The Taming Of The Shrew - Tumblr Posts
Looking for a simple way to get into Shakespeare? Enjoy receiving emailed excerpts of classic authors à la Dracula Daily? In need of a #ShaxGirlSummer?
Consider checking out Shakespeare Summer, a substack dedicated to sharing the exciting works of William Shakespeare—one summer at a time. For summer 2024, we will be reading The Taming of the Shrew; Love's Labor's Lost; and Much Ado About Nothing. A round of comedies for 2024, for which you will receive the first email on May 13th. You'll receive an email every M/W/F, and seeing as these plays are on the shorter side, you won’t receive more than two scenes per email (in fact, most emails will contain only one scene, though note that some of these scenes are substantially longer than others).
If we've piqued your interest, consider subscribing and joining us for the second ever #ShaxGirlSummer!
Shakespeare Summer 2024 begins TODAY!
We're kicking off the second ever #ShaxGirlSummer with The Taming of the Shrew, a play that is fascinating precisely because of its controversial treatment of women, a play worth reading precisely because envisioning it in performance can completely transform how we interpret the relationship between Katherina (or Katherine, in the Folger version we are reading) and Petruchio, a play worth reading because our knowledge and perspectives will be all the richer for it. (And a play I love because I wrote an essay as a freshman about how badass and underrated Bianca is.)
Whether you're new to Shakespeare or a longtime fan, we welcome you to our summer book club with open arms. Feel free to subscribe and start reading The Taming of the Shrew today!
Utterly obsessed with these Shakespeare playbook covers from the late 1960s by Paul Hogarth
One Dress a Day Challenge
January: Red Redux
The Taming of the Shrew / Elizabeth Taylor as Katharina Minola
Kate wears this rich red gown with green stripes and gold trim for the final scene, which takes place at her sister's wedding--her first visit back to her home since her own wedding. When she first arrives, she also wears a red fur-edged mantle and looks very color-coordinated with Petruchio.
I've also included a side view showing her elaborate hairstyle.
Although most costumes for this movie were designed by Danilo Donati, Elizabeth Taylor's gowns were done by Irene Sharaff. They blend well enough with the other costumes that they don't stick out as different. There is something very 1960s about the combination of saturated red, deep olive green, and shiny gold. (Frock Flicks notes that it is probably modeled after this portrait below by Lorenzo Lotto.)
no but fr i get so pissed when people boil taming of the shrew down to “ew petruchio gross, poor katherine” without acknowledging bianca and her fucking plotline?? like people get so weirded out when i tell them about how much i love the play and i have to go out of my way to tell them that, no, i despise petruchio and i pray on his downfall daily, obviously the misogyny isn’t the part i like about the play???
it really fucking sucks when tots productions cut out bianca’s plotline to make more room for katherine and petruchio, too?? LIKE YOU’RE GETTING RID OF THE PART THAT MAKES THIS PLAY A COMEDY!!!! STOP IT!!! YOU WILL BE BOILED
it is my firm belief that no production of taming of the shrew is any good without a solid bianca plotline, because her story is the whole fucking reason the play even happens. without a solid bianca plotline, the play just fucking sucks. in this essay, i will-
Oxford World’s Classics Redesign: Shakespeare
Part II. Comedies
elizabeth taylor in the taming of the shrew (1967) - requested by anonymous
For instance, Taming of the Shrew suggests Katherine has a limp, though scholars have historically read the reference as a metaphor and no modern productions had ever staged her that way (until one very recently). However, staging a limping Katherine, as Rachel E. Hile points out, completely changes interpretations of the play, especially connected with gender expectations and the play’s “marriage problem.”
A similar pattern can be found in Richard II, where the Duke of York calls his arm “prisoner to the palsy.” Despite modern productions overlooking this impairment, it crucially explains York’s political waffling because he may not be able to leverage physical violence. If there are references to disability or impairments in a play, stage them and consider how they may significantly contribute to meaning-making in the play.
“Prior to Shakespeare’s play, shrews were typically portrayed as reluctant producers within the household economy, high-born wives who refused to engage in the forms of domestic labor expected of them by their humble, tradesmen husbands. …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. When the cooper from Fife, who cannot beat his ungentle wife on account of her gentle kin, cleverly wraps her in a wether’s skin and tames her by beating the hide instead, the shrew promises: “Oh, I will bake, and I will brew, / And never mair think on my comely hue. / Oh, I will card, and I will, spin, / And never mair think on my gentle kin.”
Within the tradition of shrew-taming literature prior to Shakespeare’s play, the housewife’s domestic responsibilities are broadly defined by a feudal economy based on household production, on the production of use-values for domestic consumption. As we have seen in the previous chapter, however, with the decline of the family as an economic unit of production the role of the housewife was beginning to shift in late sixteenth-century England from that of skilled producer to savvy consumer. Household production was gradually being replaced by nascent capitalist industries, making it more economical for the housewife to purchase what she had once produced.
Keep reading
British actress Elizabeth ‘Lily’ Brayton (1876-1953) for The Taming of the Shrew (ca. 1907).
Is Shakespeare a misogynist?
Should “The Taming of the Shrew” be retired, given Kate’s archaic speech of surrender at the end, laying out what women “oweth” to their husbands, or sovereigns, and urging wives to put their hands under their husband’s feet?
Can that speech be mitigated if Kate winks at the end, as Mary Pickford did in the 1929 movie with Douglas Fairbanks? Or if Kate poisons the Champagne at the end, the coup de cyanide of Lileana Blain-Cruz’s 2011 Yale School of Drama production with Lupita Nyong’o?
These were the questions debated on the latest edition of “Shakespeare Hour LIVE!’’ the weekly show of The Shakespeare Theatre Company here.
A lot of people really like Shakespeare, myself included. His works are often described as being “timeless” because people have been identifying with his themes and characters ever since he staged them. You know why this is? This is because Shakespeare took inspiration from other places. Romeo and Juliet is based on an epic poem named The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. A Midsummer Night’s Dream draws inspiration from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The Tempest, Macbeth, and all of his histories are based on real people. The plays transcend time because their source material existed long before Shakespeare.
Many plays adapted to the modern audience - 10 Things I Hate About You (The Taming of the Shrew) and the Lion King (Hamlet) - are made using modern sets, language, and comedy while still encapsulating the spirit of their predecessor. We are able to do this not because Shakespeare’s plays, which are filled with period-appropriate jokes, references, and political criticisms, are understandable to the modern audience (they aren’t), but because themes of corruption, love, devotion, and ambition are applicable to all people from all times.