Flashcards for The Taming of the Shrew

Baptista Minola

Baptista Minola is a wealthy merchant in Padua, and his two daughters, Katherina and Bianca, are at the heart of the play's dual courtship storylines.

character

Bianca Minola

Bianca Minola is the younger daughter of the wealthy merchant Baptista from Padua, and she serves as the play's idealized romantic prize — the object of desire for several suitors and a clear contrast to her famously sharp-tongued sister Katherina.

character

Biondello

Biondello is Lucentio's sharp, street-smart servant in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, serving as a lively comic sidekick in the intricate romantic schemes around Bianca.

character

Christopher Sly

Christopher Sly is the drunken tinker who introduces The Taming of the Shrew, appearing in the Induction before the main action begins.

character

Gremio

Gremio is a wealthy, older suitor from Padua who’s pursuing Bianca Minola, mainly serving as a comic foil.

character

Grumio

Grumio is Petruchio's loyal, sharp-witted personal servant and one of Shakespeare's most entertaining clowns in The Taming of the Shrew.

character

Hortensio

Hortensio is a gentleman from Padua and one of Bianca's two initial suitors, acting as both a comic schemer and a thematic contrast to the play's main romance.

character

Katherina Minola

Katherina Minola is the "shrew" at the heart of Shakespeare's comedy and undoubtedly its most captivating character.

character

Lucentio

Lucentio is a wealthy young scholar from Pisa who comes to Padua to study but is immediately swept away by love at first sight of Bianca Minola.

character

Petruchio

Petruchio is the play's main male character and comic force—an arrogant, confident gentleman from Verona, who comes to Padua specifically looking for a rich wife.

character

The Widow

The Widow is a minor yet sharply defined character in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, mostly appearing in Act V. She is a wealthy woman whom Hortensio woos and quickly marries after he gives up on Bianca.

character

Tranio

Tranio is Lucentio's clever and resourceful servant in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, and he serves as one of the main sources of comedy in the play.

character

Vincentio

Vincentio is a wealthy, elderly merchant from Pisa and the true father of Lucentio.

character

“Say that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain / She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.”

This quote is spoken by Petruchio in William Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew (Act 2, Scene 1) as he lays out his audacious plan to win over — and ultimately tame — the famously sharp-tongued Katherina.

Petruchio · Act 2

“Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.”

This line is spoken by Petruchio to Katherina in Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Petruchio · Act 2

“Such duty as the subject owes the prince, / Even such a woman oweth to her husband.”

These lines are spoken by Katharina (Kate) in the final scene of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Katharina (Kate) · Act 5

“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, / Thy head, thy sovereign.”

These lines are spoken by Katharina (Kate) in Act V, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, directed towards the Widow and Bianca during the final banquet scene.

Katharina (Kate) · Act V

“Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.”

This line is delivered by Petruchio to Katherine (Kate) near the end of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, in the final scene of Act 5.

Petruchio · Act 5, Scene 2

“She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, / My household stuff, my field, my barn, / My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.”

These lines are spoken by Petruchio in Act III, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew.

Petruchio

“I am ashamed that women are so simple / To offer war where they should kneel for peace.”

This line is delivered by Katharina (Kate) in the final scene of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, as part of her lengthy closing speech to the other wives, Bianca and the Widow.

Katharina (Kate) · Act 5

“Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow.”

This line kicks off Katherine's well-known final speech in Act 5, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Katherine (Katherina) · Act 5

“No shame but mine. I must, forsooth, be forced / To give my hand opposed against my heart.”

These lines are spoken by Bianca in Act II, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Bianca · Act II

“I'll not budge an inch, boy; let him come, and kindly.”

This line is delivered by the Hostess of the tavern during the Induction, which serves as the framing device for Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Christopher Sly · Induction

Clothing and Disguise

In The Taming of the Shrew, clothing and disguise highlight how shaky identity, social status, and gender roles can be.

Food and Hunger

In The Taming of the Shrew, food and hunger symbolize power, control, and submission.

The Play-within-a-Play (Induction)

In The Taming of the Shrew, the play-within-a-play structure in the Induction highlights how identity and social reality are constructed and performative.

The Shrew

In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, the "shrew" symbolizes a woman's resistance to male authority and reflects the social anxieties around gender roles in Elizabethan England.

The Sun and Moon

In The Taming of the Shrew, the sun and moon illustrate the clash between objective reality and imposed authority.

Soliloquy

In The Taming of the Shrew, soliloquy is Shakespeare's main way of allowing the audience to get inside the mind of a schemer while other characters remain unaware.

Frame Narrative

The Taming of the Shrew begins not with Katharina and Petruchio, but with Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker found sleeping outside a tavern.

Juxtaposition

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses juxtaposition at every structural level to create dramatic irony and comic tension.

