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The Taming Of The Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew

] The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare. It was one of his earlier plays, probably penned in 1594.

Plot summary

Prior to the first act, an Induction (sometimes omitted) frames the play as a "kind of history" played in front of a drunkard named Christopher Sly. Sly has been kicked out of an alehouse for refusing to pay for his alcohol, and a Lord, come newly from hunting, finds him lying asleep outside and decides to fool Sly into thinking that he himself is a lord. Sly is lumbered up to a classy apartment, and slipped into bed. When he awakes, he is told that he is a great lord who has lost his memory of his real identity, and that his ale-house rambles were no more than a dream. A young man, dressed in woman's attire, is brought him and presented to him as his wife. Though offered a choice of entertainments, Sly prefers that this wife immediately join him for some play in bed (a perilous situation for the young man playing the role of Lady Sly!) However, Sly is convinced to divert his attention to a comedy which some players have ready for him (he mistakenly identifies it as a 'comonty'), and this comedy is that story of Kate the Shrew that follows. The "Shrew" is Katherina Minola, the eldest daughter of Baptista Minola, a merchant in Padua. Her temper is extremely volatile and no man can control her. She ties her sister to a chair in one scene, and in another attacks a music tutor with his own instrument. Her younger sister, Bianca Minola, is docile, beautiful, and much sought after by the noble men of the town. Baptista has sworn not to allow his younger daughter to marry before Katherina is wed. Bianca has several suitors, and two of them agree that they will work together to marry off Katherina so that they will be free to compete for Bianca. One suitor, Gremio, is old and grey, and the other, Hortensio, is feisty and young. The plot becomes considerably more complex when two strangers, Petruchio and Lucentio, arrive in town. Lucentio, the son of the wealthy merchant Vincentio of Pisa, falls in love with Bianca, while Petruchio seems interested only in money. When Baptista mentions that Bianca needs a tutor, both Gremio and Hortensio compete to find one for her in order to curry Baptista's favour. Gremio comes across Lucentio, who pretends to be a man of letters in order to woo Bianca. Hortensio disguises himself as a musician and convinces Petruchio to present him to Baptista as a music tutor. Thus, Lucentio and Hortensio, pretending to be teachers, woo Bianca behind her father's back. Meanwhile, Petruchio is told by the suitors about the large dowry that would come with marrying Katherina. He attempts to woo the violent Katherina, calling her "Kate", quickly settles on the dowry, marries her and takes her home against her will. Once there, he begins his "taming" of his new wife - he keeps her from sleeping, invents reasons why she cannot eat, and buys her beautiful clothes only to rip them up. When Kate, profoundly shaken by her experiences, is told that they are to return to Padua for Bianca's wedding, she is only too happy to comply. By the time they arrive, Kate's taming is complete and she no longer resists Petruchio. She demonstrates her complete subordination to his will by agreeing that she will regard the moon as the sun, or the sun as the moon, if he demands her to do so. Bianca is to be married to Lucentio (following a complex subplot involving Lucentio's servant masquerading as his master during his stint as a tutor). Hortensio has married a rich widow. During the banquet, Petruchio brags that his wife, formerly untameable, is now completely obedient. Baptista, Hortensio, and Lucentio are incredulous and the latter two believe that their wives are more obedient. Petruchio proposes a wager in which each will send a servant to call for their wives, and whichever wife comes most obediently will have won the wager for her husband. Baptista, not believing that his shrewish Katharina has been tamed, offers an enormous second dowry in addition to the wager. Kate is the only one who responds, winning for Petruchio a second dowry. At the end of the play, after the other two wives have been summoned also, Kate gives them a speech to the point that wives should always obey their husbands.

Analysis

There are many interpretations of The Taming of the Shrew. Viewed from a modern feminist perspective, the play seems at first to be undeniably misogynistic, and the ending in particular offends. However, some critics respond that Petruchio suffers as much as Kate in order to tame her - he does not eat in order to starve her, he acts like a fool in order to make her seem foolish too, and he stays up all night in order to keep her from sleeping. Kate's hysterical violence seems to require Petruchio's severe methods in order to render her a fit member of society. Many point to this as an indication that the play is not as male-oriented as it at first seems.

Derivations

A number of later works have been derived from The Taming of the Shrew, including the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate; the Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari opera Sly; the 1999 motion picture 10 Things I Hate About You; and the 2000 Brazilian soap opera O Cravo e a Rosa ([http://dirce.globo.com/Dirce/canal/0,6993,IP620-700,00.html]). The television series Moonlighting also produced one episode ("Atomic Shakespeare") which recast the show's main characters in a comedic parody of The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare's contemporary John Fletcher wrote a comedic sequel titled The Tamer Tamed in 1611, just 20 years after Shakespeare wrote the original. It is said Fletcher wrote this play to attract Shakespeare's attention, and it seems to have worked — the two went on to collaborate on at least three plays (Fletcher wrote about 42 plays in his life, 21 of which were collaborations with other known dramatists). The BBC One ShakespeaRe-Told series sets the story in modern-day Britain, with Katherine (played by Shirley Henderson) as an abrasive career politician who is told she must find a husband as a public relations exercise.

External links

- [http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew/index.html The Taming of the Shrew] - searchable, indexed e-text
- [http://classics.mit.edu/Shakespeare/taming_shrew/ Full Text of Play]
- [http://william-shakespeare.classic-literature.co.uk/the-taming-of-the-shrew/ The Taming of the Shrew] - HTML version of this title.
- [http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/2245 The Taming of the Shrew] - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg Taming of the Shrew Taming of the Shrew, The ja:じゃじゃ馬ならし

William Shakespeare

, artist and authenticity unconfirmed.]] William Shakespeare (baptised April 26, 1564 – died April 23, 1616) was an English poet and playwright. Shakespeare has the reputation of one of the greatest writers in the English language and in Western literature, as well as one of the world's preeminent dramatists. Indeed, some critics have raised their praise of him to the level of bardolatry. Shakespeare wrote his works between 1586 and 1616, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him are often uncertain. Shakespeare is among the very few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy, and his plays combine popular appeal with complex characterisation, poetic grandeur and philosophical depth. Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world. In addition, quotations from his plays have passed into everyday usage in many languages. Over the years, many people have speculated about Shakespeare's life, raising questions about his sexuality and debating whether someone else wrote his plays and poetry.

Life

Early life

Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, and Shake-speare, due to the fact that Elizabethan spelling was very erratic) was born in and lived on Henley Street, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, in April 1564, the son of John Shakespeare, a successful tradesman and alderman, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. Shakespeare's baptismal record dates to April 26 of that year. Because baptisms were performed within a few days of birth, tradition has settled on April 23 as his birthday. This date provides a convenient symmetry because Shakespeare died on the same day in 1616. As the son of a prominent town official, Shakespeare was entitled to attend King Edward VI Grammar School in central Stratford, which may have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature. Also, mainstream scholars assume that Shakespeare was a student at the Stratford Free School, since he would have been entitled to attend it, and textbooks used at the Stratford Free School are alluded to in the plays. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was 26, on November 28, 1582 at Temple Grafton, near Stratford. Two neighbours of Anne posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony, presumably due to the fact that Anne was three months pregnant. Temple Grafton After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London theatrical scene. Indeed, the late 1580s are known as Shakespeare's "Lost Years" because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London. On May 26, 1583, Shakespeare's first child, Susannah, was baptised at Stratford. A son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptised on February 2, 1585.

