Rating: 
Summary: Oxford World's Classics is the best choice for Shakespeare
Review: There are many reviews of the play below,, so I am reviewing this particular edition of tthe play. As someone reading all of Shakespeare for the second time, I am always alble to learn something from the World's Classics introduction. They are scolarly and complete and the text always has footnotes on the same page. I have tried other editions but these are the best.
The Taming of the Shrew although it does contain episodes that are misogynistic to modern ears does portray a couple truly in love. As an early play Shakespeare is beginning to find his own voice.
Rating:
Summary: funniest play
Review: this farce is flat-out shakespeare's funniest play. the courtship of petruchio and katherina, his shrew, is laugh-out-loud funny. this is more than you can say about many of his other 'comedies'. the other courtship story is more conventional, but still very humorous because of the foolish characters shakespeare has created. see the zeffarelli film with liz taylor and dick burton. also see the stratford festival production of this play with len carieu. it is HILARIOUS, even better than the zeffarelli film.
Rating: 
Summary: Great story.
Review: Very funny story. Gotta hand it to Shakespear here, it is a nice comedy. Just slightly not my style.The notations on the words/phrases were invaluable for a shakespearian layman like myself. The names all slurred together after a while so I found myself reading out-loud and still getting a bit lost. Everyone impersonating everyone else...who are impersonating someone else...confusing. The book, although good, gets 3 stars because I had to rent the movie of the play to get it. Once I figured it out, however, the book made sense and was funny. This one may be a book to pass up, and watch the movie instead. Too many characters with names that all sound the same to make it an easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Great story.
Review: Very funny story. Gotta hand it to Shakespear here, it is a nice comedy. Just slightly not my style. The notations on the words/phrases were invaluable for a shakespearian layman like myself. The names all slurred together after a while so I found myself reading out-loud and still getting a bit lost. Everyone impersonating everyone else...who are impersonating someone else...confusing. The book, although good, gets 3 stars because I had to rent the movie of the play to get it. Once I figured it out, however, the book made sense and was funny. This one may be a book to pass up, and watch the movie instead. Too many characters with names that all sound the same to make it an easy read.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic of classics
Review: When drama goes hand in hand with comedy, a fantastic and peculiar pair enters the stage. It is quite difficult to achieve that strange feeling in which the reader is able to find pity in joy, as Shakespeare was able to do when writing his comedy The Taming of the Shrew.
Baptista is stubborn to let his favourite and younger daughter Bianca get married after finding a suitor for the shrewish Katherina, his oldest daughter. As a consequence, a complicated mockery is carried out and anyone displays a true identity both literally and metaphorically. Besides the humorous joke and its funny characters, compassion is clearly shown.
A classic that a reader will never forget. Furthermore than a simple play, Shakespeare also criticized the submissive role of women as well as the poor treatment of servants, always from a comic view, which is a useful way to understand the Elizabethan period, with its habits and customs. Although it may not be too realistic and the actions are sometimes extravagant to happen in true life, it does not let the reader get bored and he/ she will find that the book is easily and quickly read.
Once again, a classic that everybody should read in order to start changing those problems that have persisted for ages: women's role in society and everyone's right to have a satisfactory treatment through injustice.
Rating:
Summary: Great Shakespearean comedy
Review: Young Lucentio arrives in Padua with his servants to study at the university, but once he sees the beautiful Bianca, he can think of nothing else. Unfortunately, she is the daughter of Senor Baptista Minola and although she already has two suitors, her father will not let her wed before his oldest daughter, Katherine, a infamous shrew. But when Petruchio arrives from the country intending to find himself a wife, Hortensio and Gremio, Bianca's suitors, convince him to marry Katherine. For Petruchio her dowry is enough to get him to agree and although she will have nothing to do with him, the marriage is arranged. At the wedding Petruchio arrives very late and dressed absurdly, then makes her leave the wedding banquet to travel to his home, where he will tame his shrewish wife to behave. Meanwhile, Lucentio pretends to be a tutor to be near Bianca and has his servant Tranio pretend to be him to woo Bianca as well. Senor Baptista decides that whoever offers the biggest dowry will find Bianca's hand, and Tranio (as Lucentio) wins out. But Baptista wants agreement from Lucentio's father, which requires the lad to find someone to play that role, just as the real Vincentio arrives in town. However, the big question is whether or not Petruchio has indeed tamed his tempestuous new bride. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is an early comedy from William Shakespeare, and while you can clearly see his genius in the Petruchio-Katherine plotline, I think it is clear somebody else wrote the Lucentio-Bianca scenes. This play remains one of the great battles of the sexes of all time, although the final speech does make some interesting comments on the nature of the monarch in Elizabethan England. While the transformation of Katherine will not exactly warm the hearts of contemporary feminists, the clashes between her and Petruchio remain a verbal delight.
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