British Classics PDF EPUB Audio

The Taming of the Shrew

First published: 1623
Pages: 106

Read online EPUB Download Save

Listen to The Taming of the Shrew Audiobook Free

2 h 26 min · 6 parts

Open the player

Induction
18:07
Act 1
29:06
Act 2
21:53
Act 3
19:01
Act 4
39:21
Act 5
18:56

The Taming of the Shrew (1616) is a public domain work.

The audio edition streams in the page. There is no audio file to download.

Browse all free audiobooks

About this book

Baptista of Padua will not let his gentle younger daughter Bianca marry until her fierce, sharp-tongued older sister Katherina is wed first. Enter Petruchio, a fortune-hunting gentleman who takes on the challenge, marries Kate, and then sets out to "tame" her through a campaign of contradiction, deprivation, and psychological gamesmanship. Around this central battle spins a comic tangle of disguised tutors and rival suitors all pursuing Bianca. One of Shakespeare's earliest and most boisterous comedies, it has also become one of his most argued-over, thanks to Kate's closing speech on wifely obedience, which productions have played as sincere, ironic, or bitterly satirical. Whatever the reading, its wit and headlong energy have kept it on stage for four centuries. This free edition is available as a PDF and EPUB.

About the author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright and poet who lived during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and authored approximately 37 plays and 154 sonnets that explore themes of love, power, ambition, and human nature.