======================================================================
= The_Taming_of_the_Shrew =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
'The Taming of the Shrew' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed
to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a
framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a
mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly
into believing he is actually a nobleman himself. The nobleman then
has the play performed for Sly's diversion.
The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina, the
headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Katherina is an unwilling
participant in the relationship; however, Petruchio "tames" her with
various psychological and physical torments, such as keeping her from
eating and drinking, until she becomes a desirable, compliant, and
obedient bride. The subplot features a competition between the suitors
of Katherina's younger sister, Bianca, who is seen as the "ideal"
woman. The question of whether the play is misogynistic has become the
subject of considerable controversy.
'The Taming of the Shrew' has been adapted numerous times for stage,
screen, opera, ballet, and musical theatre, perhaps the most famous
adaptations being Cole Porter's 'Kiss Me, Kate'; 'McLintock!', a 1963
American Western comedy film, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara;
and the 1967 film of the play, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard
Burton. The 1999 high-school comedy film '10 Things I Hate About You'
and the 2003 romantic comedy 'Deliver Us from Eva' are also loosely
based on the play.
Characters
======================================================================
* Katherina Minola - the "shrew" of the title
* Bianca Minola - sister of Katherina, the 'ingénue'
* Baptista Minola - father of Katherina and Bianca
* Petruchio - suitor of Katherina
* Gremio - elderly suitor of Bianca
* Lucentio - suitor of Bianca
* Hortensio - suitor of Bianca and friend to Petruchio
* Grumio - Petruchio's manservant
* Tranio - Lucentio's manservant
* Biondello - servant of Lucentio
* Vincentio - father of Lucentio
* Widow - wooed by Hortensio
* Pedant - pretends to be Vincentio
* Haberdasher
* Tailor
* Curtis - servant of Petruchio
* Nathaniel - servant of Petruchio
* Joseph - servant of Petruchio
* Peter - servant of Petruchio
* Nicholas - servant of Petruchio
* Philip - servant of Petruchio
* Officer
'Characters appearing in the Induction:'
* Christopher Sly - a drunken tinker
* Hostess of an alehouse
* Lord - plays a prank on Sly
* Bartholomew - Lord's page boy
* Lord's Huntsman
* Players
* Servingmen
* Messenger
Synopsis
======================================================================
Prior to the first act, an induction frames the play as a "kind of
history" played in front of a befuddled drunkard named Christopher Sly
who is tricked into believing that he is a lord. The play is performed
in order to distract Sly from his "wife," who is actually Bartholomew,
a servant, dressed as a woman.
In the play performed for Sly, the "shrew" is Katherina, the elder
daughter of Baptista Minola, a lord in Padua. Numerous men, including
Tranio, deem Katherina an unworthy option for marriage because of her
notorious assertiveness and willfulness. On the other hand, men such
as Hortensio and Gremio are eager to marry her younger sister Bianca.
However, Baptista has sworn Bianca is not allowed to marry until
Katherina is wed; this motivates Bianca's suitors to work together to
find Katherina a husband so that they may compete for Bianca. The plot
thickens when Lucentio, who has recently come to Padua to attend
university, falls in love with Bianca. Overhearing Baptista say that
he is on the lookout for tutors for his daughters, Lucentio devises a
plan in which he disguises himself as a Latin tutor named Cambio in
order to woo Bianca behind Baptista's back and meanwhile has his
servant Tranio pretend to be him.
In the meantime, Petruchio, accompanied by his servant Grumio, arrives
in Padua from Verona. He explains to Hortensio, an old friend of his,
that since his father's death, he has set out to enjoy life and wed.
Hearing this, Hortensio recruits Petruchio as a suitor for Katherina.
He also has Petruchio present him (Hortensio) to Baptista disguised as
a music tutor named Litio. Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio attempt to woo
Bianca while pretending to be the tutors Cambio and Litio
respectively.
To counter Katherina's shrewish nature, Petruchio pretends that any
harsh things she says or does are actually kind and gentle. Katherina
agrees to marry Petruchio after seeing that he is the only man willing
to counter her quick remarks; however, at the ceremony, Petruchio
makes an embarrassing scene when he strikes the priest and drinks the
communion wine. After the wedding, Petruchio takes Katherina to his
home against her will. Once they are gone, Gremio and Tranio
(disguised as Lucentio) formally bid for Bianca, with Tranio easily
outbidding Gremio. However, in his zeal to win, he promises much more
than Lucentio possesses. When Baptista determines that once Lucentio's
father confirms the dowry, Bianca and Tranio (i.e., Lucentio) can
marry, Tranio decides that they will need someone to pretend to be
Vincentio, Lucentio's father. Meanwhile, Tranio persuades Hortensio
that Bianca is not worthy of his attention, thus removing Lucentio's
remaining rival.
In Verona, Petruchio begins the "taming" of his new wife. She is
refused food and clothing because nothing - according to Petruchio -
is good enough for her; he claims that perfectly cooked meat is
overcooked, a beautiful dress doesn't fit right, and a stylish hat is
not fashionable. He also disagrees with everything that she says,
forcing her to agree with everything that he says, no matter how
absurd; on their way back to Padua to attend Bianca's wedding, she
agrees with Petruchio that the sun is the moon, and proclaims "if you
please to call it a rush-candle,/Henceforth I vow it shall be so for
me" (4.5.14-15). Along the way, they meet Vincentio, who is also on
his way to Padua, and Katherina agrees with Petruchio when he declares
that Vincentio is a woman and then apologises to Vincentio when
Petruchio tells her that he is a man.
Back in Padua, Lucentio and Tranio convince a passing pedant to
pretend to be Vincentio and confirm the dowry for Bianca. The man does
so, and Baptista is happy for Bianca to wed Lucentio (still Tranio in
disguise). Bianca, aware of the deception, then secretly elopes with
the real Lucentio to get married. However, when Vincentio reaches
Padua, he encounters the pedant, who claims to be Lucentio's father.
Tranio (still disguised as Lucentio) appears, and the pedant
acknowledges him to be his son Lucentio. In all the confusion, the
real Vincentio is set to be arrested, when the real Lucentio appears
with his newly betrothed Bianca, revealing all to a bewildered
Baptista and Vincentio. Lucentio explains everything, and all is
forgiven by the two fathers.
Meanwhile, Hortensio has married a rich widow. In the final scene of
the play, there are three newly married couples: Bianca and Lucentio,
the widow and Hortensio, and Katherina and Petruchio. Because of the
general opinion that Petruchio is married to a shrew, a good-natured
quarrel breaks out amongst the three men about whose wife is the most
obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager whereby each will send a servant
to call for his wife, and whichever comes most obediently will have
won the wager for her husband. Katherina is the only one of the three
who comes, winning the wager for Petruchio. She then hauls the other
two wives into the room, giving a speech on why wives should always
obey their husbands. The play ends with Baptista, Hortensio and
Lucentio marvelling at how successfully Petruchio has tamed the shrew.
Sources
======================================================================
Although there is no direct literary source for the induction, the
tale of a commoner being duped into believing he is a lord is one
found in many literary traditions. Such a story is recorded in
'Arabian Nights' where Harun al-Rashid plays the same trick on a man
he finds sleeping in an alley. Another is found in 'De Rebus
Burgundicis' (1584) by the Dutch historian Pontus de Huyter, where
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, after attending his sister's wedding in
Portugal, finds a drunken "artisan" whom he entertains with a
"pleasant Comedie." 'Arabian Nights' was not translated into English
until the mid-18th century, although Shakespeare may have known it by
word of mouth. He could also have known about the Duke of Burgundy
story because although 'De Rebus' was not translated into French until
1600 and not into English until 1607, there is evidence the story
existed in English in a jest book (now lost) by Richard Edwardes,
written in 1570.
Regarding the Petruchio/Katherina story, there are a variety of
possible influences, but no one specific source. The basic elements of
the narrative are present in tale 35 of the fourteenth-century Spanish
book 'Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio' by Don
Juan Manuel, which tells of a young man who marries a "very strong and
fiery woman." The text had been translated into English by the
sixteenth century, but there is no evidence that Shakespeare drew on
it. The story of a headstrong woman tamed by a man was well known, and
found in numerous traditions. For example, according to 'The
Canterbury Tales' by Geoffrey Chaucer, Noah's wife was such a woman
('"Hastow nought herd," quod Nicholas, "also/The sorwe of Noë with his
felaschippe/That he had or he gat his wyf to schipe"'; 'The Miller's
Tale', l. 352-354), and it was common for her to be depicted in this
manner in mystery plays. Historically, another such woman was
Xanthippe, Socrates' wife, who is mentioned by Petruchio himself
(1.2.70). Such characters also occur throughout medieval literature,
in popular farces both before and during Shakespeare's lifetime and in
folklore.
