馴悍記

not giving shakespeare a 5 feels like a crime but im just a girl

Thank goodness that’s overThe Taming of the Shrew starts off purely as a noble man playing a prank on a drunkard in a bar. It’s a mean joke, making out this drunkard has always been a noble man his entire life, making out as though nothing has ever changed. It seems funny at first and has made me laugh plenty of times – although some of that may be down to my own humour of finding the way Shakespeare writes (phrases such as Sir! Give him head!) – but it is enjoyable.Quickly, a play arises within the play and this is where my issues lie with The Taming of the Shrew. Now I am aware that Shakespeare’s plays and any and all plays written within the Shakespearean era are quite misogynistic, and I do give them the benefit of the doubt. However, the pure misogyny in the play of The Taming of the Shrew makes me feel very uncomfortable.Slight spoilers below.– Asking a woman to marry you, and then when she says no, arranging a wedding date without her permission either way –Spoilers over.This is so worrying to read and it makes my stomach churn slightly. The Taming of the Shrew could really have done without this play inside of it, full of pure disrespect of women. Again, I know misogyny was a thing back then, but again, there’s just so much of it, it’s so uncomfortable to read.Either way, I didn’t let this distract me from the original play I was reading and pushed on through it.Around half way through, the play began to lag terribly. I couldn’t focus properly on it, I had to reread lines four or five times to understand what was being said, my attention just wouldn’t sit still on it. I started getting headaches, trying to follow all the dialogue, long text after long text. It was disappointing that this happened, really, because I had been enjoying the play before hand. I feel like I’m now just trying to trudge through tar to get to the finishing line. I’ve always had a small love for Shakespeare, especially when it comes to sonnets, so finding that The Taming of the Shrew is getting increasingly harder to read is really quite upsetting.The drama in the later chapters did make this a little more exciting to read but it was still trivial to read and get through. I found myself taking forever to read it, eyes skimming over and not taking words in, trying to find something to distract myself with because I just couldn’t focus on the writing, and it’s a shame, really. The ending was poor, had no weight to it and was just a train wreck after five ‘chapters’ of the play.I could not wait for this to be over, I just wanted it to be done with so I could shelve it as read and move on to ultimately forget such a boring play. Honestly I wouldn’t recommend reading this; read a sonnet or two instead, and find another play to read. Give this one a miss. I hope [b:The Comedy of Errors|82356|The Comedy of Errors|William Shakespeare|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328543324s/82356.jpg|525707] isn’t this trivial or I may just have to give up on Shakespeare completely.