Taming of the Shrew Trivia

1. Katharine, daughter of Baptista, is a beautiful and rich lady. Why is she known by the name "Katharine the shrew"?

From Quiz What's Wrong with Katharine?

Answer: Because of her bad temper and her constant uncontrolled anger

Katharine is the eldest daughter of Baptista. She is a very beautiful lady, but she has an ungovernable and difficult temper; added to that, she is very proud, always angry and impatient. It is because of her rudeness and sharp tongue that she is known as the shrew.

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: a drunken Warwickshire tinker

It sometimes feels as though Shakespeare wrote this play - including its contentious title - primarily in order to offend the sensibilities of the twentieth-century politically-correct brigade. Right at the outset Sly describes himself as a "tinker" (not entirely a safe word to use in our own time), and even worse - as we learn from the scholar G.R.Hibbard - in Shakespeare's time at least "the distinction between beggars and tinkers was not a very sharp one, and both were proverbially noted for their fondness for ale". This apparently congenital drunk from the labouring classes is one of those types Shakespeare may be assumed often enough to have encountered at first hand in his native Warwickshire, but on the plus side he usually renders them in his plays with human warmth (or with "an infusion of tenderness", in Nevill Coghill's fine phrase). Discovered - having seen off the "hostess" - in a drunken stupor by an aristocratic hunting party, Sly is abducted by a whimsical Lord and his servants, dressed in rich clothes and persuaded that he is himself an aristocrat, that a servant boy in drag is his beautiful wife, and that a quite lengthy play, "The Taming of the Shrew", is about to be performed especially for his benefit. In this way the main drama is framed, and effectively distanced from our everyday lives: the editor of the New Cambridge edition, invoking the notion of "comedy as a kind of therapy", maintains that Sly can be seen by us as "a kind of Lord of Misrule presiding over a brief period of holiday from everyday conventions". "The very fact," adds the author of "The Rough Guide to Shakespeare", "that the taming plot is presented as a fit entertainment for a bewildered drunkard makes it hard to take in the soberest of terms." This is the only time that Shakespeare employed the favourite Elizabethan device of an "induction" to introduce his main drama, and there has been much critical discussion as to why, having begun the Sly episode with such panache and apparent enthusiasm (the "induction" runs to eleven sparkling pages in my New Penguin edition of the play), the Bard seems quite quickly to have lost interest in it so that the drunken tinker only reappears briefly as a character once more in the main action and then is given nothing at all more to say, although he is still presumably expected passively to sit and watch the whole drama unfold to the end. Did the Bard write more for Sly and the Lord's retinue only for the passages to be lost? If only we knew more about this! There does exist another play with a similar title and theme, published in quarto form in 1794. This play is evidently not by Shakespeare, although we cannot be sure whether it was written and performed before or after his. In it, the Sly character is retained until the last scene: several times he rouses himself from a drunken stupor to speak some lines and then puts the lid on the whole drama successfully with a final sally in which he vows to go home and "tame" his wife in the manner he has learned from the shrew-taming "hero", Petruccio. The critic Jonathan Bate thinks that the 1623 First Folio text of Shakespeare's Shrew", the only text we have, is probably quite seriously corrupt and that Sly should in fact stay watching from the balcony, occasionally engaging in dialogue with his companions, until the final scene; afterwards he will go home and discover that he has learned nothing about how to "tame" his wife: on the contrary, she will beat him, as usual. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare thought that his play stood well enough on its own merits to obviate the need for such a framing device to be continued to the end, or perhaps the company he was writing for could not spare three valuable actors (one of them a boy who could play women's parts) to sit on the balcony all that time impersonating Sly, his "lady wife" and the Lord when they were needed onstage.

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: Baptista

Some people doubt that Shakespeare actually authored "Taming of the Shrew!"

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Tranio

Tranio played the clever servant, disguising himself to obtain permission to marry from Bianca's father.

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: Katherina

Katherina is the shrew who is tamed by Petruchio. He acts like more of a shrew than Katherina in order to tame her.

From Quiz What's Wrong with Katharine?

Answer: Because of her temper

Her beauty does not cover for her rudeness. Her hot temper scares all men, and the fact that she can be violent at times does not make things better for her. No men want to be involved with her.

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: Verona

Kate and Bianca live in Padua; Lucentio comes from Pisa; the Pedant comes from Mantua.

