Research Guides: Taming of the Shrew, The: Articles

Articles

"Tell Thou the Tale": Shakespeare's Taming of Folktales in The Taming of the Shrew
William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew adapts two European folktales, "The Taming of the Shrew" (ATU 901) and "Lord for a Day" (ATU 1531). The playwright adapts these tales in order to negotiate his role as storyteller with the audience, alternately insisting on his right to innovate and deferring to the audience by allowing them to choose among multiple possible endings.
From Shrew to Subject: Petruchio's Humanist Education of Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew"
The success of humanist methodologies in the domestic sphere not only highlights their effectiveness as a mode of discipline and education, but also reveals humanism's fundamental lack of gendered priorities. [...] critics have produced an echo chamber, arguing that the play is either irredeemably misogynistic or emblematic of feminist subversion and resistance.4 I seek to argue that thinking of The Taming of the Shrew in the context of humanist education allows us to move away from retracing this cycle of subversion and resistance.
Holding a Mirror up to Nature? Adapting The Taming of the Shrew for Teenagers and Pedagogy
Next to The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew is probably one of the hardest plays to stage/film in the 21st century due to its misogynist content dressed up in the form of a comedy. Comparing how the recent production in the Stefan Jaracz Theatre (2007-2013), Łódź, Poland, and a Hollywood off-shoot 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) update the play’s gender wars for a specifically teenage audience will show how misguided the Polish production was compared to its Hollywood counterpart. The analysis of critical and audience responses to the two modernisations of the play will further illuminate the discrepancies between Shakespeare criticism, critical reception and audience readings, proving how continually problematic and controversial the play and its theatrical/cinematic incarnations may be.
The Taming of the Shrew and Anger
Frances Dolan has demonstrated that few Shakespeare comedies stage both the occurrence and intensity of physical violence to the degree that The Taming of the Shrew does. Analysis of this violence has usually focused on its effects rather than its source. Almost exclusively, anger is the cause. Admittedly it is sometimes feigned, as in Petruccio's case. But often it is not pretended but radical, as in the cases of not just Petruccio but Katherina and Grumio as well. The extremity and violence of their anger is remarkable, begging explanation. Anger is a complex phenomenon in The Shrew . In fact, Shakespeare, drawing upon Aristotle, Galen, Seneca, Bacon, and others, offers in this early comedy a veritable taxonomy of the affect.
“Pedant Needs More Paunch”: Reviving Robertson Davies’s Annotations from his Performance Copy of The Taming of the Shrew
Director Robertson Davies's 1949 production of The Taming of the Shrew with the Peterborough Little Theatre won the Louis Jouvet Trophy for best direction at the Dominion Drama Festival in Toronto, garnering critical praise as the DDF's first full-length Shakespearean play. Davies's performance copy for this production has recently been discovered in his personal book collection, donated to Queen's University's W. D. Jordan Special Collections and Music Library. Never previously examined or transcribed, this text incorporates director's notes and critiques, music cues, blocking, omissions, and alterations, offering invaluable insights into Davies's 1949 Elizabethan interpretation of this play.

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