SOURCE: “The Good Marriage of Katherine and Petruchio,” in Shakespeare Survey, Vol. 37, 1984, pp. 23-31.

In the essay that follows, Daniell contends that The Taming of the Shrew takes marriage quite seriously, and in that sense it is a true Shakespearean marriage play. Daniell studies the play's views on marriage through an analysis of the theatricality in the play, and finds that by the play’s end the violence and rebellion are contained, and Katherina and Petruchio are able to be themselves, with all their contradictions intact.

Nowadays, The Taming of the Shrew is taken in its entirety, without mutilation, crude business with whips (imported by Kemble) or announcements of the embarrassing incompetence of the prentice Shakespeare. It is winning increasing praise, for the structure of its interlocking parts among other things, and is becoming understood as a fast-moving play about various kinds of romance and fulfilment in marriage...