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Hortensio

Hortesio tried to teach both Bianca and Kate the lute, but Kate broke the lute over his head.

From Quiz What's Wrong with Katharine?

Answer: Because Petruchio is late and she thinks he made fun of her and will not come

On the wedding day while everything is ready, Katharine and all the guests wait for Petruchio. Katharine, who believes that Petruchio has fooled her, feels humiliated and annoyed and starts crying. After a while, Petruchio comes in, dressed like a beggar rather than in the kind of clothes that a bridegroom wears.

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: lute

"She has broken the lute to me!"

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Lucentio

Lucentio truly was a scholar, but he disguised himself to get access to Bianca and woo her.

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: Gremio

Venetians will no doubt have been a common sight in sixteenth-century Padua, since the town had been part of Venice's territory for two hundred years (and was to remain so for another two hundred), but it was the figure of the stereotypical Venetian pantaloon that Shakespeare must have known his audience would most relish. "To no motive did the comic tradition stick more tenaciously," writes H.B.Charlton, "than to this of the folly of old fools." A figure straight out of the Italian "commedia dell'arte", the pantaloon, as G.R.Hibbard reminds us, "was always portrayed as an old man, a Venetian by origin and dialect, and invariably appeared clad in tights, a red jacket, a long black sleeved gown, and black slippers" (of course, the modern Shakespeare director is under no obligation to follow the sartorial tradition: there are many other ways of drawing out the character's comic potential). This absurd figure - although in Shakespeare even he is not a complete caricature: he is given a few human touches - wants to marry the beautiful and much sought-after young heiress Bianca, Baptista's daughter. He already has one declared rival, the much younger, sprightlier and apparently more eligible man-about-town Hortensio; but as we watch the scene another rival appears before our eyes in the person of the newly-arrived visitor Lucentio, who falls for Bianca's charms at first sight. The principal fly in the ointment for young Bianca's suitors is her older sister, Katherina - the "shrew" of the play's title - whom Minola has decreed must be married before her younger sibling, much to Gremio's and Hortensio's evident dismay. Katherina makes her presence felt on stage immediately, threatening Hortensio that she will "comb his noddle with a three-legg'd stool" and generally being as rude as possible to everybody in sight. When she has flounced offstage after her family, Hortensio hatches a plan with Gremio to try and procure a husband for the "curst shrew" in order to free up Bianca for marriageability. They exit in their turn, enabling the two unnoticed eavesdroppers to come out of hiding and discuss the charms of the younger sister ("I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio," exclaims Lucentio, "If I achieve not this young modest girl)." Having heard her father wish for good schoolmasters for Bianca, they decide to change clothes so that the servant will masquerade in town as his master in order to impress Lucentio's father's old friends, while Lucentio will disguise himself as a young schoolmaster in order to get into Bianca's presence and plead his love for her. (As he says, "We have not yet been seen in any house,/Nor can we be distinguish'd by our faces/For man or master.") To a second servant, Biondello, who suddenly appears on stage, Lucentio invents a cock-and-bull story about just having killed a stranger in the street and needing to disguise himself for this reason. The audience will have to stay pretty alert from now on if they are to follow all the swings and roundabouts of the ensuing action. It is too much for poor Sly, who now makes his last comment from his seat above the stage before disappearing forever from the Folio script: "'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady. Would 'twere done!"

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: Gremio

Hortensio married the Widow; Petruchio marries Kate, and Lucentio married Bianca. Gremio went to the wedding to get his share of food!

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Gremio

Gremio never disguised himself, but he did present Lucentio to Bianca's father, unaware that Lucentio (disguised as Cambio) was planning to win Bianca for himself.

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: music and language

Hortensio poses as a music teacher, and Lucentio poses as a scholar "well versed in Greek, Latin, and....other books" (according to Gremio).

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: The pedant

Tranio and Biondello tell the pedant his life is at risk for coming to Padua, but that they'll save him if he pretends to be Lucentio's father.

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: Tranio

Tranio is Lucentio's servant. The servant poses as the master and the master poses as the servant in this play.

From Quiz What's Wrong with Katharine?

Answer: Petruchio drives out the tailor and the hat-maker

When Katharine speaks up about having the hat, Petruchio knows better than to start a fight with his wife. He has already made up his mind not to give any dress or hat to Katharine, so he throws the hat maker and the tailor out of his home.

