The Taming of a Shrew: Composition as Induction to Authorship

Abstract

Roy Eriksen’s essay asks the question whether the notoriously unattributed The Taming of a Shrew might not in fact bear the trace of Marlowe’s hand. Recognising the tendency of critics to dismiss the play as a mere “bad quarto” of a lost play that Shakespeare drew on, Eriksen suggests that A Shrew may be Marlowe’s original work—a claim which the long-recognised presence of Marlovian allusions and Marlowe’s own propensity for self-quotation do not reject.