Shakespeare's Worst Wooing Scenes, Ranked

Petruchio's courtship in The Taming of the Shrew is the worst of these three bad approaches: he tells others Katherine agreed when she has said no such thing. Orsino delegates his pitch, and Malvolio mistakes a forged letter for romantic instructions. Richard III stages Richard's wooing of Lady Anne as villainy beside a murdered man's body, so it does not belong in a list of bad flirting.

3. Orsino sends someone else

In Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino wants Olivia. Olivia does not want Orsino. His solution is to send Cesario, who is Viola in disguise, to deliver the case for him. It is a striking amount of work to put into ignoring a refusal, especially when someone else has to do the talking. Passing the message along does not make it more welcome; Olivia has already made her position plain.

Act 1, scene 5 gives Viola the most memorable speech in the exchange. Asked what she would do if she loved Olivia as Orsino does, she imagines making a “willow cabin at your gate.” It is gorgeous theatre. As an approach to a woman who has been trying to decline visitors, it would be a lot of cabin. Olivia is charmed by the messenger, which is precisely Orsino's other problem: his best lines are coming from somebody more interesting than he is.

Orsino earns third place because the scene knows how silly he is. His message keeps arriving; his intended recipient keeps having her own preferences. If you have ever watched a man send a friend over to ask why she has not answered, you have seen the low-budget version. Cyrano's ghostwritten courtship takes the outsourcing idea several steps further.

2. Malvolio follows the dress code

Malvolio is not actually wooing Olivia on evidence Olivia gave him. In Twelfth Night, Maria plants a letter that pretends to be from Olivia. In act 2, scene 5, the letter tells Malvolio that Olivia favours yellow stockings, crossed garters and a permanent smile. Malvolio decides this is an instruction manual for romance. In act 3, scene 4, he turns up wearing the promised outfit. Olivia is baffled.

That correction matters. It would be cheap to say Olivia sent mixed signals. She sent none. Malvolio has been set up by other characters, and the later treatment of him is much less light than the sight of the stockings. The funny target here is the confidence with which an alleged secret admirer can be converted into a wardrobe brief. He does not check the sender. He goes straight to the socks.

The modern equivalent is treating a vague post as a coded invitation addressed to you personally. The outfit is optional. The leap of interpretation is compulsory. Our field guide to the hear-me-out meets this sort of certainty in smaller doses.

1. Petruchio announces the result

In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio discusses marriage terms with Katherine's father before he has secured Katherine's agreement. Baptista says that her love is the essential condition. Petruchio calls that “nothing” and declares, “so she yields to me” (act 2, scene 1). The confidence arrives before the evidence, as it so often does.

When Petruchio and Katherine meet, the conversation is a fast, combative exchange of puns. Shakespeare gives Katherine a voice sharp enough to answer every turn. Petruchio then tells her father, falsely, that she is affectionate in private and merely pretending resistance in public. That is the line that sinks the scene in this ranking. He supplies his own interpretation of her answer and asks everyone else to accept it.

The play has a complicated performance history and audiences can disagree about how to play this pair. The words in this scene are plain enough: she speaks, and he reports something else. It is the same manoeuvre that makes Mr. Collins's proposal such hard work to read.

Keep the poetry. Lose the approach.