The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.

The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction,^[1] in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself. The nobleman then has the play performed for Sly's diversion.

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 becomes a compliant and obedient bride. The subplot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's more desirable 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 musical Kiss Me, Kate and the film 10 Things I Hate About You.

Characters

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 it is thought no man would ever wish to marry her. On the other hand, two men – Hortensio and Gremio – are eager to marry her younger sister Bianca. However, Baptista has sworn not to allow his younger daughter to marry before Katherina is wed, much to the despair of her suitors, who agree that they will work together to marry off Katherina so that they will be free to compete for Bianca.

The plot becomes more complex when Lucentio, who has recently come to Padua to attend university, sees Bianca and instantly falls in love with her. Lucentio overhears Baptista announce that he is on the lookout for tutors for his daughters, so he has his servant Tranio pretend to be him while he disguises himself as a Latin tutor named Cambio, so that he can woo Bianca behind Baptista's back.

In the meantime, Petruchio arrives in Padua, accompanied by his witty servant, Grumio. Petruchio tells his old friend Hortensio that he has set out to seek his fortune "farther than at home/Where small experience grows" (1.2.50–51) and that his main business "happily to wive and thrive as best I may"(1.2.55). Hearing this, Hortensio seizes the opportunity to recruit Petruchio as a suitor for Katherina. He also has Petruchio present to Baptista a music tutor named Litio (Hortensio himself in disguise). Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio, pretending to be the teachers Cambio and Litio, attempt to woo Bianca unbeknownst to her father, and to one another.

Petruchio, to counter Katherina's shrewish nature, woos her with reverse psychology, pretending that every harsh thing she says or does is kind and gentle. Katherina allows herself to become engaged to Petruchio, and they are married in a farcical ceremony during which (amongst other things) he strikes the priest and drinks the communion wine, and then takes her home against her will. Once they are gone, Gremio and Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) formally bid for Bianca, with Tranio easily promising Baptista that he can make Bianca richer. However, in his zeal to win, he promises much more than the real Lucentio actually possesses, and Baptista determines that once Lucentio's father confirms the dowry Bianca is his. Tranio thus decides that they will need someone to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio's father, at some point in the near future. Elsewhere, as part of their scheme, Tranio persuades Hortensio that Bianca is not worthy of his attentions, thus removing any problems he may cause.

Meanwhile, in Petruchio's house, he begins the "taming" of his new wife, using more reverse psychology. She is refused food and clothing because nothing – according to Petruchio – is good enough for her; he claims perfectly cooked meat is overcooked, a beautiful dress doesn't fit right, and a stylish hat is not fashionable. Finally, Katherina comes to understand Petruchio's methods of taming, and when they are on the way back to Padua to attend Bianca wedding, she willingly agrees with Petruchio that the sun is the moon, and proclaims that "if you please to call it a rush-candle,/Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me" (4.5.14–15). They also meet Vincentio who is also on his way to Padua, and Katherina eagerly agrees with Petruchio when he declares that Vincentio is a woman.

Meanwhile, back in Padua, Lucentio and Tranio convince a passing pedant to pretend to be Vincentio and confirm the dowry for Bianca. The man does so, and Baptista is happy for Bianca to wed Lucentio (actually Tranio in disguise). Bianca then secretly elopes with the real Lucentio. However, Vincentio then arrives in Padua, and encounters the Pedant, who claims to be Lucentio's father. Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) appears, and the Pedant acknowledges him to be his son Lucentio. There is much confusion about identities, and the real Vincentio is about to be arrested when the real Lucentio appears with his newly betrothed Bianca, and reveals all to a bewildered Baptista and Vincentio. Lucentio explains everything that has happened and all is forgiven by the two fathers.

