54/1001 - Folger Shakespeare, Act 1 of Shrew, and William Habington

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Essay: the introduction and the ridiculously modern, myopic, progressively-monocled essay about feminism in the appendix. Which was stupid, no matter how many letters follow the authors name.

The play IS NOT MEANT TO BE REALISITIC!! Stop reading gender roles and patriarchy and every damned modern assumption and issue into the text. Stop being butthurt because Katerina becomes Kate and she no longer lives to "please myself," as she says several times, but lives to please others. 

Shakespeare knew his Bible. He knew the verse, "she who lives a self-indulgent life is dead already." (1 Timothy 5:6) Kate is the only vibrant, living woman at the end. She is the only one with AN ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HER HUSBAND. They are partners. The other wives are huddled in on themselves, concerned only with pleasing themselves and ruling others. Kate was saved from that by the brash, bold, unfailing love of Pretuchio. Yes, he loved her. He redeemed her. And in the end, he gave her her true self.

Stop ruining Shakespeare, Modernity. 

Short story: The induction of The Taming of the Shrew

 Poem: 

Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam

by William Habington

WHEN I survey the bright

   Celestial sphere;

So rich with jewels hung, that Night

   Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:

   My soul her wings doth spread

   And heavenward flies,

Th' Almighty's mysteries to read

   In the large volumes of the skies.

   For the bright firmament

   Shoots forth no flame

So silent, but is eloquent

   In speaking the Creator's name.

   No unregarded star

   Contracts its light

Into so small a character,

   Removed far from our human sight,

   But if we steadfast look

   We shall discern

In it, as in some holy book,

   How man may heavenly knowledge learn.

   It tells the conqueror

   That far-stretch'd power,

Which his proud dangers traffic for,

   Is but the triumph of an hour:

   That from the farthest North,

   Some nation may,

Yet undiscover'd, issue forth,

   And o'er his new-got conquest sway:

   Some nation yet shut in

   With hills of ice

May be let out to scourge his sin,

   Till they shall equal him in vice.

   And then they likewise shall

   Their ruin have;

For as yourselves your empires fall,

   And every kingdom hath a grave.

   Thus those celestial fires,

   Though seeming mute,

The fallacy of our desires

   And all the pride of life confute:--

   For they have watch'd since first

   The World had birth:

And found sin in itself accurst,

   And nothing permanent on Earth.