Social Context: Elizabethan and Jacobean Love

AO3 — the assessment objective concerned with context — carries significant weight in A-Level English Literature. For Paper 1 Section A, you need to demonstrate understanding of the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which Shakespeare wrote, and how these contexts shape his treatment of love. This lesson provides the essential contextual knowledge for the set plays, focusing on marriage, sexuality, race, religion, and the law.

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Marriage in Early Modern England

The Legal Framework