Discourses of Service in Shakespeare's England

Download or read book Discourses of Service in Shakespeare's England written by D. Evett and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-04-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One way and another, nearly all of Shakespeare's countrymen and women (including the playwright himself) spent at least parts of their lives as servants of someone else. But until now that fact has gone largely unregarded. This book remedies the oversight, by showing how the ideals and practices of early modern service affect dozens of characters in almost all the plays, in ways that enrich our understanding of familiar figures like Iago and Falstaff and enhance the significance of lesser-known people and events across the canon. And it introduces an important concept, volitional primacy, into contemporary critical discourse.