Courteous Exchanges explores the significant overlap between Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene and Shakespeare's plays, showing how both facilitate the critique of Renaissance aristocratic identity. Moving from a consideration of Castiglione's Book of the Courtier as a text that encouraged reader engagement, the book offers new readings of Shakespeare's plays in conjunction with Spenser. It pairs Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, and The Winter's Tale with The Faerie Queene in order to explore how topics such as education, gender, religion, race, and aristocratic identity are offered up to reader and audience interpretation.

Introduction: Courteous exchanges: Spenser's and Shakespeare's gentle dialogues with readers and audiences
1 Imprinting and performance in Castiglione's Book of the Courtier
2 Playing by the rules? Pedagogies of pleasure and inset audiences in Spenser's Faerie Queene and Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost
3 Honorable action upstaged by theatrical wordplay in The Faerie Queene and Much Ado About Nothing
4 Courteous competitions: Blood, gold, and outward shows in Nennio, Spenser's Book of Courtesy, and The Merchant of Venice
5 Literary mirrors of aristocratic performance: Readers and audiences of The Faerie Queene and The Winter's Tale
Conclusion: Courteous farewells in Spenser and Shakespeare
Index