Title: The Taming of the Shrew

Source: Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 126. Detroit: Gale. From
Literature Resource Center.
Document Type: Topic overview
Bookmark: Bookmark this Document
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale, Cengage Learning
Introduction Further Readings about the Topic

Introduction

The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's earlier comedies, believed to have
been written between 1590 and 1594. It was published in the First Folio in 1623 and
today is primarily analyzed for the gender issues which it raises. Structurally, it uses
the device of a play-within-a-play. The story opens with a beggar, Sly, who has drunk
himself to unconsciousness. A Lord passing through decides to use him for sport and
has his servants treat Sly as if he were a Lord suffering from dementia when he
awakens. To entertain Sly, actors perform the main body of the play. When the
primary story opens, Lucentio, a young gentlemen, has newly arrived in Padua with
his servants Tranio and Biondello. Lucentio sees and becomes smitten with Bianca,
the daughter of Baptista, a rich gentlemen, and the younger sister of Katherina, the
titular shrew who is often referred to as Kate throughout the play. Bianca, beautiful
and modest, already has other suitors but her father has declared that she may not
marry until Kate herself is wed. However, Kate's sharp tongue and strong will
discourage all potential suitors. To have a chance at wooing Bianca, Lucentio has his
servant Tranio present himself in Padua as Lucentio, and Lucentio presents himself as
a tutor. Meanwhile, one of Bianca's other suitors finds a friend, Petruchio, willing to
marry Katherina--he dismisses her temperament and is only concerned with her
dowry. After negotiating the marriage contract with Baptista and a private meeting
with Katherina marked by sharp repartee, Petruchio declares to Baptista that the two
are in love and wish to be married within a week. Oddly, despite Katherina's will and
reputation, she silently acquiesces.

Lucentio's ploy works and Bianca develops a fondness for him. Tranio, as Lucentio,
impresses Baptista with talk of his father's wealth and outbids her other suitors for her
hand. Baptista gives his permission for Bianca and Lucentio/Tranio to marry,
conditional upon the acquiescence of Lucentio's father Vincentio. Tranio then finds a
gentleman to play the part of Vincentio to complete the charade. On the day of
Katherina and Petruchio's wedding, Petruchio arrives late and dressed in shambles.
After speaking madly, he spurns the wedding dinner and spirits Katherina away to his
home. Once they arrive, Petruchio commences the "taming," in part by denying
Katherina food and sleep, and in part by "becoming more shrew than she"--insulting
all and sundry and throwing tantrums for any reason at all. After subjecting her to this
for days, he proposes that they travel to her father's house. On the road, he continues
to manipulate her. He declares that they will turn back unless she agrees with him that
they see the moon and not the sun. Pushed past endurance, she agrees that the sun is
the moon, upon which Petruchio forces her to admit that the sun is, after all, the sun.
Petruchio satisfied, they continue to her father's house, where the wedding of Bianca
and Lucentio/Tranio is to take place. However, Bianca and the true Lucentio have
snuck away and gotten married on their own. At the conclusion of the play, Lucentio,
Petruchio, and another man place a wager on whose wife will come first when called.
When the other wives demur, Katherina appears. After bringing out the other two, she
gives a monologue on the proper loyalty that a woman owes her husband, apparently
having learned her lessons well.

For obvious reasons, much of the criticism of The Taming of the Shrew focuses on the
interpretation of Kate's taming, her final monologue, and gender politics in both
Shakespeare's time and our own. Helga Ramsey-Kurz points out the sheer breadth of
the critical reception of Kate's monologue--from a "tragic gesture of defeat," to
"farcical itself and therefore not to be taken all too seriously," to "a cunning ironical
performance proving the heroine's verbal and social aptitude and asserting her
autonomy in marriage." In an essay devoted to the related themes of transformation
and identity, Laurie Maguire analyzes the different names given to the character of
Katherina, in particular the diminutive Kate most often used by Petruchio. She posits
that "Katherine's multiple nominations serve to make her identity frangible, malleable,
and relative." While this may help Petruchio to exert control over his new wife--in the
manner of Adam taking control over all the animals of the Earth through naming
them--Maguire takes the analysis further, concluding that the constant elision of
names renders Katherine's character fundamentally unknowable.

