The Taming of the Shrew Lesson Plan

What are the connotations of the play's introduction being labeled as an "induction"?

The Taming of the Shrew opens with a framing story, labeled in the text as the Induction. This sort of device was quite common during the Elizabethan era. Nonetheless, it is worth noting the connotations of the word "induction"—as if we the audience were being inducted into a ceremony or institution in our honor. Sly is led to believe as much, falsely "inducted" as he is into the nobility. The entire play thus emerges as a device to fool the drunkard—and, by extension, us.

The Lord is thus a representation of Shakespeare himself, staging a set of carefully controlled and convincing...