The Sonnet For A Lesser Man
Introduction
In unit one of our class Drama, we read a play called "The Taming of The Shrew," which was written by William Shakespeare. While we read it, we were told to focus on the roles genders had back then and compare them to now. We all read this together on Zoom, each of us taking turns taking parts for the play to read. The play itself is meant to be a comedy, and I found that some of the jokes were actually pretty enjoyable to laugh at while we read along, but then again my sense of humor remains the equivalent of a 2nd grader's taste in comedy. After we read all five parts of the play and took five quizzes on each part of the play, we transferred over to working on piecing together an action project that focuses on two things that appeared in the play, one was what I mentioned before, being the roles that genders were shown to have in this play, such as women getting married off not by choice, but by force through whichever man is entitled to, and for seemingly whatever reason, be it to make partnerships between kingdoms or just for the hell of it, there was quite literally everything in between and out for a woman to be married by force. The main antagonist would be Petruchio, who not only slithered his way into marrying a girl named Katherine who didn't want to be married in the first place and had a reputation for making sure no guy she didn't like could even come close to her, he then goes on to "tame her" in the sense that he mentally and physically abused her through mind games in order to break her will.
Now as complicated as that all sounds, the story isn't too hard to follow despite the handful of characters the play throws in, the second thing this action project that this is meant to be focused on is called a sonnet. A sonnet is a poem of sorts composed of twelve lines, and ten syllables for each line, going by a rhythm like "ta-TUM." We had to write one that addresses a character in the play whether it be giving them life advice, agreeing or disagreeing with them. I like disagreeing with things, so I've decided to disagree with the most disagreeable character of them all, Petruchio. I've composed a video of me reading off this sonnet that I despise. I quickly learned I hate writing sonnets. Here you go.
Video
The Sonnet
Dear Petruchio, now how do I say this,
With a brain the size of a muscatel,
You broke Kate’s will with a besetting kiss,
Nobody’ll miss smells of rotten mussel shells.
Fret not, fret not, for this is for the best,
Lay your head down, silliest of all fools,
Put your superiority complex to its needed rest,
Surely you jest, to make Kate your sly tool,
“O Kate, content thee. Prithee not be angry,”
Fairest of wishes from and to “your” Kate,
For she waits for you to choke on brandy,
To see such a strong woman filled with hate,
Defile what you fear to be a sad fate,
Freedom, I hope you find taste in poor Kate.
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