Talk:The Taming of the Shrew

message: I cannot make sense of the following:
After the 17th century, The Taming of the Shrew greatly decreased in both popularity and performance, compared to Shakespeare’s other plays. In its rare surfacing, the play was most often an adaptation of Shakespeare’s original. In the 18th century, however, there was a revival of The Taming of the Shrew, as it was once again performed the way Shakespeare had intended.
Either it is contradictory or very poorly phrased given the chronology suggested.  Could someone with more knowledge of the subject reword or clarify. Jimg (talk) 16:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction?

message: :More importantly, it seems to be OCRed and input wholesale. It contains the word "Induction" many times where I believe it is trying to say "Introduction" and much more. I'm going to remove it right now. I think that something along these lines that explain both sides of the controversy around the play probably belongs. But this isn't it, at least in its current form. --mako 17:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Taming of the Shrew DOES have an "induction". AndyJones 20:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hunh, so it does. I'd assumed that was a typo, but it seems to be what WS calls it. Well, if it's good enough for Shakespeare ... I'll make the change.  rewinn 05:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand corrected. In any case, the large body of removed text still does not belong for other reasons mentioned in the thread. --mako 15:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Induction

message: I'm going to make a character list, feel free to add and help. 
User:Dfrg.msc  23:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Character list 

message: I have removed the text
:The boastful, selfish, mercurial Petruccio is one of the most difficult characters in The Taming Of The Shrew: his behaviour is extremely difficult to decipher, and our interpretation of the play as a whole changes dramatically depending on how we interpret Petruccio’s actions. If he is nothing more than a vain, uncaring, avaricious chauvinist who treats marriage as an act of domination, than the play becomes a dark comedy about the materialism and hunger for power that dictate marriages under the guise of courtly love. If, on the other hand, Petruccio is actually capable of loving Kate and conceives of taming her merely as a way to realize a happy marriage, than the play becomes an examination of the psychology of relationships. A case can be made for either interpretation, but the truth about Petruccio probably lies somewhere in between: he is unabashedly selfish, materialistic, and determined to be his wife’s lord and master, but he also loves her and realizes on some level that domestic harmony (on his terms, of course) would be better for her than her current life as a shrew in Padua. To this extent, Petruccio goes to alarming lengths to impose his mastery on Kate, keeping her tired and hungry for some time after their marriage, but he also insists on expressing this treatment in a language of love, indicating his eagerness for Kate to adapt to her rightful, socially appointed place and his willingness to make their marriage a happy one. Above all, Petruccio is a comic figure, an exaggerated person who continually makes the audience laugh. And though we laugh with Petruccio as he “tames” Kate, we also laugh at him, as we see him satirize the gender inequalities that the plot of The Taming Of The Shrew ultimately upholds.
from the main article. It appears to be copied from  verbatim, except the capitalization of the play's name was changed to be incorrect. Pcu123456789 23:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyvio 

message: Feminists = shrew × 1000
--Evgeni Sergeev 03:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untamed shrews formula 

message: Where does the story come from?
I have read an old story about a young man marrying a brave woman but I don't remember if it was from Decameron or Don Juan Manuel. --Error 18:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Inspiration

message: :Image:Elizabeth and Richard.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Elizabeth and Richard.jpg

message: I'm confused as to the title of the other play mentioned in the article. It is both referred to as The Taming of the Shrew and A Shrew, and in the Authorship section it is referred to as The Taming of the Shrew while Shakespeare's play is called The Shrew. Unless I'm reading it wrong. This should be clarified, yes? 80.161.20.196 (talk) 22:25, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The other play 

message: "Just as there are dissenting opinions on the interpretation of Shrew in modern times, people often disagreed on the play’s true meaning in the 16th century." Are there some examples (quotes) we can provide? Seems OR without any. Smatprt (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but that particular paragraph is loosely referenced to Aspinall's "The Play and the Critics", with sentences just before and after attributed to that source. So probably it comes from there. I don't have that book, but if someone has access to it, perhaps the statement could be properly referenced. If we can say that Aspinall says that there were dissenting opinions in the 16th century, I'd say that would suffice. We wouldn't need to give examples ourselves, as long as we make it clear that the information comes from Aspinall. Cowardly Lion (talk) 19:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well....here we go again. Just because some sloppy scholar has made a controversial statement, are we obliged just to follow them blindly when, as far as most scholarship tells us, there was actually very little (if any) actual comments made about the plays that are not subject to incredibly diverse interpretations? "People often disagreed" is a pretty strong statement to accept without citing actual examples. What people? How often? Disagreed how? Smatprt (talk) 03:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how stating that someone said something, thereby avoiding making the claim as if it's what we are saying, means following him blindly. You seem to think I disagree with you when I'm actually agreeing with you. I'm perfectly happy with your decision to take out that statement. I'd also have been happy to have left it, but to have made it clear that this is what Aspinall says, not what we say. Cowardly Lion (talk) 11:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

