"I think this book is a little difficult because they say to many hard and different words to understand how they said it in the time of year."
"Other than this book being a pain, and a horrible old english text. This book was one of the best by Willian Shakespeare."
"i didnt like this book because it was so hard to read and so annoying and hurt to understand what was happening so i hope we dont read more sahakespare because its hurt."
"i hated this book because the words were to deficult to read and just to understanding the book was to hard for me."
"Every woman and wife should read this. The importance of being feminine, kind and gracious to our husbands."
"This book in the Lake Illustrated Classics series is like Shakespeare, without all the pesky Shakespeare."
"the moral of the story is to tame your wife so she does whatever you want her to do"
"If it weren't for the fact that the girl they are trying to 'tame' didn't have much dialogue in the play, and actually SHOWED more resentment/disrespect, etc. for men, I'd see why this 'taming' would be needed."
"i can't get over the blatant sexism of shakespeare in this play. his chauvinism is so great, and so ignorant, that i'm tempted to question his overall intelligence."
"When Shakespeare wrote this, it was obviously a very different time. (Heck, it was like 5 centuries ago, when women were probably traded for goats, so I guess maybe this was forward thinking, at the time...) While some parts of this play were somewhat amusing, I just hate all of the dressing up in disguises that always seems to happen in any of Shakespeare's plays. But maybe that's how people got their kicks back in the day.. Dressed up and pretended to be someone else until they got caught. 'You idiot, its me, Carl. I can't believe all I had to do was put on a dress and say I was Susy to get you to believe me!!' Or dress up random drunks when they're sleeping to try to get them to think they're someone else, like in this play. "Hmm... I'm pretty sure before I passed out drunk I was wearing a lot rattier clothes, and people called me Sly. Wait, you say I'm a Prince?? And I'm rich?? Are you sure? Well you're right, I AM wearing nice clothes now. That SETTLES it! I MUST be someone else!" How does everyone fall for all of these tricks?? It's like the 1500s were all just a bunch of Bosom Buddies episodes."
"It's not so much a romantic comedy as a guide on how to torture your wife to force her to submit to your every whim."
"it’s hard to believe that Shakespeare, penner of such sensational heroines as Juliet and Viola, could ever produce this sexist drivel."
IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE! WHICH IS WHY WE SHOULDN'T BELIEVE IT WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT CAREFULLY, PREFERABLY IN THE CONTEXT OF URBANIZATION AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF MARRIAGE IN 16TH-CENTURY ENGLAND. PUT VERY BRIEFLY AND OVER-SIMPLY, THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NUCLEAR FAMILY AND THE URBAN ECONOMY CHANGED THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE. AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 16TH CENTURY IN ENGLAND, MARRIAGE WAS AN INSTITUTION THAT HAD VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH ROMANTIC LOVE. FOR THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES, IT WAS ESSENTIALLY A PRACTICAL PARTNERSHIP IN THE AGRICULTURAL WORK OF THE LARGE CLAN-STYLE HOUSEHOLD OF THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD. BUT IN THE GROWING CITIES THERE WAS NO OPPORTUNITY FOR RESPECTABLE WOMEN TO WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME--THE WIFE, HAVING NO LABOUR TO OFFER HER HUSBAND, WAS TRANSFORMED INTO AN ACQUISITION AND STATUS SYMBOL. MARRIAGE, FOR MEN AND WOMEN, WAS A GAME OF SOCIAL CLIMBING, PLAYED WITH DOWRIES AND LAVISH DISPLAYS OF BORROWED WEALTH. ONCE MARRIED, THE WIFE'S ROLE WAS RESTRICTED TO CHILD-BEARING AND MANAGING THE HOUSEHOLD. THIS IS THE NOVEL SOCIAL SITUATION UPON WHICH TAMING IS AN EXTENDED COMMENT. IT'S SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHDAY TODAY, SO I WILL BREAK CONVENTION BY POSTING A DEFENSE OF THE PLAY, FROM GERMAINE GREER'S THE FEMALE EUNUCH, WHICH I THINK GETS TO THE HEART OF THIS SUBTLE COMEDY:
"Kate is a woman striving for her own existence in a world where she is a stale, a decoy to be bid for against her sister’s higher market value, so she opts out by becoming unmanageable, a scold. Bianca has found the women’s way of guile and feigned gentleness to pay better dividends: she woos for herself under false colours, manipulating her father and her suitors in a perilous game which could end in her ruin. Kate courts ruin in a different way, but she has the uncommon good fortune to find Petruchio, who is man enough to know what he wants and how to get it. He wants her spirit and her energy because he wants a wife worth keeping. He tames her like he might a hawk or a high-mettled horse, and she rewards him with strong sexual love and fierce loyalty. Lucentio finds himself saddled with a cold, disloyal woman, who has no objection to humiliating him in public. The submission of a woman like Kate is genuine and exciting because she has something to lay down, her virgin pride and individuality: Bianca is the soul of duplicity, married without earnestness or good will. Kate’s speech at the close of the play is the greatest defence of Christian monogamy ever written. It rests upon the role of a husband as protector and friend, and it is valid because Kate has a man who is capable of being both, for Petruchio is both gentle and strong (it is a vile distortion of the play to have him strike her ever). The message is probably twofold: only Kates make good wives, and then only to Petruchios; for the rest, their cake is dough."
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