The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy by Bourne Craig Bourne Emily Caddick

Author:Bourne, Craig,Bourne, Emily Caddick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Taming judgement: the tutelage of women

Three different interpretations of tutelage are then staged:

a) A tutelage which fails because (as Kant would later assert) ‘mother wit’ cannot be taught (Kant (1983: 177) (B172)). Kate shows this during her lute lesson, as well as her first exchange with Petruccio. In those scenes, her wit dominates patriarchy. Her lute instructor recounts Kate’s play on the word ‘fret’:

Hortensio: ‘Frets, call you these?’ quoth she, ‘I’ll fume with them,’

And with that word she struck me on the head,

And through the instrument my pate made way,

And there I stood amazed for a while…

While she did call me rascal, fiddler,

And twangling jack, with twenty such vile terms,

As had she studied to misuse me so.

To this Petruccio replies ‘Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench! / II love her ten times more than e’er I did’ (Shakespeare (1997: 2.1.150ff), my emphasis). Kate’s and Petruccio’s love of mother wit is important. I return to it below.

b) A tutelage which succeeds because women are teachable to the extent and in the same way as they are woo-able. Bianca performs this – her Latin lessons are wooing sessions. Rather than violent wittiness, Bianca implores Lucentio to translate Latin lines: ‘Construe them’ (Shakespeare (1997: 3.1.30)). He obliges, translating instead his true identity to her.

c) The third is the one in which Kate is forcibly ‘tamed’ by Petruccio, who withholds food and sleep from her.

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