Shakespeare, Love and Service

David Schalkwyk author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:29th Nov '12

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Shakespeare, Love and Service cover

An examination of the interaction of love and service in Shakespeare's poems and plays.

Covering Shakespeare's sonnets and a wide range of his plays from The Comedy of Errors to The Winter's Tale, in this book David Schalkwyk examines the ways in which the personal, affective relations of love are informed by the social, structural interactions of service.Peter Laslett's comment, in The World We Have Lost, that in the early modern period 'every relationship could be seen as a love-relationship' presents the governing idea of this book. In an analysis that includes Shakespeare's sonnets and a wide range of his plays from The Comedy of Errors to The Winter's Tale, David Schalkwyk looks at the ways in which the personal, affective relations of love are informed by the social, structural interactions of service. Showing that service is not a 'class' concept, but rather determined the fundamental conditions of identity across the whole society, the book explores the inter-penetration of structure and effect in relationships as varied as monarch and subject, aristocrat and personal servant, master and slave, husband and wife, and lover and beloved, in the light of differences of rank, gender and sexual identity.

"Well researched and written, this study shows that for Shakespeare, though freedom from service was nearly unimaginable, masters in his plays are often 'never so truly served as when opposed.' A compelling book...Recommended." - A. DiMatteo, New York Institute of Technology, Choice

ISBN: 9781107411654

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm

Weight: 440g

328 pages