The Taming Of The Shrew (third Series)

By (author) Shakespeare, William; Edited by Hodgdon, Barbara
Short description/annotation
A major new edition of this perennially succesful play which continues to entertain and perplex modern audiences. The play is discussed in its critical and theatrical contexts and Hodgdon, a leading feminist scholar, opens up new readings for modern audiences and students.
Description
The Taming of the Shrew is unique among Shakespeare''s plays and is a perennial and compelling success in the theatre. Its reception is marked, however, by ongoing polarized debate over the meaning and worth of the play. This edition disengages Shakespeare''s exuberant and disturbing marital farce from the tangled history of its reception. It views the two sixteenth-century Shrew plays as textually independent but theatrically interdependent and so includes the full text of The Taming of A Shrew in an appendix. While the Introduction and Commentary focus on the critical and theatrical debate surrounding the play, the original and comprehensive editing of the playtext makes available a ''different'' Shrew, more open to the reader''s interpretation than is usually the case. Barbara Hodgdon is a distinguished feminist scholar whose reading of the play offers a stimulating array of ideas and questions about this enduringly popular yet challenging comedy.
Review quote
''a spry, supple introduction to the play...Hodgson''s performance history is particularly impressive: closely aligned to the breadth of critical readings, but suggesting the comedy''s challenges and even, its charms.''
Review quote
''Barbara Hodgdon is a distinguished feminist scholar whose reading of the play offers a stimulating array of ideas and questions about this enduringly popular yet challenging comedy.''
Biographical note
Barbara Hodgdon is Professor of English at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Shakespeare Trade: Performances and Appropriations, the Arden 3 Online Performance Project, The End Crowns All: Closure and Contradiction in Shakespeare''s History, and two books exploring Shakespeare''s Henry IV, Parts One and Two as texts and in performance.
Promotional headline
A major new edition by a leading feminist scholar An enduringly popular, and much performed play Comprehensive introduction with 20 illustrations Appendix gives full facsimile of the play''s "sister" play The Taming of A Shrew
Description for collection
The Arden Shakespeare has long set the gold standard in annotated, scholarly editions of Shakespeare''s plays. Each Arden edition in the Third Series offers a modernized text with comprehensive commentary notes glossing meanings, discussing staging issues and explaining literary allusions, together with a lengthy, illustrated introduction by a leading scholar exploring the play''s critical, theatrical and historical contexts. Praise for the series: "The gold standard for modern editorial scholarship." – Sixteenth Century Journal "One of the best regarded scholarly editions of Shakespeare''s plays." – The Times "One of the landmark publishing ventures of our time ... The care for standards, and meticulous attention to detail ... have made the Arden Shakespeare one of the great achievements of modern literary scholarship." – The New Criterion "Arden 3 stands as a book of memory and of aspiration, a record of our progress as a field and a profession, and a reminder of how much further we have to go ... Editorial practices developed in the Third Series established a precedent for innovation and discipline while producing texts that engaged readers with the most exciting advances of early modern textual studies." – Shakespeare Survey "[A] priceless contribution to Shakespeare studies ... The Arden editions, attractively produced and increasingly weighty, have become, so to