The Taming of the Shrew
A Zephyr salon on Shakespeare's play, "The Taming of the Shrew," with Dr. Marilyn Simon
Time & Location
Jun 02, 2022, 5:15 PM – 6:45 PM PDT
Zephyr Institute, 560 College Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA
About the Event
According to the tenets of egalitarian sexual morality, The Taming of the Shrew is a play we're supposed to hate. The only pleasure we should correctly get out of Petruchio’s taming of Kate is the gratification of our own sense of moral superiority in comparison to the values of Elizabethan patriarchal culture which insist on Kate’s submission. But Shakespeare does not intend the play to be a humorless affirmation of our moral progress. Instead, The Taming of the Shrew is filled with laughter, gaiety, spiritedness, and love. Katherina becomes a free individual through true humility precisely because she submits to her role as a woman and a wife. Petruchio is not a brutal and domineering master, but a generous and loving man precisely because he, too, submits to his role as husband. Hierarchy is not synonymous with tyranny. Through submission to their social roles, Kate and Petruchio transcend social mores to become master and mistress of themselves and each other, learning to delight in each other.
Drinks and snacks served at 5:15 p.m., with lecture and discussion to follow.
Speaker
Dr. Marilyn Simon is a Shakespeare scholar and university instructor. She writes often for Quillette and is currently working on a book entitled In a Mutual Flame: Sex, Passion, and Love in Shakespeare.
Image from here.