Review
Annotated on every page of the text, this learned edition provides a unique, essential companion to The Taming of the Shrew and surveys its critical history up to the present century. It also provides exciting fresh material for modern debates on comedy, sexual relationships and marriage and should be welcome by Islamic women in Britain. --Patrick Richards, Day by Day
Product Description
This is the first edition for students and general readers of this pro-woman reply to Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew' by a playwright (John Fletcher) who was more admired than Shakespeare in the seventeenth century. Co-edited by a feminist critic and a distinguished textual scholar, this new textbook makes clear why "The Tamer Tamed" should be restored to the theatrical repertoire and the literary canon. It includes the fullest commentary ever provided for the play, explaining for modern students Fletcher's verbal exuberance and his uninhibited sexual language. The full critical introduction describes the play's Renaissance context, its historical and literary sources (including Aristophanes's "Lysistrata"), and its subversive relationship to Shakespeare's "Shrew" and Ben Jonson's "The Silent Woman". It also surveys the play's subsequent theatrical and critical history. A unique and essential companion to the numerous textbook editions of Shakespeare's play, "The Tamer Tamed" provides exciting new material for current debates about the history of gender, marriage, and drama.