The Taming of the Shrew: Act I

[Scheherazade]

We will be reading Act I during this week (January 8-15).

Please post your comments and questions here.

Scene I (http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/shrew/3/)

Scene II (http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/shrew/4/)

[Virgil]

Well i think it's time we moved on from the Inductions. Here is an interesting section from Act I, scene 1, the very opening speech by Lucentio.


LUCENTIO
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;
And by my father's love and leave am arm'd
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown'd for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincetino come of Bentivolii.
Vincetino's son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

What is interesting is how important learning comes out here. The story is set in Padua, known for its learning and University during the Renaissance. Is this imortant to the story? Or just a side fact. Is it an ironic statement? Katherina does learn something at the end, but its hardly philosophic learning. What she learns is not University learning or in any way philosophic learning.
Here's an interesting part of Lucentio's speech:

And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Is the play an exploration of how to achieve happiness? I think so. Even Lucentio is looking for knowledge:

Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst
Is the conflict here between book knowledge versus real world knowledge?

[brainstrain]

I have to read this for English sometime later this year...I'm sure your discussions will come in very handy ^_^

[Vesta Luna]

"BIANCA
Sister, content you in my discontent.
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to took and practise by myself.

LUCENTIO
Hark, Tranio! thou may'st hear Minerva speak."

This affirms Virgil's observation. Here too is Bianca contenting herself with the pursuit of knowledge while she waits for her willful, older sister Kat to be wed. Her suitor calls her, Bianca, a Minerva. Minerva is the issue of Jupiter, the thunder throwing playboy of the gods, and Metis, a titaness who was mistress of medicine, crafts and art. Their daughter, Minerva is therefore the goddess of arts and crafts, medicine, and probably a long list of other things. Flattery will get you everywhere, Mr.(lovesick) Lucentio.

Two more comments:

1. I sense that Katarina is reacting with anger (instead of dispair) to her public humiliation by both her father's public criticism of her, and her sweet sister's suitors harsh comments directed at her. How many of us would bend under to such criticism? No, I would react with anger (and hide very wounded pride). Plus, to have such a sweetly charming sister, I can see them growing up with Katarina always reflecting badly off that sappy sweet sister of hers. " Why can't you be more like your sister?" kind of thing.

2. This is for you renaissance scholars out there. What was the status of education for women/daughters during this era? Was it a luxury for a few rich daughters? Was it provided only within the home by private tutors? How many of the general population could read? Guess I will have to start looking at the era itself.

v/l

[papayahed]

Is the play an exploration of how to achieve happiness? I think so. Even Lucentio is looking for knowledge:

I dunno Lucentio makes the point of saying that he wants to find happiness throught virtue. And one of the first things Lucentio does......passes himself off as somebody else. Perhaps the play is more about.....uh I dunno....can't think of anything right now, perhaps you're right Virgie. I'll have to read more before I get back to this..

[Virgil]

Are you familiar with the story Papaya? I won't spoil it for you if youre not.

[papayahed]

Are you familiar with the story Papaya? I won't spoil it for you if youre not.


I've never read it, but everybody knows the crux of the story. You can spoil...I generally read ahead to see what happens anyways.

[Virgil]

Take a look at the opening dialogue between Petruchio and his servant of Scene 2:


PETRUCHIO
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua, but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.

GRUMIO
Knock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has
rebused your worship?

PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.

GRUMIO
Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that
I should knock you here, sir?

PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate
And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.

GRUMIO
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock
you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.

PETRUCHIO
Will it not be?
Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it;
I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.

He wrings him by the ears

GRUMIO
Help, masters, help! my master is mad.

PETRUCHIO
Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!

Isn't this a parallel give and take to the dialogue between Petruchio and Katherina later in the play? Isn't Petruchio tryng to force his will on his servant the way he will with his wife?

And when Hortensio tries to understand what is happening, Grumio responds:

GRUMIO
Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin.
if this be not a lawful case for me to leave his
service, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap
him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to
use his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see,
two and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had
well knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst.
Grumio seems to think he was supposed to hit his master.


PETRUCHIO
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate
And could not get him for my heart to do it.

GRUMIO
Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these
words plain, 'Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here,
knock me well, and knock me soundly'? And come you
now with, 'knocking at the gate'?
So it was a miss understanding? The kind that husbands and wives have early on in marriages.