Meanwhile, Hortensio has married a rich widow, and so in the final scene of the play there are three newly married couples at Baptista's banquet; Bianca and Lucentio, the widow and Hortensio, and Katherina and Petruchio. Because of the general opinion that Petruchio is married to a shrew, a quarrel breaks out about whose wife is the most obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager whereby each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband. Katherina is the only one of the three who comes, winning the wager for Petruchio. At the end of the play, after the other two wives have been hauled into the room by Katherina, she gives a speech on the subject of why wives should always obey their husbands, and tells them that their husbands ask only "love, fair looks and true obedience" (5.2.153). The play ends with Baptista, Hortensio and Lucentio marvelling at Petruchio's taming of 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 where Harun al-Rashid plays the same trick on a man he finds sleeping in an alley, and in De Rebus Burgundicis by the Dutch historian Pontus de Heuiter, where the trick is performed by Philip the Good, i.e. Philip III, Duke of Burgundy. Arabian Nights was not translated into English until the mid 18th century, although Shakespeare could have known it by word of mouth. He could also have known the Philip III story as, although De Rebus wasn't translated into French until 1600, and into English until 1607, there is evidence the Philip III story existed in a jest book (now lost) by Richard Edwardes, written in 1570, which Shakespeare certainly could have known.^[2]

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."^[3] 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's life, and in folklore.

In 1959, J.W. Shroeder conjectured that the literary source for the Petruchio/Katherina story could have been William Caxton's translation of the Queen Vastis story from Livre pour l'enseignement de ses filles du Chevalier de La Tour Landry.^[4] A more detailed argument was put forward in 1964 by Richard Hosley, who suggested that the main source could have been the anonymous ballad A Merry Jest of a Shrewde and Curste Wyfe, Lapped in Morrell's Skin, for Her Good Behavyour.^[5] 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.^[6] However, due to the lack of verbal parallels usually found when Shakespeare used a specific source, most critics do not accept either Shroeder or Hosley's arguments.

The general feeling amongst twentieth century critics is that Shakespeare most likely adapted the popular tradition, fashioning it to fit his own story. A major factor in the dominance of this theory is the work of Jan Harold Brunvand. In 1966, Brunvand argued that the main source for the play was not literary, but instead the oral folktale tradition. Specifically, Brunvand argued that the Petruchio/Katherina story represents a subtype of Type 901 ('Shrew-taming Complex') in the Aarne–Thompson classification system. Brunvand discovered 383 oral examples of Type 901 spread over all of Europe, whereas he could find only 35 literary examples, leading him to the conclusion that if Shakespeare took this story from anywhere, he most likely took it from the oral tradition.^[7] Most contemporary critics accept Brunvand's findings.

Unlike the Induction and the main plot however, there is a recognised source for Shakespeare's sub-plot, first suggested by Alfred Tolman in 1890;^[8] Ludovico Ariosto's I Suppositi (1551), which Shakespeare used either directly or through George Gascoigne's English prose translation Supposes (performed in 1566, printed in 1573).^[9] 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 gentleman from Siena 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.

An additional minor source could have been Mostellaria by Plautus, from which Shakespeare probably took the names of Tranio and Grumio.

Date and text

Date

Efforts to establish the play's date of composition and genesis have been complicated by its uncertain relationship with another Elizabethan play with an almost identical plot but different wording and character names, A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew, which is often theorised to be a reported text of a performance of The Shrew, a source for The Shrew, or an early draft (possibly reported) of The Shrew.^[10] A Shrew was entered on the Stationers' Register on 2 May 1594, suggesting that whatever the relationship between the two plays, The Shrew was most likely written somewhere between 1590 and 1594.^[11]

Kier Elam posits a date of 1591 as a terminus post quem for the composition of the Folio text of The Shrew, based on Shakespeare's probable use of two sources published that year. First, Shakespeare errs in putting Padua in Lombardy instead of Veneto, probably because he used Abraham Ortelius's map of Italy in the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (4th ed., 1591) as a source, which has "Lombardy" written across the entirety of northern Italy.^[12] Secondly, Elam points out that Shakespeare derived his Italian idioms and some of the dialogue from John Florio's Second Fruits, a bilingual introduction to Italian language and culture published in 1591. Elam points out that Lucentio's opening dialogue:

Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy.

(1.1.1-4)

is an example of Shakespeare's obvious borrowing from Florio's dialogue between Peter and Stephan, who have just arrived in the north:

PETER
I purpose to stay a while, to view the fair Cities of Lombardy.

