the taming of the shrew by william shakespeare. literary notes ● genre o drama tragedy comedy...
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Literary Notes
●Genre oDrama
Tragedy Comedy
●Themes
●Symbols
●Setting
●Plot
●Conflict
●Writing Style
●Dramatic Conventions
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: ●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 ●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
●Iambic Pentameter: Pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables that uses five patterns to a line; used to emphasis characters of high social status
●Example:
To swell the gourd and plumb the hazel shell.
*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
●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 Irony-
occurs 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