Penelope Freedman is a teacher and academic with a background both in linguistics and in theatre. With a first degree in Classics from Oxford, an MA in Linguistics from the University of Kent and a PhD on Shakespeare from Birmingham University, she has been a lecturer at Kent and Warwick universities, as well as at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. She has also directed several Shakespeare productions and played eight of Shakespeare’s heroines.

• 1. Introduction2. Best Friends3. Too Wise to Woo Peaceably4. Unwelcome Advances5. Lèse-majesté6. Family Values7. Married Love8. Freudian Slips and Testing Moments9. Absent Friends10. Conclusion

Have you ever stopped to wonder at the lexical flowering of pronouns that blossoms within the garden of a Shakespeare text? From thou, thee, thy, thine, all the way to you, your, and yours? Well, thankfully, for us, Penelope Freedman has! And what she has to say about the distance between thou and you will open up the entire, intricate, and labyrinthian world of Elizabethan social relations.Read this book and it will, quite simply, transform your understanding of Shakespeare, his times, and what it means to address another human being.