&Q (March 30, 1850), i, 345.

Note 3 in page 1009 Ibid., p. 347.

Note 4 in page 1009 “The Taming of the Shrew,” LTLS, Sept. 16, 1926, p. 614.

Note 5 in page 1010 Ibid., p. 614.

Note 6 in page 1010 B. A. P. van Dam supports Alexander's theory, which would date The Shrew as of 1592, or earlier, in English Studies (Amsterdam), x (1928), 97–106. Van Dam suggests that actors, during a surreptitious and improvised performance of The Shrew in 1592, deliberately altered both the plot and the names of the characters (ibid., p. 106).

Note 7 in page 1010 R. W. Bond, The Taming of the Shrew (London, 1904, 1929), pp. xxxi-xxxii, xliii.

Note 8 in page 1010 The Works of William Shakespeare, ed. Richard Grant White (Boston, 1857), iv, 390.

Note 9 in page 1010 New Shakspere Society Transactions (London, 1874), pp. 85–101; discussion, pp. 102–125.

Note 10 in page 1010 Ibid., p. 103.

Note 11 in page 1010 Ibid., p. 124.

Note 12 in page 1010 The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare (London, 1831), iii, 78.

Note 13 in page 1010 Trans. N. S. S., op. cit., pp. 100–101.

Note 14 in page 1010 Ibid., pp. 102–114.

Note 15 in page 1011 Ibid., pp. 119–123.

Note 16 in page 1011 Ibid., pp. 114–115.

Note 17 in page 1011 Ibid., pp. 116–119.

Note 18 in page 1011 Ibid., pp. 123–125.

Note 19 in page 1011 See Ernest P. Kuhl, “The Authorship of The Taming of the Shrew,” PMLA, xl (Sept., 1925), 551–618; Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xxxii and note; George Lyman Kittredge, The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Boston, 1936), p. 325. Florence H. Ashton, in “The Revision of the Folio Text of The Taming of the Shrew,” PQ, vi (April, 1927), 151–160, presents certain bibliographical evidence for a revision of the subplot of The Shrew which I evaluate in “Strata in The Taming of the Shrew,” SP, xxxix (1942), 291–302.

Note 20 in page 1011 Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xxxii.

Note 21 in page 1011 Ibid., pp. xxxiii, xxxvii.

Note 22 in page 1011 “Time-Analysis of The Taming of the Shrew,” New Shakspere Society Transactions (1877–1879), pp. 164–165.

Note 23 in page 1011 Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xxxv and p. 77, note on TS iii. ii. 24, 25. See also C. H. Herford, Works of Shakespeare (London, 1899, 1901), ii, 7–8.

Note 24 in page 1011 See “The Integrity of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew,” JEGP, xxxix (April, 1940), 222–229, wherein, in opposition to Daniel, I point out Shakespeare's provision for such a doubling.

Note 25 in page 1012 “Time-Analysis,” op. cit., p. 165. It may be worth noting that some scholars have similarly objected to the employment of Valeria as the lute teacher in A Shrew.

Note 26 in page 1012 Ibid., p. 162.

Note 27 in page 1012 The Taming of the Shrew (Cambridge, 1928), edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson, pp. 124–125.

Note 28 in page 1012 Wilson, The Shrew, op. cit., pp. 122–126. Cf. Bond's suggestion of an “intermediate play,” which was “already perhaps a year or more old” in 1594 (Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xxxvii).

Note 29 in page 1012 Ibid., p. 120.

Note 30 in page 1012 Ibid., pp. 109–110, 120–124. See above and note 4.

Note 31 in page 1012 Ibid., pp. 122, 124.

Note 32 in page 1013 I cite A Shrew in The Shakespeare Classics, edited by F. S. Boas (London, 1908).

Note 33 in page 1013 I cite The Shrew in the spelling and punctuation of the folio of 1623, but in the Globe divisions of the text as reproduced in Kittredge, Works of Shakespeare, op. cit., pp. 327–359.

Note 34 in page 1013 See W. G. Boswell-Stone's suggestive comparison of the plots and his list of corresponding characters in The Old Spelling Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew (London, 1907), pp. xv-xxv, 1.

Note 35 in page 1013 I give also the scene divisions adopted by Furnivall in The Taming of a Shrew: The First Quarto, 1594 (London, 1886), together with the signatures of the quarto and the pages numbers of the folio, with the columns of the latter indicated by the letters a and b.