STEPHAN
Lombardy is the garden of the world.^[13]

In his 1982 edition of the play for the Oxford Shakespeare, H.J. Oliver suggests 1592. According to the title page of A Shrew, the play had been performed recently by Pembroke's Men. When the London theatres were closed on 23 June 1592 due to an outbreak of plague, Pembroke's Men went on a regional tour to Bath and Ludlow. The tour was a financial failure, and the company returned to London on 28 September, 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 reported texts sold by members of Pembroke's Men who were broke after the failed tour. As such, if they began their tour in June 1592, 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 June 1592, most likely in early 1592, and it was one of the performances during the Bath/Ludlow tour which gave rise to A Shrew.^[14]

A similar theory is suggested by Ann Thompson, who also supports the reported text theory, in her 1984 edition of the play for the New Cambridge Shakespeare. She too focuses on the closure of the theatres on 23 June 1592, arguing, like Oliver, that the play must have been written prior to June 1592 for it to have given rise to A Shrew. She argues that a stage direction in A Shrew seems to indicate a part to be played by the minor actor Simon Jewell, who died in August 1592. This places the date of composition of A Shrew as prior to August 1592, and if The Shrew gave rise to A Shrew, it suggests that The Shrew must have been written at least several months prior to that, probably in late 1591/early 1592. Thompson also detects a reference to The Shrew in Anthony Chute's Beawtie Dishonour'd written under the title of Shores Wife (1592). She suggests that the line, "He calls his Kate and she must come and kiss him" references The Shrew, as A Shrew contains no kissing scenes, which supports her argument for a date of composition in late 1591/early 1592. She also cites verbal similarities between both Shrew plays and the anonymous play A Knack to Know a Knave (c1592), which was first performed at The Rose on 10 June 1592. She argues that if Knack borrows from both The Shrew and A Shrew, it means The Shrew must have been on stage by mid-June 1592 at the latest, and again suggests a date of composition of somewhere in late 1591/early 1592.^[15] Stephen Roy Miller in his 1998 edition of A Shrew for the Cambridge Shakespeare agrees with the Oliver/Thompson date of late 1591/early 1592, as he too believes The Shrew preceded A Shrew (although he rejects the reported text theory in favour of an adaptation/rewrite theory).^[16]

Text

The 1594 quarto was printed by Peter Short for the bookseller Cuthbert Burbie. It was republished in 1596 (again by Short for Burbie), and again in 1607 by Valentine Simmes for Nicholas Ling. The Shrew was not published until the First Folio (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, based on the 1623 folio text.^[17] W.W. Greg demonstrated that A Shrew and The Shrew were treated as the same text for the purposes of copyright, i.e. the ownership of one constituted the ownership of the other, and when Smethwick purchased the rights from Ling in 1609 to print the play in the First Folio, Ling actually transferred the rights for A Shrew, not The Shrew.^[18]

Analysis and criticism

Critical history

The Taming of the Shrew has been the subject of much analytical and critical controversy, often relating to a feminist reading 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. This issue however, represents only one of the many critical disagreements brought up by the play.

Authorship and The Taming of a Shrew

One of the most fundamental debates is the issue of 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."^[19] As such, there are five main theories as to the relationship between The Shrew and A Shrew:

1. 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).^[20]
2. A Shrew is a reconstructed version of The Shrew; i.e. a bad quarto of The Shrew, an attempt by actors to reconstruct the original play from memory and sell it.^[21]
3. Shakespeare used the previously-existing A Shrew, which he did not write, as a source for The Shrew.^[22]
4. Both versions were legitimately written by Shakespeare himself; i.e. A Shrew is an earlier draft of The Shrew.^[23]
5. A Shrew is an adaptation of The Shrew by someone other than Shakespeare.^[24]

Although the exact relationship between The Shrew and A Shrew remains uncertain, and without complete critical consensus, there is a tentative agreement amongst many critics that The Shrew is the original, and A Shrew is derived from it in some way. The main reason for assuming The Shrew came first is "those passages in A Shrew [...] that make sense only if one knows the The Shrew version from which they must have been derived;"^[25] i.e. parts of A Shrew simply don't make sense without recourse to The Shrew.

