In the introduction of her innovative new book Shakespeare’s Folktale Sources, Charlotte Artese asks the question “Why hasn’t this study already been written?” (16) Why not indeed? After all, the first spadework on the folktale sources of The Taming of the Shrew was done way back in the early 1960s by a callow youth (me) for a doctoral dissertation in folklore at Indiana University, and Shakespeareans accepted my case that the folktale known by the same title (Aarne Thompson Type 901) was the source of that play.[1] But neither folklorists nor Shakespeare scholars pursued the subject much further until Professor Artese’s work started appearing in 2009, leading up to this 2015 book. One reason for the decades of silence is that Shakespearean source hunters mostly ignored oral tradition to focus on earlier printed material as the only possible inspiration for the greatest literary creator in the English language. Folklorists interested in literary topics turned more to the study of the strategies and dynamics of narrative performance than to tracing type and motif variations in written sources. Finally now in Charlotte Artese’s work we have the application of all the tools of folkloristic comparisons and analysis expertly applied to the works of Shakespeare that were most influenced by folk tradition.
Artese identifies plots of seven of the master’s plays as “a group, even a genre: the folktale plays” (2), devoting a chapter to each. Presented in presumed chronological order, these are as follows, with the major folktale analogues keyed to the latest edition of the AT index by Hans-Jörg Uther:
Chapter 1, The Taming of the Shrew. ATU 901 and “Lord for a Day” (ATU 1531).
Chapter 2, Titus Andronicus. “The Revenge of the Castrated Man” (ATU 844*) and “The Maiden Without Hands” (ATU 706).
Chapter 3, The Merry Wives of Windsor. “The Blood-Brother’s Wife” (ATU 1364).
Chapter 4, The Merchant of Venice. “A Pound of Flesh” (ATU 890).
Chapter 5, All’s Well That Ends Well. “The Man Who Deserted His Wife” (ATU 891).
Chapter 6. Measure for Measure. “Measure for Measure” folktale (ATU 985**).
Chapter 7. Cymbeline. “Snow White” (ATU 709) and “The Wager on the Wife’s Chastity” (ATU 882).
While these parallels had been pointed out before, it remained for a trained folklorist to study the connections in depth; of course, her comparisons had to go far beyond citing the Grimm versions or other well-known examples. Thus, for each of these plays Artese surveys the huge range of international variants—oral and literary—of the relevant tales or motifs, demonstrating how Shakespeare picked and chose details from among possible versions, sometimes starting with a literary text, and other times evidently following oral narratives. Central to Artese’s analysis is the likelihood that Shakespeare’s audience also knew these popular tales. As Artese wittily puts it, “Because the audience knows the folktale plots, and Shakespeare knows they know, and they know Shakespeare knows they know, and Shakespeare knows that they know that he knows that they know the stories, he is making his methods and meditations as a writer visible to them” (21).
The results of Artese’s close study of folktale sources are far too complex and varied to be effectively summarized in a review. Her findings range from such minutiae as why Petruchio in Taming calls for his dog in one scene, but never mentions it again, all the way up to imaginative and convincing readings of the dynamics of storytelling presented in each of these dramas. For folklorists and Shakespeareans alike the book is required reading, and I believe it will move both literary folkloristics and Shakespeare criticism in new directions. Beyond these seven “folktale plays” there are numerous other folklore allusions and influences in the Shakespearean canon awaiting similar analysis.
Last summer at a “chuckwagon cookout” in Yellowstone National Park I observed dramatic proof that at least one of these stories still circulates orally. After dinner a young wrangler climbed onto a stump and regaled us with some western yarns, among them a cowboy version of ATU 901. After he delivered the “That’s once!” punchline to general laughter and applause, I turned to the tourist standing next to me and asked him what he thought of the story. “Oh, that’s just an old joke that I’ve heard before,” he replied. I assured him that it was indeed an old joke, one that even Shakespeare had known and retold.
Note
[1] In her generous references to my early work, which had failed even to consider the traditional nature of the Induction story, Artese makes one slight error in a citation. The quotation in note 4, page 45, leaves out the word “far” from my statement, “as close to Shakespeare’s plot as any folktale so far recovered.” There is another minor mistake in the index where the anonymous The Taming of a Shrew is mistakenly listed with the definite article, just like the “real” Shrew play.
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[Review length: 813 words • Review posted on February 17, 2016]