Five Best

1.      Artese, Charlotte. "“Tell Thou the Tale”: Shakespeare's Taming of Folktales in The Taming of the Shrew." Folklore 120.3 (2009): 317-326. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 Oct. 2010.

            Charlette Artese discusses the folktales present in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, further indicating how Christopher Sly’s story at the beginning of this play is based on a folktale “Lord for a Day.” Not many people recognize that while reading his play. Also noted is how Shakespeare knew how to adapt his play to the audience. Although he didn’t give the Christopher Sly story an ending, it served the purpose of letting them believe many different possibilities so as to keep them guessing. He did the opposite with the actual play, so to be able to show his audience that his is creative but also traditionally assertive.

2.      Bamber, Linda. Comic Women, Tragic Men: a Study of Gender and Genre in Shakespeare. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1982. Print.

            Bamber addresses in Comic Women, Tragic Men, how for men it was not unheard of to do such evil things like kill people, but for a women to do something so unsightly and gruesome it was extremely frowned upon. This notes the unfair treatment of women in Shakespeare’s time, as well as how they were oppressed. Bamber discusses how a women in Shakespeare shoes would probably not have done any better at explaining the opposite sex than he did.

3.      O'Hara, Stephanie. "Look on fertile France": French Theater in Shakespeare's Time." Shakespeare Studies 32.(2004): 36-46. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.

            This article discusses French theater in Shakespeare’s time, and how the French placed more of an emphasis on theater during this time. Theater grew to be as popular in that time, as novels are today. The French Renaissance provided the basis for theatrical production, with the war as the muse.

4.      Pechter, Edward. What Was Shakespeare?: Renaissance Plays and Changing Critical Practice. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995. Print.

            In the book What Was Shakespeare? Pechter does not discuss William Shakespeare the playwright, but rather the poems and plays that Shakespeare wrote in his lifespan, as well as a study of how we perceive the plays and have discussed them throughout history. The book is slightly limited to mostly talking solely about the criticism of the Shakespeare plays though, and not the actual plays. But this makes the book more specified, and unique. It is discussed in this book whether or not evidence for criticism surrounding these plays is legitimate.

5.      "YouTube - The Taming of the Shrew - Petruchio Meets Katharina (1/2)." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 06 Oct. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASKZLGwAdcw>.

            In this video clip it shows Petruchio meeting Katharina for the first time. He contradicts all of her angry nature, and turns it on her to make her think. It appears that she has finally met her match, and he is being almost kind to her, if not kind, at least he is acknowledging her more than most men generally have in the past. He walks in when she is throwing a tantrum, fit to be tied. This gives the audience a visual, as opposed to reading it and figuring out context clues with makes it helpful to understand. This could be used to show a classroom of kids, in order to help them get the play.