George Washington University

The Shakespeare Association of America, Inc.

Review
Author(s): Marvin Rosenberg
Review by: Marvin Rosenberg
Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 1969), pp. 235-236
Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2869014
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 REVIEWS 235

hardertask.He has selected amongthetopicsand thearguments

judiciously
thatmusthaverushedto his mind.He is alwaysconciseand clear;almost
alwaysorthodox; and sometimes too orthodox,it maybe thought, especially
in the matterof chronology, whereto be unadventurous is in factto be
informative.
insufficiently He printstwochronological tables,E. K. Chambers'
and F. E. Halliday's,neither of whichreflectsthecurrent tendency to place
the earlydramasin the eightiesratherthan the nineties.For example,
Chambers datedThe Comedyof ErrorsI592-3; Halliday, I593-4. Nothing
tells the readerof this handbookthat the Comedyprobablyante-dates
i589. In any subsequent editionDr. MendilowmightscrapChambersand
Halliday and substitute tablesof "earliestpossible"and "latestpossible"
dates.
Dr. Shalvi rangesfromthe orthodoxto the original,and is naturally
more interesting when she is original.She is excellenton Much Ado
and has goodparagraphs on Two Gentlemen. Her longTroilusstudyis well
worthattention, thoughher treatment of Hectoris moredestructive than
Shakespeare's. She allotstwo brilliant
chapters to The Merchantof Venice.
On Hamletshe is perhapsless original,but her essayis verysatisfyingly
cogent.
On theotherhand,she ridesoverKing Johnand HenryVIII in twoor
threecontemptuous paragraphs, hurlsTimon fromthe canon,tucksaway
the four romancesin a singleshortchapterand a few commonplaces.
Neithershe norDr. Mendilowhas timeforthesonnets. She subscribes with
fidelityto someof the mythsof the classroom whichare mostin need of
a new look-Lear's abdicationis a crimeagainstheaven! Orsino is a
sentimental ninnylOccasionally she seemsto get a scenewrong:the swift
penultimate scene of 2 Henry IV surelydoes not show "that Mistress
Quicklyand Doll Tearsheet,Falstaff's croniesin immorality, have hopes
similarto his own"; it showsthatthe cleaning-up of theEastcheapstables,
and of England,has alreadybegun.But all in all, one puts down the
bookwitha senseofrespect fortwogifted scholars.
University
ofPennsylvania HERBERTHOWARTH

Shakespeare'sPlays in Performance.By JOHN RUSSELL BROWN. London: Edward Arnold;

New York:St Martin's Press,1967.Pp. X + 244. $7.95.

JohnBrownis one of the mostknowledgeable of thosecriticswho,to

elucidateShakespeare'smeanings,relysubstantially on the theatrical
im-
and theatrical
plications historyof theplays.In thisbook,madeup partlyof
essayspublishedin journals(one in Shakespeare Quarterly),butwithmuch
new material,ProfessorBrownilluminates scenes,acts,and wholeplayswith
sensitive,
stage-oriented fromthetexts.
extrapolations
He startsout witha subtleexplication of some textualcruxes,as if to
demonstrate thathe knowsas muchaboutthe intricacies of Shakespeare's
languageas do thosecriticshe ratherlooksdownon as "literary"; thenhe
movestowardhis majorpurpose, whichis to showhow thewordsfusewith
sightand sound into a dramaticwhole.Thus he observesthatsome of
Shakespeare'smostpoeticdrama,his "moments thatstaywiththeaudience
long afterthe play is finished",are made up of verysimple,image-free
words,theirheardmetre andrhythm weldedtogesture,as in:
Do notlaughatme;
Foras I ama man,I thinkthislady

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 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY
236
To be mychild,Cordelia.
... And so I am,I am.

Much of Brown's translationof the text to the theateris his imagined

own: thus,he spendsone full chapterprojectingthe movementsof Hamlet,
with particularattentionto the changingfocus Shakespearecontrivedfrom
scene to scene. But a good part of the book builds on theaterhistory,
mainly as recordedin perceptivereviews.Brown notes how a clusterof
such reviews can isolate a crux in a play-as in the case of Beatrice's
"Kill Claudio" in Much Ado:
Read together, as theymay be by a theatrical researcher, [the reviews]
showhowprecarious thecomicand sentimental issuesare at justthispoint
in the play;how, in performance,thesetwo wordscan triggeroffgreat
and opposingreactions, sometimes causinglaughter,sometimes causing
concern.Again thishas morethanincidental significance:it markshow
powerful the "coveredfire"of passionis, beneaththeeasywit and rapid
movement of Benedickand Beatrice;it showsthatShakespeare was con-
cernedwiththedangerand theabsurdity of theway in whichtheylove
whilerefusing to saytheylove.
Brown himselfturnstheaterhistorianat the end of the book, and reports
recentBritishperformances Romeo and Juliet,
of Shakespeare(e.g., Zeffirelli's
the Historiesat Stratford,Joan Littlewood'sHenry IV at Edinburgh). Here
his sharpeye for detail and his independenceof responseare refreshing and
provideinteresting the more so because theyare bound to evoke
perspectives,
resistanceand contradiction.
The book does not depend much on the apparatusof scholarship.Brown
reliesa good deal on conventionalsecondarysources,and he seemsunfamiliar
with some of the otherShakespearianstudythat,like his own, is orientedto
theaterinterpretation. And his repeated displeasurewith "literarycritics"
needs reconsideration,if for nothingelse than in self-defense-sincein this
bookhe has,willy-nilly,made himself a member of the company.
Universityof California,Berkeley MARVIN ROSENBERG

Century
Twentieth of Hamlet(SpectrumBook, No. S-8ii). Edited by
Interpretations
N.
DAVID MARTIN BEVINGTON.EnglewoodCliffs, Inc.,i968. Pp. I20. Cloth,
J.:Prentice-Hall,
$3.95.Paper,$I.25.
This anthologyis describedon the cover of its paperboundformatas
of responsibleopinion on the most famous enigma in
"a rich cross-section
literature".
The "cross-section"is principallyof mid-centurypublications.Of the ten
only two, Bradley'sand T. S. Eliot's,are foundin previous
"Interpretations"
general Hamlet collections.One result of this emphasis on recencyis to
relegatemany of the makers of our criticalepoch, notably E. E. Stoll,
J. Dover Wilson, Ernest Jones,and G. Wilson Knight, to a "Part Two:
View Points", where each is representedby a locus criticusof a page
and a half.
In "Part One" Theodore Spencer'sclassic "Hamlet and the Nature of
Reality",relatingHamlet's quandary to the contemporary conflictin views
of the I950's.
to six interpretations
of man,is prefatory Four are relatedin
drift.Maynard Mack's highly perceptive"The World of Hamlet" and
Doubt, Irony"(fromThe Questionof Hamlet)
HarryLevin's "Interrogation,

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