In 1890, Alfred Tolman conjectured a possible literary source for the
wager scene may have been William Caxton's 1484 translation of
Geoffroy IV de la Tour Landry's 'Livre pour l'enseignement de ses
filles du Chevalier de La Tour Landry' (1372). Written for his
daughters as a guide on how to behave appropriately, de la Tour Landry
includes "a treatise on the domestic education of women" which
features an anecdote in which three merchants make a wager as to which
of their wives will prove the most obedient when called upon to jump
into a basin of water. The episode sees the first two wives refuse to
obey (as in the play), it ends at a banquet (as does the play) and it
features a speech regarding the "correct" way for a husband to
discipline his wife. In 1959, John W. Shroeder conjectured that
'Chevalier de La Tour Landry's' depiction of the Queen Vastis story
may also have been an influence on Shakespeare.
In 1964, Richard Hosley suggested the main source for the play may
have been the anonymous ballad "A merry jeste of a shrewde and curst
Wyfe, lapped in Morrelles Skin, for her good behauyour". The ballad
tells the story of a marriage in which the husband must tame his
headstrong wife. Like 'Shrew', the story features a family with two
sisters, the younger of whom is seen as mild and desirable. However,
in "Merry Jest", the older sister is obdurate not because it is simply
her nature, but because she has been raised by her shrewish mother to
seek mastery over men. Ultimately, the couple returns to the family
house, where the now-tamed woman lectures her sister on the merits of
being an obedient wife. The taming in this version is much more
physical than in Shakespeare; the shrew is beaten with birch rods
until she bleeds and is then wrapped in the salted flesh of a plough
horse (the Morrelle of the title). "Merry Jest" was not unknown to
earlier editors of the play, and had been dismissed as a source by
A.R. Frey, W.C. Hazlitt, R. Warwick Bond and Frederick S. Boas. Modern
editors also express doubt as to Hosley's argument.
In 1966, Jan Harold Brunvand argued that the main source for the play
was not literary, but the oral folktale tradition. He argued the
Petruchio/Katherina story represents an example of Type 901
('Shrew-taming Complex') in the Aarne-Thompson classification system.
Brunvand discovered 383 oral examples of Type 901 spread over thirty
European countries, but he could find only 35 literary examples,
leading him to conclude that "Shakespeare's taming plot, which has not
been traced successfully in its entirety to any known printed version,
must have come ultimately from oral tradition." Most contemporary
critics accept Brunvand's findings.
A source for Shakespeare's subplot was first identified by Alfred
Tolman in 1890 as Ludovico Ariosto's 'I Suppositi', which was
published in 1551. George Gascoigne's English prose translation
'Supposes' was performed in 1566 and printed in 1573. In 'I
Suppositi', Erostrato (the equivalent of Lucentio) falls in love with
Polynesta (Bianca), daughter of Damon (Baptista). Erostrato disguises
himself as Dulipo (Tranio), a servant, whilst the real Dulipo pretends
to be Erostrato. Having done this, Erostrato is hired as a tutor for
Polynesta. Meanwhile, Dulipo pretends to formally woo Polynesta so as
to frustrate the wooing of the aged Cleander (Gremio). Dulipo outbids
Cleander, but he promises far more than he can deliver, so he and
Erostrato dupe a travelling gentleman from Siena into pretending to be
Erostrato's father, Philogano (Vincentio). However, when Polynesta is
found to be pregnant, Damon has Dulipo imprisoned (the real father is
Erostrato). Soon thereafter, the real Philogano arrives, and all comes
to a head. Erostrato reveals himself, and begs clemency for Dulipo.
Damon realises that Polynesta is truly in love with Erostrato, and so
forgives the subterfuge. Having been released from jail, Dulipo then
discovers he is Cleander's son. An additional minor source is
'Mostellaria' by Plautus, from which Shakespeare probably took the
names of Tranio and Grumio.
Date
======
Efforts to date the play's composition are complicated by its
uncertain relationship with another Elizabethan play entitled 'A
Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew', which has
an almost identical plot but different wording and character names.
'The Shrew's' exact relationship with 'A Shrew' is unknown. Different
theories suggest 'A Shrew' could be a reported text of a performance
of 'The Shrew', a source for 'The Shrew', an early draft (possibly
reported) of 'The Shrew', or an adaptation of 'The Shrew'. 'A Shrew'
was entered in the Stationers' Register on 2 May 1594, suggesting that
whatever the relationship between the two plays, 'The Shrew' was most
likely written somewhere between 1590 (roughly when Shakespeare
arrived in London) and 1594 (registration of 'A Shrew').
Some writers suggest, that it is possible to narrow the date further.
A 'terminus ante quem' for 'A Shrew' could be August 1592, as a stage
direction at 3.21 mentions "Simon," which probably refers to the actor
Simon Jewell, who was buried on 21 August 1592. Furthermore, 'The
Shrew' seems to have been written earlier than 1593, as Anthony
Chute's 'Beauty Dishonoured, written under the title of Shore's wife'
(published in June 1593) contains the line "He calls his Kate, and she
must come and kiss him." This must refer to 'The Shrew', as there is
no corresponding "kissing scene" in 'A Shrew'. There are also verbal
similarities between both 'Shrew' plays and the anonymous play 'A
Knack To Know A Knave' (first performed at The Rose on 10 June 1592).
'Knack' features several passages common to both 'A Shrew' and 'The
Shrew', but it also borrows several passages unique to 'The Shrew'.
This suggests 'The Shrew' was on stage prior to June 1592.
In his 1982 edition of the play for The Oxford Shakespeare, H.J.
Oliver suggests the play was composed no later than 1592. He bases
this on the title page of 'A Shrew', which mentions the play had been
performed "sundry times" by Pembroke's Men. When the London theatres
were closed on 23 June 1592 due to an outbreak of plague, Pembroke's
Men went on a regional tour to Bath and Ludlow. The tour was a
financial failure, and the company returned to London on 28 September,
financially ruined. Over the next three years, four plays with their
name on the title page were published; Christopher Marlowe's 'Edward
II' (published in quarto in July 1593), and Shakespeare's 'Titus
Andronicus' (published in quarto in 1594), 'The True Tragedy of
Richard Duke of York' (published in octavo in 1595) and 'The Taming of
a Shrew' (published in quarto in May 1594). Oliver says it is a
"natural assumption" that these publications were sold by members of
Pembroke's Men who were broke after the failed tour. Oliver assumes
that 'A Shrew' is a reported version of 'The Shrew', which means 'The
Shrew' must have been in their possession when they began their tour
in June, as they didn't perform it upon returning to London in
September, nor would they have taken possession of any new material at
that time.
Ann Thompson considers 'A Shrew' to be a reported text in her 1984 and
2003 editions of the play for the New Cambridge Shakespeare. She
focuses on the closure of the theatres on 23 June 1592, arguing that
the play must have been written prior to June 1592 for it to have
given rise to 'A Shrew'. She cites the reference to "Simon" in 'A
Shrew', Anthony Chute's allusion to 'The Shrew' in 'Beauty
Dishonoured' and the verbal similarities between 'The Shrew' and 'A
Knack to Know a Knave' as supporting a date of composition prior to
June 1592. Stephen Roy Miller, in his 1998 edition of 'A Shrew' for
the New Cambridge Shakespeare, agrees with the date of late 1591/early
1592, as he believes 'The Shrew' preceded 'A Shrew' (although he
rejects the reported text theory in favour of an adaptation/rewrite
theory). In 'William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion' Gary Taylor
argues for a date of composition around 1590-1591, noting much of the
same evidence cited by other scholars but acknowledging the difficulty
of dating the play with certainty.
