"The Taming of the Shrew" on the American stage before "Kiss Me, Kate": An excerpt from "Shakespeare in a Divided America" by James Shapiro

A lot of ink is spilled, but still the essence of Shakespeare’s message remains occluded. Here are a few key lines: “But now I see our lances are but straws,/Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,/That seeming to be most which we indeed least are” (5.2). The key is “weakness.” Sure, Shakespeare writes as a misogynist, but prejudice against women is not his point. His point is to portray weakness as a sign of disobedience. He uses the figure of a woman to portray disobedience, simply because women were considered “weak” in Elizabethan England (because of childbirth). So get over it, postmodern world. The play is awash in emblems, and those emblems are key to Shakespeare’s meaning. Again, what’s he is truly getting at can be found in the religious controversies of the day.