The Taming of the Shrew

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Audiences have always delighted in the robust comedy and verbal inventiveness of The Taming of the Shrew. It has survived many adaptations ranging from, probably, the play printed in 1594 as The Taming of the Shrew through several eighteenth-century versions to modern-dress productions and transformations into ballet, musical, film, and opera.Introducing this new edition, H.J. Oliver pays attention to the play's theatrical virtues while also providing a deeply considered study of its textual problems, structural complexities, and interpretive challenges. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King’s New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.” Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later under James I, called the King’ s Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

"Laury Magnus' edition of The Taming of the Shrew is much more than a revision of Kittredge. Her splendid introduction and appendices are sensitive to the play's language and its paradoxical nuances of gender, and she understands that the play is, after all, a love story. Her explanatory notes are excellent, but most impressive and original is her emphasis on film, theater, and television performance." -- Maurice Charney, Emeritus, Rutgers University
"With its careful glosses and lively supporting essays on film and performance, this 'Taming of the Shrew' provides the puzzled and the offended with a useful and intelligent guide to the possibilities of this play in a way that is historically informed yet alert to the pleasures of theater. The book does an especially fine job in its treatment of the Taylor and Zeffirelli film versions." -- Pamela Allen Brown, University of Connecticut, Stamford

Introduction; Photo gallery; List of characters; Act 1; Act 2; Act 3; Act 4; Act 5; Perspectives and themes; Characters; The language of The Taming of the Shrew; The Taming of the Shew in performance; Writing about Shakespeare; Writing about The Taming of the Shrew; Timeline; Acknowledgements.

Appendix gives full facsimile of the play's "sister" play The Taming of A Shrew