Keir Elam, however, has argued for a 'terminus post quem' of 1591 for
'The Shrew', based on Shakespeare's probable use of two sources
published that year: Abraham Ortelius' map of Italy in the fourth
edition of 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum', and John Florio's 'Second
Fruits'. Firstly, Shakespeare errs in putting Padua in Lombardy
instead of Veneto, probably because he used Ortelius' map of Italy as
a source, which has "Lombardy" written across the entirety of northern
Italy. Secondly, Elam suggests that Shakespeare derived his Italian
idioms and some of the dialogue from Florio's 'Second Fruits', a
bilingual introduction to Italian language and culture. Elam argues
that Lucentio's opening dialogue,
is an example of Shakespeare's borrowing from Florio's dialogue
between Peter and Stephan, who have just arrived in the north:
Elam's arguments suggest 'The Shrew' must have been written no earlier
than 1591, which places the date of composition around 1591-1592.
Text
======
The 1594 quarto of 'A Shrew' was printed by Peter Short for Cuthbert
Burbie. It was republished in 1596 (again by Short for Burbie), and
1607 by Valentine Simmes for Nicholas Ling. 'The Shrew' was not
published until the 'First Folio' in 1623. The only quarto version of
'The Shrew' was printed by William Stansby for John Smethwick in 1631
as 'A Wittie and Pleasant comedie called The Taming of the Shrew',
based on the 1623 folio text. W.W. Greg has demonstrated that 'A
Shrew' and 'The Shrew' were treated as the same text for the purposes
of copyright, i.e. ownership of one constituted ownership of the
other, and when Smethwick purchased the rights from Ling in 1609 to
print the play in the 'First Folio', Ling actually transferred the
rights for 'A Shrew', not 'The Shrew'. This has led Darren
Freebury-Jones to contend that Shakespeare's play was originally
titled 'A Shrew' but that the Folio compilers altered the title to
distinguish it from what he sees as an adaptation.
The relationship with ''A Shrew''
===================================
One of the most fundamental critical debates surrounding 'The Shrew'
is its relationship with 'A Shrew'. There are five main theories as to
the nature of this relationship:
# The two plays are unrelated other than the fact that they are both
based on another play which is now lost. This is the 'Ur-Shrew' theory
(in reference to 'Ur-Hamlet').
# 'A Shrew' is a reconstructed version of 'The Shrew'; i.e. a bad
quarto, an attempt by actors to reconstruct the original play from
memory.
# Shakespeare used the previously existing 'A Shrew', which he did not
write, as a source for 'The Shrew'.
# Both versions were legitimately written by Shakespeare himself; i.e.
'A Shrew' is an early draft of 'The Shrew'.
# 'A Shrew' is an adaptation of 'The Shrew' by someone other than
Shakespeare.
The exact relationship between 'The Shrew' and 'A Shrew' is uncertain,
but many scholars consider 'The Shrew' the original, with 'A Shrew'
derived from it; as H.J. Oliver suggests, there are "passages in ['A
Shrew'] [...] that make sense only if one knows the [Follio] version
from which they must have been derived."
The debate regarding the relationship between the two plays began in
1725, when Alexander Pope incorporated extracts from 'A Shrew' into
'The Shrew' in his edition of Shakespeare's works. In 'The Shrew', the
Christopher Sly framework is only featured twice; at the opening of
the play, and at the end of Act 1, Scene 1. However, in 'A Shrew', the
Sly framework reappears a further five times, including a scene which
comes after the final scene of the Petruchio/Katherina story. Pope
added most of the Sly framework to 'The Shrew', even though he
acknowledged in his preface that he did not believe Shakespeare had
written 'A Shrew'. Subsequent editors followed suit, adding some or
all of the Sly framework to their versions of 'The Shrew'; Lewis
Theobald (1733), Thomas Hanmer (1744), William Warburton (1747),
Samuel Johnson and George Steevens (1765) and Edward Capell (1768). In
his 1790 edition of 'The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare',
however, Edmond Malone removed all 'A Shrew' extracts and returned the
text to the 1623 'First Folio' version. By the end of the eighteenth
century, the predominant theory had come to be that 'A Shrew' was a
non-Shakespearean source for 'The Shrew', and hence to include
extracts from it was to graft non-authorial material onto the play.
This theory prevailed until 1850 when Samuel Hickson compared the
texts of 'The Shrew' and 'A Shrew', concluding 'The Shrew' was the
original, and 'A Shrew' was derived from it. By comparing seven
passages which are similar in both plays, he concluded "the original
conception is invariably to be found" in 'The Shrew'. His explanation
was that 'A Shrew' was written by Christopher Marlowe, with 'The
Shrew' as his template. He reached this conclusion primarily because
'A Shrew' features numerous lines almost identical to lines in
Marlowe's 'Tamburlaine' and 'Dr. Faustus'.
In 1926, building on Hickson's research, Peter Alexander first
suggested the bad quarto theory. Alexander agreed with Hickson that 'A
Shrew' was derived from 'The Shrew', but he did not agree that Marlowe
wrote 'A Shrew'. Instead, he labelled 'A Shrew' a bad quarto. His main
argument was that, primarily in the subplot of 'A Shrew', characters
act without motivation, whereas such motivation is present in 'The
Shrew'. Alexander believed this represents an example of a "reporter"
forgetting details and becoming confused, which also explains why
lines from other plays are used from time to time; to cover gaps which
the reporter knows have been left. He also argued the subplot in 'The
Shrew' was closer to the plot of 'I Suppositi'/'Supposes' than the
subplot in 'A Shrew', which he felt indicated the subplot in 'The
Shrew' must have been based directly on the source, whereas the
subplot in 'A Shrew' was a step removed. In their 1928 edition of the
play for the New Shakespeare, Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover
Wilson supported Alexander's argument. However, there has always been
critical resistance to the theory.
An early scholar to find fault with Alexander's reasoning was E.K.
Chambers, who reasserted the source theory. Chambers, who supported
Alexander's bad quarto theory regarding 'The First part of the
Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster' and
'The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke', argued 'A Shrew' did not
fit the pattern of a bad quarto; "I am quite unable to believe that 'A
Shrew' had any such origin. Its textual relation to 'The Shrew' does
not bear any analogy to that of other 'bad Quartos' to the legitimate
texts from which they were memorised. The nomenclature, which at least
a memoriser can recall, is entirely different. The verbal parallels
are limited to stray phrases, most frequent in the main plot, for
which I believe Shakespeare picked them up from 'A Shrew'." He
explained the relationship between 'I Suppositi'/'Supposes' and the
subplots by arguing the subplot in 'The Shrew' was based upon both the
subplot in 'A Shrew' and the original version of the story in
Ariosto/Gascoigne.
In 1938, Leo Kirschbaum made a similar argument. In an article listing
over twenty examples of bad quartos, Kirschbaum did not include 'A
Shrew', which he felt was too different from 'The Shrew' to come under
the bad quarto banner; "despite protestations to the contrary, 'The
Taming of a Shrew' does not stand in relation to 'The Shrew' as 'The
True Tragedie', for example, stands in relation to '3 Henry VI'."
Writing in 1998, Stephen Roy Miller offers much the same opinion; "the
relation of the early quarto to the 'Folio' text is unlike other early
quartos because the texts vary much more in plotting and dialogue
[...] the differences between the texts are substantial and coherent
enough to establish that there was deliberate revision in producing
one text out of the other; hence 'A Shrew' is not merely a poor report
(or 'bad quarto') of 'The Shrew'." Character names are changed, basic
plot points are altered (Kate has two sisters for example, not one),
the play is set in Athens instead of Padua, the Sly framework forms a
complete narrative, and entire speeches are completely different, all
of which suggests to Miller that the author of 'A Shrew' thought they
were working on something different from Shakespeare's play, not
attempting to transcribe it for resale; "underpinning the notion of a
'Shakespearean bad quarto' is the assumption that the motive of
whoever compiled that text was to produce, differentially, a verbal
replica of what appeared on stage." Miller believes that Chambers and
Kirschbaum successfully illustrate 'A Shrew' does not fulfil this
rubric.
