ABSTRACT
The relationship between The Shrew and The Taming of A Shrew is also disputed. Until 1607 all bibliographical references were apparently to the latter, which was entered in S.R. on 2 May, 1594 to Peter Shorte, who printed it that year (QI) for Cuthbert Burbie (cf. Chambers, W.Sh., l.g22-3). This version is given below (I]. Other editions appeared in 1596 and x6o7.I The Shrew, first mentioned in FI, 1623, used generally to be regarded as a revision of A Shrew made by Shakespeare with or without collaboration.2 Warburton and Farmer denied that he wrote The Shrew; Furnivall, E. K. Chambers and T. M. Parrott believed that he had a collaborator who did the Bianca plot. Dover Wilson argued that Shakespeare revised, not the play represented in QI, but another version since lost, in which maybe Nashe took a hand. P. Alexander (TLS. 16 Sept., 1926) suggested that QI was a 'bad Quarto'. Just as the old 'Contention' was a bad version of 2 Henry VI, A Shrew was a botched-up version of The Shrew. My own view is that QI is a badly printed version of the old play which Shakespeare used as his main source for The Shrew. He may have had access to another MS as well. Despite resemblances between the two plays the differences cannot be explained away by any theory of abridgement or piracy by memorizing or by putting together actors' parts.
