Titus Andronicus and The Taming of the Shrew stand out among Shakespeare's early plays for their capacity to shock: both are intent on presenting the persecution of a deviant hero–victim, both press this persecution to extremes, and both concentrate on images of the hunt and of the feast: yet they are seldom compared, each being considered in certain ways isolated and apart from Shakespeare's main line of development. I believe that they are in important ways interrelated. Though one is set in Padua, in the civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, and the other in ancient Rome, I consider that The Taming of the Shrew and Titus Andronicus have deeper affinities with King Lear's archaic Britain than with those intervening Shakespearean comedies and tragedies with Mediterranean settings. The two plays are both concerned with extremes but they also share a special harsh quality, and it is this harshness which sets them apart; it permeates the play-world, it is apparent throughout, in the cultural rules as much as in manners and personal relationships; and it is kin to the harshness which is the key element, the special mark of injustice, which creates the bleak vision of King Lear.

The first phase in each drama presents a very intricate social, urban context. The Padua of The Taming of the Shrew with its marriage market, and its pressure on the family unit (of Baptista and his daughters Kate and Bianca) is itself at a critical point of change.