The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1594.

The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a drunken tinker named Sly is tricked into thinking he is a nobleman by a mischievous Lord. The Lord has a play performed for Sly's amusement, set in Padua with a primary and sub-plot.

The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Katherina is an unwilling participant in the relationship, but Petruchio tempers her with various psychological torments – the "taming" – until she is an obedient bride. The sub-plot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's less intractable sister, Bianca.

The play's apparent misogynistic elements have become the subject of considerable controversy, particularly among modern audiences and readers. It has nevertheless been adapted numerous times for stage, screen, opera, and musical theatre; perhaps the most famous adaptations being Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate and the film 10 Things I Hate About You.

Characters

Major

• Katherina (Kate) Minola – the "shrew" of the title
• Bianca – sister of Katherina; the ingénue
• Baptista Minola – father of Katherina and Bianca
• Petruchio – suitor and later husband of Katherina
• Gremio – elderly suitor of Bianca
• Lucentio – suitor of Bianca
• Hortensio – suitor of Bianca and friend to Petruchio

Minor

• Grumio – servant of Petruchio
• Tranio – servant of Lucentio
• Biondello – servant of Lucentio
• Vincentio – father of Lucentio
• A Widow
• A Pedant
• A Haberdasher

• A Tailor
• Curtis – servant of Petruchio
• Nathaniel – servant of Petruchio
• Joseph – servant of Petruchio
• Peter – servant of Petruchio
• An Officer
• Servants

In the Induction:

• Christopher Sly – a drunken tinker
• A Lord
• Bartholomew – A page
• Hostess of an alehouse

• Huntsman of the Lord
• 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.

In the play performed for Sly, the "Shrew" is Katherina Minola, the eldest daughter of Baptista Minola, a Lord in Padua. Katherina's temper is notorious, and extremely volatile, and it is thought that no man can control her, and no man would ever wish to marry her. Her younger sister, Bianca however, is nubile and much sought after by the nobles. Baptista has sworn not to allow his younger daughter to marry before Katherina is wed, much to the despair of her suitors, Hortensio and Gremio, who agree that they will work together to marry off Katherina so that they will be free to compete for Bianca.

The plot becomes considerably more complex when two strangers, Petruchio and Lucentio, arrive in town (although not together). Lucentio, the son of the great Vincentio of Pisa, instantly falls in love with Bianca. Petruchio, for his part, seems interested only in money and fine jewels.

When Baptista mentions that the only men who will be permitted to attend Bianca are tutors, Hortensio disguises himself as a music tutor named Litio, and Lucentio disguises himself as Cambio, a tutor of philosophy. Gremio then encounters Lucentio, and presents him to Baptista, whilst Hortensio convinces Petruchio to present him to Baptista. Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio, pretending to be teachers, attempt to woo Bianca behind her father's back.

Meanwhile, Petruchio is told by Hortensio about the large dowry that would come with marrying Katherina. He attempts to woo the violent Katherina, calling her "Kate," and quickly settles on the dowry, marries her in a farcical ceremony during which, amongst other things, he strikes the priest, and takes her home against her will. Once there, he begins the "taming" of his new wife – he keeps her from sleeping by blowing a trumpet, invents reasons as to why she cannot eat, and buys her beautiful clothes only to rip them up with a crudely forged bread knife. When Katherina, profoundly shaken by her experiences, is told that they are to return to Padua for Bianca's wedding to Lucentio (actually Lucentio's servant Tranio in disguise), she is only too happy to comply. By the time they arrive however, Katherina's taming is complete and she is either unable or unwilling to resist Petruchio. She demonstrates her complete subordination to his will by agreeing that she will regard the moon as the sun, and the sun as the moon.

Meanwhile Bianca marries the real Lucentio, after the Lucentio/Tranio subterfuge is exposed, and Hortensio, realizing he has no hope of winning Bianca, marries a rich widow. During the banquet, Petruchio brags that his wife, formerly untameable, is now completely obedient. Baptista, Hortensio, and Lucentio are incredulous and the latter two believe that their wives are more obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager in which each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever wife comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband.

Katherina is the only one of the three who responds, winning for Petruchio the wager. At the end of the play, after the other two wives have been summoned, Katherina gives them a soundly-reasoned speech on the subject of why wives should always obey their husbands. The play ends with Baptista, Hortensio and Lucentio marvelling at how Petruchio has thoroughly tamed the shrew.

Sources

Although there is no direct literary source for the Induction, the tale of a tinker being duped into thinking he is a lord is a universal one found in many literary traditions. For example, a similar tale is recorded in Arabian Nights, and in De Rebus Burgundicis by the Dutch historian Pontus de Heuiter. However, Arabian Nights was not translated into English until the mid 18th century, and De Rebus Burgundicis until 1607, so neither could have served Shakespeare as a specific source. Instead, it is likely that he simply adapted the popular tradition, fashioning it to fit his own story.

Something similar is the case with regard to the Petruchio/Katherina story. The basic elements of the narrative are present in the 14th-century Castilian tale by Don Juan Manuel of the "young man who married a very strong and fiery woman". Again however, there is no evidence that Shakespeare directly used this text during the composition of The Shrew. Indeed, as with the Induction plot, the story of a headstrong woman tamed by a man was a universal and well known one, found in numerous traditions. For example, according to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Noah’s wife was just such an individual (""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). Historically another such woman is Xanthippe, Socrates' wife, who is mentioned by Petruchio himself. Such characters also occur throughout medieval literature, in popular farces both before and during Shakespeare' life, and in folklore. In 1964, Richard Hosley conjectured that the literary source for the Petruchio/Katherina story could have been the anonymous ballad A Merry Jest of a Shrewde and Curste Wyfe, Lapped in Morrell's Skin, for Her Good Behavyour. The ballad tells the story of a headstrong woman who is frustrated because her father seems to love her sister more than her. Due to her obstinacy, the father marries her to a man who vows to tame her, despite her objections. The man takes her to his house, and begins the taming. Ultimately, the couple return to the father's house, where she lectures her sister on the merits of being an obedient wife. However, the 'taming' in this version is much more physical than in Shakespeare; the shrew is beaten with birch rods until she bleeds, and is also wrapped in the flesh of a plough horse (the Morrell of the title) which was killed specially for the occasion. Furthermore, due to the lack of verbal parallels usually found when Shakespeare used a specific source, most critics do not accept Hosley's argument, and ultimately, Hosley himself admitted that he may have overstated the case.

Unlike the Induction and the main plot however, there is a recognised source for Shakespeare's sub-plot; Ludovico Ariosto's I Suppositi (1551), which Shakespeare used either directly or through George Gascoigne's English translation Supposes (performed in 1566, 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 servant 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 pedant into pretending to be Erostrato's father, Philogano (Vincentio), and to guarantee the dower. However, Polynesta is found to be pregnant with Erostrato’s child, but everyone thinks it is Dulipo's, and Damon has Dulipo imprisoned. Soon after, the real Philogano arrives, and all comes to a head. Erostrato reveals himself, and begs clemency for Dulipo. At this point, Damon realises that Polynesta truly is in love with Erostrato, and so forgives the subterfuge. Having been released from jail, Dulipo then discovers that he is Cleander's long lost son. There is no counterpart to Hortensio in the original story, although an important character named Pasiphilo has no counterpart in Shakespeare's adaptation.

Date and text

The play's date of composition and genesis cannot be easily discerned, due to its uncertain relationship with another Elizabethan play with an almost identical plot but different wording and character names, entitled The Taming of a Shrew, which is often theorized to be a reported text of a performance of The Shrew. If this is accepted, than The Shrew must have been written prior to the first mention of A Shrew (which is May 2, 1594, when it was entered on the Stationers' Register). As such, most scholars place the date of composition of The Shrew as somewhere between 1590 and 1594.

In his 1982 edition of the play for the Oxford Shakespeare however, H.J. Oliver gives a more specific date of composition: 1592. When the London theatres were closed in January 1593 due to an outbreak of plague, the acting company Pembroke's Men went on tour to Bath and Ludlow. The tour was a financial failure, and the company returned to London on September 28, financially ruined. Over the course of 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 concludes that these four plays were sold by members of Pembroke's Men who were broke after the failed tour. As such, if they began their tour in January 1593, and one accepts that A Shrew is a reported version of The Shrew, the assumption is that The Shrew must have been in their possession when they began their tour, 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 or during the tour itself. As such, Oliver believes, The Shrew must have been written prior to January 1593, most likely in mid to late 1592, and it was one of the performances during the Bath/Ludlow tour which gave rise to A Shrew.

