CRITICISM

Brooks, Dennis S. “‘To show scorn her own image’: The Varieties of Education in The Taming of the Shrew.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 48, No. 1 (1994): 7-32.

Argues that the various themes, anomalies, and plots in The Taming of the Shrew are united by the play's concern with the Renaissance debate regarding education. Brooks notes that to Renaissance theorists education was a complicated socialization process.

Candido, Joseph. “The Starving of the Shrew.” Colby Quarterly 26, No. 2 (June 1990): 96-111.

Examines the play's focus on eating and drinking, observing that allusions to the food and drink of Shakespeare's England emphasize the importance of the Induction and the character of Christopher Sly, and inform the play's treatment of such issues as marriage.

Deer, Harriet A. “Untyping Stereotypes: The Taming of the Shrew.” In The Aching Hearth: Family Violence in Life and Literature, edited by Sara Munson Deats and Lagretta Tallent Lenker, pp. 63-78. New York: Insight Books, 1991.

Considers the relationship between theatrical conventions and social values explored in The Taming of the Shrew, suggesting that just as the Renaissance actor/playwright grappled with transforming popular plots and characters into new dramas with broader meanings, so did the marginalized men and women in society struggle to adapt harmful and abusive Renaissance social conventions and marriage customs into new types of relationships.

Fineman, Joel. “The Turn of the Shrew.” In Shakespeare and the Question of Theory, edited by Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman, pp. 138-59. New York: Methuen, 1985.

Maintains that The Taming of the Shrew supports patriarchal orthodoxy, despite the play's association with the subversive language of women and the subversive power of theatricality.

Korda, Natasha. “Household Kates: Domesticating Commodities in The Taming of the Shrew.” Shakespeare Quarterly 47, No. 2 (Summer 1996): 109-31.

Highlights the ways in which The Taming of the Shrew's taming strategies differ from those of traditional shrew-taming stories, and examines the economic terminology Shakespeare utilized in crafting the play's taming tactics.

Mikesell, Margaret Lael. “‘Love Wrought These Miracles’: Marriage and Genre in The Taming of the Shrew.” Renaissance Drama 20 (1989): 141-67.

Compares the main plot and subplot of The Taming of the Shrew with the plots of their sources (oral folk tales and ballads concerned with shrew taming, and an English translation of an Italian relative of New Comedy) in order to show that Shakespeare's alterations aligned his drama with the views on marriage found in contemporary Protestant conduct books.

Moisan, Thomas. ‘“What's that to you?” or, Facing Facts: Anti-Paternalist Chords and Social Discords in The Taming of the Shrew.” Renaissance Drama 26 (1995): 105-29.

Studies the way in which the play's analysis of the proper relationship between sons-in-law and fathers-in-law, combined with the play's treatment of the friction between generations, complicates our understanding of the main action and its more prominent themes.

Morris, Brian. Introduction to The Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare, edited by Brian Morris, pp. 1-149. London: Methuen, 1981.

Offers a comprehensive overview of the play, discussing the following: the textual history, composition date, the authorship issues and sources, and the plot, themes, and characters.

Newman, Karen. “Renaissance Family Politics and Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.” English Literary Renaissance 16, No. 1 (Winter 1986): 86-100.

Describes the relationship between the play's handling of domestic relations and contemporary Elizabethan societal anxiety regarding gender and power.

Perret, Marion D. “Of Sex and the Shrew.” Ariel 13, No. 1 (January 1982): 3-20.

Compares the treatment of sexuality in the Induction with its treatment in the rest of the play, noting that Shakespeare used the Induction to be bawdy, and the rest of the play to explore the social, rather than physical, aspects of martial union.

Slights, Camille Wells. “The Raw and the Cooked in The Taming of the Shrew.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 88, No. 2 (April 1989): 168-89.

Asserts that the conflict in the play is not between men and women, but between civilized and uncivilized behavior.