Kathryn Schwarz considers sixteenth- and seventeenth-century narratives in which women willingly conform to social conventions. She argues that these acts of compliance construct a paradox of prescribed choice, which illuminates complex relationships between hierarchy and contract within heterosocial systems.

What You Will
Gender, Contract, and Shakespearean Social Space

Kathryn Schwarz

2011 | 320 pages | Cloth $55.00
Literature
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Note on Citation

Introduction: Virtue Trouble
Chapter One. Willing Women
Chapter Two. Willful Speech: Metonymy and Mastery
Chapter Three. Acts of Will: Misogyny and Masquerade
Chapter Four. ''My Intents Are Fix'd'': Constant Will in All's Well That Ends Well
Chapter Five. ''Will in Overplus'': Recasting Misogyny in the Sonnets
Chapter Six. ''Twixt Will and Will Not'': Chastity and Fracture in Measure for Measure
Chapter Seven. ''Fallen Out With My More Headier Will'': Dislocation in King Lear
Epilogue. Or: The Roman Matron

Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments