Since the latter part of the 20th century, The Taming of the Shrew has been viewed as one of Shakespeare's most problematical comedies. This course will address the interpretive problems by focusing on the play's context in three different senses: 1) possible sources and analogues of the different stories that Shakespeare combined into his play; 2) late medieval and Renaissance ideas about women and the relations between the sexes, as reflected in treatises and in John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed; and 3) performance practice over the years on stage and on film.