The 1594 quarto was published under the full title A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew. It was republished in 1596, and again in 1607. The Shrew was not published until the First Folio of 1623. The only quarto version of The Shrew was printed by William Stansby for the bookseller John Smethwick in 1631 as A Wittie and Pleasant comedie called The Taming of the Shrew. This quarto text was based on the 1623 folio text.

Analysis and criticism

The Taming of the Shrew has been the subject of much analytical and critical controversy, often relating to a feminist view of the play in general, and Katherina's final speech in particular, as offensively misogynistic and patriarchal. Others have defended the play by highlighting the (frequently unstaged) Induction as evidence that the play's sentiments are not meant to be taken at face value, that the entire play is, in fact, a farce. Despite this argument being hundreds of years old, however, no critical consensus has been reached as to the true intentions of the play.

Critical history

Authorship and The Taming of a Shrew

Throughout the years, critics have debated the issue of the play's authorship. The existence of A Shrew, which appeared in 1594, has led to an examination of authenticity regarding The Shrew. As Karl P. Wentersdorf points out, A Shrew and The Shrew have "similar plot lines and parallel though differently named characters." As such, there are four main theories as to the relationship between The Shrew and A Shrew:

1. Shakespeare used A Shrew as a source for The Shrew; ie Shakespeare didn't write A Shrew. This is the least critically accepted theory.
2. A Shrew is a reconstructed version of The Shrew; ie a bad quarto of The Shrew, an attempt by actors to reconstruct the original play from memory and sell it. This is the most critically accepted theory.
3. Both versions were written legitimately by Shakespeare himself, although there is debate within this scenario, as to which version came first.
4. The two plays are unrelated other than the fact that they are both based on another play which is now lost. This is the so-called 'Ur-Shrew' theory (in reference to Ur-Hamlet). Most scholars don't take this theory seriously.

As Ann Barton says, A Shrew is "now generally believed to be either a pirated and inaccurate version of Shakespeare's comedy or else a "bad quarto" of a different play, now lost, which also served Shakespeare as a source." Leah S. Marcus also addresses this issue in her 1991 article "Levelling Shakespeare: Local Customs and Local Texts." Discussing the prevailing bad quarto theory, Marcus suggests that A Shrew is not a transcription of a performance of The Shrew, but is in fact an earlier version of The Shrew; that is to say, Shakespeare himself authored both works. However, she notes that many critics have rejected the idea of A Shrew being a work of Shakespeare's, subscribing instead to the bad quarto theory. She states that the reason for this, apart from the many differences in the text, and some extremely sloppy writing in A Shrew, is "because it identifies the acting company with an audience of lowlifes like Sly". Marcus writes that this is seen by editors as out of character for Shakespeare and is therefore an indication that he did not write A Shrew. Wentersdorf also discusses the idea that Shakespeare penned both plays, and that A Shrew may have been either an early version of The Shrew written before it, or an abridged version written after it. Both theories would explain the differences between the two versions. Christopher Sly, for instance, has a greater role in A Shrew, but departs prematurely from The Shrew at the end of Act 1, Scene 1. Wentersdorf admits, though, that his theory is based primarily on speculation, and there is no real way of knowing for certain why Sly disappeared from The Shrew.

Other critics in the 20th century, such as Mikhail M. Morozov, have maintained that Shakespeare may not have been entirely original in his writing of the play (whether The Shrew or A Shrew), suggesting that the ideas found in the story were those of another author. Kenneth Muir, for his part, believes that Shakespeare had a laissez-faire attitude to borrowing content from other authors in general, and he cites The Shrew as an instance of this.

Although the exact relationship between The Shrew and A Shrew remains somewhat uncertain, and without complete critical consensus, there is now a tentative agreement amongst most critics that The Shrew is the original. This theory dates back to 1850, when, in a series of articles for the magazine Notes and Queries, Samuel Hickson compared the texts of The Shrew and A Shrew, concluding that The Shrew was the original, and A Shrew was derived from it, not the other way around, as had often been assumed up to that point (with many critics arguing that Shakespeare had used A Shrew as his inspiration for The Shrew). Building on Hickson's research, in 1926 Peter Alexander suggested the bad quarto theory, and this theory has generally (although not universally) been accepted ever since. Textual analysis has shown that the two plays are definitely related, and that one is almost certainly a 'copy' of the other. With this in mind, the main reason for assuming The Shrew came first, as H.J. Oliver explains, is "those passages in A Shrew which have shown to have been the distinguishing feature of the Bad Quartos, and that make sense only if one knows the The Shrew version from which they must have been derived"; ie parts of A Shrew simply don't make sense on their own without recourse to The Shrew.

If A Shrew did originate in the Pembroke's Men tour of 1593, whoever transcribed it forgot large portions of the text, and left many gaps in the logic of the story. This kind of omission is typical of the bad quartos in general. However, A Shrew is not simply a bad quarto in the traditional sense, as there is much more originality in it than in the other bad quartos (such as Romeo and Juliet for example). Character names are changed, plot points are altered (Kate has two sisters for example, not one), Sly continues to comment on events throughout the play, and entire speeches are completely different (lines from other plays are also found in A Shrew, especially from Marlowe), all of which suggests that the author/reporter of A Shrew thought he (or she) was working on something different to Shakespeare's play, not simply transcribing it. Nevertheless, despite the unusual amount of differences, the bad quarto theory is still the most accepted one, and to explain the differences between The Shrew and A Shrew, Oliver hypothesizes that perhaps not enough material could be remembered in and of itself, so the reporter/transcriber was forced to improvise and add original material to flesh out the plot.

Hortensio problem

Another aspect of the authorship question concerns the character of Hortensio. Oliver argues that the version of the play in the 1623 First Folio was most likely taken not from a prompt book, but from the author's own foul papers, which he argues bear signs of edits, primarily related to the character of Hortensio. This is significant because some critics argue 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 (as Litio), many of Hortensio's original lines were either omitted or given to Tranio (disguised as Lucentio). This theory was first suggested by P.A. Daniel in his 1879 book A Time Analysis of the Plots of Shakespeare's Plays. He cites Act 2, Scene 1, where Hortensio is omitted from the scene where Tranio (as Lucentio) and Gremio bid for Bianca, despite the fact that everyone knows Hortensio is also a suitor. Daniel argues that Hortensio's absence suggests that Shakespeare forgot to change this part of the play after making Hortensio a suitor in a later draft. Another such omission is found in Act 3, Scene 1, where Lucentio, disguised as Cambio, tells Bianca that "we might beguile the old Pantalowne", saying nothing of Hortensio's attempts to woo her, and implying his only rival is Gremio. Additionally, in Act 3, Scene 2, Tranio is briefly presented as an old friend of Petruchio, who knows his mannerisms and explains his tardiness prior to the wedding, a role which, up until now, had been performed by Hortensio. Daniel argues that this is suggestive of the theory that some of Hortensio's original lines were transferred to Tranio because Hortensio was now occupied elsewhere in disguise as Litio. Another problem occurs in Act 4, Scene 3, where Hortensio tells Vincentio that Lucentio has married Bianca. However, as far as Hortensio should be concerned, Lucentio has denounced Bianca (in Act 4, Scene 2, Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) agreed with Hortensio that neither of them would pursue Bianca, because she obviously loved Cambio), and as such, his knowledge of the marriage of who he supposes to be Lucentio and Bianca makes no sense, and again seems to suggest some careless editing on Shakespeare's part. Daniel (and many critics since, such as G.I. Duthie for example) believe 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, expanding Hortensio's role, but not fully correcting everything to fit the presence of a new suitor.

The reason this is important is because it is believed that it is the original version of The Shrew upon which A Shrew was based; not the version which appears in the 1623 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." This means that when Pembroke's Men left London in January 1593, they had in their possession a now lost version of the play. Upon returning to London, some of them had published A Shrew in 1594, some time after which Shakespeare rewrote his original play. If one accepts this theory, it accounts for some of the differences between the two texts. It also means that in the early 1590s there were three versions of the same play in circulation: Shakespeare's original The Shrew, Shakespeare's edited The Shrew, and the reported A Shrew. It is also important insofar as it implies that A Shrew is both a reported text and an early draft. Traditionally, critics have tended to look on the relationship between the texts as an either-or situation; A Shrew is either a reported text or a first draft. Recently however, the possibility that a text could be both has shown to be critically viable. For example, in his Oxford Shakespeare edition of Henry VI, Part 2, Roger Warren makes the same argument for The First Part of the Contention. Similarly, in relation to The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, Randall Martin reaches the same conclusion in his Oxford Shakespeare edition of Henry VI, Part 3. This lends support to the theory that A Shrew could be both a reported text and an early draft.

