My Pre-reading Predictions
Background
The English Renaissance (1485-1660) & Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: A Brief Background
I.
The Renaissance: Historical Context
A. The Monarchy & the Church
1. _________________________ influenced by _________________________.
a. _________________________ married Catherine of Aragon.
b. _________________________ wrote 95 arguments against _________________________.
c. Henry VIII breaks away from Rome and becomes _________________________.
d. “Bloody” Mary (_________________________) succeeds Henry VIII.
e. Puritan reformers _________________________.
B. The Elizabethan Era
1. 1558: Elizabeth I (protestant) succeeds Mary.
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a. Defeated the _________________________, _________________________ England as a super
power.
2. 1603: Elizabeth I is succeeded by _________________________, who begins the
_________________________ line.
C. The Rise of the Stuarts
1. 1605: _________________________ (led by Guy Fawkes, Catholic)
2. 1625: _________________________ succeeds his father, James
3. 1629: Charles I dismisses _________________________
4. 1640: Charles _________________________, which strips the kings of
_________________________
D. The Defeat of the Monarchy
1. _________________________
2. Royalists
a. _________________________
3. Supporters of Parliament
a. _________________________, small landowners, & middle class
4. _________________________
a. led Puritan army
b. defeated Royalists
c. established a _________________________
5. After Cromwell’s death, Charles II is invited back to England
a. _________________________
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II. The Renaissance: Cultural Influences
A. Renaissance = “_________________________” or “_________________________”
B. Marked by a surge of _________________________and a _________________________
1. Renaissance Worldview is marked by a _________________________ (unlike the medieval concern
for the next life) and human _________________________
C. Time of _________________________, _________________________, & _________________________
D. Invention of compass allowed for greater exploration
E. _________________________ made books available
1. By 1530, more than 50% of England’s population could _________________________
F. Theater and literature thrive
G. King James commissioned a new translation of the _________________________
III. The Renaissance: Literature
A. Elizabethan Drama
1. Elizabethan drama emerges from 3 sources:
a. _________________________—mystery, miracle, & morality plays, which were religious
b. _________________________, which ridiculed the manners & customs of commoners
c. _________________________
2. New dramas dealt with the complexities of human life on earth
3. Plays staged in _________________________, homes of the wealthy, & early
_________________________
4. Shakespeare’s Influence
a. __________ plays
b. Tragedies, comedies, & histories
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c. Marked by _________________________, _________________________,
_________________________
5. Other playwrights
a. _________________________
i.
Psychological probing
b. _________________________
i.
Masques (elaborate scenery, costumes, music, dance, etc.)
6. __________ : Puritans close theaters
IV. Shakespearean Comedy
A. Dramatic Conventions & Writing Style
1. Soliloquy:
2. Aside:
3. Monologue:
4. Dramatic Irony:
5. Prose
a. _________________________ used to emphasis characters of low social status
6. Iambic Pentameter
a. _________________________ used to emphasize characters of high social status
B. Conventions of Shakespeare’s Comedy
1. Comedy through _________________________
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a. Word play, metaphors, insults
2. Love
a. _________________________
b. Also, _________________________
3. Complex plots
a. Intricate plot
b. 5-part _________________________ w/ _________________________
4. Mistaken identities
a. _________________________
b. Gender relations/confusion
V. The Taming of the Shrew
1. Contains _________________________
2. _________________________
a. Similarly used in Hamlet
b. Petruchio pretends to be a male shrew, beating and berating servants
c. Goal is to give Kate a taste of her own medicine
3. Role of _________________________ and disguise
4. _________________________ expectation and roles
a. The play mirrors _________________________ of Shakespeare’s time.
b. _________________________ was a _________________________ in comedy.
i.
An uncontrollable, unreasonably angry, and sometimes cruel woman
c. Shrew usually gets “was she deserve[s]”
d. Shakespeare treats the shrew with a little more dignity
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The Major Players
Baptista Minola:
Katharina Minola:
Bianca Minola:
Gremio:
Hortensio:
Lucentio:
Tranio:
Biondello:
Vincentio:
Petruchio:
Grumio:
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Induction
In your own words…
Scene 1
1. Why is the hostess angry with Sly at the open of the play? What sort of person does Sly seem
to be?
2. When Sly falls asleep, what does the lord propose they do with him?
3. What does the lord ask the players to do? What does he warn them of?
4. What does the lord order his page, Bartholomew, to do? What is the point of the lord’s
deception?
