The Taming of the Shrew (Norton Critical Editions) [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Dympna Callaghan (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393927075 | ISBN-13: 978-0393927078 | Publication Date: June 8, 2009

This Norton Critical Edition of one of Shakespeare’s earliest and best-loved comedies is based on the First Folio (1623).

It is accompanied by “A Note on the Text” and detailed explanatory annotations.

“Sources and Contexts” provides three possible analogues to Shakespeare’s controversial, high-spirited play from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, George Gascoigne’s “Supposes,” and “A Merry Jest of a Shrewd and Curst Wife Lapped in Morel’s Skin.”

“Criticism” offers a wide range of scholarly commentary on The Taming of the Shrew’s in fifteen essays by Laurie Maguire, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Bernard Shaw, Natasha Korda, Frances Dolan, Lynda E. Boose, Harold Bloom, Patricia Parker, Shirley Nelson Garner, Juliet Dusinberre, Marea Mitchell, Karen Newman, E. M. W. Tillyard, and Jan Harold Brunvand.

“Rewritings and Appropriations” collects seven adaptations of The Taming of the Shrew from the last four centuries, by John Fletcher, David Garrick, Cole Porter, and Charles Marawitz.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dympna Callaghan is Dean’s Professor in the Humanities at Syracuse University. She is the author of Women and Gender in Renaissance Tragedy: A Study of Othello, King Lear, The Duchess of Malfi, and The White Devil, Shakespeare without Women, Shakespeare’s Sonnets: An Introduction, and co-author of The Weyward Sisters: Shakespeare and Feminist Politics. Her edited books include Feminist Readings in Early Modern Culture: Emerging Subjects (with Valerie Traub and Lindsay Kaplan), John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi: Contemporary Critical Essays, Romeo and Juliet: Texts and Contexts, The Impact of Feminism in English Renaissance Studies, and The Feminist Companion to Shakespeare.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (June 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393927075
• ISBN-13: 978-0393927078
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 4.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,734 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Taming of the Shrew NCE- a must have for your library, November 4, 2011

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Katelin Manley "flynfleet12" (Laurens, SC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Taming of the Shrew (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

Any NCE of a novel or play is a must have for your personal library. I needed this book as a source for a research paper I'm writing. Originally, I ordered it from another library but I realized that I was going to have to turn in all my sources before my paper and I was worried about re-ordering sources. So, I just bought this one because it was only $9 and it's a NCE. seriously, what more needs to be said?