Controversy

The history of the analysis of The Taming of the Shrew is saturated with controversy almost from its inception, something Stevie Davies summarises when he writes, response to The Shrew "is 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." The play seems to be a harshly misogynistic celebration of patriarchy and female submission, and as such, it has generated heated debates about its 'true' meaning.

But if the play is accused of misogyny today, does that mean it was well received by all in Shakespeare’s time, based on the prevailing societal oppression of women and a mostly male theatre audience? No, as not all critics agree with this theory. Oliver, for example, believes that Shakespeare created the Induction so as the audience wouldn't react badly to the inherent misogyny in the Petruchio/Katherina story; he was in effect defending himself against charges of sexism. Dana Aspinall also suggests that an Elizabethan audience would have been similarly taken aback by the play's harsh, misogynistic language; "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." She further explains that "arranged marriages began to give way to newer, more romantically informed experiments," and thus people's views on women’s' position in society, and their relationships with men, were in the process of shifting at the time of the play, so audiences may not have been as predisposed to enjoy the harsh treatment of Katherina as is often thought.

Evidence of at least some initial societal discomfort with The Shrew is found in a contemporary, alternate ending which has Christopher Sly being "[thrashed] by his wife for dreaming here tonight" at the end of the play, suggesting that there was a market for an audience who were comfortable with the women 'winning'. More evidence is found in the fact that John Fletcher, a contemporary of Shakespeare, felt the need to respond to the play with one of his own. He wrote The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed as a quasi-sequel to The Shrew, telling the story of Petruchio's remarriage after Katherina's death. In a mirror of the original, his new wife attempts (successfully) to tame Petruchio – thus the tamer becomes the tamed. Although Fletcher's sequel is often downplayed as merely a farcical mockery of The Shrew, some critics acknowledge the more serious implications of such a reaction. Linda 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."

As women achieved a more equal social status due to the feminist movements of the twentieth century, reactions to the play changed, with society's new and progressive views on gender impacting upon the critical approach to The Shrew; "In short, Kate's taming was no longer as funny as it had been for some readers and spectators; her domination became, in Shaw's words "altogether disgusting to modern sensibility"."

Induction

Critics have argued about the 'meaning' of the Induction for many years. According to 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 that the three plots "are all linked in idea because all contain discussion of the relations of the sexes in marriage." Oliver disagrees with this assessment however, arguing that "the Sly Induction does not so much announce the theme of the enclosed stories as establish their tone."

This point becomes important in terms of determining the seriousness of Katherina's final speech. Oliver argues that the Induction is used to remove the audience from the world of the enclosed plot – to place the ontological sphere of the Sly story on the same level of reality as the audience, and to place the ontological sphere of the Katherina/Petruchio story on a different level of reality, where it will seem less real, more distant from the reality of the viewing public. This, he argues, is done so as to ensure the audience does not take the play literally, that it sees it as a farce; "The drunken tinker may be believed in as one believes in any realistically presented character; but we cannot 'believe' in something that is not even mildly interesting to him. The play within the play has been presented only after all the preliminaries have encouraged us to take it as a farce [...] 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." If one accepts this theory, then the Induction becomes vital to interpretation, as it serves to undermine any questions of the seriousness of Katherina's closing sentiments. As such, if the Induction is left out of a production of the play (as it almost always is), a fundamental part of the inherent structure of the whole has been removed. If one agrees with Oliver, not only does the Induction prove that Katherina's speech is not to be taken seriously, it removes even the need to ask the question of its seriousness in the first place. In this sense then, the Induction has a vital role to play in the controversy of the play, especially as it relates to misogyny, as, if Oliver's argument is accepted, it serves to undercut any charges of misogyny before they can even be formulated – the play is a farce, and that is all it is, it is not to be taken seriously by the audience, so questions of seriousness simply don't come into play.

Language

The usage of language is a major theme in the play. Katherina is described as a shrew because of her sharp tongue and harsh language to those around her, often causing offence. For example, Act 1, Scene 1, 61–65:

Iwis it is not halfway to her heart.

But if it were, doubt not her care should be

To comb your noodle with a three-legged stool,

And paint your face and use you like a fool.

Petruchio, for his part, attempts to tame her – and thus her language – with rhetoric that specifically undermines her tempestuous nature. In Act 2, Scene 1, 169–179 for example, he vows

Say that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain

She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.

Say that she frown, I'll say that she looks as clear

As morning roses newly washed with dew.

Say she be mute and will not speak a word,

Then I'll commend her volubility

And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.

If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,

As though she bid me stay by her a week.

If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day

When I shall ask the banns, and when be marri'd.

Apart from undermining her language, Petruchio also uses language to objectify her. This is perhaps seen most clearly in Act 3, Scene 2, 231–234, where Petruchio explains to all present that Katherina is now literally his property:

I will be master of what is mine own.

She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,

My household stuff, my field, my barn,

My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.

Tita French Baumlin also discusses Petruchio's objectification of Katherina, emphasizing the role of his rhetoric in his taming machinations, and using his puns on her name as an example. By referring to Katherina as a "cake" and a "cat" (2.1.185–195), he objectifies her in a more subtle manner than the above quotation. A further notable aspect of Petruchio's taming rhetoric is the repeated comparison of Katherina to animals. In particular, Petruchio is prone to comparing her to a hawk (2.1.8 and 4.1.188–211), often adhering to an overarching hunting metaphor ("My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,/And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged"). Katherina, however, appropriates this method herself, leading to a trading of insults rife with animal imagery, such as in Act 2, Scene 1 (l.194ff.), where she compares Petruchio to a turtle and a crab. Language itself has thus become a battleground, with Petruchio seemingly emerging as the victor. The final blow is dealt towards the end of the play, in Act 4, Scene 5, when Katherina is made to switch the words moon and sun, and she acknowledges that she will agree with whatever Petruchio says no matter how absurd:

And be it the moon, or sun, or what you please;

And if you please to call it a rush-candle,

Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me

...

Sun it is not, when you say it is not,

And the moon changes even as your mind:

What you will have it named, even that it is,

And so it shall be so for Katherine.

From this point, Katherina's language drastically 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.

Petruchio's rhetoric is not reserved solely for Katherina, however. By denying that she is a shrew to others, such as to Baptista in Act 2, Scene 1 (ll.290–298), he effectively changes her reputation. The Katherina of the past (her reputation) is changed as well as the Katherina of the present (her actual self). Katherina's reputation as a shrew is a result of her language and the public perception of her, and Petruchio uses rhetoric to change both.

The important role of language however, is not confined to Petruchio and Katherina. For example, Joel Fineman suggests that the play draws a distinction between male and female language, and further subcategorizes the latter into good and bad, epitomized 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, then switching into blank verse and adopting 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 we are now in an entirely different milieu. Another important use of language occurs in relation to the Pedant. When he is speaking as himself, his dialogue has a strong metre, but when he impersonates Vincentio, the metre suddenly begins to limp, thus suggesting he is having difficulty playing this new role. It is examples such as this which illustrate that subtle modulations in a character's speech can in fact have profound implications for that character.

Themes

Cruelty

Some critics, such as Marvin Bennet Krims, believe that cruelty permeates the entire play, including the Induction, and is therefore a major theme. The Sly frame, with the Lord's spiteful practical joke, is seen to prepare the audience for a play willing to treat cruelty as a comedic matter. A modern audience may find the cruel actions of the main characters comical, but should they consider the situation in reality, they would very likely be appalled. While Katherina displays physical cruelty on stage – in the tying together of her sister's hands, the beating of Hortensio with his lute, and the striking of Petruchio – Petruchio utilizes cruelty as a psychological weapon; he purposely misunderstands, dismisses, and humiliates Katherina, while all the time attempting to project his own wishes onto her. Krims believes such treatment makes Katherina's final speech seem a forced camouflage of pain as well as a final humiliation. He believes that cruelty is a more important theme than the more often debated controversy surrounding gender as the play portrays a broad representation of human cruelty rather than merely cruelty between the sexes.

