Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare in quarto The 1594 edition of The Taming of A Shrew is now generally thought of as a ‘bad’ quarto of Shakespeare’s play. It appears to be a memorial reconstruction by actors of The Taming of the Shrew, with assistance from an unknown writer, and was probably written in 1592. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew quotes from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, for which the earliest recorded performance is in 1592, although Kyd’s play was probably written between 1587 and 1590. Early performances There are virtually no records of performances of The Taming of the Shrew. Publication in quarto and folio The Taming of the Shrew appeared in two editions before 1642. First folio, 1623. The only quarto edition of The Taming of the Shrew was printed by William Stansby for the bookseller John Smethwick in 1631. British Library copies of The Taming of the Shrew contains detailed bibliographic descriptions of all the quarto copies of the play. Shakespeare’s sources Story of the play
Sparknotes Study Guide Summary: Induction I Outside an alehouse somewhere in the English countryside, a drunk beggar named Christopher Sly argues with the Hostess over some glassware he has broken in his inebriated clumsiness. While the Hostess leaves to find the local authorities, Sly passes out, and soon a lord returning from the hunt discovers him. This lord decides to have a bit of fun with the sleeping beggar and orders his servants to take Sly back to his house and treat him as if he were a lord—to put him in a bed, place rings on his fingers, set a banquet for him, and so on. His huntsmen agree that doing so would be an excellent jest, and they bear Sly offstage. A troupe of players arrives, seeking to offer the lord their services. Summary: Induction II Back at the house, the servants place Sly in the lord’s bed with fine clothes and jewelry, and the lord outfits himself as one of the servants. Analysis: Induction I–II The Induction is an unusual feature of this play.
As Shakespeare's players were the king's men, he The Taming of the Shrew: 'This is not a woman being crushed' | Stage A man acquires a rich but headstrong woman as his bride. At the wedding, he punches the priest and later refuses to attend the family party. He drags his bewildered wife through the mud to his country house, where he starves her, deprives her of sleep and contradicts every word she says. By the time they return to her father's home, the woman is meek and submissive. When you strip The Taming of the Shrew of its comic sub-plot, in which a bevy of lovers in disguise woo a beauty, and focus on the bare bones of the story of wildcat Katherine and her "tamer" Petruchio, Shakespeare's early play looks like a nasty piece of work. Over the past two decades, productions have divided into two camps. Hall doesn't think Shakespeare was being misogynistic in portraying female subjugation, but questioning the values of society. The other, less stomach-churning interpretation is that this is a curiously misunderstood love story.
Shmoop Study Guide The Taming of the Shrew is the story of how Petruchio, the money-grubbing wife hunter, transforms the aggressive and bad-tempered Katherine Minola into an obedient, honey-tongued trophy wife. Written by William Shakespeare between 1590 and 1594, it's one of Shakespeare's earliest Comedies – it's also one of his most controversial works. For modern audiences (let's face it, we're a lot more sensitive to social injustices), the play's critical controversy is perhaps second to that of The Merchant of Venice (Merchant of Venice is a play that portrays and analyzes blatant anti-Semitic attitudes and has sparked heated debate over its complex depiction of Shylock, the demonized Jewish villain that is forced to convert to Christianity at the play's end.) The Taming of the Shrew has been criticized for its representation of abusive behavior and misogynistic attitudes toward women, and the play has pretty much been dogged since it was first performed.
In Shakespeare's time, numerous events, The Taming of the Shrew Comparison of the nature's of Katherina and Bianca by TTOSfreak, September 12, 2013 Katherina and Bianca are like the north pole and south pole. They both have different characteristics and different natures. KATHERINA:- Katherina is Baptista Minola's eldest daughter. She is an intolerable, curst, ill favored and shrewd young lady. Petruchio's "Image" on how he arrives for the wedding [Act-3, Scene-2] by TTOSfreak, November 16, 2013 Petruchio is late for his wedding. Petruchio comes dressed up in a new hat, an old jerkin, a pair of old breeches (that were turned thrice), a pair of boots, with a broken hilt an chapless, and with two broken points.
Feminist Interpretation Erin Furstnau Shakespeare’s plays open themselves up to a world of interpretation. Whether in discourse, historical context, symbolism, or intentions to leave the audience in conflict with themselves, there is no dispute about his plays lending themselves to every reader’s response. My response to reading “The Taming of the Shrew” was a strange one. I understand that this play is meant to be one of Shakespeare’s comedies, and one of his most popular ones at that; however, there seemed to me to be an awkward seriousness in Petruchio’s treatment of Katherine that bordered on something darkly misogynistic rather than comedic. In that response, it seems as though I’m not alone. Pederson explains the parallels between The Taming and Pygmalion, but that one thing in particularly is drastically different--the “transformed” woman’s final speech. One such anxiety of man is the empowerment of women, thus to alleviate that, disempowerment must follow. Works Cited Bean, John C. Kahn, Coppelia.
The main version that Shakespeare had likely The Taming of the Shrew: Analysis of Major Characters Katherine Widely reputed throughout Padua to be a shrew, Katherine is foul-tempered and sharp-tongued at the start of the play. She constantly insults and degrades the men around her, and she is prone to wild displays of anger, during which she may physically attack whomever enrages her. Though most of the play’s characters simply believe Katherine to be inherently ill-tempered, it is certainly plausible to think that her unpleasant behavior stems from unhappiness. She may act like a shrew because she is miserable and desperate. Despite the humiliations and deprivations that Petruchio adds to her life, it is easy to understand why Katherine might succumb to marry a man like him. Petruchio The boastful, selfish, mercurial Petruchio is one of the most difficult characters in The Taming of the Shrew: his behavior is extremely difficult to decipher, and our interpretation of the play as a whole changes dramatically depending on how we interpret Petruchio’s actions. Lucentio