text: P.S. - According to the British Library, "there are virtually no records of performances of The Taming of the Shrew". If this is so, then how can "people" hve disagreed about the play's true meaning? Scholars can't even decide whether it was Taming of THE Shrew or Taming of A Shrew that was being discussed or reacted to, since what little records there are generally mention "A" shrew, which as you know is a different work, which (again) scholars disagree over it being a "bad" quarto, early version, different author, same author, etc. See [] Smatprt (talk) 05:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with both of you, really, but I support Smatprt's decision to take this out. Without necessary context (who disagreed and what aspect of the thing did they disagree about?) then the statement's pretty meaningless to a reader. AndyJones (talk) 08:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Really?

message: ...is conspicuous by its absence! 90.209.254.107 (talk) 02:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Pardonnez-moi? BlackPearl14[talkies!•contribs!] 02:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plot outline 

message: I have rewritten the introduction to this page in order to make it more readable and less ambiguous. I have kept the brief summary of the plot but was there never a synopsis section?--Septemberfourth476 (talk) 15:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: Good work on the article so far; I learned a lot about this play.  However, I'm confused about the use of both References and Works Cited.  Is there a reason to use both for this article or can they be combined? - fmmarianicolon | Talk 15:36, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I agree with this, there is no reason to split them up. If something is quoted from or used in the text, it should go in the 'References' section. Anything else should go in a 'Further Reading' or 'Bibliography' section. I mean, how is it determined what goes in References and what goes in Works Cited? At the moment, it seems totally arbitrary. There's also a mixture of Harvard referencing and endnote referencing. Why? Surely the article should use one and stick to it? Another thing. A critic is mentioned several times (Krims), and page references are given, but the actual work is never cited. Literally, the reference is just (Krims, 32) or (Krims, 216) or whatever. That's useless from a bibliographic point of view. If one of my students did that in an essay I'd nail them to the wall. The exact same thing happens later in relation to a critic called Burns. Who is Burns? To what book is the page reference referring? It's a good article (although some sections need work, such as the 'Date' section, which doesn't actually give any composition dates!), but the referencing is pretty poor. If no one has any objections, I'll clean it up over the next few days. Bertaut (talk) 22:30, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're quite right: the references in this article are in an appalling state. This might be because Wikipedia permits several citation styles (although, it generally encourages consistency within a single article), one of which does not use inline citation but rather a mere list of works cited at the end; or it might be simple rot, a lot of editors have made changes but none have given the work any direction. In any case, the reason for the split between the References and the full bibliographic details is so that each book can be cited multiple times, on separate pages, without making the References section impossible to navigate. For examples of how this is supposed to work, take a look at Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest (or the main William Shakespeare article, for that matter). In any case, please do go ahead: the oft cited be bold certainly applies here! --Xover (talk) 07:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  References v. Works Cited 

message: The "Analysis and Criticism" and "Themes" sections of the page read as though they are a slightly altered A-Level / 1st year undergraduate essay . I have been going through slowly fiddling with content, syntax, POV, occasional glaring inaccuracies, etc. but think that the sections could really use a complete overhaul. Anyone fancy giving me hand? There's lots to work with, if presented and phrased rather poorly - would be nice to see the article upgraded to A class in the near future.--Septemberfourth476 (talk) 18:40, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No comment on your question, but I thought I'd reply just to explain that "A" isn't the class above "B". The next class up is "GA" (Good Article). "A" is above that. AndyJones (talk) 19:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with your assessment above. The prose reads more like a list of different views then a nice summary of scholarly discourse on the subject. Wrad (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Now done same to rest of article--Septemberfourth476 (talk) 21:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

text: We haven't really developed one yet. Which one is more common in critical literature? We should probably choose one to use uniformly. Wrad (talk) 20:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It varies between articles and books. Katherina is probably better than Katherine, but referring to her as Kate (or Kate and Katherina in the same article) is acceptable.--Septemberfourth476 (talk) 20:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Made changes so Katherina is the usual spelling--Septemberfourth476 (talk) 14:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analysis and Criticism / Themes 

message: I'm not sure about pronunciation of the first word. Could anybody make a record, please? --Zik2 (talk) 13:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: Calling "Deliver Us from Eva" an "adaptation" of "Taming of the Shrew" seems like a bit of a stretch. "Inspired by," maybe, but not an adaptation, not even to the extent that "10 Things I Hate About You" is.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.161.228.162 (talk) 00:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Film Adaptations

message: Is the fact that Auden once played in a school production on topic here? I'm inclined to delete, following the "please be bold in deleting them" recommendation in WP:TOPIC, leaving just the existing reference on his own page. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections: deleting. --Old Moonraker (talk) 19:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[W. H. Auden]] 