Later years

1585 Shakespeare's last two plays were written in 1613, after which he appears to have retired to Stratford. He died on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52. He remained married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters, Susannah and Judith. Susannah married Dr John Hall, but there are no direct descendants of the poet and playwright alive today. Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honour of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). A bust of him placed by his family on the wall nearest his grave shows him posed in the act of writing. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust. He is believed to have written the epitaph on his tombstone: :Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, :To dig the dust enclosed here. :Blest be the man that spares these stones, :But cursed be he that moves my bones.

Works

Plays

A number of Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. His plays cover tragedy, history, and comedy and have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being continually performed all around the world. As was normal in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other playwrights and recycled older stories and historical material. For example, Hamlet (c. 1601) is probably a reworking of an older, lost play (the so-called Ur-Hamlet), and King Lear is an adaptation of an older play, King Leir. For plays on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and Greek plays are based on Plutarch's Parallel Lives (from the 1579 English translation by Sir Thomas North), and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed's 1587 Chronicles. Shakespeare's plays tend to be placed into three main stylistic groups: his early comedies and histories (such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry IV, Part 1), his middle period (which includes his most famous tragedies, Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear), and his other romance, The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet.later romances (such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest). The earlier plays tend to be more light-hearted, while the middle-period plays tend to be darker, addressing such issues as betrayal, murder, lust, power, and egotism. By contrast, his late romances feature a redemptive plotline with a happy ending and the use of magic and other fantastical elements. However, the borders between these groups are extremely blurry. Some of Shakespeare's plays first appeared in print as a series of quartos, but most remained unpublished until 1623 when the posthumous First Folio was published. The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the logic of the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays "problem plays" as they elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposefully break generic conventions, and has introduced the term "romances" for the later comedies. There are many controversies about the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays. In addition, the fact that Shakespeare did not produce an authoritative print version of his plays during his life accounts for part of the textual problem often noted with his plays, which means that for several of the plays there are different textual versions. As a result, the problem of identifying what Shakespeare actually wrote became a major concern for most modern editions. Textual corruptions also stem from printers' errors, compositors' misreadings or wrongly scanned lines from the source material. Additionally, in an age before standardised spelling, Shakespeare often wrote a word several times in a different spelling, contributing further to the transcribers' confusions. Modern scholars also believe Shakespeare revised his plays throughout the years, sometimes leading to two existing versions of one play.

Sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 poems that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. All but two first appeared in the 1609 publication entitled Shakespeare's Sonnets; numbers 138 ("When my love swears that she is made of truth") and 144 ("Two loves have I, of comfort and despair") had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim. The conditions under which the sonnets were published is unclear. The 1609 text is dedicated to one "Mr. W. H.", who is described as "the only begetter" of the poems by the publisher Thomas Thorpe. It is not known who this man was although there are many theories. In addition, it is not known whether the publication of the sonnets was authorised by Shakespeare. The poems were probably written over a period of several years.

Other poems

In addition to his sonnets, Shakespeare also wrote several longer narrative poems, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and A Lover's Complaint. These poems appear to have been written either in an attempt to win the patronage of a rich benefactor (as was common at the time) or as the result of such patronage. For example, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis were both dedicated to Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. In addition, Shakespeare wrote the short poem The Phoenix and the Turtle. The anthology The Passionate Pilgrim was attributed to him upon its first publication in 1599, but in fact only five of its poems are by Shakespeare and the attribution was withdrawn in the second edition.

Style

Shakespeare's impact on modern theatre cannot be overestimated. Not only did Shakespeare create some of the most admired plays in Western literature, he also transformed English theatre by expanding expectations about what could be accomplished through characterisation, plot, action, language and genre. His poetic artistry helped raise the status of popular theatre, permitting it to be admired by intellectuals as well as by those seeking pure entertainment. Theatre was changing when Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s. Previously, the commonest forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays, which blend piety with farce and slapstick, were allegories in which the characters are personified moral attributes who validate the virtues of Godly life by prompting the protagonist to choose such a life over evil. The characters and plot situations are symbolic rather than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have been exposed to this type of play (along with mystery plays and miracle plays). Meanwhile, at the universities, academic plays were being staged based on Roman closet dramas. These plays, often performed in Latin, used a more exact and academically respectable poetic style than the morality plays, but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches over physical action. By the late 1500s the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as the English Renaissance took hold, and playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe began to revolutionize theatre. Their plays blended the old morality drama with academic theatre to produce a new secular form. The new drama had the poetic grandeur and philosophical depth of the academic play and the bawdy populism of the moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned with simple moral allegories. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare took these changes to a new level, creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also explored and debated the basic elements of what it meant to be human.

Reputation

Shakespeare's reputation has grown considerably since his own time. During his lifetime and shortly after his death, Shakespeare was well-regarded but not considered the supreme poet of his age. He was included in some contemporary lists of leading poets, but he lacked the stature of Edmund Spenser or Philip Sidney. After the Interregnum stage ban of 1642–60, the new Restoration theatre companies had the previous generation of playwrights as the mainstay of their repertory, most of all the phenomenally popular Beaumont and Fletcher team, but also Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. As with other older playwrights, Shakespeare's plays were mercilessly adapted by later dramatists for the Restoration stage with little of the reverence that would later develop. Beginning in the late 17th century, Shakespeare began to be considered the supreme English-language playwright (and, to a lesser extent, poet). Initially this reputation focused on Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre. By the early 19th century, though, Shakespeare began hitting peaks of fame and popularity. During this time, theatrical productions of Shakespeare provided spectacle and melodrama for the masses and were extremely popular. Romantics critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge then raised admiration for Shakespeare to adulation or bardolatry (from bard + idolatry), in line with the Romantic reverence for the poet as prophet and genius. In the middle to late 19th century, Shakespeare also became an emblem of English pride and a "rallying-sign", as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, for the whole British empire. This reverence has of course provoked a negative reaction. In the 21st century most inhabitants of the English-speaking world encounter Shakespeare at school at a young age, and there is a common association of his work with boredom and incomprehension. At the same time, Shakespeare's plays remain more frequently staged than the works of any other playwright and are frequently adapted into film. See also: Timeline of Shakespeare criticism

Speculations about Shakespeare

Identity

Over the years such figures as Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Sigmund Freud have expressed disbelief that the man from Stratford-upon-Avon actually produced the works attributed to him. These claims necessarily rely on conspiracy theories to explain the lack of direct historical evidence for them, although their advocates also point to evidentiary gaps in the orthodox history. Most professional scholars consider the argument baseless, and attribute the debate to the scarcity and ambiguity of many of the historical records of Shakespeare's life. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, an English nobleman and intimate of Queen Elizabeth, became the most prominent alternative candidate for authorship of the Shakespeare canon, after having been identified in the 1920s. Oxford partisans note the similarities between the Earl's life, and events and sentiments depicted in the plays and sonnets. The principal hurdle for Oxfordian theory is the evidence that many of the Shakespeare plays were written after their candidate's death, but well within the lifespan of William Shakespeare. Christopher Marlowe is considered by some to be the most highly qualified to have written the works of Shakespeare. It has been speculated that Marlowe's recorded death in 1593 was faked for various reasons and that Marlowe went into hiding, subsequently writing under the name of William Shakespeare. A related question in mainstream academia addresses whether Shakespeare himself wrote every word of his commonly accepted plays, given that collaboration between dramatists routinely occurred in the Elizabethan theatre. Serious academic work continues to attempt to ascertain the authorship of plays and poems of the time, both those attributed to Shakespeare and others.