Alexander's theory continued to be challenged as the years went on. In
1942, R.A. Houk developed what came to be dubbed the 'Ur-Shrew'
theory; both 'A Shrew' and 'The Shrew' were based upon a third play,
now lost. In 1943, G.I. Duthie refined Houk's suggestion by arguing 'A
Shrew' was a memorial reconstruction of 'Ur-Shrew', a now lost early
draft of 'The Shrew'; "'A Shrew' is substantially a memorially
constructed text and is dependent upon an early 'Shrew' play, now
lost. 'The Shrew' is a reworking of this lost play." Hickson, who
believed Marlowe to have written 'A Shrew', had hinted at this theory
in 1850; "though I do not believe Shakspeare's play to contain a line
of any other writer, I think it extremely probable that we have it
only in a revised form, and that, consequently, the play which Marlowe
imitated might not necessarily have been that fund of life and humour
that we find it now." Hickson is here arguing that Marlowe's 'A Shrew'
is not based upon the version of 'The Shrew' found in the 'First
Folio', but on another version of the play. Duthie argues this other
version was a Shakespearean early draft of 'The Shrew'; 'A Shrew'
constitutes a reported text of a now lost early draft.
Alexander returned to the debate in 1969, re-presenting his bad quarto
theory. In particular, he concentrated on the various complications
and inconsistencies in the subplot of 'A Shrew', which had been used
by Houk and Duthie as evidence for an 'Ur-Shrew', to argue that the
reporter of 'A Shrew' attempted to recreate the complex subplot from
'The Shrew' but got confused; "the compiler of 'A Shrew' while trying
to follow the subplot of 'The Shrew' gave it up as too complicated to
reproduce, and fell back on love scenes in which he substituted for
the maneuvers of the disguised Lucentio and Hortensio extracts from
'Tamburlaine' and 'Faustus', with which the lovers woo their ladies."
After little further discussion of the issue in the 1970s, the 1980s
saw the publication of three scholarly editions of 'The Shrew', all of
which re-addressed the question of the relationship between the two
plays; Brian Morris' 1981 edition for the second series of the Arden
Shakespeare, H.J. Oliver's 1982 edition for the Oxford Shakespeare and
Ann Thompson's 1984 edition for the New Cambridge Shakespeare. Morris
summarised the scholarly position in 1981 as one in which no clear-cut
answers could be found; "unless new, external evidence comes to light,
the relationship between 'The Shrew' and 'A Shrew' can never be
decided beyond a peradventure. It will always be a balance of
probabilities, shifting as new arguments and opinions are added to the
scales. Nevertheless, in the present century, the movement has
unquestionably been towards an acceptance of the Bad Quarto theory,
and this can now be accepted as at least the current orthodoxy."
Morris himself, and Thompson, supported the bad quarto theory, with
Oliver tentatively arguing for Duthie's bad quarto/early
draft/'Ur-Shrew' theory.
Perhaps the most extensive examination of the question came in 1998 in
Stephen Roy Miller's edition of 'A Shrew' for the New Cambridge
Shakespeare: The Early Quartos series. Miller agrees with most modern
scholars that 'A Shrew' is derived from 'The Shrew', but he does not
believe it to be a bad quarto. Instead, he argues it is an adaptation
by someone other than Shakespeare. Miller believes Alexander's
suggestion in 1969 that the reporter became confused is unlikely, and
instead suggests an adapter at work; "the most economic explanation of
indebtedness is that whoever compiled 'A Shrew' borrowed the lines
from Shakespeare's 'The Shrew', or a version of it, and adapted them."
Part of Miller's evidence relates to Gremio, who has no counterpart in
'A Shrew'. In 'The Shrew', after the wedding, Gremio expresses doubts
as to whether or not Petruchio will be able to tame Katherina. In 'A
Shrew', these lines are extended and split between Polidor (the
equivalent of Hortensio) and Phylema (Bianca). As Gremio 'does' have a
counterpart in 'I Suppositi', Miller concludes that "to argue the
priority of 'A Shrew' in this case would mean arguing that Shakespeare
took the negative hints from the speeches of Polidor and Phylema and
gave them to a character he resurrected from 'Supposes'. This is a
less economical argument than to suggest that the compiler of 'A
Shrew', dismissing Gremio, simply shared his doubts among the
characters available." He argues there is even evidence in the play
that the compiler knew he was working within a specific literary
tradition; "as with his partial change of character names, the
compiler seems to wish to produce dialogue much like his models, but
not the same. For him, adaptation includes exact quotation, imitation
and incorporation of his own additions. This seems to define his
personal style, and his aim seems to be to produce his own version,
presumably intended that it should be tuned more towards the popular
era than 'The Shrew'."
As had Alexander, Houk and Duthie, Miller believes the key to the
debate is to be found in the subplot, as it is here where the two
plays differ most. He points out that the subplot in 'The Shrew' is
based on "the classical style of Latin comedy with an intricate plot
involving deception, often kept in motion by a comic servant." The
subplot in 'A Shrew', however, which features an extra sister and
addresses the issue of marrying above and below one's class, "has many
elements more associated with the romantic style of comedy popular in
London in the 1590s." Miller cites plays such as Robert Greene's
'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay' and 'Fair Em' as evidence of the
popularity of such plays. He points to the fact that in 'The Shrew',
there are only eleven lines of romance between Lucentio and Bianca,
but in 'A Shrew', there is an entire scene between Kate's two sisters
and their lovers. This, he argues, is evidence of an adaptation rather
than a faulty report;
Miller believes the compiler "appears to have wished to make the play
shorter, more of a romantic comedy full of wooing and glamorous
rhetoric, and to add more obvious, broad comedy."
Hortensio problem
===================
H.J. Oliver argues the version of the play in the 1623 'First Folio'
was likely copied not from a prompt book or transcript, but from the
author's own foul papers, which he believes showed signs of revision
by Shakespeare. These revisions, Oliver says, relate primarily to the
character of Hortensio, and suggest that in an original version of the
play, now lost, Hortensio was not a suitor to Bianca, but simply an
old friend of Petruchio. When Shakespeare rewrote the play so that
Hortensio became a suitor in disguise (Litio), many of his lines were
either omitted or given to Tranio (disguised as Lucentio).
Oliver cites several scenes in the play where Hortensio (or his
absence) causes problems. For example, in Act 2, Scene 1, Tranio (as
Lucentio) and Gremio bid for Bianca, but Hortensio, who everyone is
aware is also a suitor, is never mentioned. In Act 3, Scene 1,
Lucentio (as Cambio) tells Bianca "we might beguile the old
Pantalowne" (l.36), yet says nothing of Hortensio's attempts to woo
her, instead implying his only rival is Gremio. In Act 3, Scene 2,
Tranio suddenly becomes an old friend of Petruchio, knowing his
mannerisms and explaining his tardiness prior to the wedding. However,
up to this point, Petruchio's only acquaintance in Padua has been
Hortensio. In Act 4, Scene 3, Hortensio tells Vincentio that Lucentio
has married Bianca. However, as far as Hortensio should be concerned,
Lucentio has denounced Bianca, because in Act 4, Scene 2, Tranio
(disguised as Lucentio) agreed with Hortensio that neither of them
would pursue Bianca, and as such, his knowledge of the marriage of who
he supposes to be Lucentio and Bianca makes little sense. From this,
Oliver concludes that an original version of the play existed in which
Hortensio was simply a friend of Petruchio's, and had no involvement
in the Bianca subplot, but wishing to complicate things, Shakespeare
rewrote the play, introducing the Litio disguise, and giving some of
Hortensio's discarded lines to Tranio, but not fully correcting
everything to fit the presence of a new suitor.
This is important in Duthie's theory of an 'Ur-Shrew' insofar as he
argues it is the original version of 'The Shrew' upon which 'A Shrew'
is based, not the version which appears in the 1623 'First Folio'. As
Oliver argues, "'A Shrew' is a report of an earlier, Shakespearian,
form of 'The Shrew' in which Hortensio was not disguised as Litio."
Oliver suggests that when Pembroke's Men left London in June 1592,
they had in their possession a now-lost early draft of the play. Upon
returning to London, they published 'A Shrew' in 1594, sometime after
which Shakespeare rewrote his original play into the form seen in the
'First Folio'.
Duthie's arguments were never fully accepted at the time, as critics
tended to look at the relationship between the two plays as an
either-or situation; 'A Shrew' is 'either' a reported text 'or' an
early draft. In more recent scholarship, however, the possibility that
a text could be both has been shown to be critically viable. For
example, in his 2003 Oxford Shakespeare edition of '2 Henry VI', Roger
Warren makes the same argument for 'The First Part of the Contention'.
Randall Martin reaches the same conclusion regarding 'The True Tragedy
of Richard Duke of Yorke' in his 2001 Oxford Shakespeare edition of '3
Henry VI'. This lends support to the theory that 'A Shrew' could be
both a reported text and an early draft.
