ABSTRACT

FROM WORDS T O ACTION AND FROM WORDS T O PEOPLE:

The Comedy of Errors; The Two Gentlemen of Verona; The Taming of the Shrew

T HE exact order of the early comedies before A Midsummer Night's Dream cannot be precisely determined, nor for the purpose of the present study is it necessary to resort to conjecture. For the conclusions set out in this chapter remain the same whatever order be given to the three plays mentioned in the chapter-heading. I t would be unwise to judge the order of composition from any theory of an alleged maturing of style, for a creative writer, working as Shakespeare did at great speed, does not develop in a mechanical or regular way. Memories of an earlier manner will always remain in the more mature work, apart from all those instances, which Samuel Johnson recognised, of a temporary weariness or mis-direction of the creative impulse.