1. Short essays on Shrew: Heilman
1. Robert Heilman, "Introduction" to TS
1. Theme of supposes: putting on disguises
1. people putting on or creating identity, for their own or other's purposes; having identity put upon them
1. Bianca, the widow
2. Kate
3. Petruchio, putting on identity of shrew to tame shrew
4. The lord puts before Sly the image he wants him to be and he becomes that; transformation with the help of "visualizing"--i.e. education--you are cultured; therefore you become that
2. Critical debates
1. Sly
1. Which text: The Shrew or a shrew
2. Why does Sly disappear at point he's transformed?
1. [makes both transformation fictional]
3. Is Sly left hanging or not
4. [Marcus: Shakespeare's own revision]
2. Petruchio
1. Is he just strong, good man doing his job
2. Is he loving therapeutic psychologist
3. monstrous
4. is he actually tamed by her
5. offers invincibility and love
6. "a remarkable therapist" 42.
3. Kate
1. is she stereotype shrew, girl in need of love, victim of father and sister
2. a strong woman, waiting for strong man as partner, who finally controls him with irony
1. "a difficult woman." 42
4. Where did Sh. stand: he meant final speech or meant the opposite
5. What is genre
1. Farce
1. diminished people and responsiblities and identifications; stereotypes
2. high speed; driving pace; absence of depth
3. clownshow or cartoon: Petruchio's entrance; abuse of tailor, mechanical quality
4. people treated like animals and act like them [cartoon]--taming of shrew
5. symmetrical effects
6. practical jokes; acceptable sadism
7. "unrealism": she starts out incorrigible; he tames her miraculously
2. Not crude farce--realistic and complex elements
1. characters equipped with intelligence and sensitivity 38. not just stereotypes
2. expands toward comedy of character [cf. Boose on "history"]
3. "He is a poet, and he asks her, in effect, less to kiss the rod than to join in the game of playfully transforming ordinary reality...Kate has the dash and verve to join in the fun...scene on the road to Padua is the high point of the play
4. "whole wager scene falls essentially within realm 41. of farce...the easiest way to deal with it is to say that we no longer believe in it, just as we no longer believe in the divine right of kings..."41.
5. attack on "Katolatry of recent years:" "Kate's great victory is, with Petruchio's help, over herself; she has come to acept herself as having enough merits so that she can be content without having the last word and scaring everybody off. "
2. Maynard Mack
1. On Sly--theme of displaced identity; he never in TS wakes up
2. Petruchio does this to Kate: first plays role to show her a mirror reflecting what she's like--rude self-will; "kills her in her own humor; second shows her sembalnce of modest, well conducted young woman--so she beholds in another mirror what she may become"
3. contrast to Lucentio
3. Germaine Greer
1. Kate is a stale--a decoy to be bid for, so she opts out by becoming unmamageable, a scold. Bianca has bound womne's way of guile and feigned gentleness to pay better dividends
2. she has the good fortune to find Petruchio, who is man enough to know what he wants and how to get it. He wants her spirit and her energy because he wants a wife worth keeping....L. finds himself saddled with a cold, disloyal woman who has no objection to humiliating him in public
3. Kate's speech ...rests upon role of husband as protector and freind, and it is valid because K. has a man who is capable of being both"
4. Alexander Leggatt, Shakespeare's Comedy of Love
1. The two love plots
1. Bianca's "education" vs. Kates taming school--P. teaches real inner order of which math and music are reflection
2. parallels when the two Vincentios meet each other: farcical confusion of Bianca reaches climax; Kate and Petruch. are above battle
2. Taming as Education--P. as teacher
1. Petruchio as exotic; natural force; heroic; very blatant rather squeamish about money marriage; rough wooing
2. he defeats her by outdoing her at her own game, disruption of social amenities
1. his sense of paradox; inversion of motive and action
2. he forces her to think about "perfect love, by depriving her of sleep and food
3. more oblique method: "he seems to be demonstrating to her the imporrtance of small social emaneites by denying them to her and forcing her to realize how much she depends on them." 196
4. learn sympathy for the victims of bullying
5. "his program is a comic exorcims of noise and violence to achieve peace and order in the end."
3. Taming as Sport
1. something attractive in the knockabout itself--its a game; blood sport..."in which cruelty and violence are made acceptable, even exciting..." as long as its limited
2. the lord is a sportsman, an actor, but restrained, under control
3. we watch a contest between them--awareness they are playing a game: "And the moon changes even as your mind"; she adds jest of her own, playing trick and disguise on Vincentio [as does Lord with Sly]
4. "her obedience is not meekly accepted, but embraced and enjoyed" 203
5. importance of pleasure in watching this spectacle [cf. Boose]--therapeutic use of the play to cure melancholy Ind. ii.129-36
6. sport returns with the wager at end; she enjoys giving her speech; attention, control, relished as performance
5. Linda Bamber, Sexism and the Battle of Sexes in TS
1. Here rebellion of the feminine is sullen and pointless
2. Play ends with complete humiliation of the feminine--its sexist
3. rejecting Kahn:
1. Kate's spirit remains mischievously free; final speech ironic; allows speaker to dominate audience
2. male domination is only for public consumption--schizoid existence
3. battle of the sexes in comedy is itself sexist