Sexuality

The content of Shakespeare's works has raised the question of whether he may have been bisexual. It should be noted that the question of whether an Elizabethan was "gay" in a modern sense is anachronistic, as the concepts of homosexuality and bisexuality did not emerge until the 19th century; while sodomy was a crime in the period, there was no word for an exclusively homosexual identity (see History of homosexuality). Elizabethans also frequently wrote about friendship in more intense language than is common today. Although twenty-six of the sonnets are love poems addressed to a married woman (the "Dark Lady"), one hundred and twenty-six are addressed to a young man (known as the "Fair Lord"). The amorous tone of the latter group, which focus on the young man's beauty, has been interpreted as evidence for Shakespeare's bisexuality, although others interpret them as referring to intense friendship, not sexual love. Another explanation is that the poems are not autobiographical, but mere fiction, so that the "speaker" of the Sonnets should not be simplistically identified with Shakespeare himself. Despite these alternative interpretations, many readers have suspected otherwise. For example, in 1954, C.S. Lewis wrote that the sonnets are "too lover-like for ordinary male friendship" (although he added that they are not the poetry of "full-blown pederasty") and that he "found no real parallel to such language between friends in the sixteenth-century literature" . Some readers have found similar evidence in the plays. The most commonly cited example is a number of comedies such as Twelfth Night and As You Like It, which contain comic situations in which a woman poses as a man, a device that exploits the fact that in Shakespeare's day women's roles were played by boys. While the situations thus presented are heterosexual in terms of the story, the stage image of men wooing and kissing may well have been titillating to those of a homosexual orientation, and while other dramatists occasionally used the same device, Shakespeare seems to have had an exceptional preference for it, using it in five of his plays.

Bibliography

Comedies

- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- Measure for Measure
- The Comedy of Errors
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Love's Labour's Lost
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- The Merchant of Venice
- As You Like It
- Taming of the Shrew
- All's Well That Ends Well
- Twelfth Night or What You Will
- The Winter's Tale
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Two Noble Kinsmen

Histories

- King John
- Richard II
- Henry IV, part 1
- Henry IV, part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, part 1
- Henry VI, part 2
- Henry VI, part 3
- Richard III
- Henry VIII

Tragedies

- Troilus and Cressida
- Coriolanus
- Titus Andronicus
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Julius Caesar
- Macbeth
- Hamlet
- King Lear
- Othello
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Cymbeline

Lost plays

- Love's Labour's Won
- Cardenio

Poems

- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- Venus and Adonis
- The Rape of Lucrece
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- A Lover's Complaint

Apocrypha

- Edward III
- Sir Thomas More

Notes

# [http://shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html The Spelling and Pronunciation of Shakespeare's Name by David Kathman]. Accessed 10/22/05. # [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/JC/plutarch.north.html Plutarch's Parallel Lives]. Accessed 10/23/05. # Shakespeare's Reading by Robert S. Miola, Oxford University Press, 2000. # Ibid. # [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199810/ai_n8827074 Was Shakespeare gay? Sonnet 20 and the politics of pedagogy.]

External links

- [http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org Open Source Shakespeare]
- [http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xShakeSph.html#top Study Guides for all the plays and poems]
- [http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/homepage.html British Library; Original 93 copies in quarto]
- [http://william-shakespeare.classic-literature.co.uk/ Classic-literature.co.uk ]
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- [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=Shakespeare%2C+William Upenn.edu online books page for Shakespeare]
- [http://www.shakespeare-literature.com Chapter-indexed, searchable versions of Shakespeare's works]
- [http://www.touchstone.bham.ac.uk/index.html Touchstone - UK Shakespeare collections]
- [http://shakespeare-1.com/doubtful/ Full text of plays erroneously attributed to Shakespeare]
- [http://literalsystems.com/abooks/doku.php?id=author:shakespeare_william "Sonnets 29, 40, 55, 100, 106, 116" Creative Commons audio recording.]
- [http://shakespeare.nowheres.com/ The original shakespeare.com]
- [http://www.cosmoetica.com/S3-DES3.htm Essay on Shakespeare and Wallace Stevens]
- [http://wiredforbooks.org/shakespeare/ Shakespeare's plays and poems in audio and video]
- [http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/IllusShake The Illustrated Shakespeare]
- [http://shakespeareforums.com William Shakespeare Forums]
- [http://www.shakespeare-online.com/ Shakespeare Online]
- [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0419_040419_shakespeare.html National Geographic Article About Shakespeare's Coinages] ko:윌리엄 셰익스피어 ms:William Shakespeare ja:ウィリアム・シェイクスピア simple:William Shakespeare th:วิลเลียม เชกสเปียร์

Play

A play is a form of literature, usually consisting chiefly of dialog between characters, and usually intended for performance rather than reading. However, many scholars study plays in this more academic manner, particularly classical plays such as those of Shakespeare (rare authors, notably George Bernard Shaw, have had little preference whether their plays were performed or read). The term play refers both to the written works of dramatists and to the complete theatrical performances of such. Plays are generally performed in a theatre by actors. To better communicate a unified interpretation of the text in question, productions are usually overseen by directors, who often put their own unique interpretation on the production. (See theatre and related topics for more detailed information on the process of producing plays for performance.) The interpretive nature of drama is what makes it so appealing to so many performers and audience members alike — because a playwright is incapable of presenting the play in its intended format (a performance) without the aid of the actors and a director (though he may choose to take any of these roles himself — Molière, for example, often acted in his own plays), a play is by definition undergoing constant rebirth and renewal as new experiences and interpretations are brought by new contributors. One kind of play, the closet drama, is written in a dramatic form but is not intended for performance. It consists of dialogue between characters, but it is meant to be read, either silently to oneself or aloud to a group in a "closet" (a private domestic room). Plays are written in a variety of genres. There are six basic genres of plays: #Tragedy - a play in which a hero comes to a sad end due to fate, a fatal flaw or the work of the gods #Comedy - a play in which, despite hindrances and problems along the way, everything works out happily at the end. This usually includes funny material, even jokes. #Domestic drama - a play that reflects the world of the domestic, the family and the relationships that emerge out of the ordinary happenings of life. #Tragicomedy - a play that contains elements of both tragedy and comedy. #Melodrama - a play of heightened emotion in which a hero and often a heroine overcome a villain to right wrong. Usually has a happy ending. #Symbolic - a play in which the characters and the actions have symbolic function and the main concern is the development of ideas