Note 36 in page 1019 Daniel, Trans. N. S. S., op. cit., p. 169.

Note 37 in page 1020 Furnivall suggests that Sunday properly begins in A Shrew at ii. i. 85. He allows four days for the entire play: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, beginning at scenes iii, vii, xii, and xiv, respectively. Daniel later concedes that Sunday may have begun at ii. i. 1 (Furnivall, A Shrew, op. cit., p. xii).

Note 38 in page 1020 The “to morrow” of A Shrew would leave Ferando but little time in which to hie him to his “countrie house” (line 179) in order to make provision to entertain his “Kate when she dooth come” (lines 180–181; cf. lines 206–208, 268–271).

Note 39 in page 1021 Daniel, Trans. N. S. S., op. cit., p. 163. F. A. Marshall, however, follows Daniel in making the time of action six days; see The Henry Irving Shakespeare (New York, 1888), ii, 248.

Note 40 in page 1022 Daniel, Trans. N. S. S., op. cit., pp. 165–166.

Note 41 in page 1023 Charlotte Porter, The Taming of the Shrew (New York, 1903), p. 125.

Note 42 in page 1024 Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xv; cf. pp. xxxi-xxxii.

Note 43 in page 1024 Ibid., p. xix.

Note 44 in page 1024 Daniel, Trans. N. S. S., op. cit., pp. 166–169.

Note 45 in page 1025 At first sight it may seem that Valeria's question, “is Ferando married then?” (line 21), would place AS iii. ii. 1–34 earlier than the conjectured date of Tuesday, but such earlier dating does not necessarily follow. Valeria's state of ignorance may have been the result of his having been removed from the field of operations for a time; he was, of course, not present at Ferando's wedding, for, after his failure as a teacher, he had been sent home by Aurelius to serve as host to the visitor from Sestos. Aurelius apparently became the household guest of Alfonso, while Valeria probably resumed the apparel of Aurelius (see i. i. 89–97), and remained in the lodgings provided by Polidor. The occupation of Valeria in the meantime may not have been unlike the similar rôle assigned to Tranio in The Shrew:

Keepe house, and ply his booke, welcome his friends,

Visit his Countrimen, and banquet them. (TS i. i. 201–202)

Note 46 in page 1028 See TS v. ii. 128: “since supper time.” The supper mentioned in A Shrew (v. i. 1) may have been the second meal after the marriages of Philema and Emelia, if A Shrew be supposed to follow such a schedule of events as is in A Merry Jeste of a shrewde and curste Wyfe, lapped in Morrelles Skin, for her good behavyour (London, ca. 1550–60), wherein (pp. 65–70) the wedding festivities include dinner and supper on the same day. I cite the edition by Thomas Amyot in The Old Taming of a Shrew (London, 1844), pp. 53–91.

Note 47 in page 1029 The “slender pittance” which Tranio (as Lucentio) seems to promise Baptista for “supper” upon conclusion of the dowry business (TS iv. iv. 61, 70, 86) was probably a part of the deception, and not an inconsistency with the fact that a feast is actually served (v. i. 146; v. ii. 1–48), for Tranio, who planned the elopement, may well have made secret provision for ample entertainment.

47a Neither is it clear how Hortensio is able to confirm Petruchio's statement (iv. v. 74). When Hortensio renounced Bianca at iv. ii. 1–13 he was not aware of the disguises under which Lucentio and Tranio were masquerading, nor was he aware that an elopement was being planned. After the scene, however, in which Tranio (as Lucentio) told him that he also renounced Bianca (iv. ii. 32–33), Hortensio must somehow have come to believe that the supposed Lucentio's renunciation was but feigned; otherwise he probably would have told Petruchio that the negotiations between Baptista and “Lucentio” were off, and that no one remained to marry Bianca except Gremio—for, to Hortensio's mind, a marriage between Bianca and “Cambio,” a “Cullion” (iv. ii. 20), would have been out of the question.

