The Taming Untamed, Or, the Return of the Shrew∗

Heilman, Robert B.

doi:10.1215/00267929-27-2-147

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To Robert Heilman, in these early exchanges Petruchio 'creates an image of utter invincibility'. 68 But if he is coded as braggart, his quarrel with Grumio generates the opposite effect, as Petruchio's threats seem about as credible as the fee-fi-fo thumping of Peele's braggart. Petruchio complains to Hortensio, 'I bade the rascal knock upon your gate / And could not get him for my heart to do it' (1.2.35-6, emphasis added).…”

Section: The Taming Of the Shrewmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘A Mad-Cap Ruffian and a Swearing Jack’: Braggart Courtship from Miles Gloriosus to The Taming of the Shrew

Collington

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a generic skeleton in Petruchio’s closet. By comparing his outlandish behaviour in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (ca 1592-94) to that of Pyrgopolinices in Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus (ca 200 BC), as well to that of English variants of the type found in Udall, Lyly, and Peele, I re-situate Petruchio as a braggart soldier. I also reconstruct a largely forgotten comic subgenre, braggart courtship, with distinctive poetic styles, subsidiary characters, narrative events, and thematic functions. Katherina’s marriage to a stranger who boasts of his abilities and bullies social inferiors raises key questions: What were the comic contexts and cultural valences of a match between a braggart and a shrew?

show abstract

Section: The Taming Of the Shrewmentioning

confidence: 99%