Tracing the links between anti-feminist and anti-theater sentiment in early modern
England, R. W. Maslen characterizes the play's Induction as a remarkable exposure of
"the Elizabethan views on comedy and on women that shape the main body of the
play." Warning against too easily classifying Kate's performance at the wedding feast
as Shakespeare's statement of conservative patriarchalism, Maslen points out that "the
Shrew itself up to this point has repeatedly shown how easy it is to construct and
demolish male fantasies." These themes have clearly not waned in significance since
Shakespeare's day; according to Nancy Isenberg, John Cranko's 1968 ballet adaptation
of the play "embodies the highly gendered political crisis of the moment--the tension
of feminism pitted against male patriarchy--and negotiates it through the diversely but
equally intensely gendered conventions of ballet." Even more recently, Lynne
Hapgood praises a recent performance of The Taming of the Shrew for emphasizing
the darker side of this early comedy, "invit[ing] us to laugh and then shock[ing] us by
revealing the cruelty and degradation our laughter disguises." Sara Thompson,
meanwhile faults a 2008 Bristol production for presenting the play in a
straightforward manner without irony, seemingly forgettting that the work is a
comedy, and for justifying Petruchio's actions as the "tamer," while downplaying
Katherina's reactions to being tamed.

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE TOPIC

CRITICISM

Bailey, Amanda. "Livery and Its Discontents in The Taming of the Shrew." In
Flaunting: Style and the Subversive Male Body in Renaissance England, pp.
51-76. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Contends that, given the stormy relationship between masters

and their domestic staff, The Taming of the Shrew is as much
 concerned with the proper disciplining of servants as about the
"taming" of a spouse.

Schalkwyk, David. "Performance and Imagination: The Taming of the Shrew

and A Midsummer Night's Dream." In Shakespeare, Love and Service, pp. 57-
79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Explores the concept of willing service as a form of freedom in

The Taming of the Shrew and its relationship to the willing
suspension of disbelief required of theatre audiences.

Source Citation
"The Taming of the Shrew." Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 126.
Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.
Title: Overview: The Taming of the Shrew
Play, c. 1590
English Playwright ( 1564 - 1616 )
Source: Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center.
Document Type: Work overview
Bookmark: Bookmark this Document
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2011 Gale, Cengage Learning

The play begins with a practical joke: a sleeping beggar is transported to a nobleman's
house, dressed in finery, and waited on by servants. The nobleman and his court tell
the beggar that he is actually a rich man who thought himself a beggar while
deranged. The pranksters continue by presenting the beggar with his wealthy and
beautiful wife, who is actually a page dressed up as a woman. The beggar, falling for
the gag completely, settles in with his wife to watch a play written for them.

The play within the play begins with Lucentio and his valet, Tranio, arriving in Padua.
Lucentio is to study there, but Tranio convinces him they should also have some fun.
When they set foot in the city, the pair sees Baptista, his two daughters, Katharina and
Bianca, and two gentlemen in love with Bianca, Gremio and Hortensio. As Lucentio
and Tranio watch the scene they learn that Baptista will allow no one to marry the
younger, kinder Bianca before Katharina, her shrewish though wealthy and beautiful
older sister, has become a wife. Baptista tells Gremio and Hortensio that one of them
must find Katharina a husband if they wish to court Bianca. They must also find tutors
who can teach music and poetry to the girls. Lucentio falls in love with Bianca and
begins devising a plan to win her. He and Tranio exchange clothes, and Lucentio
offers himself as a tutor for Bianca so he can court her without her father present.

Petruchio, another visitor, enters Padua. A native of Verona, he is a wealthy man and a
friend of Hortensio. He wants to find a rich wife in Padua, and Hortensio tells him
about how much he loves Bianca and that he cannot court her until he finds a husband
for Katharina. Petruchio becomes interested in Katharina, despite her legendary
shrewness, and wants to meet her. Hortensio tells him to meet Baptista and tell him
about his family background. To woo Bianca, Hortensio dresses as a tutor to talk to
her and convince her of his worthiness. However, only Katharina knows that her sister
does not love Gremio or Hortensio and will not marry either of them.
Baptista and Petruchio meet. Petruchio gets permission to marry Katharina, but their
courtship is a clash of wills. Petruchio wants to remold Katharina to his liking, but she
repeatedly insults him with her vicious wit. Because her father wishes it, however,
Katharina agrees to marry him and a date is set. Gremio and Tranio (still disguised as
Lucentio and now in love with Bianca himself) compete for Bianca's hand to Baptista,
while the men disguised as tutors court Bianca. Tranio wins Baptista's approval
because he has more money and land.

