Drawing on case law, legal treatises, parliamentary journals, and theatrical account books, this title considers the interplay between theatrical deliberation and legal dramatization of human intention. It analyzes such canonical plays as "Hamlet", "Timon of Athens" and "Dr. Faustus".

Early modern Britain witnessed a transformation in legal reasoning about human volition and intentional action, which contributed to new conventions and techniques for the theatrical representation of premeditated conduct. Theaters of Intention examines the relation between law and theater in this period, reading plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, and others to demonstrate how legal understanding of willful human action pervades sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English drama. Drawing on case law, legal treatises, parliamentary journals, and theatrical account books, the author considers the interplay between theatrical deliberation and legal dramatization of human intention. He analyzes such canonical plays as Hamlet, Timon of Athens, Dr. Faustus, Bartholomew Fair, and Othello alongside less familiar texts, including Barnes s The Devil s Charter, Jonson s Entertainment at Althorp, and the anonymous Nobody and Somebody.

List of illustrations
Preface and acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Hamlet, Hales v petit, and the hysteresis of action
2. Ben Jonson and the law of contract
3. Commodities and contracts
4. Promissory performances
5. Contracting damnation
6. Nobodies that matter
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index.