f Roussillon, is a charming
portrait of old age. In frequency of rhyme and other metrical
characteristics the piece closely resembles 'The Two Gentlemen,' but the
characterisation betrays far greater power, and there are fewer conceits
or crudities of style. The pathetic element predominates. The heroine
Helena, whose 'pangs of despised love' are expressed with touching
tenderness, ranks with the greatest of Shakespeare's female creations.

'Taming of the Shrew.'

'The Taming of The Shrew'--which, like 'All's Well,' was first printed in
the folio--was probably composed soon after the completion of that solemn
comedy. It is a revision of an old play on lines somewhat differing from
those which Shakespeare had followed previously. From 'The Taming of A
Shrew,' a comedy first published in 1594, {163} Shakespeare drew the
Induction and the scenes in which the hero Petruchio conquers Catherine
the Shrew. He first infused into them the genuine spirit of comedy. But
while following the old play in its general outlines, Shakespeare's
revised version added an entirely new underplot--the story of Bianca and
her lovers, which owes something to the 'Supposes' of George Gascoigne,
an adaptation of Ariosto's comedy called 'I Suppositi.' Evidence of
style--the liberal introduction of tags of Latin and the exceptional beat
of the doggerel--makes it difficult to allot the Bianca scenes to
Shakespeare; those scenes were probably due to a coadjutor.

Stratford allusions in the Induction.

The Induction to 'The Taming of The Shrew' has a direct bearing on
Shakespeare's biography, for the poet admits into it a number of literal
references to Stratford and his native county. Such personalities are
rare in Shakespeare's plays, and can only be paralleled in two of
slightly later date--the 'Second Part of Henry IV' and the 'Merry Wives
of Windsor.' All these local allusions may well be attributed to such a
renewal of Shakespeare's personal relations with the town, as is
indicated by external facts in his history of the same period. In the
Induction the tinker, Christopher Sly, describes himself as 'Old Sly's
son of Burton Heath.' Burton Heath is Barton-on-the-Heath, the home of
Shakespeare's aunt, Edmund Lambert's wife, and of her sons. The tinker
in like vein confesses that he has run up a score with Marian Hacket, the
fat alewife of Wincot. {164} The references to Wincot and the Hackets
are singularly precise. Th