Female submissiveness

In productions of the play, it is often a director's interpretation of Katherina's final speech that defines the tone of the entire production, such is the importance of this speech and what it says, or implies, about female submission. Many critics have taken the final scene literally, such as G.I. Duthie, who argues that "what Shakespeare emphasizes here is the foolishness of trying to destroy order." In a modern society, with relatively egalitarian perspectives on gender, the staging of Shakespeare's original text thus presents a moral dilemma. Two methods are most commonly employed when attempting to perform The Shrew while still remaining faithful to the text. The first is to emphasise the play's farcical elements, such as Sly and the metatheatrical nature of the Katherina/Petruchio play, thus suggesting that what happens is not to be taken in any way seriously. The second strategy is to steep the play "in irony, such as Columbia Pictures' 1929 Taming of the Shrew where Kate winks as she advocates a woman's submission to her husband."

Critically, four distinct theories have emerged as regards interpretation of the final speech;

1. Katherina's speech is sincere and Petruchio has successfully tamed her (this is how it is presented in the 1983 BBC Shakespeare adaptation for example).
2. Katherina's speech is ironic, she is not being sincere in her statements, but sarcastic, pretending to have been tamed when in reality, she has completely duped Petruchio (this is how the final scene is staged in the 1967 Franco Zeffirelli adaptation).
3. Katherina's speech cannot be taken seriously due to the farcical nature of what has preceded it (this theory emphasises the importance of the Induction).
4. Katherina's speech both satirises gender roles, and also emphasises the social need for wives to be obedient to their husbands.

If one accepts the theory that the speech is sincere, then the final scene must be interpreted literally. As such, the final speech appears to indicate that Katherina willingly accepts her newly submissive role and both comments upon and agrees with the social and physical differences between a husband and wife, emphasising that the role of a wife is to support and obey a husband in all things. Phyllis Rackin, for example, argues that the speech is an emphasis of contemporary Elizabethan social norms. Rackin also sees the language of the speech as politically and sociologically rationalizing the submission of wives to husbands. Some critics believe that as the speech (and, of course, the play) was written by a man, performed by a man, and viewed by a predominantly male audience, what is represented in the speech is the patriarchal ideal of female compliance. Some even view the language of the speech as a completely sincere change of heart; John C. Bean writes that Katherina has been "liberated into the bonds of love" and highlights the speech's mentions of women's warmth and beauty rather than their stereotypical sinfulness.

On the other hand, some critics detect irony at play in the final speech. They view the physical description of women as evidence of a more farcical intention when considered alongside both the historical context of the Elizabethan theatre in which female characters are always played by prepubescent boys, and the Induction in which Sly is attracted to the Lord's page disguised as his wife; thus Shakespeare is satirizing gender roles. Harold Bloom, for example, reads Katherina's final speech as ironic, proposing that she is explaining that in reality women control men by appearing to obey them.

The third school of thought, that the play is a farce, is based upon attributing a great deal of importance to the Induction. Oliver, for example, argues that in the speech, there is no clear evidence of either seriousness nor irony, but instead "this lecture by Kate on the wife's duty to submit is the only fitting climax to the farce – and for that very reason it cannot logically be taken seriously, orthodox though the views expressed may be [...] attempting to take the last scene as a continuation of the realistic portrayal of character leads some modern producers to have it played as a kind of private joke between Petruchio and Kate – or even have Petruchio imply that by now he is thoroughly ashamed of himself. It does not, cannot, work. The play has changed key: it has modulated back from something like realistic social comedy to the other, 'broader' kind of entertainment that was foretold by the Induction."

The fourth theory claims that the speech simultaneously belittles women while also explaining the essential and central place of women in relationship with men. The play manages to both lampoon chauvinistic behaviour while simultaneously reaffirming its social validity; it celebrates the quick wit and fiery spirit of its heroine even while revelling in her humiliation.

Nevertheless, despite the formulation of these theories, and others, there is little critical consensus as to the inherent 'meaning' behind Katherina's speech.

Gender relations

One thing that critics do seem to agree on is that gender relations are a hugely important part of the play. Emily Detmer, for example, explains that "rebellious women" were a point of concern for men during the late 16th and early 17th century and thus the presentation of the issue of gender relations, and therefore domestic violence, comes as little surprise. Petruchio's treatment of Katherina may well have the effect of making the domination of one's wife seem tolerable, as long as physical force is not used. The psychological cruelty may be intended to be seen as a more civil way to dominate one's wife, though to a modern audience at least it is viewed as an equally oppressive form of physical abuse.

In the sixteenth century it was permissible for men to beat their wives. Rebellious women were a concern for Englishmen because they posed a threat to the patriarchal model of a good household upon which Elizabethan society was built. Some see The Shrew as innovative because, although it does promote male dominance, it does not condone violence towards women per se; the "play's attitude was characteristically Elizabethan and was expressed more humanly by Shakespeare than by some of his sources." However, although Petruchio never strikes Katherina, he does threaten to, and he also uses other tactics to physically tame her and thus exert his superiority. Many critics, including Detmer, see this as a modern take on perpetuating male authority and "legitimizing domination as long as it is not physical." George Bernard Shaw was of a similar mind, condemning the play in a letter to Pall Mall Gazette as "one vile insult to womanhood and manhood from the first word to the last."

Although Petruchio is not characterized as a violent man, he still embodies the subjugation and objectification of women during the 16th century as manifested in many stories of this nature; "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". Other critics, such as Natasha Korda, believe that even though Petruchio does not use force to tame Katherina, his actions are still an active endorsement of patriarchy; Petruchio makes Katherina his property. Two examples present themselves while Katherina and Petruchio are still courting. First, Petruchio offers to marry Katherina and save her from an impending spinsterhood because she has a large dowry. In Elizabethan society, a woman of age was expected to become a wife. Second, Katherina is objectified when they are first introduced; Petruchio wishes to physically judge Katherina and asks her to walk for his observation. Subsequently, he announces that he is pleased with her "princely gait" and that she has passed the 'test'. Indeed, the objectification of Katherina isn't only carried out by Petruchio. For example, Tranio refers to her as "a commodity" (2.1.330).

Male perception of women is also addressed, albeit through a comedic situation, in the Induction, as the Lord explains to his serving man how to believably act like a woman, (Induction, I.110–21):

With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy

And say, 'What is't your honour will command

Wherein your lady and your humble wife

May show her duty and make known her love?

And then, with kind embranchments, tempting kisses,

And with declining head into his bosom,

Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed

To see her noble lord restored to health,

Who for this seven years hast esteem'ed him

No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.

And if the boy have not a woman's gift

To rain a shower of commanded tears...

This represents the Lord's view of how a woman ought to behave; she should be courteous, humble, loyal, and obedient. He also believes that females are emotional – crying is a "woman's gift". The Induction thus acts as suitable preparation for Katherina's character and her disgust for such stereotyping as well as her rebellion against Elizabethan society's gender values.

Money

The theme of money permeates throughout the entire play, but is especially noticeable in the early stages of the story. Of particular importance is not so much money per se, but the motivation money can give to men. For example, 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). Later, Petruchio's confirms that Hortensio was right in this assertion (1.2.65–71);

If thou know

one rich enough to be Petruchio's wife-

As wealth is burden of my wooing dance-

Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,

As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd

As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,

She moves me not.

Grumio is even more explicit a few lines later; "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 urged on in his wooing of Katherina by Gremio, Tranio (as Lucentio) and Hortensio, all of whom vow to pay him if he wins her, on top of Baptista's sizable dowry ("After my death, the one half of my lands, and in possession, twenty thousand crowns"). Later, Petruchio corrects Baptista when he speculates that love is all important (2.1.27–29);

BAPTISTA

When the special thing is well obtained,

That is, her love; for that is all in all.


PETRUCHIO

Why that is nothing.

Similarly, 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).

Petruchio's decision to marry is based almost wholly on his desire to accrue money; he vows to marry Katherina knowing next to nothing about her, other than the fact that she is a shrew and comes with a sizable dowry. As such, Katherina's dowry is enough to convince Petruchio to marry her; similarly Tranio's (as Lucentio) dower is enough to convince Baptista that Bianca should marry him. Marriage is treated like a business transaction, something which involves great sums of money 'behind the scenes', and is often looked on as a father selling a "commodity" to a suitor. Lucentio and Bianca are the only characters in the play who seem motivated by genuine love, yet even they are only given permission to marry after Vincentio confirms that his family is in fact rich.

