I just completed studying my fifth Shakespeare play: The Taming of the Shrew. It's also the second comedy of Shakespeare’s that I have studied, after A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I studied last month.
While this is the first time I have studied it, I first heard the title more than half a century ago when I was still in middle school. Then, a namesake film premiered in 1967, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, became a sensation and was released in markets across the world, including my country. I didn’t actually go to the movie, but Taylor and Burton were such phenomenal actors, and the title sounded so "special" to me (though I didn't really understand words like "controversial" and "misogynistic" back then), that I have remembered it to this day. What I didn’t know, though, was that it was adapted from a Shakespeare play, so I had an indescribable sense of nostalgia throughout my study of this comedy over the past few weeks.
Apart from the sexism allegation it has been famously associated with, I love this play as much as I love A Midsummer Night's Dream, if not more.
To start with, I was immediately attracted by its structure of a "play within a play", which was something I had heard of but never experienced before. In the so-called frame play, the scene is set at a tavern near London (Shakespeare's hometown), with the hostess arguing with the lowly drunkard Sly, who will soon fall asleep and be carried to a nearby manor, where a lord and his servants fool Sly by making him believe that he were the lord of the manor. Subsequently, the main play follows: The Taming of the Shrew, performed in honor of "Lord Sly" by a touring troupe staying at the manor that night. Its scene is set in Italy, including Padua and Verona, with Pisa, Mantua, Venice, and Florence mentioned in passing.
Honestly, had I gone to the movie without knowing these impersonation schemes in advance, I would have been puzzled at the cinema, though laughter and amusement would have been guaranteed as well. Perhaps I should find some time now to watch the 1967 film with Taylor and Burton.
Elsewhere, there is no shortage of impressive narratives in the play, as is always the case with Shakespeare's works. In the induction, I was most impressed by the plot designed by the lord to fool the poor drunkard Sly, involving not just himself but also his three servants, the pageboy, and the entire troupe that will perform the main play. In my view, the lord would have made a great director had he lived in modern society.
Then, I was much amused by the dialogue between the "lady" impersonated by the pageboy and "her lord", Sly, in seemingly simple language yet rich with funny innuendos.
As the play proper unfolds, I was equally amuzed by what Hortensio (as musician Licio) describes of his tutoring Katherine: he is hit by her with a lute that literally breaks, with his head sticking out of it, as if he were cuffed in a pillory. Meanwhile, Katherine keeps swearing at him with more than 20 curse words, as if she had been prepared for it.
Next up, I was totally lost in the witty words and puns exchanged between Katherina, the shrew, and Petruchio, her would-be husband. The narratives come out of their mouths, back and forth, so eloquently and so richly embedded with sarcasm and cultural implications that I simply could not follow. Luckily, I had my study guide to refer to and could finally appreciate it—better late than never, indeed.
Upon returning to his home in Verona together with Katherina as newlyweds, Petruchio executes his scheme of taming the froward Katherine, drawing inspiration from taming a wild hawk, which is where the sexism allegation against the play largely lies, yet I have to confess that it's ingeniously plotted.
Another ingenious plot is narrated by Lucentio (as the scholar), when he translates the Latin he spoke earlier to Bianca, introducing who he really is, why he is impersonating the scholar, and how he loves Bianca. The tone is so daring, passionate, and entreating that I doubt I could resist his words if I were Bianca. This is part of the rhetoric of a typical Latin lover, I suppose.
Gremio, the older wooer of fair Bianca and doomed to fail in vying against his young counterparts, at first seemed like an uninteresting character, but as the play goes on, he surprises and amuses me no less than anyone else. In particular, I love his showing off his wealth as a handsome dower to win Bianca's hand, only to be outdone by Tranio, impersonating Lucentio, who brags about his father’s wealth to Baptista Minola.
If the lord is the best director in the induction, then Tranio, the servant swapping clothes with his master Lucentio, is no doubt the best director in the play proper. Apart from plotting the wooing scheme for Lucentio and bragging Gremio out of the contest, he even finds someone (the pedant) to impersonate Vincentio, father of Lucentio, to assure Baptista Minola of the dower he asks for.
As the comedy draws to its close, it also reaches its climax: the transformation of Katherina, from a shrew to an obedient, virtuous wife, and her teaching the other two newlyweds, her younger sister Bianca (who marries Lucentio) and the widow (who marries Hortensio), a lesson. I don't fully agree with its points and implications (out of concern about misogyny), but I am fascinated by the lengthy, virtuous, and seemingly convincing narative delivered by Katherina, indeed.
The play ends with Petruchio winning the wager, successfully commanding Katherina to come back to the banquet, symbolizing that he's tamed the shrew. To this end, I was a bit surprised because the play proper ends without returning to the frame story and its main character, Sly.
As I looked deeper into it, Sly does appear at the end of another work created around the same time, with a similar title:
A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew. The plots of these two plays (The Shrew vs A Shrew) are identical, with the exception of Sly's presence in the play proper.
A very interesting comedic journey indeed. I look forward to my next imaginative journey with Shakespeare.
Chinese translation on FB
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