Shakespeare and social dialogue: dramatic language and Elizabethan letters

pt. I. The Rhetoric of Politeness. 1. Politeness and dramatic character in Henry VIII. 2. "Power to hurt": language and service in Sidney household letters and Shakespeare's sonnets

pt. II. Eloquent Relations in Letters. 3. Scripting social relations in Erasmus and Day. 4. Reading courtly and administrative letters. 5. Linguistic stratification, merchant discourse, and social change

pt. III. A Prosaics of Conversation. 6. The pragmatics of repair in King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing. 7. "Voice potential": language and symbolic capital in Othello.