 
                         20060815.01

     Reading the Taming of the Shrew, especially in the
shadow of the vulgar and insensitive production we saw on the
Boston Common last week, suggests to me a perspective of
Shakespeare interpretation I had hitherto overlooked.  When
we read Shakespeares plays as the work of a supreme dramatic
craftsman, we assume, so far as I know, without supporting
evidence, that he was in a position to choose the subjects of
the plays that he wrote without constraint and of his own
volition. Given the obvious fact that he was involved in an
economic enterprise of no mean dimensions, it seems to me not
improbable that his choice of subjects was dictated at least
in part, and perhaps in large part, by the judgments and
tastes of the personages with whom, if not the public, for
whom he worked.

     There must therefore have been instances where he took
great delight from the topic that he was required to
dramatize.  Perhaps the Tempest was a story very congenial to
him.  The Taming of the Shrew, on the other hand, perhaps was
not to his liking, and needed an envelope before it could
even begin to fit into Shakespeares literary universe.  That
envelope might have been the preface which is commonly
referred to as the induction.

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Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
