SOURCE: Roberts, Jeanne Addison. “Horses and Hermaphrodites: Metamorphosis in The Taming of the Shrew.” Shakespeare Quarterly 34, no. 2 (summer 1983): 159-71.

In the following essay, Roberts examines the theme of metamorphosis in The Taming of the Shrew, which is suggested by imagery of literal transformation in the play.

The relationship between the world of nature and the world of human beings is always of special interest in Shakespeare's plays; and in discussing the “romantic” comedies critics since Northrop Frye have routinely noted the alternation in settings between the “normal world” and the “green world of romance.”¹ Just as routinely they have excluded The Taming of the Shrew from discussions of “romantic” comedy on the grounds of its “realism” and its farcical qualities.² I should like to suggest that important elements of romance do in fact lie under the surface of this play and that an appreciation of these elements helps...