The Taming of the Shrew
For a plot synopsis, see the Folger edition's opening page. For a real understanding of the play, you'll need to read Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew using the assigned edition for your course, a specific edition required by your professor (strongly recommended). If your professor has not required a specific or hard-copy edition, you may choose your own from your favorite library or read the digital edition (linked previously) produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library. Avoid relying on internet summaries or modern-language re-tellings.
With respect to genre, The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy.
Geographical Movement—Who’s coming? Who’s going?
Note who lives/arrives in Padua; consider where people who aren’t from there go once they get there.
Suitors and Suits––Who’s wooing? Who’s being wooed? Who’s who?
Consider how the play’s bachelors woo the object of their desire and who they become or who they enlist for help in order to do so.
Women Speaking––Her turn to speak, or her speaking out of turn?
Note when/whether women are “authorized” to speak in the various kinds of social settings the play presents. What words or behaviors define a woman as a “shrew”?
Gender and Marriage––What makes a person an ideal mate?
Think about instances in the play in which characters imply or state directly the criteria that constitute the ideal woman/man; note instances that suggest what the norms of behavior are during the time period.
Male Social Behavior––friends and/or rivals?
Keep track of the relationships between men in the play—how do men seem to regard one another, and what changes that regard?
Fathers and Children––Obedience vs. Independence
Review places in the play that remind us of the characters’ status as the children of their parents. What circumstances allow people to act of their own accord? When are they constrained by parental rules or guidance? What differences exist between the relative degrees of independence male children have versus female children?