Liverpool Law Review

, Volume 35, Issue 1, pp 25–42 | Cite as

Shackles in Shakespeare: On the Falsity of Personal Liberty in Renaissance England

Article
First Online:
  • 576 Downloads

Abstract

The extent to which individuals truly can master their liberty is a question that infiltrates the entire Shakespearean corpus. It is through a series of fraught socio-legal conflicts that Shakespeare’s audiences are treated to the comedies and tragedies of Europe’s transition into early-modernity. Socio-legal relationships fuel Shakespeare’s plots and his characters present challenges to the ways in which the reader thinks about law and legal process. In reality is “law” just the will of whoever has the most power? Does equality only exist for those born into the highest social substratum? Is the rule of law really as universal as it seems? By investigating these questions using four of Shakespeare’s apparently apolitical plays, the author examines the individuals within socio-legal relationships as a way of shedding light on the day-to-day realities of Renaissance England, something that more traditional scholarship has yet to pursue. Part One examines marriage, class conflict and legal participation in The Comedy of Errors. Part Two looks at the native-alien division and legal obligation in The Merchant of Venice. Part Three assesses the nature of empire and the security of prescribed knowledge in Cymbeline. Finally, Part Four probes wider issues of social control and subordination in The Tempest.

Keywords

Law and literature Personal liberty Shakespeare Power Oppression Renaissance England 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Eric Heinze for his continued support, encouragement and insightful guidance.

References

  1. Aquinas, Thomas. 1959. Selected political writings (trans: Dawson, J.G.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
  2. Aristotle. n.d. Generation of animals (trans: Arthur Platt). In The complete words of Aristotle: The revised oxford translations, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Bollingen/Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  3. Austin, John. 2002. Lectures on jurisprudence, ed. R Campbell. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.Google Scholar
  4. Barton, Anne. 1974. Introductory notes to The Comedy of Errors. In The riverside Shakespeare, ed. Harry Levin, et al., 79–105. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
  5. Berger, Harry. 1969. Miraculous Harp: A reading of Shakespeare’s Tempest. Shakespeare 5: 253–283.Google Scholar
  6. Candido, Joseph. 1990. Dining out in Ephesus: Food in The Comedy of Errors. In The Comedy of Errors: Critical essays, ed. Robert S. Miola, 217–241. New York and London: Garland.Google Scholar
  7. Epstein, Paul. 1993. Law and subjective freedom in The Merchant of Venice. Dionysius 7: 49–72.Google Scholar
  8. Foucault, Michel. 2009. History of madness, ed. Jean Khalfa, (trans: Jonathan Murphy and Jean Khalfa). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  9. Freedman, Barbara. 1991. Reading errantly: Misrecognition and the uncanny in The Comedy of Errors. In The Comedy of Errors: Critical essays, ed. Robert S Miola, 261–298. New York and London: Garland.Google Scholar
  10. Graefe, Johann. 1624. Tribunal reformation: A case against torture. Mentioned in George Ryley Scott. 2003. History of torture throughout the ages. Whitefish: Kessinger.Google Scholar
  11. Halio, Jay (ed.). 2008. The Oxford Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  12. Heinze, Eric. 2009a. Imperialism and nationalism in early modernity: The ‘Cosmopolitan’ and the ‘Provincial’ in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Social and Legal Studies 18: 373–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Heinze, Eric. 2009b. Power politics and the rule of law: Shakespeare’s first historical tetralogy and law’s “foundations”. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 29: 139–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Heinze, Eric. 2009c. “Were it not against our laws”: Oppression and resistance in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. Legal Studies 29: 230–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Kelsen, Hans. 1967. Pure theory of law (trans: Knight). Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  16. Kirschbaum, Leo. 1962. Shylock and the City of God: Character and characterization in Shakespeare. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
  17. Machiavelli, Niccolo. 2005. The prince (trans: William Connell). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.Google Scholar
  18. Maguire, Laurie. 1997. The girls from Ephesus. In The Comedy of Errors: Critical essays, ed. Robert S Miola, 355–391. New York and London: Garland.Google Scholar
  19. Skura, Meredith Anne. 2004. Discourse and the individual: The case of colonialism in The Tempest. In Shakespeare: An anthology of criticism and theory 1945–2000, ed. Russ McDonald. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
  20. Sokol, B.J. 1998. Prejudice and law in The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare Survey 51: 159–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Spinosa, Charles. 1993. Shylock and debt and contract in The Merchant of Venice. Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 5: 65–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Wells, Stanley, and Michael Dobson (eds.). 2009. The Oxford companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of LawUniversity of OxfordOxfordEngland
  2. 2.St Cross CollegeOxfordEngland

Personalised recommendations