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The comedy of errors and the meaning of contract
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Raffield, Paul (2009) The comedy of errors and the meaning of contract. Law and Humanities, 3 (2). 207 -229. doi:10.1080/17521483.2009.11423768 ISSN 1752-1483.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17521483.2009.11423768
Abstract
This article examines the theme of contract and its symbolic connotations of societas or fellowship, in the context of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and its performance on 28 December at the Gray’s Inn revels of Christmas 1594. Central to the argument is the extraordinary advancement of contract law in Elizabethan England, and in particular the significance of the promise to the status of binding bilateral agreements. In particular, the analysis considers the promotion of assumpsit at the expense of actions for debt in relation to a society (and a legal profession) whose mores were heavily influenced by humanist notions of the individual conscience, which simultaneously bound the subject of law into an ethical association with his fellow citizens and freed him (at least putatively) from the constraints of immutable, ancient law. The Comedy of Errors provides a perceptive critique of a society which is bound together only by the market, having abandoned or mislaid the true bonds of friendship and love, through which a just community may be recognised.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Law and Humanities | ||||
Publisher: | Hart Publishing Ltd. | ||||
ISSN: | 1752-1483 | ||||
Official Date: | 2009 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 3 | ||||
Number: | 2 | ||||
Page Range: | 207 -229 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1080/17521483.2009.11423768 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
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