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Title: Useful and Sturdy Scholarship
Review: This book seems somewhat dated, but that may be because it has inspired so much research on the importance of marriage and ceremony that the ideas appear familiar. One easily forgets that this is the book that opened the way to new approaches to Shakespeare's plays. When my students want to write about the importance of ceremony or about women or about marriage in Shakespeare's plays, I first send them to *Broken Nuptials*. It's nicely written with no twisted inane jargon to trip up even a novice reader. Most readers, in fact, may end the book thinking "I knew that!" (although they probably didn't know it when they started the book). The insights appear to be so self-evident (and so colored by work done after the book's publication) that I believe readers and scholars, while recognizing the book's importance, have underrated its quality. This book is an excellent tool that stands the test of time.
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