The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 31) | Carol F. Heffernan (essay date 1985)
Carol F. Heffernan (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "The Taming of the Shrew: The Bourgeoisie in Love," in Essays in Literature, Vol. XII, No. 1, Spring, 1985, pp. 3-14.
[In the following essay, Heffernan analyzes the play's portrayal of the values of the emergent middle class critique of the materialistic nature of Elizabethan marriage arrangements.]
Besides the much discussed romantic wooing of Bianca and rough taming of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, there is a less noted but steady undercurrent of suggestion that calls attention to the fact that in the society of Padua marriage is a business and that, in general, this world is one where social position and wealth count for much. The play's concern with marrying well and with social status helps create the atmosphere of the bourgeois world of substantial citizens; The Taming of the Shrew shows Shakespeare's interest in the process of choosing mates in the middle class...
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