CRITICISM

Abate, Corrine S. “‘Once more unto the breach’: Katharine's Victory in Henry V.” Early Theatre 4 (2001): 73-85.

Comments on Shakespeare's effective portrayal of Queen Katharine as an equal marriage partner to Henry V, despite the necessity that she acquiesce to a forced union for political reasons.

Berger, Jr., Harry. “Marriage and Mercifixion in The Merchant of Venice: The Casket Scene Revisited.” Shakespeare Quarterly 32, no. 2 (summer 1981): 155-62.

Concentrates on Portia's struggle with her father and Bassanio in the husband-selection scene (Act III, scene ii) of The Merchant of Venice.

Berkeley, David S., and Donald Keesee. “Bertram's Blood-Consciousness in All's Well That Ends Well.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 31, no. 2 (spring 1991): 247-58.

Maintains that the union between Helena and Bertram in All's Well That End Well suggests Shakespeare's belief that the merits of virtue justify marriage outside the boundaries of social class.

Birje-Patil, J. “Marriage Contracts in Measure for Measure.” Shakespeare Studies 5 (1969): 106-11.

Evaluates the Elizabethan legal debate regarding the creation and dissolving of marriages as a minor thematic element in Measure for Measure.

Black, James. “The Latter End of Prospero's Commonwealth.” Shakespeare Survey 43 (1991): 29-41.

Contends that the harmonious marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand orchestrated by Prospero in The Tempest redeems the grotesque and enforced unions depicted in the earlier phases of the play.

Boose, Lynda E. “The Father and the Bride in Shakespeare.” PMLA 97, no. 3 (May 1982): 325-47.

Studies the relationship between overprotective fathers and their daughters and sons-in-law in Shakespearean drama.

Briggs, Julia. “Shakespeare's Bed-Tricks.” Essays in Criticism 44, no. 4 (October 1994): 293-314.

Examines the sources and consequences of deceitful sexual conquests (“bed-tricks”) that lead to marriage in All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure.

Cacicedo, Alberto. “‘She is fast my wife’: Sex, Marriage, and Ducal Authority in Measure for Measure.” Shakespeare Studies 23 (1995): 187-209.

Claims that an unequal distribution of wealth and power among men is ameliorated by complete male control over women in marriage within the patriarchal social order of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.

Cook, Ann Jennalie. Making a Match: Courtship in Shakespeare and His Society, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991, 273 p.

In-depth sociohistorical study of marriage and courtship in early modern England as reflected through the canon of Shakespearean drama.

Daniell, David. “The Good Marriage of Katherine and Petruchio.” Shakespeare Survey 37 (1984): 23-31.

Argues for an interpretation of the union between Katherine and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew that stresses their mutuality.

Fortier, Mark. “Married with Children: The Winter's Tale and Social History; or, Infanticide in Earlier Seventeenth-Century England.” Modern Language Quarterly 57, no. 4 (December 1996): 579-603.

Sociocultural assessment of the The Winter's Tale that focuses on Shakespeare's critique of marriage and the nuclear family in the play.

Friedman, Michael D. “‘Hush'd on Purpose to Grace Harmony’: Wives and Silence in Much Ado About Nothing.” Theatre Journal 42, no. 3 (October 1990): 350-63.

Suggests that the outspoken Beatrice of Much Ado about Nothing ultimately sacrifices her feminine power by entering into a marriage that effectively silences her.

———. “Male Bonds and Marriage in All's Well That Ends Well and Much Ado.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 35, no. 2 (spring 1995): 231-49.

Probes the opposition between male social relations and the impetus toward marriage in All's Well That Ends Well and Much Ado, particularly emphasizing the ways in which this conflict is reflected through theatrical performance.

Gardiner, Judith Kegan. “The Marriage of Male Minds in Shakespeare's Sonnets.” JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 84, no. 3 (July 1985): 328-47.

Centers on the homoerotic subtext of Shakespeare's sonnets and their minor theme of the impossibility of marriage for love.

Hayne, Victoria. “Performing Social Practice: The Example of Measure for Measure.” Shakespeare Quarterly 44, no. 1 (spring 1993): 1-29.

Explores the comic conventions underlying the three nuptials in Measure for Measure as they reflect different versions of the drama's central theme: marriage as a means of socially legitimizing sexuality.

Heffernan, Carol F. “The Taming of the Shrew: The Bourgeoisie in Love.” Essays in Literature 12, no. 1 (spring 1985): 3-14.

Reads The Taming of the Shrew as a critique of middle-class social values and marriage patterns.

Hennings, Thomas P. “The Anglican Doctrine of the Affectionate Marriage in The Comedy of Errors.” Modern Language Quarterly 47, no. 2 (June 1986): 91-107.

Elucidates the celebration of Christian matrimonial and familial ideals in The Comedy of Errors.

Hibbard, G. R. “Love, Marriage and Money in Shakespeare's Theatre and Shakespeare's England.” In The Elizabethan Theatre VI, edited by G. R. Hibbard, pp. 134-55. Hamden, Conn.: The Shoe String Press, Inc., 1975.

