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

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.