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

In the following essay, Perret examines Shakespeare's use of bawdy in The Taming of the Shrew, and contends that the purpose of the bawdy is to comically introduce serious values.

In considering any play we rightly pay attention to what is given dramatic emphasis, and in The Taming of the Shrew dramatic emphasis is on the relation of the sexes rather than the sexual relation. Critics of this play have not yet examined what the allusions to sex do besides amuse the audience,¹ presumably because there seems little to examine. Although, Bianca's suitors remind us, the man who would “rid the house” of the shrew must not only wed but bed her (I.i.149-50)² the play does not force us to consider sex by challenging conventional mores or by constantly alluding to sexuality³—The...