Shakespeare's Sources for The Taming of the Shrew

From The Taming of the Shrew. Ed. William J. Rolfe. New York: American Book Co.

These appear to be limited to the old play and Gascoigne's Supposes, already mentioned. The latter was "englished" from Ariosto in 1566. Holt White compares the story of the Induction with a part of Sir Richard Barckley's Discourse on the Felicitie of Man, 1598; Malone with a tale in Goulart's Tresor d' Histoires, etc. (translated by E.Grimstone, 1607, but some of the tales may have appeared in English much earlier); and Steevens, with a story quoted from Marco Paolo by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621.

T. Warton says that it is to be found in a collection of short comic stories, printed in black letter in 1570, "sett forth by maister Richard Edwards, mayster of her Maiesties revels;" and that it is like "an incident which Heuterus relates from an epistle of Ludovicus Vives to have actually happened at the marriage of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, about the year 1440." Percy, in his Reliques, gives an old ballad on the same subject, The Frolicsome Duke, or the Tinker's Good Fortune, the date of which is not known. Knight remarks that the story is in all probability of Eastern origin, being found in the Thousand and One Nights; and Mr. Lane conjectures that it is founded on fact.

How to cite this article:
Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew. Ed. William J. Rolfe. New York: American Book Company, 1897. Shakespeare Online. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/tamingsources.html >.

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