The Taming of the Shrew: A Cultural Approach to the Methods of Silencing Women in the Renaissance

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor of English Literature, University of Kurdistan

2 h

Abstract

This article endeavors to analyze how feminine language has
been represented and subordinated in the Renaissance. A survey of different
discourses during this period delineates the anxiety and fear of the
Renaissance man from woman's language. This anxiety is entrenched in the
western and Christian narratives and myths. Analyzing the Renaissance culture
through surveying some penal devices for controlling the tongue of women and
reading Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, we have delineated how
Shakespeare has satirized Renaissance man's anxiety who shows his superiority
by attempting to cut the female tongue and hence to make her silent. The comic
figure, contrary to what people in Renaissance and some critics may think, are
men, who try to control femininity by cutting her tongue, rather than the
shrew.

Keywords