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Shakespeare, Love and Service

Shakespeare, Love and Service argues, against a tradition of materialist literary criticism, that service was not only the prevailing condition for the majority of the population in early modern England, but also that it was not a class concept, and that master-servant relations were potentially the basis for intense bonds of affection. It combines a close reading of Shakespeare's sonnets and plays, study of a wide range of primary historical materials, including contemporary conduct books, sermons, treatises and numerous literary texts, and a theoretical and philosophical perspective on relationship between the discourses of social hierarchy and love, respectively.