Sexism controversy
====================
'The Taming of the Shrew' has been the subject of critical
controversy. Dana Aspinall writes "Since its first appearance, some
time between 1588 and 1594, 'Shrew' has elicited a panoply of heartily
supportive, ethically uneasy, or altogether disgusted responses to its
rough-and-tumble treatment of the 'taming' of the 'curst shrew'
Katherina, and obviously, of all potentially unruly wives." Phyllis
Rackin argues that "seen in the context of current anxieties, desires
and beliefs, Shakespeare's play seems to prefigure the most oppressive
modern assumptions about women and to validate those assumptions as
timeless truths." Stevie Davies says that responses to 'Shrew' have
been "dominated by feelings of unease and embarrassment, accompanied
by the desire to prove that Shakespeare cannot have meant what he
seems to be saying; and that therefore he cannot really be saying it."
Philippa Kelly asks:
Some scholars argue that even in Shakespeare's day the play must have
been controversial, due to the changing nature of gender politics.
Marjorie Garber, for example, suggests Shakespeare created the
Induction so the audience would not react badly to the misogyny in the
Petruchio/Katherina story; he was, in effect, defending himself
against charges of sexism. G.R. Hibbard argues that during the period
in which the play was written, arranged marriages were beginning to
give way to newer, more romantically informed unions, and thus
people's views on women's position in society, and their relationships
with men, were in a state of flux. As such, audiences may not have
been as predisposed to tolerate the harsh treatment of Katherina as is
often thought.
Evidence of at least some initial societal discomfort with 'The Shrew'
is, perhaps, to be found in the fact that John Fletcher, Shakespeare's
successor as house playwright for the King's Men, wrote 'The Woman's
Prize, or The Tamer Tamed' as a sequel to Shakespeare's play. Written
'c.'1611, the play tells the story of Petruchio's remarriage after
Katherina's death. In a mirror of the original, his new wife attempts
(successfully) to tame him - thus the tamer becomes the tamed.
Although Fletcher's sequel is often downplayed as merely a farce, some
critics acknowledge the more serious implications of such a reaction.
Lynda Boose, for example, writes, "Fletcher's response may in itself
reflect the kind of discomfort that 'Shrew' has characteristically
provoked in men and why its many revisions since 1594 have repeatedly
contrived ways of softening the edges."
With the rise of the feminist movement in the twentieth century,
reactions to the play have tended to become more divergent. For some
critics, "Kate's taming was no longer as funny as it had been [...]
her domination became, in George Bernard Shaw's words 'altogether
disgusting to modern sensibility'." Addressing the relationship
between 'A Shrew' and 'The Shrew' from a political perspective, for
example, Leah S. Marcus very much believes the play to be what it
seems. She argues 'A Shrew' is an earlier version of 'The Shrew', but
acknowledges that most scholars reject the idea that 'A Shrew' was
written by Shakespeare. She believes one of the reasons for this is
because 'A Shrew' "hedges the play's patriarchal message with numerous
qualifiers that do not exist in" 'The Shrew'. She calls 'A Shrew' a
more "progressive" text than 'The Shrew', and argues that scholars
tend to dismiss the idea that 'A Shrew' is Shakespearean because "the
women are not as satisfactorily tamed as they are in 'The Shrew'." She
also points out that if 'A Shrew' is an early draft, it suggests
Shakespeare "may have increased rather than decreased the patriarchal
violence of his materials", something which, she believes, scholars
find difficult to accept.
However, others see the play as preceding 20th century feminist
condemnation of patriarchal domination, and as an argument for the
liberation of women. For example, Conall Morrison, director of the RSC
2008 production, wrote:
Philippa Kelly makes this point:
Jonathan Miller, director of the 1980 'BBC Television Shakespeare'
adaptation, and several theatrical productions, argues that although
the play is not misogynistic, neither is it a feminist treatise:
Induction
===========
An element in the debate regarding the play's misogyny, or lack
thereof, is the Induction, and how it relates to the
Katherina/Petruchio story. According to H.J. Oliver, "it has become
orthodoxy to claim to find in the Induction the same 'theme' as is to
be found in both the Bianca and the Katherine-Petruchio plots of the
main play, and to take it for granted that identity of theme is a
merit and 'justifies' the introduction of Sly." For example, Geoffrey
Bullough argues the three plots "are all linked in idea because all
contain discussion of the relations of the sexes in marriage." Richard
Hosley suggests the three plots form a unified whole insofar as they
all deal with "assumptions about identity and assumptions about
personality." Oliver, however, argues that "the Sly Induction does not
so much announce the theme of the enclosed stories as establish their
'tone'."
This is important in terms of determining the seriousness of
Katherina's final speech. Marjorie Garber writes of the Induction,
"the frame performs the important task of distancing the later action,
and of insuring a lightness of tone - significant in light of the real
abuse to which Kate is subjected by Petruchio." Oliver argues that
Induction is used to remove the audience from the world of the
enclosed plot - to place the Sly story on the same level of reality as
the audience, and the Katherina/Petruchio story on a different level
of reality. This, he argues, is done to ensure the audience does not
take the play literally, that it sees the Katherina/Petruchio story as
a farce:
Oliver argues that "the main purpose of the Induction was to set the
tone for the play within the play - in particular, to present the
story of Kate and her sister as none-too-serious comedy put on to
divert a drunken tinker". He suggests that if the Induction is removed
from a production of the play (as it very often is), a fundamental
part of the structure has been lost. Speaking of Jonathan Miller's
'BBC Television Shakespeare' adaptation of 1980, which omitted the
Induction, Stanley Wells wrote "to omit the Christopher Sly episodes
is to suppress one of Shakespeare's most volatile lesser characters,
to jettison most of the play's best poetry, and to strip it of an
entire dramatic dimension."
Regarding the importance of the Induction, Jonathan Bate and Eric
Rasmussen argue that "the Sly framework establishes a self-referential
theatricality in which the status of the shrew-play 'as' a play is
enforced." Graham Holderness argues "the play in its received entirety
does not propose any simple or unitary view of sexual politics: it
contains a crudely reactionary dogma of masculine supremacy, but it
also works on that ideology to force its expression into
self-contradiction. The means by which this self-interrogation is
accomplished is that complex theatrical device of the Sly-framework
[...] without the metadramatic potentialities of the Sly-framework,
any production of 'Shrew' is thrown much more passively at the mercy
of the director's artistic and political ideology." Coppélia Kahn
suggests "the transformation of Christopher Sly from drunken lout to
noble lord, a transformation only temporary and skin-deep, suggests
that Kate's switch from independence may also be deceptive and
prepares us for the irony of the 'dénouement'." The Induction serves
to undercut charges of misogyny - the play within the play is a farce,
it is not supposed to be taken seriously by the audience, as it is not
taken seriously by Sly. As such, questions of the seriousness of what
happens within it are rendered irrelevant.
Language
==========
Language itself is a major theme in the play, especially in the taming
process, where mastery of language becomes paramount. Katherina is
initially described as a shrew because of her harsh language to those
around her. Karen Newman points out, "from the outset of the play,
Katherine's threat to male authority is posed through language: it is
perceived by others as such and is linked to a claim larger than
shrewishness-witchcraft-through the constant allusions to Katherine's
kinship with the devil." For example, after Katherina rebukes
Hortensio and Gremio in Act 1, Scene 1, Hortensio replies with "From
all such devils, good Lord deliver us!" (l.66). Even Katherina's own
father refers to her as "thou hilding of a devilish spirit" (2.1.26).
Petruchio, however, attempts to tame her - and thus her language -
with rhetoric that specifically undermines her tempestuous nature;
Here Petruchio is specifically attacking the very function of
Katherina's language, vowing that no matter what she says, he will
purposely misinterpret it, thus undermining the basis of the
linguistic sign, and disrupting the relationship between signifier and
signified. In this sense, Margaret Jane Kidnie argues this scene
demonstrates the "slipperiness of language."