Katharina and Petruchio marry. Petruchio continues to tame her: he shows up late for
the wedding, dressed in rags, and during the ceremony he acts crazy, even punching
the priest; and Petruchio carries Katharina away from the wedding reception to his
country home, where he withholds food and sleep from her and claims that nothing is
good enough for her. This odd behavior wins her over.

Meanwhile, Bianca falls in love with the still-disguised Lucentio. When Hortensio
learns of this, he takes off his disguise, and he and Gremio decide to have nothing
further to do with such a capricious woman. Tranio, still disguised as Lucentio, still
wants to marry her, and he hires an old man, a pedant, to play Lucentio's father,
Vincentio. The old man successfully argues the faux Lucentio's case and negotiates
the amount of gold involved in winning over Baptista. Lucentio's real father appears,
but is thought to be an impostor and is nearly jailed. After the real Lucentio and
Bianca marry in secret, all the deception is revealed to Baptista. He is infuriated, but
the real Vincentio smooths things over.

Lucentio arranges for a feast to celebrate the weddings, including Hortensio's recent
marriage to a wealthy widow. When the women leave the party to go to sleep, the
three new husbands arrange a bet. Each man wagers 100 that his wife will be the
quickest to obey his summons. Lucentio and Hortensio send for their wives, but they
refuse to return. Petruchio calls for Katharina, and she appears immediately. Petruchio
tells her to retrieve the other two women, and the three brides return to their new
husbands. Baptista is so impressed with the change that he gives more money, 20,000
crowns, to her dowry. Katharina replies that a wife's only concern should be kindly
serving her husband.

Source Citation
"Overview: The Taming of the Shrew." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale,
2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.
Title: Overview: The Taming of the Shrew
Play, c. 1590
English Playwright ( 1564 - 1616 )
Source: Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center.
Document Type: Work overview
Bookmark: Bookmark this Document
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2011 Gale, Cengage Learning

The play begins with a practical joke: a sleeping beggar is transported to a nobleman's
house, dressed in finery, and waited on by servants. The nobleman and his court tell
the beggar that he is actually a rich man who thought himself a beggar while
deranged. The pranksters continue by presenting the beggar with his wealthy and
beautiful wife, who is actually a page dressed up as a woman. The beggar, falling for
the gag completely, settles in with his wife to watch a play written for them.

The play within the play begins with Lucentio and his valet, Tranio, arriving in Padua.
Lucentio is to study there, but Tranio convinces him they should also have some fun.
When they set foot in the city, the pair sees Baptista, his two daughters, Katharina and
Bianca, and two gentlemen in love with Bianca, Gremio and Hortensio. As Lucentio
and Tranio watch the scene they learn that Baptista will allow no one to marry the
younger, kinder Bianca before Katharina, her shrewish though wealthy and beautiful
older sister, has become a wife. Baptista tells Gremio and Hortensio that one of them
must find Katharina a husband if they wish to court Bianca. They must also find tutors
who can teach music and poetry to the girls. Lucentio falls in love with Bianca and
begins devising a plan to win her. He and Tranio exchange clothes, and Lucentio
offers himself as a tutor for Bianca so he can court her without her father present.

Petruchio, another visitor, enters Padua. A native of Verona, he is a wealthy man and a
friend of Hortensio. He wants to find a rich wife in Padua, and Hortensio tells him
about how much he loves Bianca and that he cannot court her until he finds a husband
for Katharina. Petruchio becomes interested in Katharina, despite her legendary
shrewness, and wants to meet her. Hortensio tells him to meet Baptista and tell him
about his family background. To woo Bianca, Hortensio dresses as a tutor to talk to
her and convince her of his worthiness. However, only Katharina knows that her sister
does not love Gremio or Hortensio and will not marry either of them.

Baptista and Petruchio meet. Petruchio gets permission to marry Katharina, but their
courtship is a clash of wills. Petruchio wants to remold Katharina to his liking, but she
repeatedly insults him with her vicious wit. Because her father wishes it, however,
Katharina agrees to marry him and a date is set. Gremio and Tranio (still disguised as
Lucentio and now in love with Bianca himself) compete for Bianca's hand to Baptista,
while the men disguised as tutors court Bianca. Tranio wins Baptista's approval
because he has more money and land.