The debate regarding the relationship between the two plays began in 1725, when Alexander Pope incorporated extracts from A Shrew into The Shrew in his edition of Shakespeare's works. Pope added the Sly framework to The Shrew, and this practice remained the norm amongst editors until Edmond Malone removed all extracts from A Shrew and returned to the strict 1623 text in his edition of the plays in 1792. At this time, it was primarily felt that A Shrew was a non-Shakespearean source play for The Shrew, and hence to include extracts from A Shrew in the body of The Shrew was to graft extraneous material onto the play which the playwright did not write.

This theory prevailed until 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. Hickson chose seven passages that are similar in both plays and analysed them to conclude that A Shrew was dependent on The Shrew, although he was unsure exactly how The Shrew gave rise to A Shrew.^[26] In 1926, building on Hickson's research, Peter Alexander suggested the bad quarto theory. He based his argument on three main pieces of evidence:

1. There is clear evidence that A Shrew was dependent for meaning upon The Shrew.
2. The subplot in The Shrew is closer to the source I Suppositi than in A Shrew.
3. New material in the subplot not found in I Suppositi is incoherent in A Shrew but coherent in The Shrew.

Alexander argued this evidence suggested that the direction of change was from The Shrew to A Shrew, i.e. A Shrew was derived from The Shrew and hence must be a bad quarto.^[27] In their 1928 edition of the play for the New Shakespeare, Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson wholeheartedly supported Alexander's theory, which has remained popular ever since.

However, not everyone agreed with Alexander. For example, in 1930, E.K. Chambers rejected Alexander's theory and reasserted the source theory.^[28] Similarly, in 1938, Leo Kirschbaum also rejected Alexander's claim. Although Kirschbaum agreed with the bad quarto theory in general, he didn't believe A Shrew qualified as a bad quarto. He argued that A Shrew was simply too different from The Shrew to come under the bad quarto banner, unlike Alexander's other examples of bad quartos The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of Yorke.^[29] Stephen Roy Miller supports Kirschbaum's opinion, pointing out that "the relation of the early quarto to the Folio text is unlike other early quartos because the texts vary much more in plotting and dialogue."^[30] Character names are changed, plot points are altered (Kate has two sisters for example, not one), the play is set in Athens instead of Padua, 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's Tamburlaine), 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. As Miller points out, "underpinning the notion of a 'Shakespearean bad quarto' is the assumption that the motive of whoever compiled that text was to produce, differentially, a verbal replica of what appeared on stage,"^[31] and both Kirschbaum and Miller argue that A Shrew does not fulfil this rubric.

Alexander's theory continued to be challenged as the years went on. In 1942, building on the work of Charles Knight, R.A. Houk developed what came to be dubbed the Ur-Shrew theory. In 1943, in a controversial argument, G.I. Duthie combined Alexander's bad quarto theory with Houk's Ur-Shrew theory. Duthie argued that A Shrew was a memorial reconstruction of Ur-Shrew, a now lost play upon which Shakespeare's The Shrew was based; "A Shrew is substantially a memorially constructed text and is dependent upon an early Shrew play, now lost. The Shrew is a reworking of this lost play."^[32] Duthie argued that the time-scheme of A Shrew shows that it was a garbled version of something which probably made more sense in an original form, and that Shakespeare reorganised the plot when composing The Shrew so as to make more chronological sense. Although Duthie's argument wasn't fully accepted at the time, it has been gaining increased support in the late twentieth century.

In the light of Duthie's theory, in 1958, J.W. Shroeder attempted to revive the source theory by disproving both Hickson and Alexander's bad quarto theory and Houk and Duthie's Ur-Shrew theory. Shroeder's argument (which rests on the hypothesis that The Shrew was not written until at least 1597) was based on an analysis of parallel passages (some of which had been used by Hickson to argue the bad quarto theory) and chronological problems within both plays to show that there was no need for an Ur-Shrew theory or a bad quarto theory, when a source theory could address all the problems raised by comparing the two plays.^[33] Shroeder's argument, however, was never fully accepted.

