Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: All’s Well that Ends Well All’s Well that Ends Well here is no mention of All’s Well before Performance Date 1623. Possible dates of composition range widely between 1567, the publication There is no recorded performance of a play entitled Tof William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, and the All’s Well that Ends Well before 1741. appearance of the play in the First Folio (F1) in 1623. Sources Publication Date Bullough states that the main plot – the love story of Helena and Bertram – is derived from All’s Well that Ends Well was entered in the the ninth novella of the third day in Boccaccio’s Stationers’ Register on 8 November 1623 as one Decameron (written around 1350, first published of eighteen plays which had not been published in 1470). William Painter’s English translation previously: of the Italian story was published in 1566, and again in 1569. The revised third edition (1575) Mr Blounte Isaak Jaggard. Entered for is considered to be Shakespeare’s direct source, their Copie vnder the hands of Mr Doctor although some details in the play demonstrate Worral and Mr Cole – warden, Mr William knowledge of the original Italian version as well. Shakspeers Comedyes Histories, and Bullough, following the argument of Wright Tragedyes soe manie of the said Copies as (1955), suggests that Shakespeare must also are not formerly entered to other men. vizt. Comedyes. The Tempest. The two gentlemen have read Antoine le Maçon’s French version of Verona. Measure for Measure. The Comedy (originally published in 1545 and reprinted many of Errors. As you Like it. All’s well that ends times) of the Italian novella since, according to well. Twelft night. The winters tale. Histories. Bullough, the name Bertram and that of Helena’s The thirde parte of Henry the sixt. Henry the father (Gerard de Narbon) are closer in form to eight. Coriolanus. Timon of Athens. Julius those given in Maçon than to the ones given in Caesar. Tragedies. Mackbeth. Anthonie & Boccaccio or Painter. Wright even implies that, as Cleopatra. Cymbeline. Shakespeare must have had Maçon’s translation, he did not need to read Painter.1 It occupies the twelfth position in the comedies, Some allusions to the history of contemporary after The Taming of the Shrewand before Twelfth France (the religious and civil wars), to Italian Night. Chambers states that the text is not States and to the relationship between these satisfactory, requiring considerable emendation. countries and Austria have not been clarified. But There is much variation in the nomenclature, historical details mentioned in the play, though especially for the Countess and for Bertram, identified only in part, reveal that the playwright which suggests to Chambers that the copy text had an accurate knowledge of the political affairs was close to the author’s copy. of the time. © De Vere Society 1 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: All’s Well that Ends Well Orthodox Date “no good grounds for seeing All’s Well as an early play incompletely revised” (1998: 22). Chambers and Riverside favour 1602–3; Halliday, more precisely, opts for 1603. Chambers notes that Oxfordian Date the play is not (apparently) mentioned by Meres in 1598, which he sees as decisive evidence that it Clark’s proposal of 1579 is supported by Ogburn had not been written by then (see the Introduction Jr. On stylistic grounds, Hess et al. suggest 1591 for further discussion). Chambers also identifies as the likeliest date for the play’s composition. the play as part of a group of ‘problem comedies’ Nevertheless, the sources, historical allusions at which no-one laughs, but there appears to be and geographical details of Florence in the 1570s a happy ending. Hunter’s “tentative dating” is strongly support the case for a date c. 1580. 1603–4 (1967: xxv). Snyder, “with no reliable guides to further pinpointing”, chooses 1604–5 Internal Oxfordian Evidence (1998: 24). Wells & Taylor offer 1604–5.2 Fraser & Leggatt date the play to 1604. Wiggins defines the limits as 1601–8, with a best guess of 1605 In the play, Bertram is deceived by a ‘bed-trick’, Measure for Measure. as by default it “fills what would otherwise be an similar to the one staged in exceptional long gap in Shakespeare’s output” Anderson (145) points to the fact that Oxford between Othello and King Lear (V: 194). was reportedly reunited with his estranged wife in 1583 by just such a stratagem. There are two Internal Orthodox Evidence separate accounts (given more fully in the chapter on Measure for Measure) by Francis Osborne (1593–1659) and in Morant and Wright The Fraser & Leggatt, in line with other scholars, are Histories of Essex (1836). persuaded – by similarities of theme, characters, The playwright’s treatment of the source and tone and versification – to relate the play