External links

- [http://www.playwriting101.com/ Playwriting 101] - A playwriting tutorial written by playwright and screenwriter Jon Dorf.
- [http://www.empirecontact.com/plays/ Classic Plays] compiled by Michael J. Farrand. Category:Literature Category:Drama ja:戯曲 simple:Play

Katherina Minola

Katherina Minola is a primary character in the Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew. Katherine (Katherina or Kate), the “shrew” of the play’s title, is the daughter of Baptista Minola. Being sharp-tongued, quick-tempered, and prone to violence, she is widely reputed in Padua to be a shrew. She constantly insults and degrades the men and potential suitors around her. Although most of the play’s characters imply believe Kate to be inherently ill-tempered, it is certainly plausible to think of her as simply misunderstood and that her unpleasant behavior stems from unhappiness. She may simply act like a shrew because she is miserable and desperate. Throughout the play, there are multiple sources for this unhappiness: she expresses jealousy about her father’s treatment of her sister, but her anxiety may also stem from feelings about her own undesirability, the fear that she may never win a husband, and her loathing of the way men treat her. Overall, she is simply unwilling to play the role of the maiden daughter. She abhors society’s expectations that she obey her father and show courtesy toward her suitors. However, she does not resist her suitor Petruchio forever, and eventually subjugates herself to him, despite her previous repudiation of marriage. Despite the humiliations and deprivations that Petruccio adds to her life, it is easy to understand why Kate might succumb to marry a man like him. In their first conversation, Petruchio establishes that he is Kate’s intellectual and verbal equal, making himself an exciting change from the easily dominated men who normally surround her. Petruccio’s forcible treatment of Kate is designed to show her that she has no real choice but to adapt to her social role as a wife. This adaptation must be attractive to Kate on some level, since even if she dislikes the role of wife, playing it at least means she can command respect and consideration from others rather than suffer the universal revulsion she receives as a shrew. Overall, having a social role would be less painful for her than continually rejecting any social role at all. Thus, Kate’s eventual compliance with Petruccio’s appears more rational than it might have seemed at first. Minola, Katherine

Petruchio

Primary Character in The Taming of the Shrew In the play, Petruccio is a rich gentleman from Verona. Loud and boisterous, he come to Padua “to wive and thrive.” He essentially wishes for nothing more than a woman with an enormous dowry and therefore finds Kate to be the perfect fit. At the same time, although he is determined to be his wife’s lord and master, he does love Kate and realizes on some level that domestic harmony, on his terms of course, would be much better for her than her current shrewish life in Padua. As a result, Petruccio goes to alarming lengths to impose his mastery on Kate. Overall, Petruccio is supposed to be a comic figure, being an exaggerated persona who continually makes the audience laugh. Though the reader/viewer does laugh with Petruccio as he tames Kate, they also laugh at him, as they see him satirize the very gender inequalities that the plot of The Taming of the Shrew ultimately upholds.

External links

Modern Edition of the Play (from MIT) http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/comedy_errors/index.html 1623 First Folio Edition (from UVA) http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:8086/perl/toccer-new?id=ShaComF.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

Pisa

: This article is about Pisa in Italy. For other places by the same name, see Pisa (disambiguation). Pisa is a city in Tuscany, central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa.

History

Ancient times

Nobody really knows when Pisa was founded. The city lies at the junction of two rivers, Arno and Auser (now disappeared) in the Tyrrhenian Sea forming a laguna area. The Pelasgi, the Greeks, the Etruscans and the Ligurians have variously been proposed as founders of the city. Archeological remains from the 5th century BC confirm the existence of a city at the sea, trading with Greeks and Gauls. The presence of an Etruscan necropolis was discovered during excavations in the Arena Garibaldi in 1991. Also ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city. Servius wrote that the Teuti, or Pelopes, the king of the Pisei, founded the town thirteen centuries before the birth of Christ. Strabo referred Pisa's origins to the mythical Nestor, king of Pylos, after the fall of Troy, while the Aeneid states that Pisa in that period was already a great and developed centre. The maritime role of Pisa should have been already prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it the invention of the rostrum: it took advantage of being the only port along the coast, from Genoa, then a small village, to Ostia. Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions agains Ligurians, Gauls and Carthaginians. In 180 BC it became a Roman colony under Roman law, as Portus Pisanus. In 89 BC, Portus Pisanus became a municipium. Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed the name in Colonia Iulia obsequens. From 313 it became the seat of a bishopric.

High Middles Ages

313 During the later years of the Roman Empire Pisa probably did not decline as much as the other cities of Italy, probably thanks to the complexity of its river system and its consequent easiness of defence. In the 7th century Pisa helped the pope Gregorius the Great by supplying numerous ships in his military expedition against the Byzantines of Ravenna: Pisa was the sole Byzantine centre of Tuscia to fall peacefully in Lombard hands, through assimilation with the neighbouring region where their trading interests were prevailing. Pisa began in this way its rise to the role of main port of the Upper Thyrrenian Sea and became the main trading centre between Tuscany and Corsica, Sardinia and the southern coasts of France and Spain. After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards under the command of Desiderius in 774, Pisa went through a crisis but recovered soon. Politically it became part of the duchy of Lucca. In 930 Pisa became the county centre (status it mantained until the arrival of Otto I) within the mark of Tuscia. Lucca was the capital but Pisa was the most important city, as in the middle of 10th century Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, called Pisa Tusciae provinciae caput ("capital of the province of Tuscia"), and one century later the marquis of Tuscia was commonly referred to as "marquis of Pisa". In 1003 Pisa was the protagonist of the first communal war in Italy, against Lucca of course. From the naval point of view, since the 9th century the emergence of the Saracen pirates urged the city to expand its fleet: in the next years this fleet gave the town an opportunity for more expansion. In 828 the Pisan ships assaulted the coast of North Africa. In 871 they took part in the defence of Salerno from the Saracens. In 970 they gave also a strong support to the Otto I's expedition, who defeated a Byzantine fleet in front of Calabrese coasts.

