Product Description

One of Shakespeare’s most popular yet controversial plays, this edition of The Taming of the Shrew considers its reception in the light of the hostility and embarrassment it often arouses, taking account of both scholarly defences and modern feminist criticism of the play. For this updated edition Ann Thompson has added new sections to the Introduction which describe the ‘deeply problematic’ nature of debates about the play and its reception since the 1980s. She discusses recent editions and textual, performance and critical studies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #272624 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

Review
‘Thompson … makes admirable use of the play’s stage history to show that its depiction of the woman-tamer has always disturbed people … hers remains the introductory essay I would most want my students to read.’ English

‘ … a radically fresh and challenging view of the play.’ The Times Higher Education Supplement

Customer Reviews

Well Edited and Comprehensive
This Cambridge University Press edition is well edited by Ann Thompson. It has a lengthy introduction, running to fifty pages, which offer some interesting insights into major themes of the play. It also deals with the fact that the play is now considered a problem play as much as a comedy, and how critics and editors have dealt with it. She ranges across different schools of criticism to give a well balanced view of the play as a whole.

It deals in great detail with the dating of the play and the problems caused by the different editions, including a play called 'a shrew' which has remarkable similarities with 'the shrew'. There are several appendix which also deal with some of this, as well as the issue of music and its use in the play.

The main problem with the body of the introduction is that it was written in the late 1970's, which means that much has changed in the last thirty eight years. Nevertheless, the recent reprint with a shorter addendum to the original introduction does try to bring in some of the newer elements of the staging, filming and critical appreciation of the play.

The play text itself is well set out, although as a novice, I did find the footnotes rather confusing, as she mixes straightforward interpretation of more complex words and phrases with a much deeper discussion of the choices she has made regarding the editions used and the editing of certain lines and words. It is however, a good literary play text with all sources amply explained and plenty of further reference material alluded too if needed.