Subsequently, in 1964, Richard Hosley, in his edition of the play for the Pelican Shakespeare challenged the theories of Hickson, Alexander, Houk, Duthie and Shroeder, and suggested an early draft theory. Hosley's argument was based on the relative complexity of A Shrew when compared to contemporaneous plays. If A Shrew was not an early draft (i.e. not by Shakespeare), we would have "to assume around 1593 the existence of a dramatist other than Shakespeare who was capable of devising a three-part structure more impressive than the structure of any extant play by Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, or Kyd."^[34] In this sense, Shakespeare must have written A Shrew, and as it is decidedly inferior to The Shrew, it follows that it is an early draft of the later play.

Alexander himself returned to the debate in 1969, once again re-presenting his bad quarto theory in light of the many objections raised in the preceding forty years. In particular, Alexander concentrated on the various complications and inconsistencies in the subplot of A Shrew, which had been used by Houk and Duthie as evidence for an Ur-Shrew, to argue that the reporter of A Shrew attempted to recreate the complex subplot from The Shrew but got muddled and imported ideas and lines for other plays, especially Marlow. For much of the remainder of the twentieth century, Alexander's views remained predominant.^[35]

After little further discussion of the issue in the 1970s, the 1980s saw the publication of three scholarly editions of The Shrew, all of which re-addressed the question in light of the by now general acceptance of Alexander's theory; Brian Morris' 1981 edition for the Arden Shakespeare, H.J. Oliver's 1982 edition for the Oxford Shakespeare and Ann Thompson's 1984 edition for the New Cambridge Shakespeare. Morris summarised the issue at that time by pointing out, "Unless new, external evidence comes to light, the relationship between The Shrew and A Shrew can never be decided beyond a peradventure. It will always be a balance of probabilities, shifting as new arguments and opinions are added to the scales. Nevertheless, in the present century, the movement has unquestionably been towards an acceptance of the Bad Quarto theory, and this can now be accepted as at least the current orthodoxy."^[36] Thompson wholeheartedly supported the bad quarto theory, but both Morris and Oliver were less sure, arguing instead for a combination of the bad quarto theory and the early draft theory.

Other critics have also spoken on this issue. Championing the bad quarto theory, 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."^[11] Leah S. Marcus, whilst discussing the prevailing bad quarto theory, 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."^[37] 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. 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.^[38] Others, 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.^[39] 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.^[40]

One of the most extensive examinations of the question came in 1998 in Stephen Roy Miller's edition of A Shrew for the Cambridge Shakespeare. Miller argues that A Shrew is indeed derived from The Shrew, but it is neither a bad quarto nor an early draft. Instead, it is an adaptation by someone other than Shakespeare. Miller argues that Alexander's suggestion in 1969 that the reporter became confused, and introduced elements from other plays is unlikely, and instead suggests an adapter at work (whom he refers to as the 'compiler'), writing in the romantic comedy tradition; "the most economic explanation of indebtedness is that whoever compiled A Shrew borrowed the lines from Shakespeare's The Shrew, or a version of it, and adapted them."^[41] Part of Miller's evidence relates to Gremio, who has no counterpart in A Shrew. In The Shrew, after the wedding, Gremio expresses doubts as to whether or not Petruchio will be able to tame Katherina. In A Shrew, these lines are extended and split between Polidor and Phylema. As Gremio does have a counterpart in I Suppositi, Miller concludes that "to argue the priority of A Shrew in this case would mean arguing that Shakespeare took the negative hints from the speeches of Polidor and Phylema and gave them to a character he resurrected from Supposes. This is a less economical argument than to suggest that the compiler of A Shrew, dismissing Gremio, simply shared his doubts among the characters available."^[42] Miller argues that there is even evidence in the play of what the compiler felt he was doing, working within a specific literary tradition; "as with his partial change of character names, the compiler seems to wish to produce dialogue much like his models, but not the same. For him, adaptation includes exact quotation, imitation and incorporation of his own additions. This seems to define his personal style, and his aim seems to be to produce his own version, presumably intended that it should be tuned more towards the popular era than The Shrew."^[43]