Scene 2
5. How does Sly react at first to being treated like a lord? What changes his mind?
6. How does the page (disguised as Sly’s wife) avoid being found out?
7. What excuse is given for the performance of the play?
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Act 1
In your own words…
Scene 1
1. Why has Lucentio come to Padua? Who is his father?
2. Who is Tranio? What advice does he give Lucentio?
3. What does Baptista tell Gremio and Hortensio about his daughters?
4. What do the suitors have to say about Kate? How does she respond?
5. What does Baptista wish to find for Bianca? Why might Gremio and Hortensio offer to find
this?
6. What else do Gremio and Hortensio decide to find to help their pursuit of Bianca?
7. What happened to Lucentio while watching Baptista, his daughters, and the suitors? What
does Tranio point out?
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8. What plan do Lucentio and Tranio devise?
Scene 2
9. What word play occurs at the beginning of the scene?
10. Why does Petruchio come to Padua? What does he want in a wife?
11. Why does Petruchio tell Hortensio, “Thou know’st not gold’s effect”?
12. What is Grumio’s response to Hortensio’s proposal?
13. What does Hortensio ask Petruchio to do as they go to meet Baptista?
14. What does Gremio ask Lucentio (disguised as a schoolmaster) to do?
15. What added incentive does Petruchio have to woo Kate?
16. When Tranio arrives, who does he claim to be? What does he want to do?
17. How do Bianca’s suitors act toward each other? Do you think they will continue to have this attitude
towards each other once Bianca is available?
18. How do the suitors act toward Petruchio? Do you think they believe he will be successful in his pursuit?
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Act 2
In your own words…
Scene 1
1. How are Kate and Bianca behaving towards each other at the beginning of the scene?
2. What does Kate say to her father that troubles him?
3. How does Petruchio act as he arrives at Baptista’s? Who does he present to Baptista?
4. Who does Gremio present to Baptista?
5. Who does Tranio introduce himself as? Why does he say he is there? What does he present Baptista?
6. What does Baptista tell Petruchio he must get before he can marry Kate? How does Petruchio claim he
will get this?
7. What happened when Hortensio (disguised as Lito) tried to give Kate music lessons?
8. What strategy for wooing Kate does Petruchio outline in his soliloquy (lines 170-181)?
9. What happens when Kate and Petruchio meet?
10. How does Petruchio use the plan from lines 170-181?
11. When Baptista and the others return, what does Petruchio tell them he and Kate have agreed upon?
12. How does Kate respond to her father’s approval of her marriage to Petruchio?
13. Now that Bianca is free to marry, how will Baptista choose between her suitors?
14. Why must Tranio find someone to pose as Lucentio’s father?
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Act 3
In your own words…
Scene 1
1. Why are Lucentio and Hortensio arguing? How does Bianca settle their dispute?
2. What do Lucentio and Bianca discuss while “translating” their Latin? What is Bianca’s attitude towards
Lucentio?
3. What is Hortensio’s “gamut”? How does Bianca respond to it?
4. What does Hortensio decided to do at the end of the scene? Why?
Scene 2
5. At the open of the scene, what hitch occurs in the wedding plans?
6. When Petruchio arrives, how does he look? How does everyone react? What is Petruchio’s response?
7. As Tranio fills Lucentio in on his plans to find a fake father, what possibility concerning Bianca does
Lucentio raise? Why is Tranio’s part of the plan important?
8. According to Gremio, how did the marriage ceremony between Kate and Petruchio go?
9. What announcement does Petruchio make after the wedding? How does Kate respond?
10. What justification does Petruchio give for dragging Kate away at the end of the scene?
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Act 4
In your own words…
Scene 1
1. According to Grumio, how was the trip from Padua for Kate and Petruchio? What sort of mood will they
probably be in?
2. How does Petruchio treat his servants? How does he react to his dinner? How does Kate respond to
him?
3. What observation does the servant Peter make about Kate and Petruchio’s relationship?
4. To what does Petruchio compare Kate? How does he intend to “tame” her?
Scene 2
5. What do Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) and Hortensio observe? What do they decide to do?
6. What will Hortensio do now?
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7. How does Tranio convince the Pedant to pose as Vincentio (Lucentio’s father)?
Scene 3
8. Why does Kate beat Grumio? How is she responding to Petruchio’s treatment of her?
9. Why have the haberdasher and tailor come? What happens while they are there?
10. What does Petruchio’s aside to Hortensio (line 161) tell us about the incident with the tailor? What was
Petruchio trying to do?
11. What point does Petruchio make to Kate in lines 166-180?
Scene 4
12. What do Baptista, Tranio (disguised as Lucentio), and the Pedant (disguised as Vincentio) agree on?
13. What has Biondello arranged for Lucentio?
Scene 5
14. What happens when Kate disagrees with Petruchio’s comment about the moon? How does the
argument end?
15. Who do Kate and Petruchio meet along the road to Padua? What happens when Petruchio calls this
person a lovely, young maiden?
