School has been out for a few weeks, but I’m still mulling an essay question assigned to one of my students at the end of the semester. Some years ago, I accepted a private tutoring role teaching writing, and I’ve appreciated diving back into essay construction and grammar at more basic levels. As my students have advanced, however, so have their essay topics. We’ve looked at themes of death in the Book of Job, shuddered through John Hersey’s Hiroshima, and giggled at the absurdities in Aristophanes’ The Clouds. This final essay prompt, though, was Shakespearean in nature — about The Taming of the Shrew, to be precise.
My student’s assignment was to compare and contrast this Shakespeare play with Paul’s exhortation to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 — that wildly unpopular reading that often leaves wives muttering and husbands smirking. But these verses deserve significantly more consideration than people are willing to give them, and I was delighted to have my student wrestle with the question. While talking her through the essay outline, I found myself drawn more and more into the subject, and wanting to go read the play. Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate is a treat, but it’s no substitute for the original, so off I went down a Shakespearean rabbit hole.
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