As had Alexander, Houk, Duthie and Shroeder, Miller argues that the subplot in A Shrew and The Shrew holds the key to the debate, as it is here where the two plays differ most. Miller points out that the subplot in The Shrew is based on "the classical style of Latin comedy with an intricate plot involving deception, often kept in motion by a comic servant." The subplot in A Shrew however, which features an extra sister and addresses the issue of marrying above and below one's class, "has many elements more associated with the romantic style of comedy popular in London in the 1590s."^[44] Miller cites plays such as Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and Fair Em as evidence of the popularity of such plays. He points to the fact that in The Shrew, there is only eleven lines of romance between Tranio and Bianca, but in A Shrew, there is an entire scene between Kate's two sisters and their lovers. This, he argues, is evidence of an adaptation rather than a faulty report;

while it is difficult to know the motivation of the adapter, we can reckon that from his point of view an early staging of The Shrew might have revealed an overly wrought play from a writer trying to establish himself but challenging too far the current ideas of popular comedy. The Shrew is long and complicated. It has three plots, the subplots being in the swift Latin or Italianate style with several disguises. Its language is at first stuffed with difficult Italian quotations, but its dialogue must often sound plain when compared to Marlow's thunder or Greene's romance, the mouth-filling lines and images that on other afternoons were drawing crowds. An adapter might well have seen his role as that of a 'play doctor' improving The Shrew – while cutting it – by stuffing it with the sort of material currently in demand in popular romantic comedies."^[45]

Miller goes on to summarise his theory; "he appears to have wished to make the play shorter, more of a romantic comedy full of wooing and glamorous rhetoric, and to add more obvious, broad comedy."^[46] As such, Miller rejects the bad quarto theory, the early draft theory, the Ur-Shrew theory and the source theory in favour of his own adaptation theory.

Hortensio problem

Another aspect of the authorship question concerns the character of Hortensio. Building on the work of John Dover Wilson,^[47] W.W. Greg^[48] and Brian Morris,^[49] H.J. Oliver argues that the version of the play in the 1623 First Folio was most likely taken not from a prompt book, or a transcript, but from the author's own foul papers (probably with some annotations by the book keeper), which he argues bear signs of edits, primarily related to Hortensio.^[50] 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 (this is a modification of the Ur-Shrew theory, which instead of arguing that a play by someone other than Shakespeare served as a source, argues that an earlier draft by Shakespeare once existed). 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, and subsequently elaborated upon by E.A.J. Honigmann in 1954. Daniel and Honigmann cite 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 Honigmann 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 theorised by supporters of the bad quarto theory 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."^[51] As such, this theory is something of a combination of the Ur-Shrew theory, the early draft theory and the bad quarto theory; A Shrew is a bad quarto of an early draft of The Shrew, and this early draft also performs the role traditionally assigned to Ur-Shrew. Oliver suggests that when Pembroke's Men left London in June 1592, they had in their possession a now lost version of the play. Upon returning to London, they published A Shrew in 1594, some time after which Shakespeare rewrote his original play. This means that in the early 1590s there were at least three versions of the same play in circulation: Shakespeare's original The Shrew, Shakespeare's edited The Shrew, and A Shrew.

In 1943, Duthie did hint at this possibility. Based upon the fact that all of the verbal parallels come in relation to the Induction and the main plot, none in relation to the subplot, he concluded that Ur-Shrew could in fact be an earlier version of The Shrew, of which A Shrew is a reported text. Duthie's arguments were never fully accepted, however, as critics tended to look on the relationship between the two plays as an either-or situation; A Shrew is either a reported text or an early draft. Recently however, the possibility that a text could be both has shown to be critically viable. For example, in his 2003 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 2001 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. As Stephen Roy Miller argues in his 1998 edition of A Shrew (although he does so in support of his adaptation theory), "the differences between the texts are substantial and coherent enough to establish that there was deliberate revision in producing one text out of the other; hence A Shrew is not merely a poor report (or 'bad quarto') of The Shrew."^[30]

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 she writes that 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."^[52] 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.