11th century

Calabrese The power of Pisa as a mighty maritime nation began to grow on and reached its apex in the 11th century when it acquired traditional fame as one of the four main historical Marine Republics of Italy (Repubbliche Marinare) of Italy. At that time the city was a very important commercial centre and controlled a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy. It expanded its powers by the sack in 1005 of Reggio di Calabria in the south of Italy. Pisa was in continuous conflict with the Saracens, who had their bases in Sardinia and Corsica, for control of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1017 Sardinia was captured, in alliance with Genoa, by the defeat of the Saracen king Mugahid. This victory gave Pisa the supremacy in the Tyrrhenian Sea. When the Pisans subsequently ousted the Genoese from Sardinia, a new conflict and rivalry was born between these mighty Marine Republics. Between 1030 and 1035 Pisa goes on successfully defeating several rival towns in Sicily and conquering Carthage in North Africa. In 1051-1052 the admiral Jacopo Ciurini conquered Corsica, provoking more resentment from the Genoese. In 1063 admiral Giovanni Orlando, coming at the aid of the Norman Roger I, took Palermo from the Saracen pirates. The gold treasure taken from the Saracens in Palermo allowed the Pisans to start the building of their cathedral and the other monuments which constitute the famous Campo dei Miracoli. In 1060 Pisa had to engage in their first battle with Genoa. The Pisan victory helped to consolidate its position in the Mediterranean. Pope Gregory VII recognized in 1077 the new "Laws and customs of the sea" instituted by the Pisans, and emperor Henry IV granted them the right to name their own consuls, advised by a Council of Elders. This was simply a confirmation of the present situation, because in those years the marquis had already been excluded from power. In 1092 Pope Urban II awarded Pisa the supremacy over Corsica and Sardinia, at the same time rising the town to the rank of archbishopric. Pisa sacked the Tunisian city of El Mehedia in 1088. Four years later Pisan and Genoese ships helped Alfonso VI of Castilla to push the Cid out of Valencia. A Pisan fleet of 120 ships also took part in the first crusade and the Pisans were instrumental in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099. On their way to the Holy Land the ships did not miss the occasion to sack some Byzantine islands: the Pisan crusaders were led by their archbihsop Daibert, the future patriarch of Jerusalem. Pisa and the other Repubbliche Marinare took advantage of the crusade to establish trading posts and colonies in the Eastern coastal cities of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. In particular the Pisans founded colonies in in Antiochia, Acre, Jaffa, Tripolis, Tyre, Joppe, Laodicea and Accone. They also had other possessions in Jerusalem and Caesarea, plus smaller colonies (with lesser autonomy) in Cairo, Alexandria and of course Constantinople, where the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted them special mooring and trading rights. In all these cities the Pisans were granted privileges and immunity from taxation, but had to contribute to the defence in case of attack. In the 12th century the Pisan quarter in the Eastern part of Constantinople had grown to 1,000 people. For some years of that century Pisa was the most prominent merchant and military ally of the Byzantine Empire, overcoming Venice itself.

12th century

Venice In 1113 Pisa and the Pope Paschal II set up, together with the count of Barcelona and other contingents from Provence and Italy (Genoese excluded), a war to free the Balearic Islands from the Moors: the queen and the king of Mallorca were brought in chains to Tuscany. Even though the Almovarids soon reconquered the island, the booty taken helped the Pisans in their magnificent program of buildings, especially the cathedral, and Pisa gained a role of pre-eminence in the Western Mediterranean. In the following years the mighty Pisan fleet, led by archbishop Pietro Moriconi, drove away the Saracens after ferocious combats. Though short-lived, this success of Pisa in Spain increased the rivalry with Genoa. Pisa's trade with the Languedoc and Provence (Noli, Savona, Fréjus and Montpellier) were an obstacle to the Genoese interests in cities like Hyerés, Fos, Antibes and Marseille. The war began in 1119 when the Genoese attacked several galleys on their way to the motherland, and lasted until 1133. The two cities fought each other on land and at sea, but hostilities were limited to raids and pirate-like assaults. In June 1135, Bernard of Clairvaux took a leading part in the Council of Pisa, asserting the claims of pope Innocent II against those of pope Anacletus II, who had been elected pope in 1130 with Norman support but was not recognized outside Rome. Innocent II resolved the conflict with Genoa, establishing the sphere of influence of Pisa and Genoa. Pisa could then, unhindered by Genoa, participate in the conflict of Innocent II against king Roger II of Sicily. Amalfi, one of the Maritime Republics ((though already declining under Norman rule), was conquered on August 6 1136: the Pisans destroyed the ships in the port, assaulted the castles in the surrounding areas and drove back an army sent by Roger from Aversa. This victory brought Pisa to the peak of its power and to a standing equal to Venice. Two years later its soldiers sacked Salerno. In the following years Pisa was one of the staunchiest supporters of the Ghibelline party. This was much appreciated by Frederick I. He issued in 1162 and 1165 two important documents, with the following grants : apart from the jurisdiction over the Pisan countryside, the Pisans were granted freedom of trade in the whole Empire, the coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere, a half of Palermo, Messina, Salerno and Naples, the whole Gaeta, Mazzarri and Trapani, and a street with houses for its merchants in every city of the Kingdom of Sicily. Some of these grants were later confirmed by Henry VI, Otto IV and Frederick II. They marked the apex of Pisa's power, but also spurred the resentment of cities like Lucca, Massa, Volterra and Florence, who saw their aim to expand towards the sea thwarted. The clash with Lucca also concerned the possession of the castle of Montignoso and mainly the control of the Via Francigena, the main trade route between Rome and France. Last but not least, such a sudden and large increase of power of Pisa could only lead to another war with Genoa. Genoa had acquired a largely dominant position in the markets of the Southern France. The war began presumably in 1165 on the Rhone, when an attack on a convoy, directed to some Pisan trade centres on the river, by the Genoese and their ally, the count of Toulouse failed. Pisa on the other hand was allied to the Provence. The war continued until 1175 without significant victories. Another point of attrition was Sicily, where both the cities had privileges granted by Henry VI. In 1192 Pisa managed to conquer Messina. This episode was followed by a series of battles culminating in the Genoese conquest of Syracuse in 1204. Later the trading posts in Sicily were lost when the new Pope Innocent III, though removing the excommunication, cast over Pisa by his predecessor Celestine III, allied himself with the Guelph League of Tuscany, led by Florence. Soon he stipulated a pact with Genoa too, further weaking the Pisa presence in Southern Italy. To counter the Genoese predominance in the southern Thyrrenian Sea, Pisa strenghtened its relationship with their Spanish and French traditional bases (Marseille, Narbonne, Barcelona, etc.) and tried to defy the Venetian rule of the Adriatic Sea. In 1180 the two cities had agreed to a non-aggression treaty in the Thyrrenian and the Adriatic, but the death of Emperor Manuel Comnenus in Constantinople changed the situation. Soon there were attacks on Venetian convoys. Pisa signed trade and political pacts with Ancona, Pola, Zara, Split and Brindisi: in 1195 a Pisan fleet reached Pola to defend its independence from Venice, but the Serenissima managed soon to reconquer the rebel sea town. One year later the two cities signed a peace treaty which resulted in favourable conditions for Pisa. But in 1199 the Pisans violated it by blockading the port of Brindisi in Puglia. But in the following naval battle they were defeated by the Venetians. The war that followed ended in 1206 with a treaty in which Pisa gave up all its hopes to expand in the Adriatic, though it mantained the trading posts it had established in the area. From that point on the two cities were united against the rising power of Genoa and sometimes collaborated to increase the trading benefits in Constantinople.

