Synopses & Reviews
Literary scholars, theorists, and historians deploy New Economic techniques to illuminate English Renaissance literature in fresh ways. Contributors variously explore poetry's precarious perch between gift and commodity; the longing for family in
The Comedy of Errors as symbolically expressing the alienating pressures of mercantilism;
Measure for Measure's representation of singlewomen and the feminization of poverty; the collision between two views of money in a possible collaboration between Shakespeare and Middleton; the cultural spread of an accounting mentality and quantitative thinking; and money as it crosses the frontier between price and pricelessness, from early bodily-injury insurance schemes to
The Merchant of Venice.About the Author
Linda Woodbridge is Distinguished Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University
. Table of Contents
Introduction * Monetary Compensation for Injuries to the Body, A.D. 602-1697 * Commerce, Community, and Nostalgia in
The Comedy of Errors * Scene Stealers: Autolycus,
The Winter's Tale and Economic Criticism * On a Certain Tendency in Economic Criticism of Shakespeare * Exchange Value and Empiricism in the Poetry of George Herbert * The Work and the Gift: Notes Toward an Investigation * Material Dispossessions and Counterfeit Investments: The Economies of
Twelfth Night * Gift Exchange and Social Hierarchy in Thomas Deloney's
Jack of Newbury * Taking Excess, Exceeding Account: Aristotle meets
The Merchant of Venice * The Lead Casket: Capital, Mercantilism, and
The Merchant of Venice * The Fiend Gives Friendly Counsel: Launcelot Gobbo and Polyglot Economics in
The Merchant of Venice * Freeing Daughters on Open Markets: The Incest Clause in
The Merchant of Venice * Usury and Counterfeiting in Wilson's
The Three Ladies of London and
The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London and in Shakespeare's
Measure for Measure * Middleton and Debt in
Timon of Athens * Singlewomen and the Properties of Poverty in
Measure for Measure * Fetish and Poem: Ben Jonson's Dilemma