Performance

The earliest known performance of the play is recorded in Philip Henslowe's Diary on June 13, 1594, as The Tamynge of A Shrowe at the Newington Butts Theatre. This could have been either A Shrew or The Shrew, but as the Admiral's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were sharing the theatre at the time, and as such Shakespeare himself would have been there, scholars tend to assume that it was The Shrew. The canonical Shakespearean version was definitely performed at court before King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria on November 26, 1633, where it was described as being "liked".

That the play was successful in Shakespeare's day is evidenced by the existence of The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, John Fletcher's pseudo-sequel, perhaps written around 1611. Additionally, the title page of the 1631 quarto states that the play had been acted by the King's Men both at the Globe and Blackfriars, and as the King's Men had only began performing at Blackfriars since 1610, it suggests that the play was still popular enough to be performed at that stage; at least sixteen years after its debut.

In the later half of the 17th century however, performances of The Taming of the Shrew greatly decreased compared to many of Shakespeare's other plays, and when performed the play was often an adaptation of Shakespeare's original. In the 18th century, however, there was a revival of the original text. According to Aspinall, "as the 18th century demanded a greater realism and a more authentic Shakespeare, both on stage and in print, a newfound admiration for Petruchio accumulated rapidly."

After over 200 years of adaptations, Shakespeare's original text returned to the stage in 1844 in a Benjamin Webster production, under the direction of J.R. Planché, with Louisa Cranstoun Nisbett as Katherina. In this production, the Induction was included in full, with Sly remaining at the front of the stage after Act 1, Scene 1, and slowly falling asleep over the course of the play. At the end, as the final curtain falls, the Lord's attendents came and carried Sly off-stage. Major productions then took place in 1847 and 1856, both directed by Samuel Phelps. Phelps left Sly on stage until the end of Act 1, having him carried off between Acts. Additionally, Phelps cut much of Katherina's final speech in both productions.

In the United States, Shakespeare's original play returned to the stage in 1887, under the direction of Augustin Daly, with Ada Rehan as Katherina. This production was hugely successful and ran for over 120 performances. However, as with Phelps, this was not the pure Shakespearian text. Daly reorganised Act 4 so that Act 4, Scene 2 comes before Act 4, Scene 1, and Act 4, Scene 4 precedes Act 4, Scene 3. Some of Katherina's final speech was also cut.

Lily Brayton was a noted Katherina in the Edwardian era, playing the part in a number of productions, sometimes opposite her husband Oscar Asche, and in the 1907 Oxford University Dramatic Society production opposite Gervais Rentoul. In 1913, Martin Harvey staged another major production, as did William Bridges Adams in 1919, where the Induction was completely omitted. In 1923, Max Reinhart included the Induction and concentrated on the farcical nature of the play, presenting it as a type of Commedia dell'arte. Barry Jackson also kept the Induction in his 1928 production at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1931, Harcourt Williams used the conclusion of A Shrew (in which, after the Petruchio/Katherina story is finished, the Lord returns the now sleeping Sly to the inn where he was found, and who, upon waking up, announces he has had a dream in which he has learned how to tame his own wife). The longest running Broadway production was the 1935 Theatre Guild staging with Alfred Lunt (who also directed) and Lynn Fontanne, which ran for 129 performances.

Famous later 20th century productions include the Hilton Edwards' 1959 production at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, starring Milo O'Shea and Anna Manahan; Trevor Nunn's 1969 Royal Shakespeare Company production at the Aldwych Theatre, starring Michael Williams and Janet Suzman; William Ball's 1976 Commedia dell'arte-style staging at the American Conservatory Theater; William Leach's 1978 production at the Delacorte Theater, starring Raúl Juliá and Meryl Streep; Barry Kyle's 1982 RSC production at the Barbican Centre, starring Alun Armstrong and Sinéad Cusack; Jonathan Miller's 1987 RSC production starring Brian Cox and Fiona Shaw; A.J. Antoon's 1990 production at the New York Shakespeare Festival, starring Morgan Freeman and Tracey Ullman, which was set in the old west; Delia Taylor's 1999 production at the Clark Street Playhouse, which featured an all female cast, with Diane Manning as Petruchio and Elizabeth Perotti as Katherina; Phyllida Lloyd's 2003 production at the Globe, again with an all female cast, starring Janet McTeer as Petruchio and Kathryn Hunter as Katherina; and Edward Hall's 2006 production at the Courtyard Theatre, featuring an all-male cast, with Dugald Bruce Lockhart as Petruchio and Simon Scardifield as Katherina.

Two especially well known productions are Michael Bogdanov's 1978 RSC production at the Aldwych, starring Jonathan Pryce and Paola Dionisotti and Gale Edwards's 1995 production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, starring Michael Siberry and Josie Lawrence. In the Bogdanov production, after the house lights go down, nothing happens on stage for a moment. Then, a commotion rises from within the audience. The house lights go on, and a member of the audience (Pryce) is seen to be in altercation with an usherette. After pushing the usherette to the ground, the man then clamoured onto the stage, and began to smash parts of the set before being restrained by actors and theatre staff, striped and thrown into a bath. The subsequent play is then presented as his dream, with Pryce doubling as Petruchio. At several performances of the play, audience members were duped into thinking the fight between the man and the usherette was real, and several times, other audience members attempted to intervene in the conflict.

In Edwards' production, the play opens with a woman (Lawrence) dressed in rags trying to get her drunk husband (Siberry) to come home. He refuses, and falls asleep outside the tavern. His wife leaves, whereupon the Lord and the hunting party enter. The 'play within the play' is then presented as Sly's dream, and as such, the main plot is set in a surreal landscape, with Siberry and Lawrence doubling as Petruchio and Katherina. The Shakespeare text is cut at the end of Katherina's speech (which is not delivered seriously, and by which time Petruchio has become bowed with shame). At this point, the play returns back to the Induction setting. Sly has been deeply moved by his dream, and the play ends with him condemning the subjugation of women and embracing his wife.

Adaptations

Plays

The first known adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew was entitled The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, a sequel and reply written by John Fletcher around 1611. In Fletcher's play, the recently-widowed Petruchio is remarried to a bride who "tames" him with the help of her friends, driving him from his house and refusing to consummate their marriage until he promises to respect her and endeavours to satisfy her. When the two plays were revived together in 1633, Fletcher's play proved more popular than Shakespeare's. This is evidenced by the fact that on November 28, Fletcher's play was performed for King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. Two nights previously, the Shakespearian text had been performed and was "liked," but Fletcher's was "very well liked."

In the 1660s, The Shrew was adapted by John Lacy, an actor for Thomas Killigrew's King's Company, to make it better match with Fletcher's sequel. Originally performed under the title The Taming of a Shrew, it was published in 1698 as Sauny the Scot: or, The Taming of the Shrew: A Comedy. This version somewhat inconsistently anglicized the character names and recast the play in prose. Most significantly, Lacy expanded the part of Grumio into the title role Sauny (who speaks in a heavy Scottish brogue), which he played himself. Sauny is an irreverent, cynical companion to Petruchio, comically terrified of his master's new bride. Lucentio becomes Winlove, who has travelled from Warwickshire to London to study. Baptista becomes Lord Beaufoy. Petruchio is much more vicious in this version, threatening to whip Katherina if she doesn't marry him, then telling everyone she is dead, and tying her to a bier. The play ends with her thoroughly tamed, and with a dance. The Induction was also removed. Lacy's work premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1667. Samuel Pepys saw Lacy's adaptation on April 9, 1667 and again on November 1, enjoying it on both occasions. The play was popular enough that it was still being performed as late as 1732, when it was staged at Goodman's Fields Theatre.

Another adaptation was Christopher Bullock's Cobbler of Preston, which was staged at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1715, and which concentrated on the Induction and omitted entirely the Petruchio/Katherina story.