13th century

In 1209 and 1217 there were in Lerici two councils for a final resolution of the rivalry with Genoa. A twenty-year peace treaty was signed. But when in 1220 the emperor [Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]] confirmed his supremacy over the Thyrrenian coast from Civitavecchia to Portovenere, the Genoese and Tuscanian resentment against Pisa grew again. In the following years Pisa clashed with Lucca in Garfagnana and was defeated by the Florentine at Castel del Bosco. The strong Ghibelline position of Pisa brought this town diametricallty against the Pope, who was in a strong dispute with the Empire. And indeed the pope tried to deprive the town of its dominions in Northern [Sardinia]]. In 1238 Pope Gregory IX formed an alliance between Genoa and Venice against the Empire, and consequently against Pisa too. One year later he excommunicated Frederick II and called for a anti-Empire council to be held in Rome in 1241. On May 3, 1241, a combined fleet of Pisan and Sicilian ships, led by the Emperor's son Enzo, attacked a Genoese convoy carrying prelates from Northern Italy and France, next to the Isola del Giglio, in front of Tuscany: the Genoese lost 25 ships, while about thousand sailors, two cardinals and one bishop were taken prisoner. After this outstanding victory the council in Rome failed, but Pisa was excommunicated. This extreme measure was only removed in 1257. Anyway, the Tuscan city tried to take advantage of the favourable situation to conquer the Corsican city of Aleria and even lay siege to Genoa itself in 1243. The Ligurian republic of Genoa, however, recovered fast from this blow and won back Lerici, conquered by the Pisans some years earlier, in 1256. The great expansion in the Mediterranean and the prominence of the merchant class urged a modification in the city's institutes. The system with consuls was abandoned and in 1230 the new city rulers named a Capitano del Popolo ("People's Chieftain") as civil and military leader. In spite of these reforms, the conquered lands and the city itself were harassed by the rivalry between the two families of Della Gherardesca and Visconti. In 1237 the archbishop and the Emperor Frederick II intervened to reconcile the two rivals, but the strains did not cease. In 1254 the people rebelled and imposed twelve Anziani del Popolo ("People's Elders") as their political representatives in the Commune. They also supplemented the legislative councils, formed of noblemen, with new People's Councils, composed by the main guilds and by the chiefs of the People's Companies. These had the power to ratify the laws of the Major General Council and the Senate.

Decline

The decline began on August 6, 1284, when the numerically superior fleet of Pisa, under the command of Albertino Morosini, was defeated by the brilliant tactics of the Genoese fleet, under the command of Benedetto Zaccaria and Oberto Doria, in the dramatic naval Battle of Meloria. This defeat ended the maritime power of Pisa and the town never fully recovered. Sardinia was also lost: the region around Pisa did not permit the city to recover from the loss of thousands of sailors. Pisa never had enough manpower for their ships, while Liguria guaranteed enough sailors to Genoa. Goods continued to be traded, albeit in reduced quantity, but the end came when the Arno started to change course, preventing the galleys to reach the city's port up the river. It seems also that nearby area became infested with malaria. Always Ghibelline, Pisa tried to build up its power in the course of the 14th century and even managed to defeat Florence in the Battle of Montecatini (1315). Eventually, however, divided by internal struggles and weakened by the loss of its mercantile strength, Pisa was conquered by Florence in 1406. In 1409 Pisa was the seat of a council trying to set the question of the Great Schism. Furthermore in the 15th century, access to the sea became more and more difficult, as the port was silting up and was cut off from the sea. When in 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded the Italian states to claim Naples, Pisa grabbed the opportunity to reclaim its independence as the Second Pisan Republic. But the new freedom did not last long. After fifteen years of battles and sieges, Pisa was reconquered by Florence in 1509. Its role of major port of Tuscany went to Livorno. Pisa acquired a mainly, though secondary, cultural role spurred by the presence of a renowned University created in 1343. Its decline is clearly shown by its population, which has remained almost constant since the Middle Ages. Pisa was the birthplace of the founder of modern physics, Galileo Galilei. It is still the seat of an archbishopric; it has become a light industrial centre and a railway hub. It suffered repeated destruction during World War II.

Landmarks

World War II By far the best known sight in Pisa is the famous leaning tower which is but one of many architecturally and artistically important structures in the city's Campo dei Miracoli or "Field of Miracles", to the north of the old town center. The Campo dei Miracoli is also the site of the beautiful Duomo (the Cathedral), the Baptistry and the Camposanto (the monumental cemetery). Other interesting sights include:
- Knights' Square (Piazza dei Cavalieri), where the Palazzo della Carovana, with its awesome façade designed by Giorgio Vasari may be seen.
- In the same place is the church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri, also by Vasari. It had originally a single nave; two more were added in the 17th century. It houses a bust by Donatello a paintings by Vasari, Jacopo Ligozzi, Alessandro Fei and Jacopo da Empoli.
- The church of St. Francis, deisgned by Giovanni di Simone, built after 1276. In 1343 new chapels were added and the church was elevated. It has a single navev and a notable belfry, as well as a 15th‑century cloister. It houses works by Jacopo da Empoli, Taddeo Gaddi and Santi di Tito. In the Gherardesca Chapel are buried Ugolino della Gherardesca and his sons.
- The church of San Frediano, noted for the first time in 1061. It has a basilica interior with three aisles, with a crucifix from the 12th century. The paintings are mostly from the 16th century restoration, with works by Domenico Passignano, Aurelio Lomi and Rutilio Manetti.
- The church of San Nicola, whose existence is known as early as 1097. It was enlarged between 1297 and 1313 by the Augustinians, perhaps by the design of Giovanni Pisano. The octagonal belfry is from the second half of the 13th century. The paintings include the Madonna with Child by Francesco Traini (14th century) and St. Nicholas Saving Pisa from the Plague (15th century). Noteworthy are also the wood sculptures by Giovanni and Nino Pisano, and the Annunciation by Francesco di Valdambrino.
- The small church of Santa Maria della Spina, attributed to Giovanni Pisano (1230), is another excellent Gothic building.
- The Palazzo della Carovana or dei Cavalieri, built by Vasari.
- The church of San Paolo a Ripa d'Arno, founded around 952. It was enlarged in the mid-12th century along lines similar to those of the Cathedral. For the pale grey marble decoration ancient Roman marbles were used. The façade was completed in the 14th century by Giovanni Pisano. It houses frescoes by Buffalmacco and Turino Vanni (14th century). It is annexed to the Romanesque Chapel of St. Agatha, a octagonal-plan, brick construction of the 12th century, with an unusual pyramidal cusp or peak.
- The Borgo Stretto, a neighborhood where one can stroll beneath medieval arcades and the Lungarno, the avenues along the river Arno. It includes the Gothic-Romanesque church of San Michele in Borgo (990). Remarkably, there are at least two other leaning towers in the city, one at the southern end of central Via Santa Maria, the other halfway through the Piagge riverside promenade.
- The Medici Palace, once a possession of the Appiano family, who ruled Pisa in 1392-1398. In 1400 the Medici acquired it, and Lorenzo de' Medici soujourned here.
- The Palazzo Reale ("Royal Palace"), once of the Caetani patrician family. Here Galileo Galilei showed to Grand Duke of Tuscany the planets he had discovered with his telescope. The edifice was erected in 1559 by Baccio Bandinelli for Cosimo I de Medici, and was later enlarged including other palaces.
- Palazzo Gambacorti, a Gothic building of the 14th century, is now the Town hall. The interior shows frescoes boasting Pisa's sea victories. Pisa boasts several museums :
- Museo dell' Opera del Duomo : exhibiting among others the original sculptures of Nicola Pisano and Giovanni Pisano and the treasures of the cathedral.
- Museo delle Sinopie : showing the sinopias from the camposanto, the monumental cemetery. These are red ocher underdrawings for frescoes, made with reddish, greenish or brownish earth colour with water.
- Museo Nazionale di S. Matteo : exhibiting sculptures and painting from 12th century-15th century, among them the masterworks of Giovanni and Andrea Pisano, the Master of San Martino, Simone Martini, Nino Pisano and Masaccio. Pisa hosts the University of Pisa, especially renowed in the fields of Physics, Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science, the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna and the Scuola Normale Superiore, the Italian academic elite institution, mostly for research and the education of graduate students. Construction of a new leaning tower of glass and steel 57 meters tall, containing offices and apartments was scheduled to start in summer 2004 and take 4 years. It was designed by Dante Oscar Benini and raised criticism.
Notable people associated with Pisa
Dante Oscar Benini For people born in Pisa, see
- Natives of Pisa; among notable non-natives long resident in the city:
- Enrico Fermi, physicist & Nobel prize winner
- Carlo Rubbia, physicist & Nobel prize winner
- Giosuè Carducci, poet & Nobel prize winner
- Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, politician, currently President of the Republic of Italy
- Giovanni Gronchi, politician, former President of the Republic of Italy
- Giovanni Gentile, philosopher & politician
Sources

