“Look not big, nor stamp, nor stare”: Acting Up in The Taming of the Shrew and the Coventry Herod Plays
Jonathan Gil Harris
Volume 34.4, Winter 2000-01

In his 1945 study of Shakespeare’s use of humoral psychology, John W. Draper noted that the supposedly choleric Petruchio’s strategy for subduing the equally volatile Katherine “is to out-Herod Herod.”¹ Though Draper doubtless intended his remark to be no more than metaphorical, I propose to take it literally. Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, I shall argue, is subtly informed by a metatheatrical awareness of Herod and, more specifically, of the styles of acting that distinguished his character on the early English stage.

Note

¹ John W. Draper, The Humors and Shakespeare’s Characters (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1945), 52.

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