The Taming of the Shrew Lecture Notes I. Introduction
a. The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays—written around the late 1580s or early 1590s
b. Shrew is known for having amusingly combative protagonists engaged in a never-ending battle of wits.
II. Type of Play
a. Shrew is a comedy that satirizes courtship and __marriage, often through force.
b. farce —a type of comedy that uses unlikely and exaggerated situations, disguised and mistaken identities, verbal—often vulgar—humor, and a _fast-paced plot.
c. Today, many movies and TV situation comedies are farce. Cartoons and short films, such as the Three Stooges, use slapstick, a kind of action where there is a lot of violence, but no one actually gets hurt.
d. YOUR TURN: What farcical films, sitcoms, or cartoons can you identify? What kind of comedy is found in them?
III. Language
a. puns—play on the multiples meaning of a word OR words that sound alike but have different meanings
b. Verse i. tradition: Since the beginning of theatre, plays had been written in verse. ii. memorization: Verse is easier to memorize than ___prose because of the _rhythm. iii. Blank Verse—unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter
1. iambic = an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable
2. pentameter = 10 beats per line iv. Rhymed Verse or couplets
1. About 5.8% of the play is in rhymed verse
c. prose —language with no rhythm or meter i. Form of language used by the common people in Shakespearean drama—simple language indicates a simple character or simple subject matter ii. Less than 22% of the play is in prose.
d. YOUR TURN: Do you think language still reveals a person’s class or social status in the way it did in Shakespeare’s day? Explain your answer.
IV. Plot Structure
a. The action begins with the establishment of the status quo that is flawed in some way. i. Status quo--
b. A stranger enters who will challenge the status quo. The arrival of the stranger is the inciting incident.
c. The complications act as the _rising action, including a variety of __deceptions, disguises, and errors in identification.
d. The climax is the moment at which the nature of the resolution is revealed.
e. The resolution is the establishment of a new and