Apart from undermining her language, Petruchio also uses language to
objectify her. For example, in Act 3, Scene 2, Petruchio explains to
all present that Katherina is now literally his property:
In discussing Petruchio's objectification of Katherina, Tita French
Baumlin focuses on his puns on her name. By referring to her as a
"cake" and a "cat" (2.1.185-195), he objectifies her in a more subtle
manner than saying she belongs to him. A further aspect of Petruchio's
taming rhetoric is the repeated comparison of Katherina to animals. In
particular, he is prone to comparing her to a hawk (2.1.8 and
4.1.177-183), often employing an overarching hunting metaphor; "My
falcon now is sharp and passing empty,/And till she stoop she must not
be full-gorged" (4.1.177-178). Katherina, however, appropriates this
method herself, leading to a trading of insults rife with animal
imagery in Act 2, Scene 1 (ll.207-232), where she compares Petruchio
to a turtle and a crab.
Language itself has thus become a battleground. However, it is
Petruchio who seemingly emerges as the victor. In his house, after
Petruchio has dismissed the haberdasher, Katherina exclaims
Katherina is here declaring her independence of language; no matter
what Petruchio may do, she will always be free to speak her mind.
However, only one hundred lines later, the following exchange occurs;
Kidnie says of this scene, "the language game has suddenly changed and
the stakes have been raised. Whereas before he seemed to mishear or
misunderstand her words, Petruchio now overtly tests his wife's
subjection by demanding that she concede to his views even when they
are demonstrably unreasonable. The lesson is that Petruchio has the
absolute authority to rename their world." Katherina is free to say
whatever she wishes, as long she agrees with Petruchio. His apparent
victory in the 'language game' is seen in Act 4, Scene 5, when
Katherina is made to switch the words "moon" and "sun", and she
concedes that she will agree with whatever Petruchio says, no matter
how absurd:
Of this scene, Kidnie argues "what he 'says' must take priority over
what Katherina 'knows'." From this point, Katherina's language changes
from her earlier vernacular; instead of defying Petruchio and his
words, she has apparently succumbed to his rhetoric and accepted that
she will use 'his' language instead of her own - both Katherina and
her language have, seemingly, been tamed.
The important role of language, however, is not confined to the taming
plot. For example, in a psychoanalytic reading of the play, Joel
Fineman suggests there is a distinction made between male and female
language, further subcategorising the latter into good and bad,
epitomised by Bianca and Katherina respectively. Language is also
important in relation to the Induction. Here, Sly speaks in prose
until he begins to accept his new role as lord, at which point he
switches to blank verse and adopts the royal we. Language is also
important in relation to Tranio and Lucentio, who appear on stage
speaking a highly artificial style of blank verse full of classical
and mythological allusions and elaborate metaphors and similes, thus
immediately setting them aside from the more straightforward language
of the Induction, and alerting the audience to the fact that they are
now in an entirely different 'milieu'.
Female submissiveness
=======================
In productions of the play, it is often the interpretation of
Katherina's final speech (the longest speech in the play) that defines
the tone of the entire production, such is the importance of this
speech and what it says, or seems to say, about female submission:
Traditionally, many critics have taken the speech literally. Writing
in 1943, for example, G.I. Duthie argued "what Shakespeare emphasises
here is the foolishness of trying to destroy order." However, in a
modern western society, holding relatively egalitarian views on
gender, such an interpretation presents a dilemma, as according to
said interpretation the play seemingly celebrates female subjugation.
Critically, four main theories have emerged in response to Katherina's
speech;
# It is sincere; Petruchio has successfully tamed her.
# It is sincere, but not because Petruchio has tamed her. Instead, she
has fallen in love with him and accepted her role as his wife.
# It is ironic; she is being sarcastic, pretending to have been tamed
when in reality she has completely duped Petruchio into thinking he
has tamed her.
# It should not be read seriously or ironically; it is part of the
farcical nature of the play-within-the-play.
George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1897 that "no man with any decency of
feeling can sit it out in the company of a woman without being
extremely ashamed of the lord-of-creation moral implied in the wager
and the speech put into the woman's own mouth." Katherina is seen as
having been successfully tamed, and having come to accept her newly
submissive role to such an extent that she advocates that role for
others, the final speech rationalises, according to Duthie, in both a
political and sociological sense, the submission of wives to husbands.
Actress Meryl Streep, who played Katherina in 1978 at the Shakespeare
in the Park festival, says of the play, "really what matters is that
they have an incredible passion and love; it's not something that
Katherina admits to right away, but it does provide the source of her
change." Similarly, John C. Bean sees the speech as the final stage in
the process of Katherina's change of heart towards Petruchio; "if we
can appreciate the liberal element in Kate's last speech - the speech
that strikes modern sensibilities as advocating male tyranny - we can
perhaps see that Kate is tamed not in the automatic manner of
behavioural psychology but in the spontaneous manner of the later
romantic comedies where characters lose themselves and emerge, as if
from a dream, liberated into the bonds of love."
Perhaps the most common interpretation in the modern era is that the
speech is ironic; Katherina has not been tamed at all, she has merely
duped Petruchio into thinking she has. Two especially well-known
examples of this interpretation are seen in the two major feature film
adaptations of the play; Sam Taylor's 1929 version and Franco
Zeffirelli's 1967 version. In Taylor's film, Katherina, played by Mary
Pickford, winks at Bianca during the speech, indicating she does not
mean a word of what she is saying. In Zeffirelli's film, Katherina,
played by Elizabeth Taylor, delivers the speech as though it were her
own idea, and the submission aspect is reversed by her ending the
speech and leaving the room, causing Petruchio to have to run after
her. Phyllis Rackin is an example of a scholar who reads the speech
ironically, especially in how it deals with gender. She points out
that several lines in the speech focus on the woman's body, but in the
Elizabethan theatre, the role would have been played by a young boy,
thus rendering any evocation of the female form as ironic. Reading the
play as a satire of gender roles, she sees the speech as the
culmination of this process. Along similar lines, Philippa Kelly says
"the body of the boy actor in Shakespeare's time would have created a
sexual indeterminacy that would have undermined the patriarchal
narrative, so that the taming is only 'apparently' so. And in
declaring women's passivity so extensively and performing it
centre-stage, Kate might be seen to take on a kind of agency that
rebukes the feminine codes of silence and obedience which she so
expressly advocates." Similarly, Coppélia Kahn argues the speech is
really about how little Katherina has been tamed; "she steals the
scene from her husband, who has held the stage throughout the play,
and reveals that he has failed to tame her in the sense he set out to.
He has gained her outward compliance in the form of a public display,
while her spirit remains mischievously free."
In relation to this interpretation, William Empson suggests that
Katherina was originally performed by an adult male actor rather than
a young boy. He argues that the play indicates on several occasions
that Katherina is physically strong, and even capable of over-powering
Petruchio. For example, this is demonstrated off-stage when the horse
falls on her as she is riding to Petruchio's home, and she is able to
lift it off herself, and later when she throws Petruchio off a servant
he is beating. Empson argues that the point is not that Katherina is,
as a woman, weak, but that she is not well cast in the role in life
which she finds herself having to play. The end of the play then
offers blatant irony when a strong male actor, dressed as a woman,
lectures women on how to play their parts.
The fourth school of thought is that the play is a farce, and hence
the speech should not be read seriously or ironically. For example,
Robert B. Heilman argues that "the whole wager scene falls essentially
within the realm of farce: the responses are largely mechanical, as is
their symmetry. Kate's final long speech on the obligations and
fitting style of wives we can think of as a more or less automatic
statement - that is, the kind appropriate to farce - of a generally
held doctrine." He further makes his case by positing:
Another way in which to read the speech (and the play) as farcical is
to focus on the Induction. H.J. Oliver, for example, emphasising the
importance of the Induction, writes "the play within the play has been
presented only after all the preliminaries have encouraged us to take
it as a farce. We have been warned." Of Katherina's speech, he argues:
Emma Smith suggests a possible fifth interpretation: Petruchio and
Kate have colluded together to plot this set-piece speech, "a speech
learned off pat", to demonstrate that Kate is the most obedient of the
three wives and so allow Petruchio to win the wager.
Gender politics
=================
The issue of gender politics is an important theme in 'The Taming of
the Shrew'. In a letter to the 'Pall Mall Gazette', George Bernard
Shaw famously called the play "one vile insult to womanhood and
manhood from the first word to the last." A critic, Emily Detmer,
points out that in the late 16th and early 17th century, laws
curtailing husbands' use of violence in disciplining their wives were
becoming more commonplace; "the same culture that still "felt good"
about dunking scolds, whipping whores, or burning witches was becoming
increasingly sensitive about husbands beating their wives." Detmer
argues:
Petruchio's answer is to psychologically tame Katherina, a method not
frowned upon by society; "the play signals a shift towards a "modern"
way of managing the subordination of wives by legitimatising
domination as long as it is not physical." Detmer argues
"Shakespeare's "shrew" is tamed in a manner that would have made the
wife-beating reformers proud; Petruchio's taming "policy" dramatises
how abstention from physical violence works better. The play
encourages its audience not only to pay close attention to Petruchio's
method but also to judge and enjoy the method's permissibility because
of the absence of blows and the harmonious outcome."