16. What does Hortensio claim to have learned from Petruchio?
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Act 5
In your own words…
Scene 1
1. What happens when the real Vincentio arrives at Lucentio’s house? How does Biondello respond to
Vincentio?
2. When Lucentio and Bianca arrive, what announcement do they make? How do Baptista and Vincentio
react? How do Kate and Petruchio seem to respond? What happens to Tranio, Biondello, and the
Pedant?
Scene 2
3. What is going on at the beginning of the scene? What’s the mood?
4. What wager does Petruchio propose? Why?
5. What happens when the wives are sent for?
6. What further show of “obedience” does Kate give?
7. What point does Kate make about husbands and wives in her speech at the end?
8. How do the others react to Kate’s speech and her behavior?
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Conclusion
Book2Movie
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March 9, 1967
Burtons Arrive in ‘Taming of the Shrew’: Shakespeare Gets Lost In Film at Coronet
By BOSLEY CROWTHER
DON’T bother to brush up on your Shakespeare when you go to see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in “The
Taming of the Shrew.” And certainly don’t bother to study the Marquis of Queensberry rules, the century-old code of
pugilism, which might, for this occasion, have been applied. Both are serenely violated in this totally wild abstraction
of the Bard for the purposes of a fast return engagement between the Burtons in a florid and fustian film.
Having had at one another very roundly and in a serious dramatic vein in their most recent husband-wife tangle,
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” the Burtons are now turned loose wth slapsticks for a free-swinging hit-as-hit-can in
this forthrightly campy entertainment, which opened at the Coronet last night. They are refereed by Franco Zeffirelli
out of the corner of one winking eye. And if any crusty customer doesn’t like it—well, a pox on him!
In settings that fairly teem and tumble with lush Renaissance décor, vegetable stands, street singers, heavily robed
merchants and clowns, Mr. Burton’s hairy Petruchio sweeps grandly onto the operatic scene with the obvious intent
of being funny quite as much as that of getting a wealthy wife. And Miss Taylor’s powerful Katharina hauls off and
swats him with as much desire to set the customers whooping and howling as to discourage his matrimonial quest.
Under Mr. Zeffirelli’s gleeful urging more than his restraining, I feel sure, Miss Taylor and Mr. Burton race madly
through the first part of the film, committing physical violence on each other with a minimum exhaling of
Shakespeare’s words. After they’ve finally exhausted their energies, and ours — after Petruchio has tumbled
Katharina in a bin of fresh-sheared wool and has come to a suitable arrangement with her old man to make her his
wife—we are treated to more slamming and banging on a slightly lower level of the decibel scale, as Petruchio goes
about the standard business of domesticating his bosomy shrew.
In all manner and ways, the text of Shakespeare, and indeed the characters, give way to the shrieking and sweating
cornbeef-eaters that Miss Taylor and Mr. Burton devise. And it is in their extravagant overacting and in the evident
fun they have that the sheer theatrical gusto and rollicking sport of this film reside.
But I find it all grows a bit tedious. After we’ve examined Mr. Burton’s great red beard, and Miss Taylor’s amazingly
revealing yet deftly restraining decolletage, listened to them toss about the language without much clarity or
eloquence, watched Mr. Burton slobber drunkenly through scene after scene after scene, and discovered beneath the
finery of Katharina a hint of Gloria in “Butterfield;” it seems time to have done with clowning and settle down to a bit
of comedy—comedy of a slightly adult order. The Burtons never do.
Neither do the other performers. They all seem to want to be clowns, popping their eyes, flaring their nostrils,
slapping their bellies and pulling their hats down over their ears. Michael Hordern as Katharina’s father is the best of
the lot. He, at east, endows the harassed Baptista with a bit of character. Cyril Cusack as Petruchio’s guzzling servant,
and Alfred Lynch as the bug-eyed pumpkin who comes to town with Michael York’s romantic Lucentio, are the worst.
Natasha Pyne as the fair-haired Bianca, who has to wait until her sister is wed before she can enjoy matrimony, is
convincingly eager, at least.
As for Mr. Zeffirelli’s settings and the elaborate Renaissance costumes, they look very rich and mellow in the misty
pastel colors that are used. But they, too, like Nino Rota’s music, tend to monotony.
Most of the fun in this picture comes in the early part. As it goes along, one begins to wish for the helpful music of.
“Kiss Me, Kate” and the kind of sophisticated mockery it made of “The Taming of the Shrew.”
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Post-Reading Reflections
Unanswered Questions
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Writing Assignment
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Literary Devices & Elements
Symbols
Themes
Motifs
Conflicts
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Unfamiliar Words in Context and
Definitions
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Important Quotes (from Each Act) with Their
Significance
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