The Taming of the Shrew: Texts and
Contexts (The Bedford Shakespeare
Series) by William Shakespeare
Mending A Jaded Heart
This teaching edition of Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew responds
to the needs of instructors using a variety of approaches to Shakespeare,
including feminist, historical, and cultural studies approaches. The play is
accompanied by four sets of primary documents and illustrations
thematically arranged to offer a richly textured understanding of early
modern culture and Shakespeares work within that culture. The texts
include facsimiles of period documents, excerpts of conduct literature on
marriage and on wife and servant beating, sermons, popular ballads,
literary works offering alternative endings to Shakespeares play, and
documents on womens legal status. The primary documents contextualize
the plays treatment of assertive women, marital conflict, and domestic
disorder and violence. Editorial features designed to help students read
the play in light of the historical documents include an intelligent and
engaging general introduction, and introduction to each thematic group of

documents, thorough headnotes and glosses for the primary documents
(presented in modern spelling), and an extensive bibliography.
Personal Review: The Taming of the Shrew: Texts and Contexts
(The Bedford Shakespeare Series) by William Shakespeare
In Dante's Inferno those deepest in hell are those that can not accept love
because they are too suspicious of the actions of others; they think of love
as a con-job waiting to happen. Petruchio plays games that save
Kathrina's heart, she accepts love, this tough love/ cruel to be kind method,
and a sort of miracle happens and Petruchio fully deserves his reward.
Petruchio did more than win Kate's love he saved her soul. Bianca suffers
from an almost equally deadly disease, vanity, but will there be someone
to save her from that? Highly doubtful and now she is the shrew and her
husband, Lucentio, can expect a life of dread and discomfiture for being
the overly lusty boy he was.
Much of Shakespeare is other than what it seems. Katharina has a cynical,
jaded heart one that distrusts the idea of love, one that can not accept
love, after being raised in a house where her father openly prefers her
younger sister and her younger sister is paraded as the glimmering child of
promise Katharina's heart has been drug through the mud.
Shakespeare read Ovid and alludes often to Ovid's idea that a happy
marriage (if it exists at all) is between equals. Petruchio shows Kate
through his unyielding efforts that he loves her, much of this strategy is to
shine a mirror back in Katharina's face through his actions so she can see
herself more clearly. Petruchio is her equal. Love is gained when Katharina
takes over Petruchio's game herself and plays with Petruchio at it, but it is
a loving game, being mean while saying that she loves him like he did;
Petruchio's stubborness pays off and the words grow to mean what they
say to both of them. Love takes time and commitment, it is a labor.
Petruchio also convinces Katharina that he is willing to put his house in a
caotic mess for her love.
Gremio never seeks to meet his equal in either looks nor wealth and got
what Ovid would probably call a natural consequence.
Does anybody really doubt that the relationship between Petruchio and
Kathrina will be of equals and loving? Gremio and Lucentio are set up for
dread, they did not set out to find their equals. In a sense it is a tragedy for
Lucentio because he fell to lust not to his studies and got what he
deserved.
The comparison of dogs, particularly three dogs, at the beginning is
interesting. Analogy: Dog is to nose, as single man is to woo-ing. Three
men go about wooing and sniffing out the heart. The hunter's observations
about each dog comes full circle.

Christopher Sly? Why, he is you.
The movie version with Richard Burton is very lively and enjoyable. It fails
to probe the depth of the play yet still does do it justice. The Taming of the
Shrew
The BBC version, which has the hopeful quality of having John Cleese in
it, failed miserably. I think it lacked direction and sputered all over the
place. I still felt sorry for Petruchio even in the winning of this Kate, but it
was worse than even that and John Cleese was not a good match for this
charactor Taming of the Shrew- tThe Comedies, Histories and Tragedies
of William Shakespeare
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