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.
Tag Archives: William Shakespeare
Taming Americans through Gaslighting
Trump Love: I Lie with Him and He with Me
Shakespeare Sonnets 138 and 147 describe Trump Love only too well.
Is Old Age Becoming Overrated?
A “New Yorker” article on aging turns to literature to debunk the notion that aging is a good thing.
Who’s Afraid of a Feuding Couple?
Is Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” a feuding couples comedy? Perhaps yes if you add the adjective “dark.”
Verbal Combat Trumps Soft Romance
Shaw contributed some great plays to the feuding couples comedy genre, including Man and Superman and Pygmalion.
Desire vs. Law in Shakespeare, Euripides
If a play turns comic or tragic often depends how how the clash between law and desire is negotiated.
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.
Feuding Couples Comedy
I have just begun teaching a “Feuding Couples Comedy” course. “Much Ado about Nothing” remains the quintessential example of the genre.

