ABSTRACT
Arrived in Arden and praising the freedom attained when “exempt from public haunt”, Duke Senior moves in a single speech from lauding liberation from “the envious court” to extolling the liberty of fi nding “sermons in stones” (2.1.15, 4, 17). The movement of thought hints a double escape, from a regime of constraint entwining courtly authority with ecclesiatical. That coupled oppression I shall argue to lie at the heart of the drama.