The most successful adaptation was David Garrick's Catharine and Petruchio, which was introduced in 1754 and dominated the stage for almost two centuries, with Shakespeare's play not returning until 1844 in England and 1887 in the United States, although Garrick's version was still being performed as late as 1879, when Herbert Beerbohm Tree staged it. In Garrick's version, the subplot is entirely omitted, Bianca is married to Hortensio when the play opens. Consequently, it is not a full length play, and was often performed with Garrick's shorter version of The Winter's Tale. Much of Shakespeare's dialogue is reproduced verbatim. Much of the plot is also similar; Petruchio vows to marry Catharine before he has even seen her, she smashes a lute over the music tutor's head, Baptista fears no one will ever want to marry her; the wedding scene is identical, as is the scene where Grumio teases her with food; the haberdasher and tailor scene is very similar; the sun and moon conversation, and the introduction of Vincentio are both taken from Shakespeare. At the end, however, there is no wager. Catharine makes her speech to Bianca, and Petruchio tells her,

Kiss me Kate, and since thou art become

So prudent, kind, and dutiful a Wife,

Petruchio here shall doff the lordly Husband;

An honest Mark, which I throw off with Pleasure.

Far hence all Rudeness, Wilfulness, and Noise,

And be our future Lives one gentle Stream

Of mutual Love, Compliance and Regard.

The play ends with Catharine stating that she is unworthy of Petruchio's love. Garrick's play was a huge success, and major productions took place in the United States in 1754 (with Hannah Pritchard as Catharine), in 1788 (with Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble), in 1810 (again with Kemble and his real life wife, Priscilla Hopkins Brereton), and in 1842 (with William Charles Macready as Petruchio).

A more recent adaptation is Charles Marowitz' acclaimed 1975 production The Shrew, which was performed at The Studio in the Sidney Opera House. Refashioned as a gothic tale, the adaptation removed all the comedy, and instead concentrated on examining the themes of sadism and brain washing. Petruchio was played by Stuart Campbell as a savage and vicious misogynist, who rapes and beats Katherina (Elaine Hudson), ultimately driving her mad. At the end of the play, as Katherina delivers her speech, she does so as if she has learned it, without any emotion or inflection. In this version, the happy ending of Shakespeare's play thus takes on a disturbing irony. Due to the extreme nature of the performance, the play divided critics, but those who did enjoy it celebrated it as a genuinely original and relevant treatment of a difficult Shakespeare text.

Another recent adaptation came in 2008, when Laurentian University professor Dr. Ian Maclennan wrote The Squaddies Shrew. In this version, the play is set within an army barracks, performed by 6 males as soldiers or "Squaddies", with the cast playing the roles of multiple characters throughout the play.

Opera

The earliest operatic adaptation of the play was James Worsdale's ballad opera A Cure for a Scold, which was performed at Drury Lane in 1735, and was itself an adaptation of Lacy's Sauny the Scot. Lucentio becomes Gainlove, Petruchio is Manly, Katherina becomes Margaret (nicknamed Peg) and Baptista is Sir William Worthy. At the end, there is no wager. Instead, Peg pretends she is dying, and as Petruchio runs for a doctor, Peg reveals that she is fine, and that she has been tamed.

Another operatic version came in 1828, when Frederic Reynolds adapted Garrick's Catherine and Petruchio. Starring Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, the play was staged at Drury Lane, but it was not successful, and closed after only a few performances.

In 1874, Hermann Goetz created Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung, a comic opera first performed at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in Germany. The libretto was by Joseph Widmann and Goetz, and the opera featured Eduard Schlosser as Petruchio (baritone) and Ottilie Ottiker as Katherina (soprano).

Another operatic adaptation was in 1927, a verismo opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, called Sly, or The Legend of the Sleeper Awoken, with a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. First performed at La Scala in Milan, the opera starred Aureliano Pertile as Petruchio (tenor) and Mercedes Llopart as Katherina (soprano).

In 1953, Vittorio Giannini adapted the play into an opera buffa, with a libretto by Giannini and Dorothy Fee.

Musicals

The earliest musical adaptation of the play was Charles Johnson's 1716 Cobbler of Preston, which was performed at Drury Lane, and which concentrated on the Induction, omitting entirely the Petruchio/Katherina story.

The most famous musical adaptation is Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate (1948). Porter wrote the music and lyrics. The book was written by Samuel and Bella Spewack. The musical opened on Broadway at the New Century Theatre, where it ran for nineteen months before transferring to the Shubert Theatre and running for a total of 1,077 performances. Directed by John C. Wilson with choreography by Hanya Holm, it starred Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison. As well as being a box office hit, the musical was also a critical success, winning five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Author. Since its debut, it has been revived twice: in 1999 at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway (which won five Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical), and in 2007 at the Teatro delle Celebrazioni in Bologna, Italy. Both the original Broadway production and the 1999 revival also played the West End: at the Coliseum Theatre (1951) and at the Victoria Palace Theatre (2001).

Another musical adaptation is the ballet by John Cranko (1969), which played at Staatstheater Stuttgart. Performed by the Stuttgart Ballet, with music by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, it was directed by Bernard Kontarsky, and starred Richard Cragun and Marcia Haydee.

Film

The Taming of the Shrew has been adapted for cinema many times. The earliest known adaptation is the eleven-minute 1908 silent version directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Arthur V. Johnson and Florence Lawrence. The next production was the twelve-minute 1911 silent version directed by F.R. Benson, and starring Benson himself and his wife Constance Benson. A filmed extract from Benson's Shakespeare Memorial Theatre production, the film presented a short pantomime version of the play, with pieces of Shakespeare's original text used as intertitles throughout. This film is now believed lost. Another silent version made in 1911 was the French production La mégère approvoisée, directed by Henri Desfontaines and starring Romauld Joubé and Cécile Didier. A 1913 Italian version, La bisbetica domata, was directed by Arrigo Frusta and starred Eleuterio Rodolfi and Gigetta Morano (La bisbetica domata was also the name under which the 1967 Franco Zeffirelli version would be released in Italy). Another adaptation took place in 1915. The scene where Petruchio and Katherina first meet was shot using a primitive sound process known as Voxograph, where the actors spoke the complete text during filming. Then, when the film was played at the theatre, "the same actors, one at each side of the screen but unseen, repeated the words in what was supposed to be synchronisation. It was expected that the operator, after rehearsal, would be able to project the film so that picture and voice would jibe."

The first American cinematic adaptation of the play was the 1915 film The Iron Strain (released in the UK in 1917 under the title The Modern Taming of the Shrew). Written by C. Gardner Sullivan and directed by Reginald Barker, the film tells of the love affair between high society girl Octavia van Ness (Enid Markey) and the loutish Chuck Hemingway (Dustin Farnum). Octavia lives in New York with her grandfather (Charles K. French), a retired mining entrepreneur, but fearing that she is not getting enough real life experience, he sends her to Alaska. There she meets Hemingway, a man unconcerned with social niceties. She instantly dislikes him, but he decides he is going to woo her, simply because it seems impossible he would be able to do so. Octavia believes Hemingway is her social inferior and will not have anything to do with him. But with the grandfather's blessing, Hemingway kidnaps and forcibly marries Octavia. They maintain a chaste relationship with Octavia reluctantly keeping house for Hemingway, until he becomes attracted to cabaret star Kitty Molloy (Louise Glaum). Octavia finds herself becoming jealous and realises that she loved him all along. She successfully woos him away from Kitty, and at the end of the film, it is revealed that he is actually a wealthy prospector and very much of her class. The film features no intertitles from the play text, although it is credited as being based on Shakespeare's play.

Another loose silent American adaptation came in 1919, under the title Impossible Catherine. Written by Frank S. Beresford and directed by John B. O'Brien, the film tells the story of John Henry Jackson (William B. Davidson) and Catherine Kimberly (Virginia Pearson). Catherine is the daughter of a wealthy banker but she is much too wild for him to control. At a Yale University dinner, she meets Jackson, who, having just read The Taming of the Shrew, decides that he can tame her. Imprisoning her on his airplane, she eventually agrees to marry him, and which point he abducts her and takes her to a remote log cabin where he imposes domestic duties on her. Distraught at her situation, Catherine hires a local man to attack Jackson so she can escape, but the man is a friend of Jackson's and instead he starts to beat Catherine. At this point, Jackson comes to her aid, and is wounded when saving her. Upon realising he put himself at risk for her, Catherine realises she has fallen in love with him, and they happily return to the cabin together.

The next significant film version was the twenty two-minute silent version made in 1923. Directed by Edwin J. Collins, adapted by Eliot Stannard, and starring Lauderdale Maitland and Dacia Deane, it was one of a series of forty-minute adaptations of classic texts released under the banner Gems of Literature.

