Shakespeare's Strangers and English Law

Paul Raffield is Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, UK.

Introduction
1. Measure for Measure: Actors, Fornicators, and Other Transgressors of Law
I. Introduction: ‘comon Players of Enterludes’
II. School of Abuse: Elizabethan Theatre and the Outlawed Actor
III. Plague and Prejudice
IV. Frauds, Counterfeits, ‘and measure still for measure’
V. The Imprint of Law
VI. Legitimacy and the Image

2. The Comedy of Errors: Refugees, Immigrants, and the Revitalisation of London
I. Immigration and the Imminence of Death
II. Shakespeare and the French
III. Shakespeare, Racial Tension, and the London Apprentices
IV. Xenophobia, Riots, and The Book of Sir Thomas More
V. Classical Friendship and Christian Community in The Comedy of Errors
VI. Witchcraft, Sorcery, and the Scots
VII. Classicism (Plautus), Christianity (St Paul), and The Comedy of Errors

3. Troilus and Cressida: Greeks, Trojans, Honour, and the Market
I. Law, Literature, and the Hellenic Tradition
II. Revels and Renaissance at the Elizabethan Inns of Court
III. The Earl of Essex, The Iliad, and Fin-de-Siècle English Law
IV. Troilus and Cressida and the Lawyers

4. The Merchant of Venice and the Strangeness of Law
I. Venice, Shakespeare, and the Shifting Sands of Contract Law
II. Societas, Consensio, and the Meaning of Mercy
III. The Jew and the Law
IV. Excursus: ‘Dark and Obscure’ Allegory and the Xenophobic Dream of Common Law
V. Act Five, Harmony, and the Discord of Law

5. King Lear, Monarchy, and the Injustice of Tragedy
I. Justice, Jurisdictions, and the Politics of Power
II. Nature and Natural Law
III. Custom, Kings, and Lex Regia
IV. The English Monarchical Republic
V. Image, Costume, and Kingship
Afterword