“Love Wrought These Miracles”

Literary form “is not simply a matter of empty patterns and techniques … genres and conventions subtly express value judgments and present methods of ordering and interpreting reality” (9). Shaped by a medley of genres and conventions, The Taming of the Shrew aptly illustrates this observation of George E. Rowe. Its Bianca plot derives from the English translation of an Italian descendant of New Comedy; moreover, Petrarchan conventions appear in its language. And the Kate plot relies on oral folk tales and ballads about shrew taming for many of its features.