The first sound version on film is the sixty eight-minute 1929 adaptation starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, with "additional dialogue by Sam Taylor" (who also directed). This version was originally shot as a silent film, with all the dialogue and sound effects added to the film at a later stage. This version of the film is primarily known for how Pickford delivers Katherina's last speech. As she moves though the litany of reasons why a woman should obey her husband, she faces the camera and winks toward Bianca (Dorothea Jordan), unseen by Petruchio. Bianca smiles in silent communication with Katherina, thus acknowledging that Katherina has not been tamed at all.

The 1967 film adaptation directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is the most widely seen version of the play. This version omits the Induction, and heavily cuts the Bianca subplot, spending much more time with Petruchio and Katherina. Dialogue is cut from every scene of the play, and lines are moved from one scene to another throughout. Some dialogue is also changed (for example, Katherina's "Is it your will to make a stale of me amongst these mates?" is changed to "Is it your will to make a whore of me amongst these mates?"). The bidding scene from Act 2, Scene 1 is almost entirely absent, as is the whole of Act 3, Scene 1.

The next significant film version of the play was in 2004, when Roberto Lione wrote and directed an animated version of the play called Kate-La bisbetica domata. Featuring the voices of Neri Marcore and Daniela Cavallini, the film used standard animation techniques, as well as stop motion and crude crayon drawings. In the film, Petruchio is ruined by gambling and plans to get out of debt by marrying a rich woman – Kate, the daughter of a successful industrialist (Carlo Reali). Kate however is a fiercely independent woman and doesn't tolerate any kind of masculine posturing. Nevertheless, she agrees to court Petruchio as she is curious to see how things turn out. After a stormy courtship (which makes up the majority of the film), Kate finally decides to marry Petruchio. However, prior to their wedding, she has to protect him from the Mafia boss, Don Sarago (Pino Ammendola), to whom he owes money. Upon her successful completion of this task, Petruchio realises that he has found a good woman, and he vows to be obedient to her for the rest of their lives.

There have been many international adaptations of the play throughout the 20th century. For example, the 1942 Italian adaptation La bisbetica domata, directed by Ferdinando Maria Poggioli; the 1943 Hungarian adaptation Makacs Kata, directed by Viktor Bánky; the 1956 Spanish adaptation La fiercilla domada, directed by Antonio Román; the 1961 Russian adaptation Ukroshchenie stroptivoy, directed by Sergei Kolosov; the 1962 Egyptian adaptation Ah min hawaa, directed by Fatin Abdel Wahab; and the 1980 Italian comedy Il Bisbetico Domato, directed by Franco Castellano and Giuseppe Moccia.

Other film versions (which are loose adaptations as opposed to straight translations from stage to screen) include: the 1933 You Made Me Love You, written by Frank Launder and directed by Monty Banks; the 1938 Second Best Bed, written by Ben Travers and directed by Tom Walls; the 1963 western McLintock!, written by James Edward Grant, directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara; the 1999 teen movie 10 Things I Hate About You, written by Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz, directed by Gil Junger and starring Julia Stiles as Katherina (Kat Stratford) and Heath Ledger as Petruchio (Patrick Verona); and the 2003 comedy Deliver Us from Eva, written by James Iver Mattson and B.E. Brauner and directed by Gary Hardwick.

Television

The earliest screening of the play is often thought to have been broadcast on BBC 1 in 1939, directed by Dallas Bower and starring Austin Trevor and Margaretta Scott. However, this was an adaptation of Garrick's Catherine and Petruchio, not Shakespeare's original text.

The first television performance of the Shakespearean text was broadcast in the United States on CBS in 1950 as part of the Westinghouse Studio One series. A heavily edited sixty-minute performance, written by Worthington Miner and directed by Paul Nickell, it starred Charlton Heston and Lisa Kirk. A BBC 1 adaptation was screened in 1952 as part of the BBC Sunday-Night Theatre series, directed by Desmond Davis and starring Stanley Baker and Margaret Johnston. In 1956, another American adaptation aired as part of NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame series. Adapted by Agnes Nixon and directed by George Schaefer, starring Maurice Evans (who also produced) and Lilli Palmer. This particular adaptation was heavily influenced by the commedia dell'arte tradition, with a bare stage featuring clowns carrying props as required, whilst the first meeting of Katherina and Petruchio takes plays in a boxing ring. Also in America in 1976, PBS broadcast a videotaped version of William Ball's 1976 stage production for their Great Performances series starring Marc Singer and Fredi Olster. This production was also set against a commedia dell'arte backdrop. In 1982, CBC broadcast Peter Dews's production from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. Directed for television by Norman Campbell, it starred Len Cariou and Sharry Flett.

1980, the BBC produced a version of the play for their BBC Shakespeare series, directed by Jonathan Miller and starring John Cleese and Sarah Badel. In this adaptation, the induction and all subsequent references to Sly are absent, but apart from that, it is almost word-for-word the 1623 First Folio text. Minor differences include; the omission of Tranio's "Well said, master. Mum, and gaze your fill" (1.1.74) and Gremio's "A proper stripling and an amorous" (1.2.141). Additionally, much of the conversation between Grumio and Curtis at the start of Act 4, Scene 1 is absent, as is the brief conversation between Biondello and Lucentio which opens Act 5, Scene 1. Perhaps most significantly, Act 5, Scene 2 ends differently to the play. The last line spoken is Petruchio's "We three are married, but you two are sped;" thus omitting Petruchio's comment to Lucentio "'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white,/And being a winner, God give you good night," as well as Hortensio's line, "Now go thy ways, thou has tamed a curst shrew," and Lucentio's closing statement, "'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so." Additionally, Petruchio and Katherina do not leave the banquet prior to the end of the play, but remain, and engage in a song with all present.

In 1982, the play inaugurated the Channel 4 series Shakespeare Lives!, where it was used as the basis of a two-part National Theatre workshop run by Michael Bogdanov, and starring Daniel Massey and Suzanne Bertish. The main theme of the workshop was whether or not the play demeans women, or simply depicts how they are demeaned.

In 1986, the television series Moonlighting produced an episode entitled " Atomic Shakespeare", written by Ron Osborn and Jeff Reno (with a writing credit for William 'Budd' Shakespeare), and directed by Will Mackenzie. The episode recast the show's main characters in a self-referential comedic parody of The Taming of the Shrew. The episode opens with a boy who is annoyed that he has to read The Shrew for his homework, rather than watching his favourite programme, Moonlighting itself. He goes to his room and begins reading, and the episode then takes place in his mind as he imagines the members of the cast of Moonlighting in an adaptation of the play itself (Bruce Willis plays Petruchio, Cybill Shepherd plays Katherina).

In 1994, the Shakespeare: The Animated Tales series screened a version of the play which adapted the end of A Shrew to round out the Induction, but it also added a new element. After Sly announces he now knows how to tame a shrew, he proudly walks back into the tavern to confront the hostess, but almost immediately, he is flung back out, in exactly the same way as the episode began. Directed by Aida Ziablikova and adapted from Shakespeare by Leon Garfield, it was voiced by Nigel Le Vaillant and Amanda Root.

The 2000 Brazilian soap opera O Cravo e a Rosa was also based on the play (this title means "The Carnation and the Rose" and comes from a children's song about a couple of engaged flowers who had a serious "fight" – which, in Portuguese, may mean either an awful argument or some physical confrontation).

In 2002, the television series One on One produced an episode entitled " Tame me, I’m a Shrew". Written by Kenny Buford and directed by Dana De Vally Piazza the episode depicts the main character, Breanna (Kyla Pratt) getting the leading part in a school performance of The Taming Of The Shrew. Upon finding Shakespeare's language difficult and out of date however, she decides to liven it up into a rap version. However, she allows her ego to get the better of her, and unconsciously attempts to take over the production from the director, who ultimately fires her, and hires her best friend for the role instead.

In 2005, BBC One broadcast an adaptation for the ShakespeaRe-Told series, written by Sally Wainwright and directed by Dave Richards, which set the story in modern-day Britain, with Katherine (played by Shirley Henderson) as an abrasive career politician who is told she must find a husband as a public relations exercise. Meanwhile, her sister Bianca (Jaime Murray) has fallen in love with Lucentio (Santiago Cabrera) and wants to marry him, but Bianca's manager (Simon Chandler) has fallen in love with her and he wants to marry her. As such, to put him off, Bianca announces that she will not marry until her sister is married (as she believes Katherine will never marry). As such, the manager arranges a meeting between his friend Petruchio Rufus Sewell and Katherine. The manager bets Petruchio that he will not be able to woo Katherine, so, determined to prove him wrong, Petruchio sets out to win her over. Rufus Sewell received a BAFTA nomination for his performance. Katherine's climactic speech is triggered when Bianca is surprised and annoyed that Lucentio refuses to sign a pre-nuptial agreement. This version still has Katherine stating it is a woman's duty to love and obey her husband, but with the requirement that he do precisely the same for her.

