Transcript The Taming of the Shrew - Pleasant Valley High School

The Taming of the Shrew
By William Shakespeare
Literary Notes
• Genre
– Drama
• Tragedy
• Comedy
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Themes
Symbols
Setting
Plot
Conflict
Writing Style
Dramatic Conventions
Genre: category of literary composition, characterized
by a particular style
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Poetry
Short Stories
Novels
NonFiction
Drama
Drama: A story written to be performed
• Tragedy
- Romeo and Juliet
- Macbeth
• Comedy
- Taming of the
Shrew
- Twelfth Night
Farce (commedia de’ll arte)
• Uses impossible
and/or exaggerated
situations to achieve
a comedic effect
• Modern examples
might include Billy
Madison or skits from
The Chapelle Show
Comic methods used within the
play:
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Situational Comedy:
role exchanges;
disguises
Visual Comedy: facial
expressions and antics
Action Comedy
Physical Appearance
Comedy
Verbal Humor Comedy:
can often use puns
(play on words)
Themes: the fundamental and often
universal ideas explored in a literary work
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Marriage as an
institution
The effect of social
roles on individual
happiness
Appearance versus
reality
Setting: the time and place of a narrative
• Induction: The English
countryside outside an
alehouse and at the
Lord’s home
• Scenes I - V: Padua, Italy
– 1593 –1594. Time span
is about one week to ten
days
Writing Style: Shakespeare often changed
his style of writing based upon the social status of
his characters
• Prose: Ordinary language
used to emphasis characters of
low social status
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Iambic Pentameter:
Pattern of unstressed and
stressed syllables that uses five
patterns to a line; used to
emphasis characters of high
social status
*The structure of the play is
unique, because it the only work
by Shakespeare that is a play
within a play. The Induction
serves as a framework for the
play, however the characters in
the Induction are abandoned
after Act I Scene I.
Dramatic Conventions: techniques
that give the audience information that could not
be given from the action of the play
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Concealment: allows a
character to be seen by
the audience while
remaining hidden from
the other actors
Dramatic Conventions
• Soliloquy: character
talks to himself,
revealing thoughts
and feelings that
would otherwise go
unvoiced
Dramatic Conventions
• Aside: character
speaks directly to the
audience without
being overheard by
the other characters
on stage
Dramatic Conventions
• Dramatic Ironyoccurs when the
audience knows
information that might
change the behavior
of the characters if
they were aware of it
Major Players
• Baptista Minola- rich gentleman of Padua;
father of Katherine and Bianca
• Katherine Minola- the shrew
• Bianca Minola- younger daughter; acts
innocent and sweet
Major Players
• Gremio- foolish old man; suitor to Bianca
• Hortensio- suitor to Bianca; disguises
himself as a music teacher
Major Players
• Lucentio- gentleman from Pisa; falls in love w/
Bianca at first sight; disguises himself as a Latin
teacher
• Tranio- Lucentio’s servant; disguises himself as
Lucentio
• Biondello- Lucentio’s other servant
• Vincentio- Lucentio’s father from Pisa
Major Players
• Petruchio- gentleman from Verona; agrees
to woo Katherine the shrew
• Grumio- Petruchio’s servant (often acts as
the comic relief in the play)