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: Vincentio

Vincentio is almost jailed when he arrives, because the Pedant is already in town posing as Vincentio.

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Cambio

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: Vincentio

He is asked to pose as Vincentio, Lucentio's father, in order to ensure Baptista that Tranio's (Baptista thinks it's Lucentio) promise is real.

From Quiz What's Wrong with Katharine?

Answer: He makes her talk to an old man as if he is a young woman

When they leave for her father's place, Katharine is another person, but to test if her obedience will last, Petruchio talks to an old man as if he is a young woman. Katharine does the same, and when Petruchio clarifies the identity, Katharine presents her excuses to the old man. It is something that the shrew would not have done.

From Quiz "The Taming of the Shrew" quiz

Answer: The moon? The sun!

Petruchio's final test of Kate, which she almost fails. But "be it moon or star or what you will...so it shall be for Katherine".

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Vincentio

Kate and Petruchio meet the "right" Vincentio on the road to Padua to attend Bianca's wedding. He at first thinks they are mad, as Kate, at her husband's command, calls him first a young maid, then an old man.

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: she hits him over the head with his lute

The arrival of a motley crew of suitors at Minola's house is preceded by a second brief cameo glimpse of Katherina's characteristic behaviour as, having tied her younger sister's hands, she tries to bully her into revealing the name of her favourite suitor and ends up slapping her, just as her father enters the room in time to untie Bianca's hands and send her away out of immediate danger. Her sister, however, follows her out in a fury, whereupon my New Penguin Shakespeare edition of the play provides the following remarkably detailed stage direction: [Enter Gremio, with Lucentio, disguised as Cambio, in the habit of a mean man; Petruccio, with Hortensio, disguised as Licio; and Tranio, disguised as Lucentio, with his boy, Biondello, bearing a lute and books.] Baptista could be forgiven for appearing a little taken aback by the sudden appearance of this crowd, but Petruccio, as ever, takes the initiative and expresses his wish to pay court to Katherina, at the same time introducing his friend Hortensio as Licio, a clever young tutor "Cunning in music and the mathematics,/To instruct her fully in those sciences" (Hortensio's original plan was to tutor Bianca, not her sister, and the actor playing him is entitled to register acute dismay at this unwanted change of pupil). Gremio then presents Lucentio as Cambio, a tutor "cunning in Greek, Latin and other languages", and Tranio announces himself as Lucentio, another suitor for the hand of the "fair and virtuous" Bianca who has brought a lute and some books as gifts for her. The two would-be tutors are quickly sent off to begin their first lessons. Baptista and Petruccio then get down to business discussing details of bequests and dowries, although the former is clearly nervous about likely shenanigans from his eldest daughter which could ruin everything. (Katherina's dowry is fixed at twenty thousand crowns, which one scholarly professor has discovered was "an extraordinary figure in the 1590s, about two and a half times the going portion even among the highest peerage", as if Minola is so desperate to get rid of his daughter that he is happy to pay her bridegroom almost anything to take her off his hands.) Petruccio, however - even though he has yet to meet his intended bride - expresses no qualms: "I am rough and woo not like a babe," he reassures his prospective father-in-law. He becomes even more enthusiastic when the hapless Hortensio appears with the broken lute draped around his neck "as in a pillory", peering forlornly through the instrument (Katherina's verdict, evidently, on the quality of his music tuition). "Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench," cries Petruccio,/I love her ten times more than e'er I did./O, how I long to have some chat with her!" He is soon to have his wish, and while he waits for her to appear he takes the opportunity to explain his rough wooing tactics to the audience: "Save that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale. Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew ..."; and so on, and so on.

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: A scholar

Lucentio, disguised as a scholar, runs off and marries Bianca while Tranio is distracting her father.

From Quiz The Taming of the Shrew

Answer: Doubles his dowry

It turns out that Katherina becomes the most obedient wife out of the three, including Bianca,the Widow and herself. This happens at a banquet.

From Quiz What's Wrong with Katharine?

Answer: To tame her

Petruchio takes it as his duty to tame Katharine and transform her into an obedient and gentle wife. To do this, he uses such hard means as allowing her no food, no sleep and no gorgeous clothes - he deprives her of what she used to have.

From Quiz Who's Who in Shrew!

Answer: Petruchio

Petruchio offers Hortensio's services as a gift to open the passage to woo Kate.

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