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PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
  Saturday, 15 March 2008
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The Sly story - why is it there? Why is it omitted? Why does the Oxford edition have a different distribution of it (so I am told)?
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Various editors perceive the value of the 1594 Taming of a Shrew (Quarto) in different ways. The Sly scenes are in pretty mangled format in the FF (the chief source of the play), but Taming of a Shrew is pretty complete in this regard. Some feel Shakespeare wanted it that way or it was still a work in progress (there are signs of last-minute typesetting changes in the FF). Some assert that since the Taming of the Shrew in the FF was likely set from foul papers, the somewhat complete "Sly framework" in Taming of a Shrew should be reconstructed and added. (I think Pope did this).

I'm not sure how the Oxford edition differs. Like other editions, it removes the Sly scenes after the first two Induction scenes and puts them at the end of the play for reference instead of interspersing them. If you have any further information on this, I can check my edition to verify.
16 years ago
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#2324
I believe it is there to show a crossover from the world of play-acting to the real world. Shakespeare is saying that what begins as fiction, may end as something true.

I have no patience with editions that significantly change Shakespeare's original. The Oxford editors are a bunch of buttinskys who enjoy putting their own "superior" twists on Shakespeare's works. I was shocked to find out that they'd actually inserted lines by Wilkins into their edition of Shakespeare's Pericles.
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