Taming of the Shrew

• Comedy: With reference to Shakespeare’s plays, this is a genre of narrative identifiable by commonalities in character and narrative structure often including deception, misunderstanding, mistaken identity and, ultimately, resolution through marriage.
• The Hero/Heroine: A main character in a story whose special abilities, characteristics and achievements make him/her appear noble and ideal.
• The Fool: A funny or irreverent character archetype whose use of humour allows him or her to speak truths where others might not.
• Misconception: A temporary misunderstanding or intentional deception (often involving disguise) that, in comedy, produces a series of humorous consequences for characters involved; audience members are often positioned so as to be aware of the misconception.
• Scene: As a division in a play, this typically refers to the action that occurs between a first character’s entrance onto an empty stage and the final character’s exit.
• Act : As a division in a play, this refers to a collection of scenes that, together, perform an overall function in the overall narrative.
• Line: As a division in a play, this refers to a group of spoken words that ends at the right hand margin of the page.
• 5-Act Structure: When a play is organised into five main acts, which are structured to show the rising and falling tensions in the play, as well as the climax.
• Social class: A system of grouping or categorising people into a hierarchy, based on social and economic status.
• Gender Roles: The actions or behaviour considered to be appropriate to a particular gender as determined by prevailing cultural norms.
• Marriage: Marriage is portrayed as a business contract and seen as an economic institution: men and women must adhere to their respective gender roles within these unions. Shakespeare challenges us to consider whether inner emotional desires should play a secondary role to economic necessity.
• Social Expectations: In the play, each person occupies a specific social position that carries with it certain expectations about how that person should behave. The rules governing how each of them should behave are harshly enforced by family and society as a whole, but are broken by characters for comedic effect.
• Gender Roles & Expectations: The role of what is expected of certain genders also drives the plot. The play centres around the expectation that men and women must all marry to feel a sense of completeness, and produces chaotic and often comedic disruption when characters pursue this ideal through pretence or deceit.
• Setting: The location and time frame in which the action of a story takes place.
• Time: As part of setting, this refers to when a story takes place, either at a real point in history or the present, or in an imagined version of the past, present or future.
• Exposition: The part in a narrative in which the setting and plot are introduced, and in which impending tensions and/or conflicts are established.
• Rising Action: The part in a narrative in which tensions and/or conflicts are intensified.
• Climax: The part in a narrative in which tensions and/or conflicts reach their highest point.
• Falling Action: The part in a narrative in which tensions and/or conflicts begin to be resolved.
• Denouement: The part in a narrative in which tensions and/or conflicts are resolved, and a new sense of order is established.
• Plot: The sequence of main events in a story.
• William Shakespeare: 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616
• The globe theatre: A round, open-air theatre in which Shakespeare’s plays were performed.
• Elizabeth I reigned for 45 years, from 1558 to 1603.