message: As regards the recent reorganisation of the sections, the article is now no longer laid out the way the standarised template is in the WikiProject Shakespeare, which places 'Sources' and 'Date and Text' above 'Characters'. Looking through the various Shakespeare articles, there's very little confluence of structure between any of them, so obviously nobody is overly pushed about any kind of standardised layout. Which is a shame. For what it's worth, I think Smatprt's reorganisation makes more sense as a structure than the way I had it, as there were references to characters in sections prior to the list of characters. So I think the way it is now is better. But as I say, there are now two templates. So, I was just wondering for future reference (I've also worked on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which I laid out as per the WikiShakespeare, and will soon be starting on Henry VI, Part 2) which template should I stick to: the FA plays recommendation or the WikiShakespeare recommendation? Bertaut (talk) 01:25, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for asking. I would recommmend using the FA plays recommendation, since the template at Wikishakepeare was a "suggested" format prior to any of the articles reaching FA. During the FA process it was generally agreed to move the Date and Source sections below the synopsis (for several reasons including the ones you state). Having reponded to this, I think I'll head over to Wikishakespeare and change the suggested format to reflect the later consensus. Thanks. Smatprt (talk) 21:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent. Thanks for letting me know. This structure makes more sense anyway, so it's all good. Bertaut (talk) 23:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section reordering 

message: As y'all can see, I added two new images to the article from the Zeffirelli and BBC adaptations, but I'm not 100% sure that they're kosher. I've followed the guidelines closely as regards fair use rationale and whatnot, but as these are the first non public domain images I've uploaded, I'm not sure if everything is okay with them. If not, any advice would be much appreciated. Bertaut (talk) 02:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New images 

message: What is up with all the red links - especially in the adaptation sections? The TV and Radio sections are simply ridiculous. Are all these people really notable? Will they ever have serious articles written about them? It seems like some serious trimming is in order.  Also,  should be consulted.Smatprt (talk) 07:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As I created most of those links, I'm happy to trim them back. Thanks for the link, that'll be good to know for future work. As I said prior to working on this, I'm still learning to use Wikipedia from an aesthetic point of view, so any advice is very much appreciated. I'll remove a bunch of them shortly. And for what it's worth, I personally did think having so many red links looked a bit 'off', so I'm glad someone has given me a reason to remove some of them! Incidentally, I assume The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry VI, Part 2 have the same problem, so I'll edit them too. Thanks for that. Bertaut (talk) 16:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Excessive Red Links

message: Hi, so, I see the article is tagged as being too long and what do I do? I increase the length and add a bunch of new material! But I think you’ll agree, the material I’ve added does improve things. Basically, I’ve expanded the ‘Sources’ and ‘Date and text’ sections a little, nothing major. The majority of changes I made were in the ‘Authorship’ section. I know a few people felt that the way I wrote it first time around wasn’t the best, and was too focused on the bad quarto theory (which it was), so I think I’ve corrected that now by introducing a section on the history of theories about the relationship between the two plays and dealing with some of the other theories in as much detail as the bad quarto theory. Perhaps this entire section could be moved to an entry specifically for A Shrew at some stage in the future, but for now, it certainly helps things where it is. As you can tell, I’ve consulted Morris, Thompson and Miller (amongst others) in writing this version. I was hoping to use Hodgdon as well, but I’m not sure when her edition is coming out, so I’ll just wait, and maybe incorporate it down the road. For now though, length issues aside, I think the section is infinitely better than it was. Bertaut (talk) 01:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There's definitely enough material for a spin-off article now. At present the The Taming of a Shrew article is a redirect to here, but that title probably doesn't make it easy enough to distinguish sufficiently the two topics. Suggestions? --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:56, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: How about something like 'The Taming of a Shrew (1594 quarto)', and we could put a link to it on the top of the The Shrew page? I agree, the similarity of title is a tricky one. Bertaut (talk) 01:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. I'd be willing to give it a try if nobody else fancies it, but I'm on a wikibreak (half term) right now, so it wouldn't be for a week or so. Very happy to come back and find it completed! --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  February 12 changes 

message: Maurice Daniels' 1961 staging of the play for the Royal Shakespeare Company was a re-working of the John Barton version, rather than a new production.
And "Kiss Me Kate" is not quite a musical based on the play - its characters are performing the play (or possibly a musical version of the plot) and we see some of the scenes they are presenting.
Rogersansom (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 14:04, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I've been meaning to change the info regarding Kiss Me Kate for some time now, and it kept slipping my mind. If you can provide a source for the info on Daniels' production, I'll make the changes. Bertaut (talk) 16:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smallish points about the article 

