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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Parallels with Robert Greene's The Historie of Orlando Furioso support the theory that Shakespeare in 1592-93 may have composed some preliminary sketches for a play which he later wrote up as The Taming of the Shrew and which another wrote up as The Taming of a Shrew.
1 “The Evolution of The Taming of the Shrew,” PMLA, lvii (1942), 1009-38. See p. 1013 for a comparative chart which offers a reconstruction of the original form of the play.
2 Ibid., p. 1023.
3 Ibid., p. 1037.
4 Ibid., pp. 1019-28.
5 Ibid., p. 1037.
6 The clowning scene of A Shrew, ii.ii.1-53, for which there is no corresponding text in The Shrew, may or may not have been in the original.
7 Ibid., pp. 1030-35.
8 Cf. T. M. Parrott, “The Taming of a Shrew,” Elizabethan Studies and Other Essays (Boulder, Colorado, 1945), pp. 156-160, vs. Hardin Craig, “The Shrew and a Shrew,” ibid., pp. 153-154.
9 Ibid., pp. 160-161, vs. Craig, p. 152. Parrott's argument, however, for a date before 1591 is hardly even “a fair inference,” p. 160.
10 “The Evolution,” op. cit., pp. 1024-30.
11 Ibid., pp. 1030-35.
12 Ibid., pp. 1010-12.
13 Cf. “The Integrity of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew,” JEGP, xxxix (1940), 222-229; “Strata in The Taming of the Shrew,” SP, xxxix (1942), 291-302.
14 The undersigned plans to publish, as a chapter in a book on Shakespeare's art, a study of The Shrew in which he would show how the style of the play varies in accordance with its changing content.
15 Vs. Parrott, Elizabethan Studies, op. cit., pp. 161-165.
16 G. I. Duthie, “The Taming of A Shrew and The Taming of The Shrew,” RES, xix (1943), 352-356, declares that he and Houk “support the same hypothesis,” which is, he thinks, “essentially that stated by Bernhard ten Brink.” Duthie regards A Shrew as “a reported version of a Shakespearian ‘first sketch.‘ ”Hardin Craig also accepts the theory of a common source, which he credits to Ten Brink rather than to Samuel Hickson, who seems to have been the first to suggest it (Elizabethan Studies, op. cit., pp. 150-154).
17 “The Evolution,” op. cit., pp. 1009, 1023, 1037-38. Duthie also makes use of Hickson's parallels.
18 Ibid., pp. 1023-24, 1031, 1035.
19 The date of 1592-93 makes it reasonable to suppose that Shakespeare, as the original author of the play, may have been indebted to Ariosto's Le Satire by way of a translation which may have been made by Robert Tofte as early as 1592. For a brief statement of this possibility, together with a list of parallels, see Houk, “Shakspere's Heroic Shrew,” SAB, xviii (1943), 176-177, 182-183, notes 39, 62, 63.
20 See Greg, Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements: The Battle of Alcazar & Orlando Furioso (Oxford, 1923), pp. 125-130, for dates. The quarto of 1594 was entered in S.R. on December 7, 1593.
21 Ibid., pp. 142-201. Greg gives parallel texts of the speaking part of Orlando from the Alleyn MS and the quarto of 1594. Because of mutilation the Alleyn MS preserves, Greg thinks, pp. 132, 136, only “the speeches and cues of Orlando for some two-thirds of the play.” J. C. Collins, The Plays & Poems of Robert Greene (Oxford, 1905), i, 223-265, 266-278, gives both the quarto of 1594 and the Alleyn MS.
22 Greg, op. cit., pp. 349-357.
23 Sidelights on Elizabethan Drama (Oxford, 1924), pp. 67-69. Sykes credits “Mr. J. Dover Wilson” with having called his attention to the parallels.
24 Greg, pp. 157, 159. Collins, i, 246. I give the text from Greg, and the page numbers of Collins' text.
25 Greg, pp. 156, 158. Collins, i, 269.
26 I quote A Shrew from F. S. Boas' edition (London, 1908).
27 Greg, p. 177. Collins, i, 255. Compare A 290: Greg, p. 176. Collins, i, 273.
28 Greg, p. 183. Collins, i, 258. In Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, chap, xxxix, lines 439-472, 483-488, it is not Melissa, but Astolpho and Brandimart, who restore Orlando to his senses and comfort him. Cf. xxxiv.636-679, John Hoole's translation.
29 Greg, p. 182. Collins, i, 274.
30 Greg, p. 177, 179 Collins, i, 256.
31 Sidelights, p. 69. On this Greg, p. 361, remarks, “The resemblance is evident, but a single parallel of the sort is no sufficient indication of common origin.”
32 Cf. “The Evolution,” op. cit., pp. 1030-35.
33 Greg, pp. 176, 178. Collins, i, 272-273.
34 Greg, pp. 305-306.
35 Greg, p. 166. Collins, i, 270. Ariosto's description of Angelica, as seen by Orlando in a dream (Orlando Furioso, viii.486-555; cf. xxxix.436-439), may have been Greene's source here.
36 Greg, pp. 165, 167. Collins, i, 251.
37 Collins, i, 231. Ariosto has Sacripant similarly confident of possessing Angelica (Orlando Furioso, i.373-380, 398-413).
38 Greg, pp. 135-136.
39 Greg, p. 177. Collins, i, 255.
40 Greg, p. 236.
41 Sidelights, pp. 68-69.
42 Ibid., p. 69. Greg, pp. 175, 177. Collins, i, 254-255. See the discussion of the apparel scene below. Ariosto has the mad Orlando perform more extravagant feats (Orlando Furioso, xxiv. 21-78, etc.).
43 Hickson's argument in N & Q, i (1850), 345-347, is well known.
44 Greg, pp. 163, 165. Collins, i, 249-250. Greg says, pp. 226-227, “The original version of this episode (Q 983-1009), which we may suppose Greene to have developed at length, is lost through the mutilation of A.” A similar use of “he cannot choose” occurs in The Shrew, Ind.i.42.
45 See “The Evolution,” op. cit., pp. 1014-18.
46 In the original Orlando Furioso (A 219-303), as Greg has observed, p. 237, note on A 295-300, there are probably present, besides Orlando and Argalio, some unnamed characters, possibly “Aquitaine and his men” and “Melissa.”
47 Greg, p. 174. Collins, i, 272.
48 Greg, pp. 226-227.
49 Greg, pp. 235-236.
50 Greg, p. 177. Collins, i, 255.
51 Sidelights, p. 68.
52 Greg, p. 159. Collins, i, 247. Cf. Q 1015-16, “as you never saw before,” quoted above.
53 See “The Evolution,” op. cit., pp. 1035-37.
54 Greg, p. 165. Collins, i, 250.
55 See also The Shrew, Ind.i.67-68, 94-99, and A Shrew, Ind.i.70.
56 Sidelights, p. 69.
57 Greg, p. 177. Collins, i, 256.
58 Greg, p. 176. Collins, i, 272.
59 Greg, p. 293.
60 Greg, pp. 198-200. Collins, i, 277, 278.
61 Greg, pp. 199-201. Collins, i, 265.
62 Greg, p. 196. Collins, i, 277.
63 Greg, p. 197. Collins, i, 264.
64 See “The Evolution,” op. cit., pp. 1014-38.
65 Ibid., pp. 1014-18.
66 Ibid., pp. 1026, 1027.
67 Ibid., pp. 1018-19.
68 Ibid., pp. 1014-18.
69 J. Dover Wilson, for example, whose explanation Greg discusses, op. cit., pp. 361-364.