Historians have struggled to date this play’s composition due to the existence of a similar contemporaneous play partially titled for A Pleasant Conceited Historie. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this play in which a man sends away a tailor and a haberdasher who offer a hat and gown. In a speech at the end of this play, a woman realizes “our lances are but straws.”
ANSWER: The Taming of the Shrew
[10h] Steven R. Miller theorized that the similar play is a text of this type, explaining its commonalities with The Taming of the Shrew. Audience members created these unauthorized editions of Shakespeare plays by writing them down as they watched.
ANSWER: bad quartos [accept memorial reconstruction]
[10e] The two similar plays may have been based on the same lost play, a theory named “[this prefix]-Shrew.” One suggested source for Hamlet is a lost play known as “[this prefix]-Hamlet,” possibly written by Thomas Kyd.
ANSWER: ur- [accept “Ur-Shrew” or Ur-Hamlet]
<S, British Literature>