Notesale: Turn your study into money

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“It is not so much a comedy of manners but rather a comedy of misunderstanding
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The play simply
cannot be classed as a successful comedy of manners because the characters do not learn from
their mistakes and in the end, the resolution is only superficial
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Furthermore, Lucentio, instead of resolving his own problems, has his wealthy father’s influence
save him from being “revenged for…villainy”
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Firstly, Christopher
Sly, the ‘victim of deception’ both by the lord, who plots for the “beggar [to]…forget himself” but
also by his own mind – he believes quickly everyone’s claims that he is, in fact, a lord who has
“dreamed and slept above some fifteen year” “beaten hence by [a] strange lunacy”
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The
‘comedy of situation’ turns Sly’s reality from an “alehouse on a heath”, suggesting bawdy,
raucous revelry in contrast to the natural expanse, both considered for the lower class to a
fantasy deceptive world of “sweet savours and soft things” in which he is, for the first time in his
life, “aloft” and above everyone else – it is no wonder that Sly believes he is “a lord indeed”
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The servants alienate Sly with
references to classic Greek mythology which an uneducated beggar like Sly would not
comprehend – “Adonis painted by a running brook” and “Daphne roaming through a thorny
wood”– these allusions confuse Sly’s senses and mind to convince him he is “nothing but a lord”
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Disguise, deception and mistaken identity all lead Sly to
misunderstanding
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This kind
of comedic misunderstanding is simply to add humour and light-heartedness to the play
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Kate is nothing but a dowry to
him, it seems, and he brashly uses his disguise, a ‘key artifice’ in comedy, according to Jacques
Snider Denton, The System of Shakespeare’s Dramas, to approach Baptista and propose to
“Katherina, fair and virtuous” as he calls her; Baptista plays into what he assumes to be this
misunderstanding without correcting him, repeating “I have a daughter, sir, called Katherina” –
this is humorous as he removes the inapplicable adjectives
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He intentionally disguises himself, presenting a misunderstood
appearance to other characters and creating the comedy of misunderstanding; he is able to
carry it out with the help of somebody else, more specifically someone new to Padua because
the new person has no relations to the society around them
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However, as a
newcomer to Padua, it is easier to him to plot; he simply allows Gremio (another suitor of
Bianca’s) to find him ‘disguised as Cambio, a schoolmaster’, so he can be taken to Baptista for
Bianca’s education
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The two ‘exchange outfits’
so Tranio can act on Lucentio’s behalf and go to Baptista with an official proposal to stop Gremio
from marrying Bianca before the denouement can occur with the real Lucentio dropping his
disguise and marrying Bianca
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Secondly, it is a comedy of misunderstanding for Shakespeare’s contemporary audience
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The Italian setting is heavily emphasised in the first scene, with Lucentio referencing
“fruitful Lombardy” and “great Italy” – it is also evident in the characters’ names and the ‘io’
suffix, Tranio, Gremio, Biondello, and so forth
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Shakespeare’s audience was almost 80-85% illiterate, and during the Elizabethan era, equality in
marriage and women’s rights were almost unheard of in the heavily patriarchal society
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In the 21st century though, the test in the final act seems somewhat nauseating and
misogynistic – it suggests that women should be “soft and weak”, whereas men should be “thy
lord, thy life, thy keeper”; these allusions to royalty imply that husbands are kings to their dutiful
wives
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Another interpretation could be that it is advocating that headstrong young
women in society need to be quashed from “stark mad” Katherines to “gentler, milder” Biancas
which reaffirms the patriarchal order and deliberately leads the audience to misunderstand the
stereotypical view
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Lucentio implies that Kate has
allowed herself to be tamed: “Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so” – it seems
Lucentio is suggesting that Kate and Petruchio planned the bet, and that they worked as a team
to trick the others out of their money, producing the illusion of Petruchio having control, while
actually, they share power together, repeating the motif of disguise and illusion in The Taming of
the Shrew and asserting the comedy of misunderstanding
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However, one must
take all factors into account, such as Sly, the beggar who is deceived in the comedy of
misunderstanding style to believe he is a “noble lord”, and Bianca’s interwoven subplot involving
the “rival’s in [her] her”, in which they must compete through disguise and deception for her
hand in marriage, and lastly the unexplained ending – has Kate really been “tamed” or is she
simply allowing Petruchio to become wrapped up in the misunderstanding? When one considers
all the elements of the comedy of misunderstanding which are present within the play, both
which I have considered and analysed and the countless others left to explore, and when the
conventions of the comedy of manners which are absent, it seems that The Taming of the Shrew
must be viewed primarily as a comedy of misunderstanding, a viewpoint to which I am in
complete agreement
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The Taming of the Shrew
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Print
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The System of Shakespeare’s Dramas
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T
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Shakespeare Online
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(Accessed 7 January 2015)
http://www
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com/plays
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html



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