The Taming of a Shrew - Anonymous
The Taming of a Shrew was printed in 1594 and was probably performed in the same year. The is not William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, but a sort of parallel version. Much of the content of the two plays is similar and they are both written in verse format. In the Arden Shakespeare they are referred to as A Shrew (anonymous) and The Shrew (Shakespeare). While The Shrew appeared in print for the first time in the first folio in 1623 the relationship of the two plays is obscure because The Shrew was also performed in the early 1590's and that is why I have referred to A Shrew as a parallel version. There is much conjecture as to whether Shakespeare used A Shrew as source material or if A shrew was a bastardised version of the Shakespeare original, or if the two plays were developed from another play now lost.

In the Arden Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew there is a replicate printing of the anonymous version entitled 'A pleasant conceited historie called The Taming of a Shrew: as it was sundry times acted by the right honorable the Earle of Pembrook his servants. It is over 1000 lines shorter than Shakespeare's version. It starts with the hostess of an inn chucking out the drunk Sly who promptly falls asleep outside. He is discovered by a Lord of a hunting party and they decide to play a trick on the drunk. This is similar to Shakespeare's play where Sly is taken to the Lords house and when he wakes up the servants persuade him that he is the Lord, and sit him down to watch a play performed by some travelling players. The play is The Taming of the Shrew and so we have the spectacle of Sly and the servants sitting down to watch the performance and so a play within a play. In A Shrew the action takes place in Athens instead of Padua in Italy and all the names apart from Kate have been changed. In Shakespeare's play after one brief intervention Sly and the other play watchers are forgotten, but in A Shrew the story of Sly is rounded out at the end. It could be said that A Shrew tells more of the story, but in less lines for example we learn why Kate agrees to marry Ferandes ( Petruccio in Shakespeare).

But yet I will consent and marry him,
For I methinks have lived too long a maid,
And match him too, or else his manhood’s good

We are never told this in Shakespeare's version. In A Shrew Kate's submission to Ferandes is even more unequivocal: she ends her long speech with:

As Sara to her husband, so should we,
Obey them, love them, keep, and nourish them,
If the by any meanes do want our helps,
Laying our hands under their feet to tread,
If that by that we, might procure their ease,
And for a president I first begin
And lay my hand under my husbands feete,
(she lays her hand under her husbands feet).

The Taming of A Shrew makes for an interesting read, especially for those people who are familiar with The Taming of The Shrew. 3 stars ( )