Early Modern Bonds of Trust

The concepts of trust and risk provide important insights into the social and cultural life of early modern England but remain relatively unexplored in early modern literary studies . This collection addresses that gap by exploring a wide range of literary genres and texts including comic drama, lyric verse, emblem books, ledgers, wills, polemical prose and religious epic. Contributors explore issues of personal trust through the faith and lies that characterize Shakespeare''s sonnets, Donne''s sermons and Milton''s Paradise Lost . Following the idea of trust and risk into community brings us to a discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor , the spiritual trust of faith communities and the network of relationships that are traceable though surviving records of women''s wills. Following this progression outwards from the personal to the communal, the final essays in the collection consider the role of institutional trust, specifically the early modern obsession with credit in its various guises. The Merchant of Venice , Volpone and The Winter''s Tale act as illustrative examples of credit''s significance for understanding trust and risk in the early modern period. Taken together the range of texts and genres considered reveal new insights into early modern English literature and its socio-economic context.>

Préface
Explores the role of trust and risk to personal, communal and institutional relationships in early modern English texts.

Auteur
Joseph Sterrett, Associate Professor of English Literature, Aarhus University, Denmark. Alison Findlay, Professor of Renaissance Drama, Lancaster University, UK. Helen Wilcox, Professor Emerita of English Literature, Bangor University, Wales, UK.

Contenu

1. Introduction by Joseph Sterrett (Aarhus University, Denmark), Alison Findlay (Lancaster University, UK), and Helen Wilcox (Bangor University, UK) Part I: Personal trust and its risks in early modern texts
   2. 'I lie with her and she with me: Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Pleasures of Distrust' Michael Durrant (Bangor University, UK)
      3. 'Loe, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: tenuous trust and risk in Donne and Herbert' Joseph Sterrett (Aarhus University, Denmark)
         4. 'Trust, risk and vulnerability in Paradise Lost' Rachel Willie (Liverpool John Moores University, UK) Part II: Early modern communal trust
            5. 'Trust and Risk in The Merry Wives of Windsor' Alison Findlay (Lancaster University, UK)
               6. 'A Breathing Flight of Faith: Communities of Trust in Robert Southwell's Poetry' Chloe Kathleen Preedy (University of Exeter, UK)
                  7. 'On the Line: religious controversy and trust in early modern English literature' Helen Wilcox (Bangor University, UK)
                     8. 'This I make my testmt: trust and risk in the wills of three early modern women' Vicki Kay Price (Bangor University) Part III: Credit and risk in early modern institutions
                        9. 'Trust and Risk in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice' Line Cotegnies (Sorbonne University, France)
                           10. 'Honour is an essence that's not seen: female reputation and trust in Much Ado About Nothing and Othello' Emma Kaersgaard (Aarhus University, Denmark)
                               11. 'Taking Note and the Technologies of Trust in Volpone' Angus Vine (University of Stirling, UK)
                                   12. 'Trust, Risk, and Credit in The Winter's Tale' Rita Banerjee (University of Calcutta, India)
                                       13. 'Intrigue, artifice, and trick with a face of honesty: Corporations and Reputations' Liam Haydon (Natural Environment Research Council)
                                           14. Epilogue: 'Romance and the Spirit of Trust: Narratives of Forswearing in Chrétien, Shakespeare and Mozart' Laura Hatch (Brigham Young University, USA) and Julia Reinhard Lupton (The University of California, Irvine, USA)