closely of the historical background provides evidence to Measure for Measure and Hamlet, plays which for earlier dating of the play than is commonly are traditionally (though without direct evidence) supposed. Shakespeare transfers Boccaccio’s story dated to the early 1600s. Fraser & Leggatt also to his own time and presents historical events which accept the suggestion that the play has many took place up to 1589. Orthodox commentators interesting themes in common with Venus and find no motivation for these historical additions, Adonis (published in 1593) and with the Sonnets which serve no dramatic function. Allusions (published in 1609). The date of the sonnets has which do not belong to the plot appear to originate not been established with any certainty; most in the dramatist’s experiences and recollections, editors see them as being either part of the vogue which could be easily explained if Oxford were for sonnets in the early 1590s, or as perhaps the author. Historical events are telescoped to inspired by them.3 increase effect, while some allusions may have been added later, during revision. Several points External Orthodox Evidence warrant commentary. Some early commentators thought this to be the a) Parolles’s scarves. The name of Parolles, play entitled Love’s Labour’s Won, listed as one of not present in the source, is derived from François Shakespeare’s comedies by Francis Meres in 1598 Rabelais’ Gargantua, published in France in 1534.4 as follows: Rabelais’ satirical work mocks the society of the time, the Church and the educational methods of for Comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, pedantic grammarians. One section is dedicated his Errors, his Love Labors lost, his Loue to the classification of parolles”“ (= words). There is labours wonne, his Midsummers night dream a clear connection between the character’s name & his Merchant of Venice and his speech patterns: “I love not many words” For modern scholars the idea has become “less (3.6.84); “You beg more than one word then” compelling” (Hunter, 1967: xx), and Snyder finds (5.2.40). © De Vere Society 2 Dating Shakespeare’s Plays: All’s Well that Ends Well This strange character has been described as a of regiments from various foreign armies. In the traitor, coward, braggart, turncoat, opportunist dramatist’s mind, Parolles might have been the or toady. As his name suggests, he is a man who opportunist who followed any political or religious speaks à deux paroles: a double-dealer, not a man trend, no matter if honour were lost. By this of his word. He does not hesitate to betray his lord theatrical means, Shakespeare may have meant and friend Bertram. The old French lord Lafeu to ridicule supporters of the Catholic League, or holds Parolles in contempt and despises his pride a particular member of it, who changed sides as in his dress: “if ever thou beest bound in thy scarf easily as they changed scarves. and beaten thou shall find what it is to be proud The whole business of Parolles’s scarves suggests of thy bondage” (2.3.224–6); and, “The soul of that the play was at least revised, if not written, at this man is in his clothes” (2.5.43–4). Diana, the time when English audiences would recognise the Florentine lady loved by Bertram, describes his part in its satirical allusion to contemporary Parolles as “that jackanapes with scarves” (3.5.87– European politics, probably in 1589–90. 8). When he is later exposed, the French soldier b) Siena and Florence. “The Florentines and dismisses him with these words: “You are undone, Senois were at war” is all that Boccaccio’s novella captain – all but your scarf; that has a knot on’t and Painter’s literal translation say of the historical yet” (4.3.325–6). background. In the source there is no further Hunter acknowledges that “the latest clothes development of the political relationship between are Parolles’ stock-in-trade” (1967: xlvii), but can France and Florence. offer no explanation for their function in the Shakespeare’s play, meanwhile, presents play. By contrast, Lambin suggests that Parolles’s historical events of the sixteenth century which distinctive attire derives its significance from are far more complex than the simple piece historical events in the late sixteenth century: of information found in Boccaccio. Since the namely the religious civil wars in France between thirteenth century, the two Tuscan cities had Catholics and Huguenots, between Holy Leaguers been at war, at long intervals. Florence and Siena and Royalists, between the powerful Dukes of were fighting in Boccaccio’s time and they were Guise and any opposing party. Historically, the again at variance three centuries later. The King members of the Catholic League wore a scarf of France tells his court: “The Florentines and over the shoulder, across the back and breast, Senois are by th’ears” (1.2.1).