Shakespeare and Specific Performance

Mark Fortier, University of Guelph, has published "Shakespeare and Specific Performance," in volume 1 of Law & Humanities. Here is the abstract.

The standard form of compensation for loss at the common law is damages - a sum of money given as recompense. It is only in rare and special situations that the equitable remedy of specific performance is employed. Specific performance assumes that some particular thing is of such unique value that only the delivery of the thing itself is an adequate remedy. In this paper I use the difference between money-based damages and value-laden specific performance, taken in an expansive, somewhat metaphorical sense, to explore questions of value, loss, and recompense in the world of Shakespeare‘s plays. Like much imaginative literature - think of the first-born child in Rapunzel - Shakespeare‘s world is one in which specific values and compensation play a much larger role than does money-thus putting literature at some variance from the realities of law under capitalism. This may in part be simply because highly personalized investments make for better stories. I wish in this paper, however, to explore the complex ramifications, both wondrous and destructive, of an emotional and legal economy based so deeply in specific values and performance. Through a wide ranging survey of key moments in Shakespeare‘s plays, I will argue that Shakespeare is as much horrified as delighted by the deep ramifications of a world based in specific performance.

Download the paper from SSRN here.