1 Unit 2 –The Taming of the Shrew- Lecture ISources, the Induction, andThe Taming of a Shrew Shakespeare’sThe Taming of the Shrewwas probably written between 1590 and 1593 or 1594. There are two versions of the play:the one we use does not close the Induction scene at the end —instead, Christopher Sly disappears from the action.The other version,A Pleasant Conceited History, Called The Taming of A Shrew, was published in 1594, 1596, and 1607. In this version, Sly interrupts the action at various points to comment on it, and this play closes with his views of the play he has just watched. At first glance, the Induction scene seems unrelated to the rest of the play that follows in the standard version of the play that we see or study.However, Frances E. Dolan argues that the Induction scene “instructs readers/viewers that class and gender identities are not natural or fixed, but instead are roles—a matter of how one dresses, acts, and is treated—and, as such, can be changed” (Dolan 6).Dolan suggests that the main “structural elements” of the play are the Induction, the central plot concerning Kate and Petruchio, and the subplot of Bianca and her suitors, wherein the Bianca subplot is most likely derived from George Gascoigne’s playSupposes(1566; 1572-75), a translation of Ariosto’sGli Suppositi(1509), a play that deals with disguise and transformation (Dolan 7).All three deal with “mistaken or transformed identities” (Dolan 7).The gender inversions of the Induction mirror the larger plot of the taming of Kate:the lady in the Induction “is played by Bartholomew, a boy page whom the Lord instructs on how to act like a wife.By dramatizing this process, the Induction reminds viewers that boys played all the women’s parts on the Renaissance stage; boys would have played both Kate and Bianca in the play to follow” (Dolan 8).Dolan points out that “the Lord teaches Bartholomew to use an onion to provoke tears” while Kate “accuses Bianca of sticking her finger in her eye to make herself cry (Ind.1.121-24; 1.1.78-79)” (Dolan 8).In each case, female behavior is shown to be performative rather than natural.Dolan asks: “In her bravura performance as gentlewoman and wife in the final scene, does Katherine do anything different from what Bartholomew does when he plays a lord’s wife?” (Dolan 8). In her analysis of the play, Margie Burns also discusses the relationship between the Induction and main play—between the ending and the “missing” ending of the closing of the Induction (Burns 84).There are, she suggests, two problems in the ending of the play:one is the disappearance of Christopher Sly, and the other, the “ambiguity” of Kate’s long speech in 5.2.13- 79:“At the beginning of the play, Sly disappears, to be replaced by Katherina the shrew; at the end of the play, Katherina the shrew disappears, to be replaced by someone evidently rather . . .
