Disorder in the House of God: Disrupted Worship in Shakespeare and Others

Authors

Bruce Boehrer

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, the first paragraph of the essay follows:

Let’s start with two famous disturbances in church. The first of these appears in The Taming of the Shrew (c.1592), where the aged Gremio describes Petruchio’s nuptials in a horrified monologue:

[W]hen the priest Should ask if Katherine should be his wife, “Ay, by gogs-wouns,” quoth he, and swore so loud, That all amaz’d the priest let fall the book, And as he stoop’d again to take it up, This mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff, That down fell priest and book, and book and priest … But after many ceremonies done, He [Petruchio] calls for wine, “A health!” quoth he, as if He had been aboard, carousing to his mates After a storm, quaff’d off the muscadel, And threw the sops all in the sexton’s face.… … This done, he took the bride about the neck, And kiss’d her lips with such a clamorous smack That at the parting all the church did echo.¹

This behavior goes far to establish Petruchio’s reputation for mercuriality. As Gremio comments at the outset of his narrative, Katherine is “a lamb, a dove, a fool” compared to her new husband (3.2.157), whose actions in church provide an ominous foretaste of domestic tyranny to come. Note ¹The Taming of the Shrew, 3.2.158–64, 169–73, 177–79, in William Shakespeare, The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans, et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997). Further references to Shakespeare’s work will be to this edition.

Recommended Citation

Boehrer, Bruce (2004) "Disorder in the House of God: Disrupted Worship in Shakespeare and Others," Comparative Drama: Vol. 38: Iss. 1, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol38/iss1/4