Katharina and Petruchio marry. Petruchio continues to tame her: he shows up late for
the wedding, dressed in rags, and during the ceremony he acts crazy, even punching
the priest; and Petruchio carries Katharina away from the wedding reception to his
country home, where he withholds food and sleep from her and claims that nothing is
good enough for her. This odd behavior wins her over.

Meanwhile, Bianca falls in love with the still-disguised Lucentio. When Hortensio
learns of this, he takes off his disguise, and he and Gremio decide to have nothing
further to do with such a capricious woman. Tranio, still disguised as Lucentio, still
wants to marry her, and he hires an old man, a pedant, to play Lucentio's father,
Vincentio. The old man successfully argues the faux Lucentio's case and negotiates
the amount of gold involved in winning over Baptista. Lucentio's real father appears,
but is thought to be an impostor and is nearly jailed. After the real Lucentio and
Bianca marry in secret, all the deception is revealed to Baptista. He is infuriated, but
the real Vincentio smooths things over.

Lucentio arranges for a feast to celebrate the weddings, including Hortensio's recent
marriage to a wealthy widow. When the women leave the party to go to sleep, the
three new husbands arrange a bet. Each man wagers 100 that his wife will be the
quickest to obey his summons. Lucentio and Hortensio send for their wives, but they
refuse to return. Petruchio calls for Katharina, and she appears immediately. Petruchio
tells her to retrieve the other two women, and the three brides return to their new
husbands. Baptista is so impressed with the change that he gives more money, 20,000
crowns, to her dowry. Katharina replies that a wife's only concern should be kindly
serving her husband.

Source Citation
"Overview: The Taming of the Shrew." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale,
2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.
itle: The Taming of the Shrew
Source: Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 87. Detroit: Gale, 2005.
From Literature Resource Center.
Document Type: Work overview, Critical essay
Bookmark: Bookmark this Document
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning
Introduction Further Readings about the Topic

Introduction

The Taming of the Shrew was likely written in the early 1590s, although estimates
have ranged from the late 1580s to 1600. No specific source has been identified for
the play. Scholars once believed the anonymous The Taming of a Shrew (1594) to be
the source, but most critics now regard the anonymous piece as a "bad" quarto, likely
an erroneous and possibly pirated version of the play known today. The premise of
The Taming of the Shrew was apparently appropriate material for comedy during
Shakespeare's time, but most modern audiences find the notion of Petruchio "taming"
his spirited wife Katherina (Kate) neither amusing nor acceptable. Katherina, forced
by her father to marry Petruchio, is subjected to a variety of disciplinary tactics
considered demeaning and cruel by most playgoers today. Commentators are
particularly interested in Katherina's submission at play's end, which so offends
modern beliefs on gender equality that sexual politics often become the focus of
critical concern.

One of Petruchio's taming techniques involves control of Katherina's access to food.

Brian Morris (1981) notes that: "Katherina is denied her bridal dinner (III.ii), starved
at Petruchio's house (IV.i), mocked with the promise of food by Grumio (IV.iii), and
not finally satisfied until Lucentio's banquet in V.ii." Joseph Candido (1990) also
highlights the emphasis on eating and drinking throughout the play, describing the
deprivation of food as an essential part of the taming process and Petruchio's refusal
to partake in his and Katherina's wedding feast as a marker of his own social
iconoclasm. Another means of subduing Katherina employed by her husband involves
the dispute over her wardrobe. Margaret Rose Jaster (2001) discusses Petruchio's
control over Katherina's apparel, commenting that although critics and audiences
often consider the dialogue in these scenes to be harmless banter, the exchanges are
not as benign as they may seem, since clothing is so closely associated with identity--
both personal and social. "Although Petruchio employs less physical abuse than
traditional tamers, we cannot blithely disregard any attempts by one party to control
another's identity through this most intimate device," maintains Jaster.
Frances E. Dolan (see Further Reading) surveys the critical controversy surrounding
the relationship between Katherina and Petruchio, contending that even "in its own
time the play was one text among many in heated debates about women's status,
marriage, and domesticity." Modern critics and audiences alike are inclined to
consider Petruchio's behavior harsh, domineering, and offensive rather than amusing
and romantic. Some scholars, however, have attempted to recast Petruchio's behavior
into more acceptable categories for contemporary audiences. Morris, for example,
considers Petruchio's role as that of a teacher, rather than a tamer; he acknowledges
that education "is a means of reducing the individual to social conformity through the
imparting of approved knowledge and acceptable skills," but contends that it is also
"designed to liberate and bring to full fruition the innate capabilities of the pupil."
Similarly, many scholars have reinterpreted Katherina's submission as ironic and
refuse to accept her final speech as a sincere expression of her willing subordination.
Some critics, according to Dolan, "argue that Katharina goes so far in her insistence
on women's subjugation that she offers a critique of Petruchio's goals and desires."
Others take a lighter view, arguing that her servility is a joke shared by Katherina and
her husband at the expense of the other couples; such an interpretation suggests not
only a happy ending for the romantic comedy, but casts the couple in the roles of
romantic hero and heroine. Winfried Schleiner (1977), however, resists interpretations
that posit Katherina as a romantic heroine in the same vein as Rosalind of As You Like
It. According to Schleiner, the language of Katherina's submission at the end of the
play is "based on a social order so natural and commonplace to the playwright and his
audience that the presence of romance is ruled out."

