Literary Commentary

Berry, Ralph. "The Rules of the Game." In Shakespeare's Comedies: Explorations in Form, pp. 54-71. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Argues that while The Taming of the Shrew may be, in essence, a "brutal sex farce," It is also a subtle portrayal of two people coming to terms on the rules of the games played between men and women.

Boose, Linda "The Taming of the Shrew, Good Husbandry, and Enclosure." Shakespeare Reread: The Texts in New Contexts, edited by Russ McDonald, pp. 193225. Ithaca Cornell, 1994.

Relates the play's treatment of social and sexual hierarchy to socioeconomic changes and class conflict in early modern England.

Bradbrook, Muriel C. "Dramatic Role as Social Image: A Study of The Taming of the Shrew." Shakespeare Jahrbuch 94, (1958): 132-50.

Examines Shakespeare's adaptation of the traditional roles associated with characters in earlier treatments of the shrew story, focusing in particular...