Some critics argue that even in Shakespeare's own day the play was controversial due to sexist elements. Oliver, for example, believes that Shakespeare created the Induction so that the audience wouldn't react badly to the inherent misogyny in the Petruchio/Katherina story, 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."^[53] He 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 tolerate the harsh treatment of Katherina as is often thought.^[54]

Evidence of at least some initial societal discomfort with The Shrew is found in a contemporary alternative version that 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'.^[55] More evidence is found in the fact that John Fletcher, Shakespeare's successor as house playwright for the King's Men, wrote The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed as a 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."^[56]

With the rise of feminist movements in the twentieth century, reactions to the play changed: "In short, Kate's taming was no longer as funny as it had been for some readers and spectators; her domination became, in George Bernard Shaw's words 'altogether disgusting to modern sensibility'."^[57]

Others believe that the play argues against mistreatment of women by exaggeration. For example, director Conall Morrison writing in 2008 argues that: "By the time you get to the last scene all of the men – including her father are saying – it's amazing how you crushed that person. It's amazing how you lobotomised her. And they're betting on the women as though they are dogs in a race or horses. It's reduced to that. And it's all about money and the level of power. [...] It is so self-evidently repellent that I don't believe for a second that Shakespeare is espousing this. And I don't believe for a second that the man who would be interested in Benedict and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet and all these strong lovers would have some misogynist aberration. [...] This is him investigating misogyny, exploring it and animating it and obviously damning it because none of the men come out smelling of roses."^[58] Elizabeth Kantor similarly argues that the play is a farce, improbably exaggerated to make points about human nature:

It's in the nature of a man to value a woman he wins only with difficulty. [...] Shakespeare isn't trying to "domesticate women"; he's not making any kind of case for how they ought to be treated or what sort of rights they ought to have. He's just noticing what men and women are really like, and creating fascinating and delightful drama out of it. Shakespeare's celebration of the limits that define us – of our natures as men and women – upsets only those folks who find human nature itself upsetting.^[59]

Induction

A vital component of the misogynistic argument is the Induction, and its purpose within the larger framework of the play. Critics have argued about the meaning of the Induction for many years, and 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."^[50] 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."^[60] 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."^[61]

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."^[62] 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 very often 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, it is not to be taken seriously by the audience, so questions of seriousness regarding the play within the play simply aren't an issue.

Language

Language is not simply a carrier of meaning in the play, but is itself a major theme. Katherina is described as a shrew because of her sharp tongue and harsh language to those around her, often causing offence. For example, speaking of herself in the third person, Katherina tells Hortensio and Gremio,

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.

(1.1.61–65)

Petruchio, for his part, attempts to tame her – and thus her language – with rhetoric that specifically undermines her tempestuous nature;

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.

(2.1.169–179)

Here Petruchio is specifically attacking the very function of Katherina's language, vowing that no matter what she says, he will purposely misinterpret it, thus undermining the very basis of the linguistic sign, and disrupting the relationship between signifier and signified.

Apart from undermining her language, Petruchio also uses language to objectify her. This is perhaps seen most clearly in Act 3, Scene 2, 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.

(ll.231-234)

Tita French Baumlin also discusses Petruchio's objectification of Katherina, emphasising 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.^[63] 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.

(ll.12-15; ll.19–22)

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 subcategorises the latter into good and bad, epitomised by Bianca and Katherina respectively.^[64] 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

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: G.I. Duthie argues that "what Shakespeare emphasises here is the foolishness of trying to destroy order."^[65] In a modern society with relatively egalitarian perspectives on gender, such a view 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."^[57]

Critically, five 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. Katerina's speech is sincere, though not because Petruchio has "tamed" her but because she has come to see that they're well-matched in temperament .
3. Katherina's speech is ironic: she is not being sincere in her statements but sarcastic, pretending to