The Taming of the Shrew

[MangaDex]

 

[Deoxyribo9]

Taming of the Shrew yes?

 

[Pixi97]

Oh, YEAH! I found this webtoon a month before, but I don't speak korean, soooo I can't read it just look the beautiful pictures. That's why I found myself in the heaven when I recognise the first chapter translated. Thank you so much the hard works!!

 

[waruikokun]

This looks very interesting! The art is beautiful and from what I can see it's a unique take on the historical genre. Looking forward to further translations.

 

[kyoko13]

I can't wait to read more about this! Kat is already an awesome MC!

 

[thebenefactor]

Thank you so much for translating this webtoon! It seems quite unique. ☺

 

[Kendama]

Wow, first time I see a manga adaptation of Shakespeare that's not one of the Bard's blockbusters.

I hope the author adapted the plot to a modern setting. The original, though probably satyrical of mysoginy, is very hard to digest by modern audiences.

 

[laudy]

search "the taming of the shrew 1976", thank me later.

 

[Kendama]

Okay, it seems they are adapting it. Good. Petruchio won't have it easy… loving it.

 

[celestynn]

Such a badass female is SO SATISFYING to read. what a change from the usual style of girls

 

[Purplelibraryguy]

@Kendama: I dunno, I think you're giving the original too much credit. I mean, even in the 60s Hollywood was adapting it played totally straight and it didn't bother anyone. Misogyny as something that's likely to be satire rather than simple straight-up presentation of beliefs about women is a very recent thing. And it really wasn't a story outside the mainstream; stories and fables to the effect that if you don't want to be henpecked you have to take control right away with excessive force were not uncommon in medieval/renaissance times; Taming of the Shrew was right in that tradition, even a bit mild (eg, he never actually beats her up or threatens to kill her; there's a Spanish story where the new husband pretends to be unhinged, starts killing off livestock when they don't obey him, and threatens to do the same to the wife; she knuckles under totally. A friend who witnesses it goes home and starts trying the same thing and his wife of many years is like "Don't even try, I've known you too long").

I suppose it all makes sense from a certain perspective--I mean, thinking like a modern, obviously since women were always just as smart and had just as much willpower as men, they would always have sought at an informal level to exert some equality. So, violent stratagems were necessary to assert the official "proper" status relationship; it wasn't just going to happen by itself. Hence a tradition of stories about it.

I'm just hoping this doesn't play the original too straight.

 

[Kendama]

@Purplelibraryguy:

To be honest, the satyrical interpretation isn't mine, but from several scholars quoted in the Wiki for this play. I'll explain why I liked it below, but first I think the issue is a little more complicated than simple changes that come with the times.

To be sure, literature that represented women as "things to be submitted" was quite common in Renaissance. But this is Elisabethan England, not Salic Law France or the Iberian Peninsula. Shakespeare wrote the play when Elizabeth I had just warded off the invasion of the Armada (helped by a storm). And even in Spain, Cervantes was putting assertive women as secondary characters in Don Quijote, like the lady and her husband who fool Sancho Panza into thinking he became the king of the island Don Quijote had promised him.

My main problem with the Shrew is that for the rest of his career, Shakespeare had many of his most fascinating, clever characters be women. And that as early as Joan of Arc in Henry VI part I (a villainness in his Anglocentric view, of course). Rosalind chooses his man and manipulates events to obtain him; Juliet tells Romeo "well, if you love me, appoint the place and time of our marriage"; Lady Macbeth is arguably the mastermind of the assassination; the Queen of France stays true to her vow of not marrying until her suitor ends his year of celibacy; Portia defeats Shylock using her cunning; Helena basically corners Bertram and leaves him no option other than marrying her, using even the King as her instrument. Mrs Page and Mrs Ford wrap Falstaff around their fingers. And so on and so forth. His weak women - Ophelia, Desdemona, Lavinia - serve very specific, tragic roles.

According to the Wiki, there's indication that the play may have caused unease in its time, with one of Shakespeare's fellow playwrights composing a sequel in which Petruchio is tamed by a second wife. Others argue that this kind of depiction of women, if not satyrical, was already behind the times by then.

I don't really have any specific knowledge of the attitudes of late 16th century England, but I feel rather comfortable with the satyrical hypothesis. I admit, though, that I ought to have written "arguably" or "possibly" instead of "probably" in my first post.

P.S.: Arguably, Petruchio does threaten to kill Kat in the play - by starvation. It's been years since I read it, but I think that's what finally breaks her. I particularly liked a BBC adaptation in which his final speech is counterbalanced by her saying that just as she is his, he is hers.

P.P.S.: I'm reminded that even The Arabian Nights, written 700 years earlier, has a combination both of women who are completely submissive to their men and powerful women like the princess who defeats the genius in the coolest sorcery duel I've ever read in literature.

 

[Purplelibraryguy]

@Kendama You make some solid points, and Shakespeare (like most playwrights and poets and composers during times when aristocrats were the main source of artistic income) was certainly known to do some sucking up to the monarch--look at Richard III (can we say massive Tudor propaganda?) or Macbeth. But I can't say I feel a satirical reading in the actual play itself; I guess Poe's law applies pretty retroactively.

 

[Kendama]

@Purplelibraryguy Wow, thanks for telling me about Poe's law, I didn't know about it! Curiously, it's something I (and certainly everyone who stopped to reflect about it) had also realised over years of interaction in the Internet - the lack of subtext makes sarcasm a very tricky business. Personally, I've decided to use sarcasm without qualifiers when I don't care about the reaction, and add a "Just kidding" or "sarcasm mode off" at the end when I do.

And you're right, I didn't feel the play was satirical on first reading, either, which is why I was uncomfortable. But four hundred years have obscured a lot in Shakespeare's language, and there are sentences that defy interpretation even among scholars. So maybe, just maybe, the smiling wink is hidden under coded wording that we no longer can decipher. It's wishful thinking, maybe on the part of the scholars, too, but I'm willing to delude myself a little for the sake of one of my favourite authors ?

Back to the webtoon… sweet, he's going to blackmail her! This is much fairer than threatening her with starvation.

 

[ElBichoRaro]

The webcomic's okay, but man, these comments are real brain food. Kendama and PLG, you guys wrote VERY interesting things.

 

[sunkissed]

I love the art style of this webcomic! I always have a soft spot for Shakespeare's comedies. Thank you @otomepharie for translating!

 

[thebenefactor]

I wish someone would pick this up... 😢

Since no one did, I had to to it myself. 😂

 

[Genesis7478]

@thebenefactor You are truly the benefactor! Thank you for picking up the series!

 

[thebenefactor]

Haha, thanks, @Genesis7478! I was waiting for someone to make a comment like that. 😂

 

[Limnir]

If this is anything like the source material it's gonna be tragic.