The Taming of the Shrew

Dr. Marilyn Simon over at Quillette has an essay Game, Set, Match about "The Taming of the Shrew." I know about the play, but have never read it.  You know, because it's Shakespeare. She notes that everyone sees it as deeply misogynistic these days - and I always thought from what I could see on the outside that this was likely - but that this is a deep misunderstanding of the play. She sees the interactions as much more fun and high-spirited romantic, competition than would be apparent at first.  In that light, her title for the essay, which I thought just ordinary cleverness, turns out to be absolutely brilliant when taken apart word by word.

She may not convince you, but it was loads of fun. Personal note: looking at the chosen photo for the article, I am reminded that when my wife was in her late teens, an older woman told her that she "looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor." She has held that compliment dear for fifty years.

Update: I wish I had waited to include this right from the start.

Everything in Shakespeare, and especially every strong female character set in any age in his plays, is colored by Queen Elizabeth. Even though it is the Elizabethan Era, we tend to regard that as just a name and disregard its impact. While it is true that not all women attained anything remotely like equal status with men, it is true that she illustrated that a very clever and capable woman could not only succeed, but dominate. Likely, the status of all women, even the poorest, went up a little because of her reign.

Early in her reign there was all sorts of noise that she was not married, as a woman should be, and that offense against the natural order might be costly to the English in the cosmic realm. But the parallel worry was that she might marry, and clearly have a royal husband who was capable of ruling something or another, and that she would be expected to obey him.  They were not fools.  they knew there were queens on the Continent who were more capable and powerful than their husbands, but it would have been a natural disadvantage that she started from.  If she had to obey a husband from another country, at least on the surface or in part, what might that mean for England?

She handled it with breathtaking brilliance. "I shall be married to England, and a more obedient wife you shall not find."

At the time of the Spanish Armada, as the attack was on and going well for England but the issue was still in doubt, Elizabeth went to Tilbury to address the troops and was again breathtaking in her ability to combine unassailable femininity with what would have been called masculine attitudes.

I know I have the body but of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

(Whole article here.)

Such things are not necessarily even being consciously intended by the playwright - though they in all likelihood were - but they were part of the air that he breathed. So if you burn with resntment for the plight of poor Kate and all the clever women of her day and ours, you might imagine her lines on the lips of a young Queen Elizabeth and hear them in a different light.