Sometimes, inspiration for a lesson will come from a strange place. I am often drawn to similarities and differences between song lyrics and books/ plays I teach. Recently, while watching "American Idol," I found myself thinking of The Taming of the Shrew. Almost as soon as I heard the song, I knew that we had to study the lyrics.The song is "Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones. If you read the lyrics, you'll see the connection between this classic rock song and the "taming" of Katherine in our play. In today's class, we're going to compare and contrast the lyrics of this song with the actions of Petruchio and the portrayal of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew.
**Update: Hey, I wasn't the only one thinking of this connection last night! Here's a commentary on Tim Urban's American Idol rendition. The author of this piece, Linda Holmes, says that the classic Stones song is "it's essentially 'a chauvinistic taming-of-the-shrew victory lap'". (She's quoting someone else here, so that means I'm doubly correct!
Here's a link to a student blog response.
