KAHN,Coppelia. Coming of age: marriage and manhood in Romeo and Juliet and thetaming of the shrew. In: Mans estate:masculine identity in Shakespeare. London: University of California Press,1981. p.104-118._________________________________________________ By Profa. Dra. Barbara de Fatima.Shakespeare described his male character, Petruchio,the tamer of his wife, Kate, giving him the precious tools to achieve his mainintentions: money, power, ambition. He spends the whole play trying to tame herusing non-human techniques, mechanisms whichcannot be applied even to irrational animals. Everything is against Kate. Herfather accepts her marriage to Petruchio because he has financial interests.Kate is, before marriage, a product of parental irresponsibility and stupidity.She is unkind, bad-tempered, sharp-tongued, and non-affective. Here, sherepresents the outlaw feminine principle. Petruchio is violent, tyrant(mechanical taskmaster and he has the financial power). But at the end of theplay Kate becomes a product of marital power and love, that is, docile, polite,and kind. Here she represents the inlaw feminine principle. Petruchio wasconquered by his wifes love and submission. According to the play, we notice that Kate is a freewoman, neither speaking about the chains of marriage nor the punishment thatPetruchio brings up to her. Her freedom comes from the linguistic feature; heremancipation becomes greater and greater through the language spoken by her,the tone which is used a symbol to her ironical performance. It brings to herhusbands admiration and love.She dominated her husband using her language, herinner feelings showed through her speech and her words called Petruchiosattention to her as a human being. It sounds to him as subordination, but itisnt. Her speech shows authority and wisdom, qualities which are supposed tobe masculine. It sounds as the changing of rebel to conformist, but it isnt. The fantasy which is present in Petruchios mindblinds him to see what really is in Katess mind; he becomes from victorioustamer to a complacent master. Petruchios performance describes the presence ofthe feminines weakness myth: only the womanhas the power to subordinate a man, by transforming him her tamer. GODDARD,Harold Clarke. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. In: The Meaning of Shakespeare. Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress, 1970. v.I, p. 41-4. ___________________________________________________________ ByProfa. Dra.Barbara de Fatima. The Two Gentlemen of Verona is full noticed by the useof disguise in its script. The presence of a woman performing as a boytransforms the comedy in a real comedy because on the Elizabethan stage allwomens performance were played by men. 2 women 1 men 3 boys In TwelfthNight, we have a female character called Viola, who in fact is an actor,and after playing as Viola, she disguised herself as a boy called Cesario inorder to work as a page in the Dukes house. The author describes two ways ofexamining The Two Gentlemen of Verona:11- It is a kind of premonitional work. The theme which ispresented in this play is the same in Twelfth Night, that is, the use ofdisguise. Julia and Viola dressedthemselves as a boy, and this situation is much more detailed in Violasperformance.22- Irony Another character who presents a greatimportance is Launce because as a slave he has the perception to describe bothgentlemen: Proteus and Valentine in a very ironical way.