Modern stagings of The Taming of the Shrew reflect the problematic nature of the
play's central premise, often taking unusual casting and staging approaches in an
effort to recapture the play's comic elements. Ann Blake (2002) claims that although
the work was frequently produced in the twentieth century, "it was rarely staged
straight." Recent unconventional productions include the Yale Repertory Theatre's use
of an all-male cast in 2003. Wayne and Dorothy Cook (2003) comment on director
Mark Lamos's attempt to "recapture the original vigor of the play," an attempt that
was unfortunately, according to the critics, "thwarted by a cast of mediocre players."
Similarly, in the 2003 Shakespeare's Globe Theatre production, director Barry Kyle
attempted to move the audience beyond the usual preoccupation with sexual politics
by featuring an all-female cast. Kyle left the company during rehearsals, however, and
was replaced by Phyllida Lloyd, who put together a production "that relishes the
broad comedy of the play," according to reviewer Sarah Hemming (2003). "Rather
than struggle with this troublesome piece," claims Hemming, "the girls' strategy is to
have fun with it." In another gender-bending production, the Rude Guerrilla Theater
Company cast women in the men's roles (and vice versa) in an attempt to restore the
comic tone of the work. Kristina Mannion (see Further Reading) reports that the result
of this interpretation was "delightfully comical" as "women step in to portray the
major male characters with all the swaggering gusto this often testosterone-fueled
script calls for." Laurel Graeber (2002) reviews a more conventionally cast production
directed Stephen Burdman for the New York Classical Theater. Graeber notes that
Garth T. Mark's tenderhearted Petruchio "makes you forget about sexism and just
revel in the fun." However, such attempts to appease the egalitarian sensibilities of
modern audiences are not always successful. Toby Young (2004) criticizes Gregory
Doran's politically correct 2004 production as a "touchy-feely, sentimental
interpretation." According to Young, "Doran has got round the usual objection to the
play, namely that it is unabashedly misogynistic, by presenting it as a touching love
story in which two social misfits, each nursing a cluster of psychological wounds, find
salvation in each other's arms."

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE TOPIC

CRITICISM

Andresen-Thom, Martha. "Shrew-taming and Other Rituals of Aggression:

Baiting and Bonding on the Stage and in the Wild." Women's Studies 9, no. 2
(1982): 121-43.

Discusses the reception of The Taming of the Shrew among

modern students and audiences in an era of post-feminism.

Barnett, Louise K. "Ovid and The Taming of the Shrew." Ball State University
Forum 20, no. 3 (summer 1979): 16-22.

Maintains that the influence of Ovid's writings on The Taming

of the Shrew has been overlooked by many critics.

Cioni, Fernando. "Shakespeare's Italian Intertexts: The Taming of the/a

Shrew." In Shakespeare and Intertextuality: The Transition of Cultures
Between Italy and England in the Early Modern Period, edited by Michele
Marrapodi, pp. 149-61. Rome, Italy: Bulzoni Editore, 2000.

Examines the relationship between Shakespeare's The Taming

of the Shrew, the anonymous 1594 quarto titled The Taming of
a Shrew, and Plautus's Mostellaria.

Cooper, Marilyn M. "Implicature, Convention, and The Taming of the Shrew."

Poetics 10 (1981): 1-14.

Explores the verbal performances of the characters in The

Taming of the Shrew based on the theories of philosopher Paul
Grice.

Culpepper, Jonathan. "A Cognitive Approach to Characterization: Katherina in

Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew." Language and Literature 9, no. 4
(November 2000): 291-316.