[Redzeppelin]

Petruchio and Grumio's opening dialogue plays off of one of Shakespeare's favorite techniques (esp in the early comedies) - puns. When I read this scene, I see Grumio choosing to pun on the word "knock"; Petruchio wants to announce his presence, but Grumio takes the word as "hit" - as in assault. It could be that Grumio is "dense," but I don't wonder if this isn't a little game the two play. Petruchio is clearly a man with a sense of humor - I think his servant knows this - or else he's "dense" and that's part of the comedy.

Petruchio doesn't so much "force his will" on Grumio as he "forces" his meaning of the word "knock" over Grumio's misuse of the term. Unless the context of the scene points towards "assualt," then Grumio is mistaken in his usage, and Petruchio (because the context properly calls for it) insists on his defintion ("announce my presence by rapping on the door"). I think this play makes much of what language means - and how people may intentionally decide to be contrary in how they take words despite the inappropriateness of doing so, based on the contex of the situation. Think of the later convesation during Petruchio and Kate's first dialogue.

[papayahed]

Take a look at the opening dialogue between Petruchio and his servant of Scene 2:


I don't see how this passage supports the book knowledge vs real world knowledge.


Red Zep, I'm wondering if it couldn't be about social status and the differences between master and servant.

[Redzeppelin]

Red Zep, I'm wondering if it couldn't be about social status and the differences between master and servant.

You could be right. Perhaps it is Grumio (as a lower class peasant) using the more "vulgar" definition of a word as opposed to Petruchio's more "refined" (as a nobleman) usage?

[Virgil]

I don't see how this passage supports the book knowledge vs real world knowledge.


I'll come out with this early. I think that the greater knowledge that Shakespeare believes in, more important than whatever is taught at the university or by philosophy, is that to reach an accomadation, between husband and wife, and perhaps we can project that on to all society, is the greatest knowledge to be gained. By accomodation, I mean a working relationship where bitter fighting is held in check.

[Janine]

I'll come out with this early. I think that the greater knowledge that Shakespeare believes in, more important than whatever is taught at the university or by philosophy, is that to reach an accomadation, between husband and wife, and perhaps we can project that on to all society, is the greatest knowledge to be gained. By accomodation, I mean a working relationship where bitter fighting is held in check.

I think this is a good observation and thought/concept, Virgil. Often, I believe, Shakespeare seeks this balance in his plays and ends on that note, for instance in
Much Ado About Nothing" and the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick. He seems to understand that part about relationships between husbands and wives...perhaps the compromise that marriage requires, in order that peace my reign in the end.

[Redzeppelin]

These are interesting comments in light of Shakespeare's own marriage - believed to be rocky at best by his biographers. As well, the #1 rival for Shakespeare's identity (Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) also had a rocky and distanced relationship from his wife.

[Janine]

Yes, I agree - what an "irony", considering Shakespeare's actual married life. Sometimes we seek solace in things we really cannot obtain. Perhaps he hoped it for others or the world, to form unions that would work.

[Virgil]

These are interesting comments in light of Shakespeare's own marriage - believed to be rocky at best by his biographers. As well, the #1 rival for Shakespeare's identity (Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) also had a rocky and distanced relationship from his wife.

I wasn't aware we had information on Shakespeare's relationship with his wife. From what do we know it was rocky? Is it just trying to read between the lines or is there anything tangible? He did get her pregnant before marriage, so I imagine it might have been somewhat of a forced thing.

As to how it relates to the play, perhaps then his relationship gave him insight. Or perhaps he views himself as Katherina. Or perhaps Katherina is a wish for what he wanted his wife to be. Psychobabble I know, ;) but we all do this.

[Redzeppelin]

I wasn't aware we had information on Shakespeare's relationship with his wife. From what do we know it was rocky? Is it just trying to read between the lines or is there anything tangible? He did get her pregnant before marriage, so I imagine it might have been somewhat of a forced thing.

As to how it relates to the play, perhaps then his relationship gave him insight. Or perhaps he views himself as Katherina. Or perhaps Katherina is a wish for what he wanted his wife to be. Psychobabble I know, ;) but we all do this.

