Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, assistant professor of English, will present “Battle of the Sexes: The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. in 201 Riley Hall at Linfield College.
Pollack-Pelzner will discuss Shakespeare’s most controversial comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew.” This play has intrigued audiences for 400 years with its depiction of a domineering husband who appears to tame his fiery, outspoken wife. In contrast, a recently rediscovered Renaissance sequel by John Fletcher, “The Tamer Tamed,” flips Shakespeare’s power dynamics upside down, presenting a wife who tames her husband instead. Drawing on his work as scholar-in-residence for the Portland Shakespeare Project, Pollack-Pelzner will explore how these plays challenge our assumptions about gender roles, Renaissance culture and the status of Shakespeare in today’s society.
Pollack-Pelzner received his bachelor’s from Yale University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he helped to edit the new Norton edition of Shakespeare’s complete works. He has published and lectured widely on Shakespeare and British literature. He is currently completing a book on Shakespeare and the Victorian novel. His four-part series on “The Taming of the Shrew” appeared on Oregon Arts Watch this summer. He was a visiting scholar at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this past summer.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Meridith Symons at 503-883-2409 or msymons@linfield.edu.
