Karla Nielson as Katherina: and Thomas Fiscella as Petruchio
In the 1997 Texas Shakespeare Festival production of Taming of the Shrew
Performed: June 19 through July 14
http://www.under.org/tsf/welcome.htm
Karla Nielson as Katherina: and Thomas Fiscella as Petruchio
In the 1997 Texas Shakespeare Festival production of Taming of the Shrew
Performed: June 19 through July 14
http://www.under.org/tsf/welcome.htm
By - William
Shakespeare
Publishing Info: Found within The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd Edition, Gen. Ed. G. Glaemore Evans (Harvard) Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 138-175.
Genre: -Drama/ Comedy
Sub-genre: - Anti Feminist Literature
Nationality: -British
Time Period: -16th Century
First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick -1977 at ENC // Jan. 2003
Rated: A+-
Location: -Dr. Rearik's Office, home, and the mainframe
(although I have several editions with this play both at home and the
office not to mention several copies of the play by itself)
Used for: Introduction to Literature
PowerPoint
on the Characters and Elements of Taming of the Shrew
Favorite
and /or Revealing Shakesperian Quotes from Taming of the Shrew
Comments: I saw this play performed for the first time at the Boston Playhouse while attending ENC. The actors used contemporary costume which surprised me since in some ways what occurs on the stage is so alien to contemporary thought. The fact is, however, that in spite of the extreme difference between moderns and Elizabethans beliefs about gender roles, the battle of the sexes is still a relevant point, and the witty banter and action of this play is still very funny to modern audiences.
This is the comedy in which Shakespeare examines the relationships between the sexes. A point which I try to emphasize is that for ages women have been forced to submit to men. One can argue all sorts of reasons from this fact from the oppression of a patriarchal society to God's will. (Personally I lean toward the first.)
However, either way this fact has meant that women have been forced to obey their husbands' desires. But it is also clear in literature that women have never liked it. Why is it clear? Because as far back as literature goes many women have been depicted as "shrews." In fact this has occurred so often that the "shrewish wife" is a "type" character--that is one which appears so consistently in different works that its nature is quickly recognized by a viewing audience or a book's readers.. Authors use such characters, counting on their immediate recognition. Another famous example of a shrew is Chaucer's Wife of Bath. Back to Shakespeare another character "type" found in the "Taming of the Shrew" is the pantaloon, a silly old man in love with a young woman, who makes himself ridiculous because in his pursuit he seems blind to his own obvious lack of appeal.
Back to the shrew. It strikes me that if this angry, rebellious, unhappy, female character has been so well known that it developed into a character "type," it suggests a history of oppressed women who found that the only way they could get any satisfaction of their own will winthin marraige was to wage war with their husbands.
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Shakespeare's Katherina
& Bianca: Bad/Good Woman and Good/Bad Woman
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From 
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Taming
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Archive of the Bard's plays features the Folio text of this comedic
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Presents an overview of this lively comedy, a play synopsis, points
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Taming of the Shrew
Comedy about fidelity, acting, and deception involving Lucentio, Petruchio,
Bianca, and Gremio.
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Taming of the Shrew and the Limits of Theoretical Criticism by Paul
Yachnin examines theoretical positions on this Shakespeare play.
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Thinks the movie would
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The modern student should remember that "The Taming of the Shrew" is an example of a tradition sometimes called "antifeminist" literature. This kind of writing illustrates the difficulties which occur when women rebel from their "ordained" place in society--which is always subservient to the men in their lives--and try to attain dominance in their lives. Of course since all of such literature that I know of was written by men, such strong female characters (often admired by present day women) are always shown to be in the wrong. Another example of such a character studied in my Introduction to Literature class is the Wife of Bath who reveals in her prologue and her tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales her unlawful desire for dominance. Even by Chaucer's day such a shrewish woman was a recognizable "type." The Riverside Shakespeare's introduction to the play describes the long shrewish tradition first in drama and then the general narrative fiction which are the basis for Katharina, heroine of this play:
It should be remembered, however, that great literature does not follow social norms; it challenges them. Chaucer's Wife of Bath while similar in her nature to the tradition of shrewish wives is far too well developed a human being to be pigeonholed. And in fact instead of being negative and being put in her place as tradition would have expected, Chaucer portrays his wife in a manner so that she comes off quite positively. Shakespeare does the same.It should be remembered, however, that great literature does not follow social norms; it challenges them. Chaucer's Wife of Bath while similar in her nature to the tradition of shrewish wives is far too well developed a human being to be pigeonholed. And in fact instead of being negative and being put in her place as tradition would have expected, Chaucer portrays his wife in a manner so that she comes off quite positively. Shakespeare does the same.Shrewish wives in English drama can trace their descent from Mrs. Noah in the mystery plays, that indomitable scold who would not leave her 'gossips' and get into the ark at her husband's bidding even though the whole world was drowning in the Flood. Intractable, violent, and sharp-tongued wives, some of them fond of cuckolding their husbands as well as merely ordering them about, represented a comic type in Tudor interludes and farces. Roman comedy had also dealt with the termagant wife, Elizabethan dramatists who adopted plays from Plautus and Terence found it easy to graft the classical shrew onto her native counterpart. Meanwhile, outside the theatre, there was no decline in that venerable and even more extensive tradition of shrew literature which Chaucer had contributed to, as well as the more humble compilers of jest-books or of ballads like "A Merry Jest of a Shrewd and Curst Wife--Lappe in Morel's Skin for Her Good Behavior" (c1550). . .the approved remedy for a domineering wife was physical violence, the more ingenious and excruciating the better. (138)
Shakespeare's Response to His Society:
The standard method described in much of the above literature was to beat the offending wife, or, as The Riverside puts it, to "pulverize the woman's will as well, as in most cases, her body" (198). Shakespeare does not accept this response. He seems to recognize that treating one's wife leaves her destroyed and with her the entire marriage. His shrew tamer, Petruchio, is a rough and ready guy but he is not an abuser--especially not in the lights of his own time.
One of the remarks I often hear in Christian circles are references
to "the good old days."
The Encyclopaedia Britannica notes
Often played as a boisterous farce, this play is actually a comedy
of character, with implications
beyond the obvious story of the title. Shakespeare arouses more interest
in Petruchio and
Katharina than farce permits. They gain, for example, by contrast with
the tepid, silly, or infatuated
lovers (Bianca, Lucentio, Hortensio, and Gremio), and their relationship
is given an admirable
vitality.
This page last updated
Jan.
20, 2003