- Yves Renouard, "Les Villes d'Italie de la fin du Xe siècle au début du XIVe siècle" (1969)
External links

- [http://wikitravel.org/en/Pisa Wikitravel: Guide to Pisa]
- [http://www.comune.pisa.it Official site, including webcams]
- [http://www.compart-multimedia.com/virtuale/us/pisa/movie.htm A virtual tour of Pisa and the Leaning Tower]
- [http://www.sssup.it/sssup/index.jsp?lang=en Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna - School of Advanced Studies St.Anna, Pisa]
- [http://www.sns.it Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa] Category:Towns in Tuscany Category:Coastal cities Category:Repubbliche Marinare of Italy ja:ピサ

Misogynist

Misogyny is an exaggerated antipathy toward women. Compared with anti-woman sexism or misandry (antipathy toward men), misogyny is usually regarded as directed against women by some men, though women can also harbor misogynistic views. In feminist theory, misogyny is recognized as a political ideology similar to racism or anti-Semitism, existing to justify and reproduce the subordination of women by men. The etymology of misogyny comes from the Greek and means to hate (misein) woman (gyne).

Forms of misogyny

There are many different forms of the idea of misogyny. In its most overt expression, a misogynist will openly hate all women simply because they are female. Some sexual predators may fall into this category. Other forms of misogyny may be more subtle. Some misogynists may simply hold all women under suspicion, or may hate women who don't fall into one or more acceptable categories. Entire cultures may be said to be misogynist if they treat women in ways that can be seen as hateful. Examples include forcing women to tend to all domestic responsibilites, demanding silence from a woman, or beating a woman constantly. Subscribers to one model, the mother/whore dichotomy, hold that women can only be "mothers" or "whores". Frequently the term misogynist is used in a looser sense as a term of derision to describe anyone who holds an unpopular or distasteful view about women as a group. A man who considers himself "a great lover of women," therefore, might somewhat paradoxically be termed a misogynist by those who consider his treatment of women sexist.

Misogyny in philosophy and religion

Many religions and philosophies contain what could be called misogyny. Paul insisted that women should not talk in church ("women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says." -1 Cor 14:34 NIV). In Hinduism, the Code of Manu makes women incapable of ever being independent. At times in Indian history, it was customary for a woman to be pushed onto the funeral pyre of her husband (see sati). In Islam, women are by Sharia law forbidden to show any part of their body in public except their face, hands or the top of their feet. There is, however, wide disagreement from followers of these religions that these various teachings are misogynistic. The 16th century Protestant reformer John Knox wrote a book called The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women in which he argued against the ability of women to govern. Some of the most famous philosophers exhibited misogyny at times. Arthur Schopenhauer, in a very sophisticated epistemological discussion in his main work, included the sentence, "Reason is feminine in nature: it can only give after it has received". Nietzsche is known for arguing that every higher form of civilisation implied stricter controls on women [Beyond Good and Evil, 7:238]; he frequently insulted women, but is best known for the phrases, "Women are less than shallow", "Woman was God's second blunder," and "Are you going to women? Do not forget the whip!" Napoleon, Machiavelli, Aristotle, Tolstoy and even the progressive Rousseau were also known for making cruel comments about women. (It should also be noted, however, that philosophers such as Pythagoras, John Stuart Mill, Frederick Engels, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Henry George supported feminism.)

Misogyny in culture

(n.b. Several entries that follow clearly employ misogyny for ironic or satirical purposes)
- In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet chides his mother Gertrude for her decision to marry his uncle Claudius immediately after his father's death with the infamous line: "Frailty, thy name is woman!" (I, ii, 146)
- British poet Robert Gould wrote a number of explicitly misogynistic satires in the 1680s.
- In the 19th century, Swedish dramatist and novelist August Strindberg had a powerful and overt misogynistic philosophy.
- Grumpy, in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, says "All females is poison! They're full of wicked wiles!"
- Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast first says that it's not right for a woman to read, then later calls Belle his "little wife" and says that Belle and he will have six or seven "strapping boys" like himself.
- Anal Cunt, a noisecore shock band (in)famous for their intentionally offensive lyrics, often write songs with mysogynist themes such as "Women: Nature's Punching Bag", "You're Pregnant, So I Kicked You In the Stomach", and "I Became a Counselor So I Could Tell Rape Victims They Asked For It".
- R&B group Bell Biv DeVoe famously sang, "Never trust a big butt and a smile" in their hit song "Poison".
- Rap artist Snoop Doggy Dogg has long been criticized for his mysogynist lyrics, especially in the 1990s. As of late, he has been trying successfully to repair this image of himself.
- Comedian Andrew Dice Clay was famous for misogynist rants in his routines.
- Punk rock singer GG Allin was infamous for misogynist songs.
- Some feminists considered The Rolling Stones' "Stupid Girl", "Yesterday's Papers", and "Midnight Rambler" to be misogynistic.
- The goth-metal group Type O Negative have often produced misogyny in their songs. One line claimed, "is there no difference between women and fire? The one burns the spirit, the other the flesh!" The first album, Slow Deep and Hard, is particularly misogynist.
- Rapper Eminem has been labeled by some critics, including electronic musician Moby, as a misogynist.
- In ancient times, Roman satirist Juvenal, in particular his sixth satire.
- Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver quotes "I realize now how much she's just like the others, cold and distant, and many people are like that, women for sure, they're like a union."
- The comedy film How to Murder Your Wife has been criticised for misogyny.

