How The Taming of the Shrew drew on Metamorphoses
A documented line of influence: William Shakespeare demonstrably engaged Ovid’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Metamorphoses
Ovid · 8
Ancient RomeThe influenced
The Taming of the Shrew
William Shakespeare · c. 1591
ShakespeareRelevance
7/10
On The Taming of the Shrew’s page
- Shakespeare frames the play's theme of transformation through Ovid from the very first scene — Sly's chamber is decorated with painted episodes from the Metamorphoses, Io and Daphne among them
- Scholars call the Metamorphoses Shakespeare's favorite book, and the Shrew is one of the places it shows most
- Read Ovid's tales of bodies and selves remade and you'll catch what the staging is quietly doing underneath the comedy
On Metamorphoses’s page
- Called Shakespeare's favorite book, the Metamorphoses leaves its strongest traces in his early plays — and the Shrew is full of them
- The Induction literally hangs Ovid on the walls: paintings of Io and Daphne offered to Christopher Sly
- The whole comedy of transformation runs on Ovidian fuel