ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the notion of desire that underlies both the erotic hierarchies of courtly service and the social ressentiment of marginal men with the concept of love. It explores the degree to which a space beyond the omnipresent discourse of service could be cleared by a language of love that eschewed entirely that of service. The chapter discusses Neill's glancing reference to the "potential subversiveness of romantic love" to argue that in Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare forges a concept of love that gains its independent power by staking its claims against the world of service. It shows that the comedy accommodates its potentially transgressive romantic couple to the language of service, with the attendant problems that Neill indicates for the female lover who occupies the discourse of courtly service. The finality of the you signals a concept of love different from the customary notion of desire developed from Plato to Lacan.