Analyzes the characterization of Katherina using cognitive

theories of knowledge and impression formation.

Dessen, Alan C. "The Tamings of the Shrews." In Shakespeare's Sweet

Thunder: Essays on the Early Comedies, edited by Michael J. Collins, pp. 35-
49. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997.
 Contends that the version of The Taming of the Shrew that is
produced today is faithful to neither the 1594 version of The
Taming of a Shrew that appeared in the 1596 and 1607 quartos,
nor the 1623 version from the First Folio.

Dolan, Frances E. Introduction to The Taming of the Shrew: Texts and

Contexts, pp. 1-38. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996.

Surveys a wide range of thematic possibilities in The Taming of

the Shrew.

Fineman, Joel. "The Turn of the Shrew." In William Shakespeare's The

Taming of the Shrew, edited by Harold Bloom, pp. 93-113. New York:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.

Discusses The Taming of the Shrew as a seemingly subversive

text that, in the end, reaffirms the established order in terms of
gender relations.

Gussenhoven, Frances, Sr. "Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and Chaucer's

Wife of Bath: The Struggle for Marital Mastery." In Chaucerian Shakespeare:
Adaptation and Transformation, edited by E. Talbot Donaldson and Judith J.
Kollmann, pp. 69-79. Detroit: Marygrove College, 1983.

Suggests that although Chaucer's Wife of Bath is often

compared to Shakespeare's Katherina, she actually has more in
common with Petruchio.

Kehler, Dorothea. "Echoes of the Induction in The Taming of the Shrew." In

Renaissance Papers (1986): 31-42.

Speculates on the effect of The Taming of the Shrew on the

female audience members of Shakespeare's time.

Mannion, Kristina. Review of The Taming of the Shrew. Back Stage West 7,
no. 32 (10 August 2000): 18.

Discusses the directors Dave Barton and David Gallo's 2000

Rude Guerrilla Theater Company's staging of The Taming of
the Shrew at the Empire Theater in Santa Ana, California,
featuring women playing male characters and men in the
female roles.

McGlone, James P. "Shakespeare's Intent in The Taming of the Shrew."

Wascana Review 13, no. 2 (fall 1978): 79-88.

Claims that The Taming of the Shrew works better in

performance than as a written text.
 Mikesell, Margaret Lael. "'Love Wrought These Miracles': Marriage and
Genre in The Taming of the Shrew." Renaissance Drama n. s. 20 (1989): 141-
67.

Compares Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew with his

sources in both New Comedy and the tradition of shrew-taming
tales.

Perret, Marion. "A Hair of the Shrew. ..." University of Hartford Studies in
Literature 11, no. 1 (1979): 36-40.

Examines Petruchio's role as an amateur homeopathic

practitioner attempting to "cure" Katherina of her shrewishness.

Source Citation
"The Taming of the Shrew." Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 87.
Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.
itle: The Taming of the Shrew
Source: Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol. 77. Detroit: Gale,
2003. From Literature Resource Center.
Document Type: Work overview, Critical essay
Bookmark: Bookmark this Document
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning
Introduction Further Readings about the Topic

Introduction

Categorized among the early Shakespearean comedies, The Taming of the Shrew (c.
1590-91) has become one of the playwright's most controversial works. While
Elizabethan audiences may have viewed the piece with amusement and approval, the
story of the spirited, rebellious, and sharp-witted Katherina (Kate), forced by her
father to marry the equally exuberant and willful Petruchio, generally fails to
correspond to a modern sensibility of the proper bond between husband and wife. The
tactics by which Petruchio transforms Katherina's obstinacy into obedience, as well as
the drama's undercurrent of violence and cruelty, are perceived by many critics as
unsettling in a play principally concerned with marriage. Whereas nineteenth-century
commentators dismissed the drama as a simple farce of little serious consequence,
modern scholars find much in the play that merits serious study. Many critics have
endeavored to explicate the troubling elements of the play, and are particularly
interested in Katherina's apparent submission to her husband in the play's final act.
Summarizing its enigmatic appeal, Oxford Shakespeare editor H. J. Oliver (1982)
observes the ways in which Shakespeare transformed and improved upon his
numerous sources for The Taming of the Shrew to fashion a piece that, despite certain
limitations, fascinates with its intriguing subject: the clash of sexes.

