Which came first, Midsummer Night’s Dream or Romeo and Juliet? Is the first a spoof on the second or the second a tragic expansion of the first? I look at both sides.
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Tag Archives: Taming of the Shrew
Shakespeare’s Deep Dive into Explosive Sexual Desire
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Charlie Chaplin, Comedy, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, tragedy, William Shakespeare Leave a comment
Much Ado about Male Insecurities
The men in Much Ado about Nothing are obsessed with cuckoldry. Out of the play, however, arises a revolutionary vision of how male-female relationships could be.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Cuckoldry, Marriage, Much Ado about Nothing, Pete Hegseth, Relationships, toxic masculinity, William Shakespeare Leave a comment
At 12 I Fell in Love with Taming of the Shrew
In which I explore why I love Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew when I was 12.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Merchant of Venice, Sexism, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
The Taming of the Electorate
Petruchio’s gaslighting in “Taming of the Shrew” helps us to understand authoritarian tactics in our own age.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Feminism, gaslighting, Heritage Foundation, Sexism, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Taming Americans through Gaslighting
Increasingly we are being gaslighted by Donald Trump and his GOP followers. Carl Rosin identifies “Taming of the Shrew” as one of the great plays about gaslighting.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, gaslighting, GOP, post-truth, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Verbal Combat Trumps Soft Romance
Shaw contributed some great plays to the feuding couples comedy genre, including Man and Superman and Pygmalion.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, C. S. Lewis, feuding couples comedy, George Bernard Shaw, Horse and His Boy, Man and Superman, Marriage, Much Ado about Nothing, Pygmalion, Rover, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Feuding Beats Shrew-Taming
“Taming of the Shrew” may have set the stage for the far more egalitarian “Much Ado about Nothing,” which launched the feuding couples comedy.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, feuding couples comedy, John Fletcher, Much Ado about Nothing, Rover, Tamer Tamed, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Feuding Couples Comedy
I have just begun teaching a “Feuding Couples Comedy” course. “Much Ado about Nothing” remains the quintessential example of the genre.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged couples comedy, feuding couples comedy, Much Ado about Nothing, Romantic Comedy, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Couples Fighting: It Must Be Love
Tuesday I read plays all day yesterday with an eye toward an upcoming class on “Battling Couples in Theatre and Film (the Comic Version).” The September course is part of Sewanee’s “Lifelong Learning” series. As the course runs for four weeks, I will teach four plays and four movies, pairing a play with a film […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, couples comedy, Edward Albee, George Bernard Shaw, His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Much Ado about Nothing, Pillow Talk, Pygmalion, Romantic Comedy, Rover, screwball comedy, William Shakespeare Comments closed