The richly comic plot of The Taming o[ the Shrew revolves around the taming of the virago Katharina by the insouciant Petruchio, a strong-minded and witty Veronese on the make. This is the plot which Cole Porter adapted for his musical Kiss Me Kate.But underneath this comedy of manners lies a darker and deeper political theme.The text of this edition is taken from the Cambridge University Press New Shakespeare, edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson.

The Taming of the Shrew is generally seen as an experimental comedy of situation. This it certainly is, but above all, it is a comedy of illusion, and the illusion begins in The Induction. Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, is flung out of an alehouse for riotous behaviour, and falls asleep outside. Here he is discovered by a Lord and his companions, and as a jest they bear him off to the Lord"s house, where he is bathed, dressed in the finest clothes and put to bed. When Sly awakes, the household servants convince him that he is a Lord himself, and that the lingering belief that he is a tinker is merely a dream. They then persuade him to attend The Taming of the Shrew, performed by travelling players.

The play opens in Padua, and concerns the two daughters of the rich merchant Baptista. The younger of the two, Bianca, is both beautiful and biddable and a number of suitors seek her hand.Baptista, however, has resolved that she should not be wed before her sister Katharina, the shrew of the tide. Katharina"s vile temper and behaviour are the despair of her father and sister, and are such as to terrify any man who approaches her. Two of Bianca"s admirers agree to find a husband for Katharina so that their suit may be advanced one way or the other, and one of them,Hortensio, persuades his friend Petruchio to pay court to Katharina. Petruchio, a wild and witty gendeman of Verona, is sufficiently self-assured to embark on this venture, and he is by no means averse to the dowry that Katharina will bring as her marriage portion. He woos her by pretending that he finds her courteous and gentle. He tames her by humiliating her, arriving late and in shabby clothes for their wedding, then whisking her off to his house in the country.

Introduction

Further Reading

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Glossary