However, Detmer is critical of scholars who defend Shakespeare for
depicting male dominance in a less brutal fashion than many of his
contemporaries. For example, although not specifically mentioned by
Detmer, Michael West writes "the play's attitude was
characteristically Elizabethan and was expressed more humanly by
Shakespeare than by some of his sources." Detmer goes on to read the
play in light of modern psychological theories regarding women's
responses to domestic violence, and argues that Katherina develops
Stockholm syndrome:
In a Marxist reading of the play, Natasha Korda argues that, although
Petruchio is not characterised as a violent man, he still embodies
sixteenth-century notions regarding the subjugation and
objectification of women. Shrew-taming stories existed prior to
Shakespeare's play, and in such stories, "the object of the tale was
simply to put the shrew to work, to restore her (frequently through
some gruesome form of punishment) to her proper productive place
within the household economy." Petruchio does not do this, but Korda
argues he still works to curtail the activities of the woman; "Kate
[is] not a reluctant producer, but rather an avid and sophisticated
consumer of market goods [...] Petruchio's taming strategy is
accordingly aimed not at his wife's productive capacity - not once
does he ask Kate to brew, bake, wash, card, or spin - but at her
consumption. He seeks to educate her in her role as a consumer." She
believes that even though Petruchio does not use force to tame
Katherina, his actions are still an endorsement of patriarchy; he
makes her his property and tames her into accepting a patriarchal
economic worldview. Vital in this reading is Katherina's final speech,
which Korda argues "inaugurates a new gendered division of labour,
according to which husbands "labour both by sea and land" while their
wives luxuriate at home [...] In erasing the status of housework as
work, separate-sphere ideology renders the housewife perpetually
indebted to her husband [...] 'The Taming of the Shrew' marks the
emergence of the ideological separation of feminine and masculine
spheres of labour."
In a theology-based reading of how gender politics are handled in the
play, David Beauregard reads the relationship between Katherina and
Petruchio in traditional Aristotelian terms. Petruchio, as the
architect of virtue ('Politics', 1.13), brings Kate into harmony with
her nature by developing her "new-built virtue and obedience",
(5.2.118), and she, in turn, brings to Petruchio in her person all the
Aristotelian components of happiness - wealth and good fortune,
virtue, friendship and love, the promise of domestic peace and quiet
('Nicomachean Ethics', 1.7-8). The virtue of obedience at the center
of Kate's final speech is not what Aristotle describes as the despotic
rule of master over slave, but rather the statesman's rule over a free
and equal person ('Politics', 1.3, 12-13). Recognising the evil of
despotic domination, the play holds up in inverse form Kate's
shrewishness, the feminine form of the will to dominance, as an evil
that obstructs natural fulfillment and destroys marital happiness.
Cruelty
=========
Another theme in the play is cruelty. Alexander Leggatt states:
Ann Thompson argues that "the fact that in the folktale versions the
shrew-taming story always comes to its climax when the husbands wager
on their wives' obedience must have been partly responsible for the
large number of references to sporting, gaming and gambling throughout
the play. These metaphors can help to make Petruchio's cruelty
acceptable by making it seem limited and conventionalised." Marvin
Bennet Krims argues that "the play leans heavily on representations of
cruelty for its comedic effect." He believes cruelty permeates the
entire play, including the Induction, arguing the Sly frame, with the
Lord's spiteful practical joke, prepares the audience for a play
willing to treat cruelty as a comedic matter. He suggests that cruelty
is a more important theme than gender, arguing that "the aggression
represented in 'Taming' can be read as having less to do with gender
and more to do with hate, with the text thereby becoming a comic
representation of the general problem of human cruelty and
victimisation."
Director Michael Bogdanov, who directed the play in 1978, considers
that "Shakespeare was a feminist":
Money
=======
The motivation of money is another theme. When speaking of whether or
not someone may ever want to marry Katherina, Hortensio says "Though
it pass your patience and mine to endure her loud alarums, why man,
there be good fellows in the world, and a man could light on them,
would take her with all faults and money enough" (1.1.125-128). In the
scene that follows Petruchio says:
A few lines later Grumio says, "Why give him gold enough and marry him
to a puppet or an aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne're a tooth in her
head, though she have as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why,
nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal" (1.2.77-80). Furthermore,
Petruchio is encouraged to woo Katherina by Gremio, Tranio (as
Lucentio), and Hortensio, who vow to pay him if he wins her, on top of
Baptista's dowry ("After my death, the one half of my lands, and in
possession, twenty thousand crowns"). Later, Petruchio does not agree
with Baptista on the subject of love in this exchange:
Gremio and Tranio literally bid for Bianca. As Baptista says, Tis
deeds must win the prize, and he of both/That can assure my daughter
greatest dower/Shall have my Bianca's love" (2.1.344-346).
Opera
=======
The first opera based on the play was Ferdinando Bertoni's opera buffa
'Il duca di Atene' (1780), with libretto by Carlo Francesco Badini.
Frederic Reynolds' 'Catherine and Petruchio' (1828) is an adaptation
of Garrick, with an overture taken from Gioachino Rossini, songs
derived from numerous Shakespeare plays and sonnets, and music by John
Braham and Thomas Simpson Cooke. Starring Fanny Ayton and James
William Wallack, the opera premiered at Drury Lane, but it was not
successful, and closed after only a few performances. Hermann Goetz'
'Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung' (1874), with libretto by Joseph Viktor
Widmann, is a comic opera, which focuses on the Bianca subplot, and
cuts back the taming story. It was first performed at the original
National Theatre Mannheim. John Kendrick Bangs' 'Katherine: A
Travesty' (1888) is a Gilbert and Sullivan-style parody operetta which
premiered in the Metropolitan Opera. Spyridon Samaras' 'La furia
domata: commedia musicale in tre atti' (1895) is a now lost lyric
comedy with libretto by Enrico Annibale Butti and Giulio Macchi, which
premiered at the Teatro Lirico. Ruperto Chapí's 'Las bravías' (1896),
with a libretto by José López Silva and Carlos Fernández Shaw, is a
one-act 'género chico' 'zarzuela' clearly based on the story, but with
names changed and the location altered to Madrid: it was a major
success in Spain, with over 200 performances in 1896 alone, and
continues to be performed regularly.
Johan Wagenaar's 'De getemde feeks' (1909) is the second of three
overtures Wagenaar wrote based on Shakespeare, the others being
'Koning Jan' (1891) and 'Driekoningenavond' (1928). Another overture
inspired by the play is Alfred Reynolds' 'The Taming of the Shrew
Overture' (1927). Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's verismo opera 'Sly, ovvero la
leggenda del dormiente risvegliato' (1927) focuses on the Induction,
with libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. A tragedy, the opera depicts Sly
as a hard-drinking and debt-ridden poet who sings in a London pub.
When he is tricked into believing that he is a lord, his life
improves, but upon learning it is a ruse, he mistakenly concludes the
woman he loves (Dolly) only told him she loved him as part of the
ruse. In despair, he kills himself by cutting his wrists, with Dolly
arriving too late to save him. Starring Aureliano Pertile and Mercedes
Llopart, it was first performed at La Scala in Milan. Rudolf Karel's
'The Taming of the Shrew' is an unfinished opera upon which he worked
between 1942 and 1944. Philip Greeley Clapp's 'The Taming of the
Shrew' (1948) was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera. Vittorio
Giannini's 'The Taming of the Shrew' (1953) is an opera buffa, with
libretto by Giannini and Dorothy Fee. It was first performed at the
Cincinnati Music Hall, starring Dorothy Short and Robert Kircher.
