Ebook: Shakespeare's binding language

Introduction -- Early revenge: 3 Henry VI to Titus Andronicus -- Swearing in jest: Love's labour lost -- A world -- without-end bargain: Love's labour 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: Kings 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.;'Shakespeare's Binding Language' is an innovative, substantial but highly readable study exploring the significance in Shakespeare's plays of oaths, vows, contracts, pledges and the other verbal and performative acts by which characters commit themselves to the truth of things past, present, and to come.