External links

- [http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft809nb586/ Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy] Category:Feminism Category:Gender Category:Human sexuality Category:Sexism Category:Prejudices Category:Discrimination

Musical theater

Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. It is closely related to opera, frequently being distinguished by the use of popular music of various forms (and thus usually different instrumentation), the use of unaccompanied dialogue (though some musicals are entirely accompanied, such as Les Misérables, and some operas have spoken dialogue, such as Carmen), and the avoidance of many operatic conventions. The musical components of a musical are generally referred to as the score, with sung lines considered the lyrics and the spoken lines the book, or occasionally the libretto (a term also frequently applied to text of an opera, it incorporates the words of both dialogue and lyric). Many familiar musical theater works have been the basis for successful musical films, or were adapted for television presentations. While some popular television programs have set one single episode in the style of a musical as a play on their usual format (examples include episodes of Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's episode Once More with Feeling, or Oz's Variety) -- or have suddenly begun singing and dancing in a musical-theater style during an episode (several episodes of The Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy) -- the television series Cop Rock, which extensively used the musical format, was not a success. While musical theater works are performed around the world, they are perhaps most frequently produced on Broadway in New York and in the West End in London. A musical can be anywhere from a few minutes to several hours long; however, most musicals range from two hours to two hours and forty-five minutes. Musicals today are typically presented with one intermission ten to fifteen minutes in length. A musical will usually have around twenty to thirty songs of varying lengths (including reprises and underscoring) interspersed with book (dialogue) scenes. Some musicals, however, are "sung-through" and do not have any spoken dialogue. This can blur the line between musical theatre and opera. A musical's moments of greatest dramatic intensity are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." A song must be crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story. A show usually opens with a song that sets the tone of the musical, introduces some or all of the major characters, and shows the setting of the play. Within the compressed nature of the musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. Music provides an excellent way to express emotion. However, on average, fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore there is less time to develop drama than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical may have an hour and a half or more of music in it.

Musical collaboration

Musical theater/theatre is a collaborative craft with a long history of traditional forms and structures, although new writing in musicals is constantly stretching and testing the enormous flexibility of the artform, taking it to previously unexplored places. Musicals are most commonly recognised to be a combination of sung lyric and spoken dialogue.

The authors

There are usually several authors of a musical. Very few musicals are written entirely by one person. A collaborative partnership of composer (music), lyricist (lyrics) and bookwriter (script) are generally involved, although one person may serve as composer/lyricist, lyricist/bookwriter (also called librettist) or bookwriter/composer. There can be multiple bookwriters, lyricists and/or composers on any one musical. There is no easy answer to the most frequently-asked question about musical theatre: "Which comes first, the music or the lyric?" Each collaboration works in a different way, and tends to be unique to the specific collaborators involved. Sometimes a melody inspires a lyric. Sometimes a lyric inspires a melody. However, the strongest inspiration for all the authors is the driving theme of the main story of the show. The initial idea for a new musical can come from the authors themselves, or they might be commissioned by a producer to write a musical on a specific subject. Musical theatre has a long tradition of adapting plays, books and other source material into this new genre.

History

In the beginning

The first theater piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical is generally considered to be The Black Crook - with book by Charles M. Barras and musical adaptations by Giuseppe Operti - which premiered at Niblo's Gardens in New York on September 12, 1866. The production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length kept theatergoers mesmerized enough to run for 474 performances.

Operetta

Probably the best-known composers of operetta were W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, whose prolific output - including The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance, and Princess Ida - remains popular to this day, and was frequently revived by London's recently defunct (2003) D'Oyly Carte Opera Company which was dedicated to presenting their work at the Savoy Theatre. Much of their legacy served as an inspiration for the likes of Victor Herbert (Babes in Toyland, 1903), Franz Lehár (The Merry Widow, 1907), and Oskar Straus (The Chocolate Soldier, 1910).

The Roaring Twenties

The musical developed from opera and operetta, but early musicals in the Roaring Twenties ignored plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs (throughout the first half of the twentieth century, popular music was dominated by theater writers). Many shows were revues with little plot. Typical of the times were lighthearted productions like Lady Be Good, Sunny, Tip Toes, No, No, Nanette, Oh, Kay, and Funny Face. Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Vincent Youmans, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, among others. The first production to most resemble the musical as we know it today - a complete integration of book and score - was Show Boat, which premiered on December 27, 1927 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. Up to this point, Florenz Ziegfeld had been known for his spectacular song-and-dance revues featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was no common theme tying the various numbers together. Show Boat, with a book and lyrics adapted from Edna Ferber's novel by Oscar Hammerstein II and P. G. Wodehouse and music by Jerome Kern, presented a new concept that was embraced by audiences immediately. Despite some of its startling themes - miscegenation among them - the original production ran a total of 572 performances.

The Thirties

Encouraged by the success of Show Boat, creative teams began following the "format" of that popular hit. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Morrie Ryskind, was the first musical to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The Band Wagon (1931), with a score by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele. While it was primarily a revue, it served as the basis for two subsequent film versions that were "book" musicals in the truest sense. Porter's Anything Goes (1934) affirmed Ethel Merman's position as the First Lady of musical theater - a title she maintained for many years. Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935) was closer to opera than it was to the typical musical, but in style and scope it foreshadowed such contemporary productions as Evita and Les Misérables. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), with a book and score by Marc Blitzstein and directed by Orson Welles, was a highly political piece that, despite the controversy surrounding it, managed to run for 108 performances. Kurt Weill's Knickerbocker Holiday brought to the musical stage New York City's early history, using as its source writings by Washington Irving. Clearly, musical theater was evolving into something beyond feathers and beads worn by statuesque showgirls.

The Golden Age (1940s/1950s/1960s)

The Golden Age of the Broadway musical is generally considered to have begun with Oklahoma! (1943) and to have ended with Hair (1968). Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! had a cohesive (if somewhat slim) plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets which advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily-clad women across the stage. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning. It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. The two created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theater's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951), and The Sound of Music (1959). Americana was the time during the "Golden Age" when the wartime cycle of shows were beginning to arrive. An example of this would be "On The Town" (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. The musical is set during wartime, where a group of three sailors are on a 24 hour shore leave in New York. During their day, they each meet a wonderful woman. The women in this show have a specific power to them, as if to be saying, "Come here! I need a man!" The show also gives the impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors also have with their women before leaving. Oklahoma! inspired others to continue the trend. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane, E. Y. Harburg, and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare

The Taming of the Shrew

Plot summary

Analysis

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William Shakespeare

Life

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Katherina Minola

Petruchio

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Pisa

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Misogynist

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See also

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Musical theater

Musical collaboration

The authors

History

In the beginning

Operetta

The Roaring Twenties

The Thirties

The Golden Age (1940s/1950s/1960s)