message: We have an IP hopping WP:SPA from Perth who is challenging a statement in the lede. Since the item is covered in detail in the Themes section IMO we don;t need another ref in the lede. The item is well established by both scholars and critics but if any of you who have this article feel other wise please feel free to update the item as you sit fit. Thanks ahead of time for your input and efforts. MarnetteD | Talk 18:06, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: As I noted anywhere, one of the key points of Shakespeare 101 is that Taming has highly (by contemporary standards) misogynist content.  It's already well supported in the article, and the forced source in the lede is entirely unnecessary.  --Drmargi (talk) 06:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Item about modern day critics in the lede

message: So, as everyone can see, I've given the article a bit of an overhaul. The two most significant changes I've made concern references; the format and the amount. I've changed all entries in the bibliography to the cite book/cite journal template, and most references in the article to the sfnp format (or harvp format where appropriate). References not included in the bibliography I've used the standard cite book/cite journal/cite web formats. I've also added a lot of references. Most of this article was written when I was pretty new to Wikipedia, and wouldn't have been as fastidious about referencing as I am now, so basically, pretty much every fact/opinion in the article is backed up. As well as that, I've done some rewriting throughout the article, added some info, removed some info, tidied up some stuff, fixed a couple of errors, added some new images etc. The one thing now is that the article is very long. Personally, I don't have a problem with long articles, but I know the consensus is that very long articles should be broken up. With that said, whilst there is the possibility of doing a Taming of a Shrew article, it wouldn't really help reduce the length of this article, as most of the A Shrew info would have to remain. Similarly, while we could do a Themes in The Taming of the Shrew article, I think the themes section is too integrated into the whole to split it up. As such, I propose two spin off articles - The Taming of the Shrew on screen, which would include everything from both the film and the television sections, and The Taming of the Shrew in performance, which would include everything from the Performance history and the theatrical section of the Adaptations. There are several Shakespearean plays that have their own "on screen" articles, and at least two with an "in performance" article. So, any thoughts? I'll give it a week or so before I do anything regarding the new articles. Bertaut (talk) 01:55, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: All done. The Taming of the Shrew in performance and The Taming of the Shrew on screen both created and all relevant content moved. Bertaut (talk) 02:25, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  February 2015 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on The Taming of the Shrew. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120222053851/http://www.rsc.org.uk/downloads/pdfs/Conall_Morrison_QA.pdf to http://www.rsc.org.uk/downloads/pdfs/Conall_Morrison_QA.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 17:51, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I think that Katherina's description in the synopsis can be reworded, specifically the line that reads, "Katherina's temper is notorious and it is thought no man would ever wish to marry her." I think the "it is thought" part is too broad and could point directly to quotes from characters such as Gremio in Act 1, Scene 2 of the play. I also think "temper" is not the right word because most of the characters in the play say that she is too "rough" or disorderly ("to cart her rather," I.1.55 - page 137). Shakespeare, William, Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays, The Sonnets. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Print. I would maybe change her "notorious temper"  to notorious extroversion, assertiveness, or willfulness (I.1.69 - page 138). Shakespeare, William, Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus. The Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays, The Sonnets. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Print. HalM03 (talk) 04:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Potential changes in Synopsis and Themes sections 

message: (not pinging the other recent participants here, but would obviously welcome others' input on the issue)Regarding my removal, and Seraphimblade's subsequent restoration, of the (web) citation supporting the Conall Morrison quote in the "Controversy" section. I removed the cite not because it contained a dead link, but because it is a cite to a web source with a dead link for which several attempts over a long time (it's been several years since I first looked into it) have failed to turn up an alternate source or archive. That is, the problem isn't the dead link per se, but rather that the content fails WP:V (and quoting Morrison on a controversial issue it actually falls under WP:BLP as well, though that was not my main concern). My replacement of the cite with a  tag was as a last ditch attempt to save the quote, by encouraging someone else to come up with a cite for it. Because the alternative is to remove the entire quote outright (per WP:DEADREF which is the guideline for how to apply the WP:V policy to this situation). --Xover (talk) 19:38, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The first sentence can be sourced here, but that's about all I've been able to find online (disregarding sources that are most likely just quoting from the article without attribution). I'll continue to look into it over the next week. It will be a shame to lose the quote alright, but it certainly seems like we may have to. Bertaut (talk) 01:04, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

text: Oh, and just to note: I contacted the RSC shortly after this discussion, but have as yet not heard back from them. They do probably have the materials in their archives, or the SBT has them, but it appears there's no way for us to cite them verifiably. --Xover (talk) 18:51, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conall Morrison quote 

message: Can we do something about the sentence in the lede that ends "[something] ...has become the subject of considerable controversy, particularly among modern scholars, audiences, and readers." Particularly among those as distinct from whom? People who don't know anything about it, haven't seen it and haven't read it? Weasels, ferrets and stoats? It just seems a bit redundant. AndyJones (talk) 19:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Particularly among...?