ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of some key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines editorial practice in connection with The Taming of the Shrew in terms of the time-honored tendency to imagine colonized territory as a woman who can be raped or otherwise sexually exploited. It argues that the divergences between the two texts are significant, particularly in terms of their differential treatment of key elements of the play like Othello's blackness and its relation to his belief in Desdemona's 'blackened' reputation. The book also examines how the editorial process over the years has functioned to empty the play of its interest in proto-colonial concerns and to intensify what most editors have identified as its charming provincialism. The study of colonial editions of Shakespeare could easily be expanded beyond India, since Shakespeare study was initiated throughout the British Empire as part of a process of acculturating the natives into Englishness.