THE TAMING OF THE SHREW - INTRODUCTION - WEEK 1

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare- First of all, dear ones, welcome to this fantastic journey into the past! Most of us enter the Shakespearean World trembling a bit, but have heart, we're going to see each other through and hopefully enjoy the journey in the process! This intro is to help us gain some tools to help make the trek a bit easier.

First of all, if you have the Folger edition of The Taming of the Shrew, you will notice that the original text is always on the right hand pages. The left side is reserved for definitions and helps on understanding phrases within the passages.

Second, read the week's reading and if you would like, get on a site such as Spark Notes and read the summary to help you connect the dots. This is not cheating! This is using your resources!

Now, let's talk about Shakespeare and his writing! It is accepted that Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. We don't know the exact date, but he was baptized on April 26, 1564. There is no official record of his education. We have a guess where he attended school, but it is unknown how long he attended.

Because we know so little about Shakespeare, there are theories that he actually did not write the plays. Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and others are considered possibilities of penning the great works. (I tend to think he existed.)

Not all of his work, but a large part of it is written in iambic pentameter. This is the rhythm of the poetry that is made up of a repetition of a weak beat followed by a strong beat repeated five times in succession. In other words-

da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum da-Dum

Now apply it to a line-

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day

A couple other things to bear in mind are:

 Capitalization - if you see a word capitalized that normally wouldn't be it is because Shakespeare is adding emphasis to the word.

Punctuation- do not pause at the end of a line that has no punctuation. Continue it until you come to a period or comma to understand the complete thought.

There is more I could give you, but this is a good start! Most of what I shared comes from a curriculum called Why Shakespeare? Indeed! By Amanda Murray. For more pointers/in-depth study I do recommend this great 80 page resource!