Contemporary character-based studies of The Taming of the Shrew have almost

invariably focused on the drama's central and dominating figures, Katherina and
Petruchio. This volatile relationship is the subject of Ruth Nevo's (1980) appraisal,
which emphasizes the dynamics of "sexual battle" that drive the play. Nevo dissects
the fundamental subject of The Taming of the Shrew--locating a suitable mate for the
"wild, intractable and shrewish daughter of Baptista"--and the conflict of wills that
ensues. Analyzing Petruchio's verbal strategies in wooing and taming his wife, Nevo
observes that Katherina largely responds to his cues, and suggests that the play
steadily informs us that by its final act Kate is truly in love with her husband. Other
critics have taken a wider, social view of Katherina's taming. Velvet D. Pearson
(1990) sees the process of subduing Baptista's eldest daughter on stage as a barometer
of changing social attitudes toward women from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries,
ranging from a traditional view of Katherina and Petruchio as two individuals learning
to love one another to a more modern vision that champions Katherina's assertiveness
and intellectual freedom. Harriet A. Deer (1991), while acknowledging that the play
presents a strongly chauvinist subtext, argues that in The Taming of the Shrew
Shakespeare creatively undercut conventional stereotypes associated with the shrew
and braggart figures, which provide the theatrical basis for Katherina's and Petruchio's
characters, in order to reveal the deeply patriarchal suppositions of Elizabethan
marriage.

Despite its potentially disturbing representation of gender conflict, The Taming of the
Shrew continues to be one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed comedies.
Charles Isherwood's evaluates the 1999 Public Theater production staged in New York
City's Central Park, directed by Mel Shapiro. Isherwood finds this performance,
which primarily appealed to low humor with an unyielding silliness and multitude of
crude jokes, an affront to the emotional complexities of Shakespeare's characters and
story. While Isherwood admires Allison Janney's outstanding Katherina, he laments
Shapiro's overall disregard for the emotional subtleties of the drama in favor of eye-
catching comic additions. Similarly, Ben Brantley (1999) finds Richard Rees's 1999
Williamstown Theater Festival production of The Taming of the Shrew disappointing.
For Brantley, one of the saving elements of this "fast, furious, and overstuffed
interpretation" was Bebe Neuwirth's convincingly performed Katherina. Elysa
Gardner (2000) praises director Victoria Liberatori's musically enhanced Taming of
the Shrew set in a retro, 1970s style and performed by the Princeton Repertory
Theater in 2000. Gardner contends that this seemingly odd setting offered an excellent
commentary on the play by evoking the sexual revolution and the women's rights
movement. Lastly, D. J. R. Bruckner (2001) comments on Liz Shipman's use of the
critically contentious induction scene that opens The Taming of the Shrew in her 2001
production with the King County Shakespeare Company. Bruckner finds nearly all of
Shipman's directorial interpretations beneficial to the drama and approves of the
ensemble performance.

Recent thematic criticism regarding The Taming of the Shrew has generally focused
on two key topics: transformation and the socially dictated roles of women. Jeanne
Addison Roberts (1983) explores the theme of metamorphosis in the play, beginning
with its induction scene and the mock conversion of the drunken tinker Christopher
Sly into a nobleman. Roberts goes on to study the pervasive imagery of
transformation in the play, such as the emblematic transformation of a married couple
into a single entity represented by a hermaphrodite, and the symbolic metamorphosis
of humans into animals--particularly the association between woman and horse.
Approaching the transformation theme from a sharply contrasting perspective, Barry
Weller (1992) studies the problematic relationship between The Taming of the Shrew's
induction and main plot. Noting that Christopher Sly's dream induction to the drama
is rife with allusions to theatricality, Weller suggests that Katherina's ostensible
metamorphosis from assertive shrew to servile wife, when viewed through this frame,
should be regarded with at least a degree of skepticism. Shifting to issues of gender in
The Taming of the Shrew, Erika Gottlieb (1986) considers Katherina's rebellious
actions in the play as a kind of ideological assault on the Great Chain of Being, a
traditional hierarchical structure that dominated early modern thinking. While
Katherina rails against her social placement below man in this scheme, Gottlieb
observes that Shakespeare's final statement on the matter remains ambivalent. Gary
Schneider (2002) presents a feminist-materialist assessment of the social world
depicted in The Taming of the Shrew. Schneider maintains that in the play, the theater
becomes a site of "social control" where Katherina becomes the mouthpiece for
patriarchal rhetoric. According to Schneider, Katherina's final speech is meant to act
as a kind of sermon that encourages the female audience members to exhibit proper
behavior.

