ABSTRACT
The task of assessing the recent scholarship on Shakespeare and gender in the space of the twenty pages is a daunting one. To begin with, gender studies encompasses at least three distinct, though related, critical orientations: feminist studies; lesbian, gay and queer studies; and studies of masculinity or 'men's studies'. As a significant body of scholarship has demonstrated, complex interrelations of gender, eroticism and power informed the playing of women's roles by boy actors in Renaissance England. The Taming of the Shrew remains a key text for enquiries into gender relations and domestic authority in Shakespeare's England. In the above studies of English domesticity, race does not appear as a significant category of analysis. None the less, the interest shown by scholars like Parker and Helgerson in English nationalism reflects an important development in Shakespeare studies over the past decade.
