The Authenticity of The Taming of the Shrew

Abstract

HE relation of Taming of the Shrew, first published in the Folio of i623, to Taming of a Shrew, printed in quarto in I594, is still a matter for dispute. According to the old school of thought, Shrew was a refurbishing of A Shrew, carried out by Shakespeare with the aid of a collaborator.' More modern critics have argued that Shrew is an original play and that A Shrew is a pirated version of it.2 Recently, attempts have been made to expound a theory that A Shrew and Shrew are both derivatives of an early play, no longer extant.3 Whichever explanation of the relation between the quarto and folio texts ultimately succeeds in establishing itself, a fundamental problem will still remain: is the play preserved in the First Folio by Shakespeare in its entirety, or are there two distinct hands in the piece, those of Shakespeare and an unknown (though not unguessed-at) collaborator? received text might on any of the three theories have been the work of more than one man. Even though critics of such acumen as F. S. Boas,4 E. P. Kuhl,5 A. Quiller-Couch6 and P. Alexander7 have defended its claim to be a completely authentic juvenile work of the poet, a not inconsiderable body of opinion still seems to favor the belief that the play is only partly Shakespearian. This belief is well exemplified by T. M. Parrott: The induction and the scenes dealing with Petruchio and Katherine are Shakespeare's in his best vein of lively comedy.... underplot, dealing with the wooing of the shrew's gentle sister, is the work of the collaborator, who, perhaps on Shakespeare's suggestion, lifted the plot from