In 2009, ABC Family adapted the play for a new television situation comedy entitled 10 Things I Hate About You, stretching out and modernizing the plot of the 1999 movie. It starred Lindsey Shaw as Kat Stratford, Meaghan Jette Martin as Bianca Stratford, Larry Miller as Dr. Walter Stratford (reprising his role from the 1999 movie) and Ethan Peck as Patrick Verona. 10 episodes were produced for the first season. The show is not currently in production but is awaiting news on a second season.

There have also been numerous international adaptations over the years. For example, the 1961 French adaptation La mégère approvoisée, directed by Pierre Badel, which aired on TF1; the 1971 Polish adaptation Poskromienie Zlosnicy, directed by Zygmunt Hubner, which aired on TVP1; the 1974 German adaptation Der widerspenstigen zähmung, directed by Otto Schenk, which aired on Das Erste; the 1975 Dutch adaptation De getemde feeks, directed by Robert Lussac and Senne Rouffaer, which aired on KRO; another Dutch production, from 1990, under the same name, directed by Berend Boudewijn and Dirk Tanghe, which also aired on KRO; and the 1993 Polish adaptation Poskromienie zlosnicy, directed by Jerzy Stuhr and Stanislaw Zajaczkowski, which aired on TVP1.

Radio

The play has been adapted for radio many times, especially in the early 20th century. In 1924, extracts were broadcast on BBC Radio 1, 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 William Charles Macready and Edna Godfrey-Turner, and in 1926 as part of Shakespeare's Heroines, with Edmund Willard and Madge Titheradge. In 1927, a forty three-minute truncated version of the play written by Dulcima Glasby was broadcast on Radio 1, with Barbara Couper and Ian Fleming. Another Glasby adaptation aired in 1932 on BBC National Programme, this time running eighty five-minutes, and again starring Couper. Petruchio was played by Franics James. In 1935, a Peter Creswell adaptation aired on National Programme, under the title The Witty and pleasant conceited Comedy called The Taming of the Shrew, starring Godfrey Tearle and Mary Hinton. Another Creswell adaptation aired on BBC Home Service in 1941, again with Tearle, and with Katherina played by Fay Compton. In 1947, BBC Light Programme aired an episode of their Theatre Programme which featured an analysis of the play by Ralph Richardson and scenes recorded from John Burrell's Edinburgh Festival production starring Trevor Howard and Patricia Burke. In 1954, a full-length version of the play aired on BBC Home Service, directed and adapted for radio by Peter Watts, and starring Joseph O'Connor and Mary Wimbush. BBC Radio 4 aired another full length broadcast in 1973 as part of their Monday Night Theatre series, directed by Ian Cotterell and starring Paul Daneman and Fenella Fielding In 1989, BBC Radio 3 aired an adaptation of the play directed by Jeremy Mortimer and starring Bob Peck and Cheryl Campbell. In 2000, Radio 4 aired another full-length production as part of their Shakespeare for the New Millennium series, directed by Melanie Harris and starring Gerard McSorley and Ruth Mitchell.

In America, the first major radio production was in 1937 on NBC Radio, when John Barrymore adapted the play into a forty five-minute piece, starring Barrymore himself and Elaine Barrie. Another 1937 adaptation was a sixty-minute piece by Gilbert Seldes, with Edward G. Robinson and Frieda Inescort, which aired on CBS Radio. 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, with Carleton Young and Nan Sunderland. In 1941, NBC Blue aired a sixty-minute adaptation of the play as part of their Great Plays series, written by Ranald MacDougall and directed by Charles Warburton, starring Herbert Rudley and Grace Coppin. ABC Radio aired an adaptation in 1949, directed by Homer Fickett and starring Burgess Meredith and Joyce Redman. In 1953, NBC broadcast an adaptation of the play by Philip Hanson, based on William Dawkins' production for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Andrew C. Love, the cast list has been lost, but it is known that George Peppard appeared in the play, probably as Petruchio, although that cannot be categorically determined. In 1960, NBC Red aired a sixty-minute version adapted by Carl Ritchie from Robert Loper's stage production for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, starring Gerard Larson and Ann Hackney.

References

Notes

1. Juan Manuel, Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio, Exemplo XXXVº – De lo que contesçió a un mançebo que casó con una muger muy fuerte et muy brava.
2. Hosley (1964: 289–308)
3. Complete Text of A Merry Jest
4. Halliday (1964: 181, 483)
5. Oliver (1982: 31–33) (From this point forward, The Taming of a Shrew will be referred to as A Shrew; The Taming of the Shrew as The Shrew)
6. Evans (1974: 106)
7. Oliver (1982: 31–33)
8. Oliver (1982: 14)
9. Wentersdorf (1978: 202)
10. Barton (1974: 106)
11. Marcus (1991: 172)
12. Wentersdorf (1978: 214)
13. Makaryk (1982: 286)
14. Muir (2005: 28)
15. Oliver (1982: 19)
16. Oliver (1982: 3–9)
17. Oliver (1982: 27)
18. Davies (1995: 26)
19. Aspinall (2001: 3)
20. Aspinall (2001: 12)
21. Bate & Rasmussen (2007: 527)
22. Boose (1991: 179)
23. Aspinall (2001: 30)
24. Oliver (1982: 3–9)
25. Bullough (1975: 58)
26. Oliver (1982: 39)
27. Oliver (1982: 40–42)
28. Baumlin (1989: 237–257)
29. Fineman (2004: 399–416)
30. Krims (2006: 51–59)
31. Duthie (1951: 59)
32. Rackin (2005)
33. Bean (1980: 65–78)
34. Oliver (1982: 57)
35. Detmer (1997: 273)
36. Detmer (1997: 247)
37. Detmer (1997: 275)
38. West (1974: 65)
39. Detmer (1997: 274)
40. The letter, dated June 8, 1888, is reproduced in full in Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works, a Critical Biography (Montana: Kessinger, 2004), 196
41. Detmer (1997: 110)
42. Bawcutt (1996: 185)
43. Oliver (1982: 64)
44. Aspinall (2001: 26)
45. Halliday (1964: 483–84)
46. Oliver (1982:70)
47. Oliver (1982: 71)
48. Miller (1998: 52)
49. Miller (1998: 53–55)
50. Dobson (1995: 23)
51. Oliver (1982: 66)
52. All information regarding Catharine and Petruchio is taken from Oliver (1982: 67–70)
53. Thompson (2003: 24)
54. Laurentian University English Department
55. Oliver (1982: 70)
56. Michael Brooke, 'ScreenOnline: The Taming of the Shrew On Screen'
57. Robert Hamilton Ball. Shakespeare on Silent Film: A Strange Eventful History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1968), 359
58. British Universities Film & Video Council
59. Michael Brooke, 'ScreenOnline: The Taming of the Shrew (1923)'
60. Kenneth S. Rothwell, 'The Age of Sound' (2002)
61. Unless otherwise noted, all information in this section comes from the British Universities Film and Video Council

Editions of The Taming of the Shrew

Secondary Sources

External links

• The Taming of the Shrew – plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg.
• The Taming of the Shrew – searchable, indexed e-text.
• The Taming of the Shrew – scene-indexed, searchable version of the play.
• The Taming of the Shrew – HTML version, with original First Folio spelling.
• The Taming of the Shrew Navigator – includes searchable HTML text with notes, line numbers and scene summaries.
• The Taming of the Shrew Home Page at Internet Shakespeare Editions.
• Important Quotations from The Taming of the Shrew Analyzed by Medha Patel-Schwarz.
• The Textual Problem of The Taming of the Shrew.
• "Petruchio's Horse: Equine and Household Mismanagement in The Taming of the Shrew", by Peter F. Heaney; Early Modern Literary Studies 4:1 (May, 1998), 1–12.
• ""Caparisoned like the horse": Tongue and Tail in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew", by LaRue Love Sloan; Early Modern Literary Studies, 10:2 (September, 2004), 1–24.
• (Franco Zeffirelli Version).
• (BBC Television Shakespeare Version).