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Inheritance law and political theology in Shakespeare and Milton : election and grace as constitutional in early modern literature and beyond / Joseph S. Jenkins

Contents: Introduction : Theological will and human last will -- Reading for revelation, election as willful curse, and grace in the origins of English common law -- Hamlet : elected to annihilation -- Macbeth : murderous rivalry over succession control; inheritance of grace as state of exception -- Merchant : Portia's will and the grace of forebear-and-follower bonds -- Tempest : renouncing the grip on the daughter; Prospero and Alonzo's partnership beyond last wills -- Machiavellian virtu´ and time -- Paradise lost : Satan as disappointed second son; two last wills and "reason" as cover for insistences -- Epilogue : A humanities-based approach to current U.S. inheritance law