Vissarion Shebalin's 'Ukroshchenye stroptivoy' (1957), with libretto
by Abram Akimovich Gozenpud, was Shebalin's last opera and was
immediately hailed as a masterpiece throughout Russia. Dominick
Argento's 'Christopher Sly' (1962), with libretto by John Manlove, is
a comic opera in two scenes and an interlude, first performed in the
University of Minnesota. Sly is duped by a Lord into believing that he
himself is a lord. However, he soon becomes aware of the ruse, and
when left alone, he flees with the Lord's valuables and his two
mistresses.
Musical/ballet
================
The earliest known musical adaptation of the play was a ballad opera
based on Charles Johnson's 'The Cobler of Preston'. Called 'The Cobler
of Preston's Opera', the piece was anonymously written, although
William Dunkin is thought by some scholars as a likely candidate.
Rehearsals for the premiere began in Smock Alley in October 1731, but
sometime in November or December, the show was cancelled. It was
instead performed by a group of children (including an eleven-year-old
Peg Woffington) in January 1732 at Signora Violante's New Booth in
Dame Street. It was subsequently published in March.
James Worsdale's 'A Cure for a Scold' is also a ballad opera. First
performed at Drury Lane in 1735, starring Kitty Clive and Charles
Macklin, 'A Cure for a Scold' was an adaptation of Lacy's 'Sauny the
Scot' rather than Shakespeare's original 'Taming of the Shrew'.
Petruchio was renamed Manly, and Katherina was renamed Margaret
(nicknamed Peg). At the end, there is no wager. Instead, Peg pretends
she is dying, and as Petruchio runs for a doctor, she reveals she is
fine, and declares "you have taught me what 'tis to be a Wife, and I
shall make it my Study to be obliging and obedient," to which Manly
replies "My best Peg, we will exchange Kindness, and be each others
Servants." After the play has finished, the actress playing Peg steps
forward and speaks directly to the audience as herself; "Well, I must
own, it wounds me to the Heart/To play, unwomanly, so mean a
Part./What - to submit, so tamely - so contented,/Thank Heav'n! I'm
not the Thing I represented."
Cole Porter's musical 'Kiss Me, Kate' is an adaptation of 'Taming of
the Shrew'. The music and lyrics are by Porter and the book is by
Samuel and Bella Spewack. It is at least partially based on the
1935/1936 Theatre Guild production of 'Taming of the Shrew', which
starred husband and wife Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, whose
backstage fights became legendary. The musical tells the story of a
husband and wife acting duo (Fred and Lilli) attempting to stage 'The
Taming of the Shrew', but whose backstage fights keep getting in the
way. The musical opened on Broadway at the New Century Theatre in
1948, running for a total of 1,077 performances. Directed by John C.
Wilson with choreography by Hanya Holm, it starred Patricia Morison
and Alfred Drake. The production moved to the West End in 1951,
directed by Samuel Spewack with choreography again by Holm, and
starring Patricia Morison and Bill Johnson. It ran for 501
performances. As well as being a box office hit, the musical was also
a critical success, winning five Tony Awards; Best Authors (Musical),
Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, Best Musical and Best
Producers (Musical). The play has since been revived numerous times in
various countries. Its 1999 revival at the Martin Beck Theatre,
directed by Michael Blakemore and starring Marin Mazzie and Brian
Stokes Mitchell, was especially successful, winning another five
Tonys; Best Actor (Musical), Best Costume Design, Best Director
(Musical), Best Orchestrations, and Best Revival (Musical).
The first ballet version of the play was Maurice Béjart's 'La mégère
apprivoisée'. Using the music of Alessandro Scarlatti, it was
originally performed by the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris in 1954. The
best known ballet adaptation is John Cranko's 'The Taming of the
Shrew', first performed by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Staatsoper
Stuttgart in 1969. Another ballet adaptation is Louis Falco's 'Kate's
Rag', first performed by the Louis Falco Dance Company at the Akademie
der Künste in 1980. In 1988, Aleksandre Machavariani composed a ballet
suite, but it was not performed until 2009, when his son, conductor
Vakhtang Machavariani, gave a concert at the Georgian National Music
Center featuring music by Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Prokofiev and some
of his father's pieces.
Radio
=======
In 1924, extracts from the play were broadcast on BBC Radio, performed
by the Cardiff Station Repertory Company as the eight episode of a
series of programs showcasing Shakespeare's plays, entitled
'Shakespeare Night'. Extracts were also broadcast in 1925 as part of
'Shakespeare: Scene and Story', with Edna Godfrey-Turner and William
Macready, and in 1926 as part of 'Shakespeare's Heroines', with Madge
Titheradge and Edmund Willard. In 1927, a forty-three-minute
truncation of the play was broadcast on BBC National Programme, with
Barbara Couper and Ian Fleming. In 1932, National Programme aired
another truncated version, this one running eighty-five minutes, and
again starring Couper, with Francis James as Petruchio. In 1935, Peter
Creswell directed a broadcast of the relatively complete text (only
the Bianca subplot was trimmed) on National Programme, starring Mary
Hinton and Godfrey Tearle. This was the first non-theatrical version
of the play to feature Sly, who was played by Stuart Robertson. In
1941, Creswell directed another adaptation for BBC Home Service, again
starring Tearle, with Fay Compton as Katherina. In 1947, BBC Light
Programme aired extracts for their 'Theatre Programme' from John
Burrell's Edinburgh Festival production, with Patricia Burke and
Trevor Howard. In 1954, the full-length play aired on BBC Home
Service, directed by Peter Watts, starring Mary Wimbush and Joseph
O'Conor, with Norman Shelley as Sly. BBC Radio 4 aired another
full-length broadcast (without the Induction) in 1973 as part of their
'Monday Night Theatre' series, directed by Ian Cotterell, starring
Fenella Fielding and Paul Daneman. In 1989, BBC Radio 3 aired the full
play, directed by Jeremy Mortimer, starring Cheryl Campbell and Bob
Peck, with William Simons as Sly. In 2000, BBC Radio 3 aired another
full-length production (without the Induction) as part of their
'Shakespeare for the New Millennium' series, directed by Melanie
Harris, and starring Ruth Mitchell and Gerard McSorley.
In the United States, the first major radio production was in July
1937 on NBC Blue Network, when John Barrymore adapted the play into a
forty-five-minute piece, starring Elaine Barrie and Barrymore himself.
In August of the same year, CBS Radio aired a sixty-minute adaptation
directed by Brewster Mason, starring Frieda Inescort and Edward G.
Robinson. The adaptation was written by Gilbert Seldes, who employed a
narrator (Godfrey Tearle) to fill in gaps in the story, tell the
audience about the clothes worn by the characters and offer opinions
as to the direction of the plot. For example, Act 4, Scene 5 ends with
the narrator musing "We know that Katherina obeys her husband, but has
her spirit been really tamed I wonder?" In 1940, a thirty-minute
musical version of the play written by Joseph Gottlieb and Irvin
Graham aired on CBS as part of their 'Columbia Workshop' series,
starring Nan Sunderland and Carleton Young. In 1941, NBC Blue Network
aired a sixty-minute adaptation as part of their 'Great Plays' series,
written by Ranald MacDougall, directed by Charles Warburton, and
starring Grace Coppin and Herbert Rudley. In 1949, ABC Radio aired an
adaptation directed by Homer Fickett, starring Joyce Redman and
Burgess Meredith. In 1953, NBC broadcast William Dawkins' production
live from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The cast list for this
production has been lost, but it is known to have featured George
Peppard. In 1960, NBC aired a sixty-minute version adapted by Carl
Ritchie from Robert Loper's stage production for the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival, starring Ann Hackney and Gerard Larson.
Citations
===========
All references to 'The Taming of the Shrew', unless otherwise
specified, are taken from the Oxford Shakespeare (Oliver, 1982), which
is based on the 1623 First Folio. Under this referencing system,
1.2.51 means Act 1, Scene 2, line 51.
External links
======================================================================
*
* [
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1508 'The Taming of the Shrew'] -
at Project Gutenberg
*
* [
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/taming_shrew/index.html 'The Taming of
the Shrew'] - scene-indexed HTML version of the play
*
[
http://triggs.djvu.org/djvu-editions.com/SHAKESPEARE/TAMING/Download.pdf
'The Taming of the Shrew'] - PDF version, with original 'First Folio'
spelling
*
[
http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/TamingPaintings.html
'The Taming of the Shrew'] at Shakespeare Illustrated.
* (Sam Taylor's 1929 version)
* (Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 version)
* ('BBC Television Shakespeare's' 1980 version)
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew
