SOURCE: “Petruchio's ‘Rope Tricks’: The Taming of the Shrew and the Renaissance Discourse of Rhetoric,” in Modern Philology, Vol. 92, No. 3, February, 1995, pp. 294-327.

In the essay below, Rebhorn assesses both Petruchio's and Katherina’s use of rhetoric, asserting that The Taming of the Shrew serves as an analysis of Renaissance rhetoric and issues—including power, politics, and gender relations.

Shortly after Petruchio's first appearance in The Taming of the Shrew, he vows to court Katherine despite her reputation as a shrew “renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue.”¹ His servant Grumio immediately boasts on behalf of his master that all her efforts will be in vain: “She may perhaps call him half a score of knaves or so: why that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in his rope tricks. I'll tell you what, sir, an she stand him but a little, he will throw a figure...