The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 77) - Erika Gottlieb (essay date 1986)
Erika Gottlieb (essay date 1986)
SOURCE: Gottlieb, Erika. “‘I Will Be Free’: Shakespeare's Ambivalence to Katherina's Challenge of the Great Chain of Being.” In Essays on Shakespeare in Honour of A. A. Ansari, edited by T. R. Sharma, pp. 88-116. Meerut, India: Shalabh Book House, 1986.
[In the following essay, Gottlieb contends that The Taming of the Shrew should not be viewed as a farce with a determinate happy ending, but rather that the play demonstrates Shakespeare's ambivalence to feminine assertions of independence from authoritarian, hierarchical tradition.]
In spite of the great number of its critics and the wide range of critical directions, most commentators on The Taming of the Shrew insist on reading it as a comedy with a wholeheartedly happy ending. In contrast to this assertion, I suggest that The Taming of the Shrew represents one of the earliest examples of Shakespeare's ambivalence towards the...
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