"When Henry V tells Katherine that he is plain, uncunning, inept at versifying and dismal at chivalric exploits, and that, yes, he loves her but will not die should she refuse him, he is voicing the essence of a rational love ethic that was a thousand years in the making". Treading thus onto the controversial ground of Shakespeare"s views of love, Barbara Parker turns to the text of six of the great plays - "Much Ado About Nothing", "Love"s Labour"s Lost", "As You Like It", "Troilus and Cressida", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Henry V" - to erect a challenge against certain traditional assumptions by demonstrating that Shakespeare"s point of view involved a fusion of Augustinian principles of right and wrong with the precepts of right reason as refined by Christian humanism and reformation theology.