The Taming of the Shrew (Vol. 77) - Ruth Nevo (essay date 1980)
Ruth Nevo (essay date 1980)
SOURCE: Nevo, Ruth. “Kate of Kate Hall.” In Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare's “Taming of the Shrew,” edited by Harold Bloom, pp. 29-39. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
[In the following essay, originally published in 1980, Nevo designates the principal concern of The Taming of the Shrew as the “sexual battle,” and analyzes the relationship between Katherina and Petruchio.]
A more gentlemanly age than our own was embarrassed by The Shrew. G. B. Shaw announced it “altogether disgusting to the modern sensibility.” Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch of the New Shakespeare judged it
primitive, somewhat brutal stuff and tiresome, if not positively offensive to any modern civilised man or modern woman, not an antiquary. … We do not and cannot, whether for better or worse, easily think of woman and her wedlock vow to obey quite in terms of a...
[The entire page is 4263 words long]
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