Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Discourses of Service in Shakespeare's England

  • Book
  • © 2005

Overview

Authors:
  1. David Evett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. The Paradox of Service and Freedom

    • David Evett
    Pages 1-16

  3. The Hop and the Pole

    • David Evett
    Pages 17-33

  4. “Surprising Confrontations”

    • David Evett
    Pages 35-54

  5. “Monsieur, We Are Not Lettered”

    • David Evett
    Pages 55-79

  6. “Clubs, Bills, and Partisans”

    • David Evett
    Pages 81-108

  7. Fidelis Servus …: Good Service and the Obligations of Obedience

    • David Evett
    Pages 109-132

  8. … Perpetuus Asinus: Bad Service and the Primacy of the Will

    • David Evett
    Pages 133-158

  9. “A Place in the Story”

    • David Evett
    Pages 159-181

  10. “As Willing as Bondage E’er of Freedom”

    • David Evett
    Pages 183-211

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 213-286
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

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.

About the author

DAVID EVETT is Professor of English Emeritus at Cleveland State University, USA. He has published articles and given papers on many topics in early modern cultural history, and his earlier book, Literature and the Visual Arts in Tudor England (University of Georgia Press, 1990) won the British Council Prize in the Humanities. He has also published two books of poetry.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation