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Article: Male Friendship in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Renaissance Quarterly
- Article date:
- June 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 The Renaissance Society of America. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Tom MacFaul. Male Friendship in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xi + 222 pp. index. bibl. $90. ISBN: 978-0-521-86904-1.
Tom MacFaul's clearly-written book is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on male friendship in early modern English literature. MacFaul's point of departure is the "Humanist ideal" (1) of male friendship, which the introductory chapter summarizes thus: "a friend is a second self with whom one shares everything, friends are virtuous and similar to one another, and the friend is chosen after long and careful assessment of his virtues; the purpose of such friendship is the ...