Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on dramatic literature's contribution to the developing narrative of possessed persons, Of Bondage deepens our understanding of creditor-debtor relations in the period and sheds new light on the conceptual conditions for the institutions of indentured servitude and African slavery.
Trade Review"[Bailey] offers a compelling account of the role of debt in the early modern imaginary. . . . [Her] literary exegesis . . . raises important historical questions." *
Sixteenth Century Journal *
"Absorbing and beautifully written. Amanda Bailey thinks about debt as a bodily event at the center of political and moral issues raised by contract law, including the question of self-ownership." * Jonathan Gil Harris, George Washington University *
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction: Bound Bodies and the Theater of Debt
Chapter 1. Timon of Athens, Forms of Payback, and the Genre of Debt
Chapter 2. Shylock and the Slaves: Owing and Owning in The Merchant of Venice
Chapter 3. Michaelmas Term and the Problem of Satisfaction
Chapter 4. Freedom, Bondage, and Redemption in The Custom of the Country
Chapter 5. Prison Prose, the Pit, and the End of Tricks
Epilogue: The Debtor and the Slave
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
