The battle of wits: Petruccio's educational methods

Andreas Hohmann

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Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Kass...

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Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Kassel (Anglistik), course: W. Shakespeare - The Taming of the Shrew, language: English, abstract: Shakespeare explores the theme of comic sexual warfare between men and women in The Taming of the Shrew, says Francois Laroque (1997, p. 64). Shakespeare's play consists of a frame tale which introduces two interlinked plots. The frame story deals with a poor tinker, Christopher Sly, who is found drunkenly by a nobleman. This nobleman enjoys to play a joke on the poor tinker's expense making him believe he is a nobleman with all the luxury of servants, a wife, fine food and drink at his command. In this way, Christopher Sly comes into the joy of watching a troupe of players enact a "comedy of courtship and marriage involving two lines of action" on the order of the true nobleman. The first line of action is concerned with Katherine, the elder sister of the Minola siblings, who "is 'tamed' by a strong-willed, fortune-seeking suitor named Petruchio" (Howard, J.E., 1997, p. 133). The second, however, deals with Bianca Minola, the younger daughter of Baptista Minola, the father of the two. She is wooed by three different adoring suitors at a time and "eventually elopes with one of them without her father's knowledge or consent." (Ibid). Catherine Bates (2002, p. 108), however, regards The Taming of the Shrew as being a brisk comedy which is laid on to entertain the drunken Christopher Sly. Edward Berry (2002, pp. 123-138), nevertheless, sees Katherine being the shrew who is "mocked, abused, and tormented into submission by Petruchio (Ibid, p. 124). Edward Berry also states that "the play in which Katherine is tamed is a play within a play, performed at the request of a hunting lord, who uses it to show the beggar, Christopher Sly, how grand it is to live his kind of life"(Ibid, p. 132).