XPost: rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: dtravel@sonic.net   
      
   Dorothy J Heydt wrote:   
   > In article <3b05e8e2-6b23-4a17-8a7b-b572086f8339@u13g2000vbb.g   
   oglegroups.com>,   
   > Robert Carnegie   wrote:   
   >> On Oct 20, 4:11 am, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:   
   >>> In article ,   
   >>> Dr Nancy's Sweetie   wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>> I don't disagree that Milton presents gender-specific roles in _Paradise   
   >>>> Lost_, and his characters see the clearly-defined roles as an asset.  I   
   >>>> can see where that might be grating; but it was written in the 1600s, so   
   >>>> that was the world he lived in.  If you're going to take things too   
   >>>> personally, you'll lose an awful lot of classical literature.   
   >>> This is quite true.   
   >> I suppose _The Taming of the Shrew_ didn't please.   
   >   
   > What I'd like to do with _TTotS_ sometime, if I were still young   
   > and had time and energy to do it in and had gone into theatre, is   
   > to give it an interpretation informed by _The Knight of the   
   > Burning Pestle_ and _La Vida Es Sueno._   
   >   
   > _Shrew_, as you'll recall, has half a frame around the main   
   > story.  A nobleman and his friends come upon a commoner and take   
   > him along for an evening of festivity (I think they get him   
   > drunk, but I haven't looked at the text recently) which includes   
   > watching a play.  But the frame has no ending.  I seriously doubt   
   > Shakespeare forgot to write one, but the last page seems to have   
   > been lost.  I would attempt to reconstruct it, showing the   
   > commoner coming to himself and thinking the whole evening had   
   > been a dream.   
   >   
   > And the play they would watch would be _Shrew_, but the nobleman   
   > would insist that they turn it into a drama wherein a shrewish   
   > wife is beaten down and tamed by her husband.  The players would   
   > protest that it doesn't make sense for such a character to be   
   > tamed, but the nobleman would insist, by means either of threats   
   > or bribes.  Just as the citizen does in _Knight_, by making it   
   > clear that he's going to disrupt the performance unless they make   
   > the hero a grocer rather than a knight.   
   >   
   > But I'm old and tired and broke and it will never happen.   
   >>> But every person has his/her breaking point, and mine was when   
   >>> Eve, instead of sitting down and *listening to what Raphael had   
   >>> to say about the dangers threatening her and Adam in Paradise,*,   
   >>> said to herself "Oh, this is men's business, I'll go cook lunch."   
   >>>   
   >>> FX: camel's back breaks   
   >> He married beneath him, I suppose.   
   >   
   > Well, it isn't as if he had a lot of choice.  Milton did; he made   
   > the wrong choice *for him*.  I understand he finally managed to   
   > marry a second time and was much happier.   
   >   
   Maybe it would help if you remembered that Eve was Adam's second wife.  :-P   
      
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