Some scholars speculate that the evidence was that Shakespeare left Stratford while still young and did not return there until he retired from the theater - not evidence of one who is particularly fond of his wife. As well, other commentators point to the rather odd bequeathment of the "second best bed" to his wife, with no other commentary whatsoever. The "dark lady" sonnets in the last half of the sonnets seem to suggest to some commentators an extramarital affair. I think the idea of Shakespeare's less-than-idea marriage (does an ideal on exist?) comes more from the lack of evidence to show that he was involved in a meaningful way with his wife. Either way, Shakespeare's work certainly shows a good deal of male-female quibbling and arguing.

[hailmuseetc.]

The Scylla and Charybdis episode of Ulysses has some interesting ideas about Shakespeare's marriage. Ties into several of the other plays culminating with The Tempest (fittingly).

[papayahed]

I'll come out with this early. I think that the greater knowledge that Shakespeare believes in, more important than whatever is taught at the university or by philosophy, is that to reach an accomadation, between husband and wife, and perhaps we can project that on to all society, is the greatest knowledge to be gained. By accomodation, I mean a working relationship where bitter fighting is held in check.

I'll have to finish the book before I comment. I still can't see how book learning is coming into play here, perhaps in later acts.

[Petrarch's Love]

Hi all, just dropping by, since I saw you'd gotten a discussion going here. I may be in and out of the discussion as my work allows. I'm interested that Virgil brought out learning as a theme in the play. Teaching and learning of different kinds are certainly a thread running throughout the play. Virg. has already brought out Lucentio's opening speech. I'd also like to quote Tranio's response to him:


Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle's cheques
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

Ovid was well known in the Renaissance as the poet of amorous and even liscentious love, so the reference to Ovid for a Renaissance audience would have clearly indicated that Tranio wants to encourage his master to learn about love as a counter to the stiff logic and rhetoric of the stoics and Aristotle. Because the poetic culture of the Renaissance was so deeply interested in imitating the classical past through study, this tension between book learning and learning in love was a very common theme among the poets in this period, particularly those of the 1580's and 90's. In Phillip Sidney's opening sonnets to Astrophil and Stella for example, he contrasts the unfeeling learned rhetoric of poets who copy what they read in books with his own poetry, learned from the face of his beloved. Marlow's play, Doctor Faustus is another example of a work in the Renaissance that was deeply interested in the relation between book learning and experience in life. So, I think Shakespeare's opening to Taming of the Shrew is very typical of the sort of interest in the relation between book learning and experience in the poetry and drama of this time.

The opening scene does set up a contrast between book learning and learning by experience in love, but it also makes book learning the path to amorous learning, since it is by becoming Bianca's tutor and schooling her mind, that Lucentio intends to win her heart. This, of course, parallels the way Petruchio will become Kate's teacher in the main plot as well. This business about Lucentio becoming Bianca's tutor also clearly imitates stories from the past, especially that of Paolo and Francesca from Dante's Inferno, in which the two fall in love while reading together. I'm not certain I'd say that there's so much a contrast between book learning and learning from experience in this opening act (though that is there to a certain extent), as there is a question of what type of learning should be brought out of books (love stories and Ovidian themes, rather than logic and philosophy), and a question of how to apply this learning and integrate it into the business of life. How can the study of "what you most affect" in books lead to acheiving affection in life? I think there's an underlying statement here about the way that reading and learning should be an act of connecting the life of one time to the life of another rather an act of the sententious past stifling the life of the present. I'm not saying this is the central statment of the play, but I think it is prominent in the subplot between Lucentio and Bianca, which in turn ties in to the instructional relationship that develops between Petrucchio and Kate.

[xman]

... It could be that Grumio is "dense," but I don't wonder if this isn't a little game the two play. Petruchio is clearly a man with a sense of humor - I think his servant knows this - or else he's "dense" and that's part of the comedy. ...
I think it's much more dramatically interesting if Grumio is played as a savy servant who challenges his master and Peruchio as a competitive (albeit a confrontational) spirit who wouldn't have it any other way. I'd have to reread the play to ensure that Grumio's character would support this interpretation, but I wouldn't be surprised that it does, given Shakespeare's penchant for savant servants.

X

[xman]

I just want toi take a moment at the end of this, the first play read and only one I've missed to say thanks to those who started the idea and all who participate. You guys are awesome!

X