Studies of Renaissance literature frequently frame marriage as signalling the resolution of narrative conflicts and the necessary end of comedies. This book proposes that we think beyond the all-pervasive figure of the couple, too often framed as the core unit of social relations. The author challenges these assumptions and suggests new frameworks within which to analyze literary depictions of idealized social relations. This volume will be of interest to scholars of the early modern period in England, and those interested in the intersections between literature and gender studies, economic history and the economic aspects of social relations, and the history of sexuality.

John S. Garrison is Assistant Professor of English at Carroll University, USA, where he specializes in Renaissance literature, gender studies, and the classical tradition. He has been a recent recipient of fellowships from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the American Philosophical Society.

Preface: Towards an Increased Understanding of Friendship 1. "The Sum of Perfect Amity": Friendship Networks at the Inns of Court 2. We Are the Jasons, We Have Won the Fleece": Prodigious Amity in The Merchant of Venice and Troilus and Cressida 3. "In a Joint and Corporate Voice": The All-Too-Friendly Households in Arden of Faversham and Timon of Athens 4. "All Those Friends That I Thought Buried": Patronage and Multiplicity in Lanyer's Salve Deus and Shakespeare's Sonnets 5. "This Host of Friends": The Promise of Plurality in Milton's Epitaphium Damonis and Paradise Lost Afterword: Friendship and The Tempest's Working Utopia