Pun

Shakespeare skillfully uses puns in The Taming of the Shrew as a key tool for humor, social maneuvering, and building sexual tension.

Dramatic Irony

Dramatic irony runs throughout The Taming of the Shrew, starting with the Induction, where the audience understands that Christopher Sly is just a tinker being fooled into thinking he’s a lord.

Blank Verse

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses blank verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter, as a social register, switching it on and off to indicate status, sincerity, and power.

Metaphor

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses metaphor not just for decoration but as a driving force behind power and identity.

Irony

Irony runs throughout The Taming of the Shrew, starting with the Induction, where the tinker Christopher Sly is tricked into believing he is a lord.

Foil

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare explores themes of gender and submission primarily through contrasting relationships, particularly between Katherine and Bianca.

sly

Cunning and crafty in a secretive way; here used as a surname but also carrying its adjectival sense of deceitful cleverness throughout the Induction's trick on the tinker.

adjective · Chapter 1

tinker

A travelling mender of pots and pans, considered a low-class vagrant; used here to identify Christopher Sly's humble trade and social standing.

noun · Chapter 1

hostess

The woman who runs a tavern or alehouse; in this play she is the innkeeper who throws Sly out at the start of the Induction.

noun · Chapter 1

lord

A nobleman of high rank; in the Induction a lord devises the trick of convincing Sly he is a great gentleman who has been mad.

noun · Chapter 1

wanton

Playfully undisciplined or lascivious; used here to describe pleasures or behaviour that are self-indulgent and sexually suggestive.

adjective · Chapter 1

shrew

A bad-tempered, scolding, domineering woman; the central term of the play, applied to Katherina for her sharp tongue and fierce temper.

noun · Chapter 2

woo

To court a woman with the aim of winning her hand in marriage; used repeatedly as characters compete to win Bianca's affection.

verb · Chapter 2

suitor

A man who formally courts a woman seeking to marry her; several suitors compete for Bianca throughout the play.

noun · Chapter 2

dowry

Money, property, or goods that a bride's family gives to her husband at marriage; a key motivation for Petruchio's willingness to marry Katherina.

noun · Chapter 2

froward

Stubbornly contrary, difficult to deal with, and refusing to be guided; used to describe Katherina's defiant and uncooperative temperament.

adjective · Chapter 3

curst

Ill-tempered, shrewish, and sharp-tongued; an Elizabethan term applied to Katherina to emphasise her fierce and quarrelsome nature.

adjective · Chapter 3

jointure

A legal settlement of property made on a wife, to be enjoyed by her after her husband's death; part of the marriage bargaining between Petruchio and Baptista.

noun · Chapter 3

dower

The portion of a husband's estate that the law entitles his widow to use after his death; distinct from a dowry and used in the financial negotiations over marriage.

noun · Chapter 3

banns

The public announcement in church of an intended marriage, made on three successive Sundays so that anyone with an objection may raise it.

noun · Chapter 3

haberdasher

A dealer in small items of clothing and accessories such as hats, ribbons, and thread; Petruchio rejects the haberdasher's cap to assert control over Katherina.

noun · Chapter 5

cap

A small close-fitting head covering; Petruchio contemptuously dismisses the cap brought for Katherina as part of his campaign to break her will.

noun · Chapter 5

gown

A woman's full-length dress; Petruchio rejects the tailor's gown as too elaborate, using it as another means of denying Katherina what she wants.

noun · Chapter 5

tailor

A craftsman who makes fitted garments to order; the tailor arrives with a gown that Petruchio ridicules and refuses to pay for.

noun · Chapter 5

taming

The process of subduing a wild or unruly creature to obedience; used in the title and throughout to describe Petruchio's systematic breaking of Katherina's fierce will.

noun · Chapter 5

falcon

A bird of prey trained for hunting; Petruchio explicitly compares his method of controlling Katherina to the Elizabethan practice of training a wild falcon.

noun · Chapter 5

haggard

In falconry, a wild hawk caught as an adult and not yet tamed; Petruchio uses this term to describe an untamed, wilful woman who must be broken to obedience.

adjective · Chapter 5

mad-brain

Wildly eccentric or recklessly impulsive; used to describe Petruchio's seemingly lunatic behaviour, which is in fact a calculated strategy.

adjective · Chapter 4

rudesby

An Elizabethan term for a rude, boisterous, ill-mannered person; applied to Petruchio to condemn his outrageous conduct at the wedding.

noun · Chapter 4

swain

A young male lover or country fellow; used in the play as a slightly mocking term for a rustic or lowly suitor.

noun · Chapter 2

pedant

A schoolmaster or scholar; in the play a travelling pedant is persuaded to impersonate Vincentio in order to satisfy Baptista's demand for financial guarantees.

noun · Chapter 5