ABSTRACT
The link between early modern property law and personhood, however, does more than simply reflect the cultural gender bias or place characters in imaginary legal contexts. The connections between William Shakespeare and legal thought are deep and long-standing, reaching back to earliest knowledge of his life and the performances and publications of his plays and poems. The idea that the legitimacy of law rested in the political imagination of its subject audience was certainly one understood and accepted by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Perhaps because of the singular ability to stage that "peculiar authority" explicitly, or because of their intrinsically dramatic structure, trial scenes figure prominently in studies of Shakespeare and law. Similar scepticism about the nature of the relations between persons and rulers characterizes Shakespeare's depictions of the ancient constitution, and no area of Shakespearean scholarship better demonstrates the playwright's pivotal role in revising legal thinking.