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE TOPIC

CRITICISM

Brooks, Charles. "Shakespeare's Romantic Shrews." Shakespeare Quarterly

11, no. 3 (summer 1960): 351-56.

Suggests that Kate is based on the same notions of feminine

nature as Shakespeare's more immediately sympathetic comic
heroines, and that she possesses a keen wit, a passionate nature,
and a strength of will that audiences admire.

Christensen, Ann C. "Petruchio's House in Postwar Suburbia: Reinventing the

Domestic Woman (Again)." Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities
17, no. 1 (fall 1997): 28-42.

Considers mid-twentieth-century adaptations of The Taming of

the Shrew, including Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate and Franco
Zeffirelli's 1966 film version of the play, as they depict new
definitions of domesticity in the postwar era.

Culpeper, Jonathan. "A Cognitive Approach to Characterization: Katherina in

Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew." Language and Literature 9, no. 4
(November 2000): 291-316.

Probes the nuances of Kate's character in The Taming of the

Shrew through the application of contemporary social and
cognitive psychology, arguing that she does not represent a
reductively schematic shrew figure.

Dolan, Frances E. Introduction to "The Taming of the Shrew": Texts and

Contexts, edited by Frances E. Dolan, pp. 1-38. Boston: Bedford Books of St.
Martin's Press, 1996.
 Places The Taming of the Shrew within the context of social
history, focusing on the play's depiction of male anxieties
regarding feminine power.

Graeber, Laurel. Review of The Taming of the Shrew. New York Times (16
August 2002): E35.

Admires a mostly farcical abridgement of The Taming of the

Shrew directed by Stephen Burdman and performed at the New
York Classical Theater in 2002.

Hodgdon, Barbara. "Katherina Bound; or, Play(K)ating the Strictures of

Everyday Life." PMLA 107, no. 3 (May 1992): 538-53.

Analyzes the prevalent gender stereotypes that inform The

Taming of the Shrew from the point of view of late-twentieth-
century feminist criticism, with particular emphasis on modern
productions of the drama.

Jayne, Sears. "The Dreaming of the Shrew." Shakespeare Quarterly 17, no. 1
(winter 1996): 41-56.

Focuses on staging problems associated with the figure of

Christopher Sly in The Taming of the Shrew, and maintains that
the play should be performed as if it were Sly's dream, with Sly
playing the role of Petruchio.

Mikesell, Margaret Lael. "'Love Wrought These Miracles': Marriage and

Genre in The Taming of the Shrew." Renaissance Drama, n.s. 20 (1989): 141-
67.

Studies Shakespeare's revisions of his source material for The

Taming of the Shrew, and contends that the play conforms to a
late-sixteenth-century Protestant view of marriage.

Morris, Brian. Introduction to The Arden Edition of the Works of William

Shakespeare: "The Taming of the Shrew," edited by Brian Morris, pp. 1-150.
London: Methuen, 1981.

Probes the principal themes of The Taming of the Shrew,

including education, transformation, and the relationship
between love and marriage.

Phillippy, Patricia Berrahou. '"Loytering in Love: Ovid's Heroides, Hospitality,

and Humanist Education in The Taming of the Shrew." Criticism 40, no. 1
(winter 1998): 27-53.

Examines The Taming of the Shrew in relation to Ovid's

Heroides as transmitted by George Turberville in his Heroycall
Epistles (1567), contending that these works demonstrate a
 tradition of hospitality and humanist education that require
women to submit to men's pleasure.

Sealy, Roger C. "The Psychology of the Shrew and Shrew Taming: An Object
Relations Perspective." American Journal of Psychoanalysis 54, no. 4
(December 1994): 323-38.

Offers psychoanalytic readings of Kate, Bianca, and Kate's

taming by Petruchio in terms of behavioral patterns suggested
by contemporary object relations theory.

Yachnin, Paul. "Personations: The Taming of the Shrew and the Limits of
Theoretical Criticism." Early Modern Literary Studies 2, no. 1 (1996): 21-31.

Categorizes and critiques various theoretical approaches to The

Taming of the Shrew, including materialist-feminist theories,
intentionalist, metatheatrical, and deconstructive approaches,
and new historicist readings.

Source Citation
"The Taming of the Shrew." Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol.
77. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2011.