Yea Verily, Abigail and Shakespeare

[GeoBQn]

Abigail finds instruction on how to be a good wife from Shakespeare--specifically, Katherine's final speech in The Taming of the Shrew. The SparkNotes version.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.ca/2012/11/the-anti-harried-wives-club-part-ii.html

While I haven't seen a production of Shrew live, I have a masters in Theatre History and have studied Shakespeare from both an acting perspective and a historical perspective. There are TONS of interpretations of Katherine's speech. Maybe she was sincere. Maybe she was saying what she thought Petruchio wanted to hear. Maybe the entire play is meant to be a farce. There's evidence that even the audiences who saw the original productions were uncomfortable with the play's misogyny, and today's directors have staged the speech in a wide variety of ways.

[singsingsing]

Meanwhile, in her latest post, she laments that the election was more stressful than the hurricane - and once again hints (not so subtly) at her emotional instability. Abigail, seriously, if you're this prone to breaking down sobbing over minor things that go wrong during the day, you need to get to the doctor and get a referral to a psychologist or something. That's not normal.

[Pudicitia]

Just showed that post to Mr. Pudicitia, who is doing a PhD in drama. I am worried that he is going to sustain a head injury from the amount of face-palming he is doing.

Has she actually read the play? In long form, not Spark Notes? That speech - part of a play within a play - ends with a hand-job joke ("place your hand below your husband's foot. In token of which duty, if he please, my hand is ready, may it do him ease.") and the play ends (ten lines later!) with the Shakespearean English equivalent of "good luck with getting your wife to act like that...".