Discover Shakespeare’s Hand
In Tiger’s Heart in Woman’s Hide I side with that body of scholars who continue to believe that The First Part of the Contention (printed 1594) and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (printed 1595) are the first versions of plays that Shakespeare afterward transformed into those versions we find in the First Folio of 1623.
Although it has been argued since the late 1920’s that the first are merely poorly remembered versions of texts Shakespeare had originally written in their entirety (the ‘memorial reconstruction’ theory), most recent studies indicate the Contention and Richard are integral, performable scripts on their own written by playwrights other than Shakespeare. What supports this view is the fact that in the first versions there is no evidence of the peculiar thumbprints of the poet, Shakespeare, whereas in the second versions they are to be found everywhere.
In order that the reader may identify what Shakespeare specifically brings to the table in terms of style, knowledge, outlook, and so on, I here present the twin versions of the two plays side-by-side in their entirety. All of Shakespeare’s changes are marked in bold, while some of the word shuffling is noted by underlining. A study of the differences between the twin texts will allow readers to further determine the validity of the arguments I put forward in Tiger’s Heart that Mary Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke, is the most likely to have been the author of these changes. Regardless of whether one accepts the authorship question or not, the exercise is valid for allowing each reader to come to terms with the specific kind of poet Shakespeare is.
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