The Framing of the Shrews: Dream Skepticism from "The House of Fame" to "The Taming of the Shrew."

Author / Editor
Smith, Nathanial B.

Title
The Framing of the Shrews: Dream Skepticism from "The House of Fame" to "The Taming of the Shrew."

Published
Comparative Drama 55 (2021): 234-58.

Description
Shows that Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" and the anonymous "Taming of a Shrew" feature skeptical parody of Stoic certainty about distinguishing reality from illusion or dream. As in HF, the "framing fictions" of the plays "make a show" of controlling uncertainty and reveal the skeptical "circularity" of any "dogmatic quest for authoritative certainty." Assesses how "[s]cenes problematizing authoritative instruction proliferate" throughout HF and the plays and, in the latter, destabilize antifeminist certainties.

Alternative Title
Comparative Drama 55 (2021)

Chaucer Subjects
House of Fame
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion
Sources, Analogues, and LIterary Relations