A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels’ by George North: A Newly Uncovered Manuscript Source for Shakespeare’s Plays ed. by Dennis McCarthy, June Schlueter

Abstract

 Reviews literacy) was not widespread among the Caribbean population. However, many of the essays make reference to oral storytelling traditions in the Caribbean without fully engaging with them. Given the lack of Caribbean-authored texts to draw on, it seems odd not to offer any real analysis of such works. ese concerns are somewhat addressed in Nicole N. Aljoe’s work on the ‘slave voice’ in Chapter  and in Candace Ward and Tim Watson’s work on the early creole novel in Chapter . But for only two chapters to focus on texts produced by Caribbean writers is disappointing. Nonetheless, this volume offers fresh analysis of a frequently overlooked subsection of literary history and makes good on its promise to demonstrate the potential for further fruitful scholarship in the field. Any scholar interested in the literature of the Anglophone Caribbean would do well to consult it, as would those studying the evolution of literature and book production within the British Empire. E S S C ‘A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels’ by George North: A Newly Uncovered Manuscript Source for Shakespeare’s Plays. Ed. by D MC and J S. Cambridge: Brewer in association with the British Library. . viii+ pp. £. ISBN ––––. ‘A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels’ is a hitherto unpublished manuscript written by George North in  and dedicated to Roger, nd Lord North (brother of the translator of Plutarch). It purports to demonstrate the evil of rebellion and the certain punishment of rebels, leading up to a discussion of ‘the calamity of the Low Countries’ and ‘the distressed government of those staggering states whose desperate disobedience against their King and Sovereign occupies all these parts of the world’ (p. ). It also offers verse laments in the manner of (and to some extent derived from) A Mirror for Magistrates, in the voices of Owen Glendower, Jack Cade, and Michael Joseph (‘the Black Smith’), leader of the Cornish rebellion. Dennis McCarthy and June Schlueter offer colour reproductions of the manuscript, along with a modernized text. eir edition includes some odd choices: forms such as ‘hath’ and ‘dyeth’ are changed, surely unnecessarily, to ‘has’ and ‘dies’, and I think there may be a misreading of ‘lain’ for ‘tane’ (p. ). However, the editing of this volume is subordinate to its main aim, which is to assert the status of ‘A Brief Discourse’ as ‘one of the most influential Shakespearean source texts in any form’ (p. ). e first instance of alleged influence is perhaps the most plausible. e editors find similar clusters of words in North’s opening discussion of Socrates and Gloucester’s opening speech in Richard III: ‘proportion’, ‘glass’, feature’, ‘fair’, ‘Nature’, ‘deformed’, ‘world’, ‘shadow’ (p. ). However, their next example, which parallels North’s discussion of the obedience of bees and ants with Canterbury’s speech on bees in Henry V, exemplifies the problems of their argument overall. By tabulating the shared keywords they elide the spatial and contextual differences between them in North, where the relevant passage is spread MLR, .,   over five pages; by the time North gets to the ‘heavens’ commanding ‘obedience’ as they do at the start of Canterbury’s speech, he has moved away from bees entirely. e editors also mention omas Elyot as a possible shared source, but they ignore the locus classicus on bee society, the fourth book of Virgil’s Georgics, which (like North and Shakespeare) assigns them a king, a division of labour, and punishment for idleness. is reflects another factor telling against North as influence, namely the extreme familiarity of his arguments and instances. It is difficult to see what Shakespeare would have found of interest in a writer whose thought is so commonplace. Elsewhere, the editors undermine their case through over-argument. One example is their suggestion that details of Cade’s account of his downfall in  Henry VI are derived from Glendower’s account of his plight in the Welsh mountains in North, as well as from the similar lament by Cade that follows it. Like Shakespeare’s Cade, Glendower depicts himself as a starving fugitive; as Iden anticipates dragging the corpse of Shakespeare’s Cade by the...