Before Orientalism: London's Theatre of the East, 1576-1626 by Richmond Barbour (review)

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220 Reviews On the one hand, every book is inevitably the product of its own social and intellec? tual context, and caters to the 'horizon of expectation' of contemporary readers. On the other hand, the Arthurian tradition was in many ways unalterable (for instance, as Radulescu notes, Arthur can never avoid his misguided choice of Mordred as re? gent). We know what Malory's main sources were, but not which versions he used, so that we can never be absolutely certain that a particular phrase or episode is his own invention. Nevertheless, Radulescu makes some convincing arguments for his emphasis on fifteenth-centurygentry concerns, 'the interrelated concepts of worship, friendship, lordship, fellowship, governance and violence' (p. 17). One might argue that these concepts are central to any version of the Arthurian legend, but some at least seem to have had special resonances in fifteenth-centuryEngland. The concepts of worship and fellowship, for instance, appear frequently in gentry correspondence such as the Paston letters, and slander was seen as a constant danger. Radulescu quotes Carol Meale's comment that in a volatile political environment, there was '" an urge towards self-definition through the reading of history"' (p. 54). Arthurian material was found in the 'grete bokes' owned by gentryfamilies, along with 'chivalry, courtesy, governance and history' (p. 48), and Radulescu places the Morte Darthur in this tradition, along with Hardyng's Chronicle, which contains a version of the Arthurian legend. In the chapters on Malory, Radulescu takes up suggestions made by critics such as Field and McCarthy about political and social parallels between the fictional and the historical England, and adds more of her own, some structural (the marginalization of Arthur), some concerning procedural details (the decision to burn Guinevere at the stake). Not all the arguments linking Malory's work to the world of fifteenth-centurygentry are equally convincing. Radulescu suggests that Gareth is a model of how to get on in society?but Gareth is a prince and Arthur's nephew, and even if Malory did invent this tale, it is closely connected to earlier bei inconnu stories, which often involve Gawain's kin. The problem of over-powerful sub? jects challenging the control of the king may well have reminded late fifteenth-century readers ofthe Woodvilles or ofWarwick the Kingmaker, but no doubt earlier readers in both France and England saw comparable parallels in the struggles of their own times. In the section on Malory there is some repetition of themes discussed in earlier chapters. But whether or not Malory's version includes allusions to the political situ? ation in his own time, Radulescu's well-researched book is a valuable reminder of the concerns of the gentry in the fifteenthcentury and the extent to which Malory's Morte Darthur would have seemed particularly relevant to them. University of Bristol Elizabeth Archibald Before Orientalism: London's Theatre of the East, 1576-1626. By Richmond Bar? bour. (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture) Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. 2003. xii + 238 pp. ?45; $60. ISBN 0-521-65047-x. Before Orientalism joins a growing number of studies wishing to deflect attention away from narratives of the westering of empire in the early modern period towards new scholarly horizons forcross-cultural encounters. Barbour is wholly persuasive in his initial emphasis that 'England's expansive effortswere imitative, fitful,uncertain, and not infrequently disastrous' (p. 3). Unwilling to subscribe to the 'mechanisms of mastery' (p. 2) and power often promoted in the firstwave of New Historicist criticism when dealing with exploration narratives, and believing that Said's binarist analyses of orientalism belong to a later period of high imperialism, Barbour begins by looking at the final decades of the sixteenth century, when British overseas trad- MLR, 101.1, 2006 221 ing ventures certainly sought profit (financial and political) and knowledge without necessarily formulating schemes of domination in Asia. While the introduction conjures up visions of Sir Thomas Roe's embassy to India, in the main body of the volume the firsthalt is in the fairly familiar territoryof the Ottoman Empire. This area has not been neglected critically. The 'East' of Barbour's title may be seen to include...