Contrasts Shakespeare's romanticized depictions of matrimony in his comedies with a number of documented real-life marriages from the early modern period in England.

Hill, W. Speed. “Marriage as Destiny: An Essay on All's Well That Ends Well.” English Literary Renaissance 5, no. 3 (autumn 1975): 344-59.

Traces Helena's course toward an equal marriage with Bertram in All's Well That Ends Well.

Hopkins, Lisa. “What Makes a Marriage?” In The Shakespearean Marriage: Merry Wives and Heavy Husbands, pp. 66-84. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1998.

Traces Shakespeare's critique of marriage in his otherwise comic plays Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado about Nothing, and Measure for Measure.

———. “The Fate of the Nation: Marriage in the History Plays.” In The Shakespearean Marriage: Merry Wives and Heavy Husbands, pp. 85-108. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1998.

Considers the problematic marriages depicted in Shakespeare's historical dramas Henry V, Richard III, and King John as unions strained by the irreconcilability of personal and public demands.

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

Marxist-materialist assessment of The Taming of the Shrew that centers on the commodification of Katherine in marriage and the shifting modes of production in domestic economies.

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

Studies Shakespeare's revisions of his source material for The Taming of the Shrew to produce a play that conforms thematically with a late-sixteenth-century Protestant conception of marriage.

Neely, Carol Thomas. Broken Nuptials in Shakespeare's Plays, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985, 261 p.

Investigates patterns of disrupted or delayed marriage in such plays as Much Ado about Nothing, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra.

Nelson, T. G. A., and Charles Haines. “Othello's Unconsummated Marriage.” Essays in Criticism 33, no. 1 (January 1983): 1-18.

Views Othello's failure to consummate his marriage to Desdemona as a central issue in Othello that defines a crucial limitation in his heroic code.

Newman, Karen. “Renaissance Family Politics and Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.” In Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama, pp. 33-50. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Applies feminist and psychoanalytical theoretical approaches to the culturally constructed gender codes and conflicts of Renaissance marriage dramatized in The Taming of the Shrew.

Raley, Marjorie. “Claribel's Husband.” In Race, Ethnicity, and Power in the Renaissance, edited by Joyce Green MacDonald, pp. 95-110. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1997.

Emphasizes an unstaged Tunisian marriage referred to in The Tempest as a suppressed, potentially disruptive element in the drama that complicates the normative and harmonious union of Miranda and Ferdinand.

Ray, Sid. “‘Rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy’: The Politics of Consent in Titus Andronicus.” Shakespeare Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1998): 22-39.

Considers the mutilation and rape of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus in the contexts of marriage and monarchy, interpreting these violent acts as signifiers of gendered and political repression.

Scott, Margaret. “‘Our City's Institutions’: Some Further Reflections on the Marriage Contracts in Measure for Measure.” ELH 49, no. 4 (winter 1982): 790-804.

Observes that the draconian legal code of Shakespeare's Vienna in Measure for Measure should not be construed as a literal stage representation of English matrimonial law, despite this widespread assumption among critics.

Simonds, Peggy Muñoz. “Sacred and Sexual Motifs in All's Well That Ends Well.” Renaissance Quarterly 42, no. 1 (spring 1989): 33-59.

Endeavors to reconstruct the meaning of All's Well That Ends Well as it would have been perceived by Renaissance audiences in regard to marriage, love, and the notorious bed-trick.

Watson, Robert N. “The State of Life and Power of Death: Measure for Measure.” In Shakespearean Power and Punishment, edited by Gillian Murray Kendall, pp. 130-56. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1998.

Conceives of Measure for Measure as a tragicomedy in which the problem of mortality in Protestant society is solved through socially sanctioned and fruitful marriage.

Wayne, Valerie. “Historical Difference: Misogyny and Othello.” In The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, edited by Valerie Wayne, pp. 153-79. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.

Examines the conversation between Desdemona and Iago in Act II, scene i of Othello in order to address the drama as part of a Renaissance discourse on misogyny aimed toward the social role of women and ideology of marriage.

Wentersdorf, Karl P. “The Marriage Contracts in Measure for Measure: A Reconsideration.” Shakespeare Survey 32 (1979): 129-44.

Briefly summarizes recent critical debate on the depiction of marriage laws in Measure for Measure and asserts that Shakespeare attempted to survey the broad range of Renaissance controversy and ambiguity concerning matrimony and sexual morality in the drama.

Wexler, Joyce. “A Wife Lost and/or Found.” Upstart Crow 8 (1988): 106-17.

Applies the deconstructive principle of indecidability to The Winter's Tale, questioning the drama's patriarchal assumptions regarding relationships between women and men in marriage.

Williams, George W. “Kate and Petruchio: Strength and Love.” English Language Notes 29, no. 1 (September 1991): 18-24.

Views Kate's acceptance of Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew as her tacit acknowledgment of a symbolic social order involving a balance “between strength and affection, force and love” in marriage.