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Full Description
This remarkable, innovative book explores the significance in Shakespeare's plays of oaths, vows, contracts, pledges, and the other utterances and acts by which characters commit themselves to the truth of things past, present, and to come. In early modern England, such binding language was everywhere. Oaths of office, marriage vows, legal bonds, and casual, everyday profanity gave shape and texture to life. The proper use of such language, and the extent of its power to bind, was argued over by lawyers, religious writers, and satirists, and these debates inform literature and drama.
Shakespeare's Binding Language gives a freshly researched account of these contexts, but it is focused on Shakespeare's plays. What motives should we look for when characters asseverate or promise? How far is binding language self-persuasive or deceptive? When is it allowable to break a vow? How do oaths and promises structure an audience's expectations? Across the sweep of Shakespeare's career, from the early histories to the late romances, this book opens new perspectives on key dramatic moments and illuminates language and action. Each chapter gives an account of a play or group of plays, yet the study builds to a sustained investigation of some of the most important systems, institutions, and controversies in early modern England, and of the wiring of Shakespearean dramaturgy.
Scholarly but accessible, and offering startling insights, this is a major contribution to Shakespeare studies by one of the leading figures in the field.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Early Revenge: 3 Henry VI to Titus Andronicus
Swearing in Jest: Love's Labour's Lost
A World-Without-End Bargain: Love's Labour's Lost
Group Revenge: Titus Andronicus to Othello
Time and Money: The Comedy of Errors and The Merchant of Venice
Shylock and Wedlock: Carnal Bonds
Mighty Opposites: 2 Henry VI to Hamlet
Oaths, Threats, and Henry V
Troilus, Cressida, and Constancy
Binding Language in Measure for Measure
Knots, Charms, Riddles: Macbeth and All's Well That Ends Well
Benefits and Bonds: King Lear and Timon of Athens
Reformation I: King James, King Johan and King John
Reformation II: Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII
Coriolanus Fidiussed
Oath and Counsel: Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