Note 48 in page 1030 “Enter Peter.” (TS iv. iv. 68/9), a stage direction whose meaning has been in dispute, appears in the text of the folio. Instead, however, of the entrance of such a character after the forgery scene (TS iv. iv. 1–72; cf. AS iii. iv. 1–65), Lucentio and Biondello enter to discuss the plans for the elopement (TS iv. iv. 73–110). I would suggest that the direction “Enter Peter.” was originally the beginning of the stage direction introducing the identity scene, “Enter Petruchio, Kate, Hortensio” (TS iv. v. 1–79; cf. AS iv. i. 2–55), and that, when the identity scene was displaced, or delayed, by the insertion of the plans for the elopement, the stage direction of the identity scene was copied by mistake so far as “Enter Peter.” and then discontinued. According to this interpretation, “Enter Peter.” would be a relic of an earlier form of the play in which, as in A Shrew, no elopement had occurred. Cf. Ashton, PQ, op. cit., p. 159.

Note 49 in page 1031 Such older views include the suggestion that the end of the play was lost or inadvertently omitted. See E. P. Kuhl, “Shakespere's Purpose in Dropping Sly,” MLN (June, 1921), pp. 321–322.

Note 50 in page 1031 The Shrew, op. cit., p. 124. A theory of actor-economy was expressed by Tolman, PMLA, v, 222.

Note 51 in page 1031 The Shrew, op. cit., note on p. 33.

Note 52 in page 1031 MLN, op. cit., pp. 323–329.

Note 53 in page 1031 Porter, The Shrew, op. cit., pp. 194–195.

Note 54 in page 1031 The demonstration that the elimination of the interludes was co-incidental with the elaboration of the subplot would constitute a refutation of Wilson's theory of an unrevised version of The Shrew, that is, of an intermediate version which contained both the elaborated form of the subplot and the Sly interludes in full.

Note 55 in page 1032 All of the scenes of A Shrew, with the exception of the interludes, may be regarded as exterior scenes; even the scenes of iii. i. 1–53 and iii. iii. 1–54, in which food is served at Ferando's country-house, may have been placed in the court (the peristyle of Roman houses). The scene of A Shrew v. i. 1–161 takes place after supper on the evening of the wedding day of the younger sisters:

Come gentlemen now that suppers donne,
How shall we spend the time till we go to bed? (lines 1–2)

Sly in A Shrew may be supposed to have looked out of his bedroom alternately upon the exterior scenes of the street, of the court, and, with less verisimilitude, of a country road. The location of certain scenes in The Shrew might also be regarded as in the court of a house; but the language of Shakespeare is hardly reminiscent of such a style of architecture, and the time of The Shrew is definitely stated to be winter (iv. i. 24).

Note 56 in page 1032 Cf. Boas, A Shrew, op. cit., p. xxiv.

Note 57 in page 1033 Bond, Early Plays from the Italian (Oxford, 1911), p. lxvii. Cf. Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xxvii.

Note 58 in page 1033 I use Bond's edition of Gascoigne's Supposes (Early Plays, op. cit., pp. 1–73).

Note 59 in page 1033 The rôle of the Officer may have been doubled by the Hortensio actor in The Shrew, for Petruchio, making a pun on the name, tells Hortensio at v. ii. 37 that he “Spoke like an Officer.”

Note 60 in page 1035 See Wilson, The Shrew, op. cit., p. 124. Cf. texts served by notes 50, 54, above.

Note 61 in page 1035 See note 51. Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., note on p. 33.

Note 62 in page 1035 Cf. Kuhl, MLN, op. cit., p. 327. Cf. A Shrew, Ind. i. 63–64.

Note 63 in page 1036 Compare the lines appended to The Wife Lapped in Morels Skin:

He that can charme a shrewde wyfe
Better then thus,
Let him come to me, and fetch ten pound,
And a golden purse.
(Amyot's edition, op. cit., p. 91)

Note 64 in page 1036 See Kuhl, MLN, op. cit., pp. 327–328.

Note 65 in page 1036 Cf. The Shrew, Ind. i. 1–15; Ind. ii. 20–25, 87–90.

Note 66 in page 1038 Boas, A Shrew, op. cit., p. xxxiii.

Note 67 in page 1038 Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., p. xlii. Tolman, Views, op. cit., p. 303.

Note 68 in page 1038 Cf. H. D. Sykes, Sidelights on Elizabethan Drama (Oxford, 1925), pp. 49–78.

Note 69 in page 1038 Boas, A Shrew, op. cit., p. xxxi. For the authorship of A Shrew see Boas, ibid., pp. xxxiv-xxxvii; Alexander, LTLS, op. cit., p. 614; Bond, The Shrew, op. cit., pp. xxxvii-xliv.