Chester ed. by Lawrence M. Clopper

Abstract

284 Comparative Drama there are layers and dimensions of Ibsen’s art that call upon the resources of our learning but, unless that learning keeps in mind both the great traditional function of the theater and the transformation of that func­ tion by Ibsen into radical purposes as large and as profound, Ibsen scholarship will be of interest only to a small coterie of specialists. BRIAN JOHNSTON London, England Chester. Ed. Lawrence M. Clopper. Records of Early English Drama, Volume 3. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1979. Pp. lxxiii + 591. $40.00. Lawrence Clopper’s edition of the Chester dramatic records is an extremely impressive addition to the Records of Early English Drama series. Like the two earlier REED volumes (on York), Chester is admirable in its every aspect. Handsomely bound, attractively printed, it is a volume which has been researched, edited, cross-referenced and proof-read with meticulous care. There is little doubt that Clopper’s edition will stand indefinitely as the authoritative collection of Chester’s dramatic records. However, because this volume has had to be a compilation of more than just dramatic records, it suffers from one obvious problem—an imbalance in the entries it includes. It is REED's design to publish for each pertinent English city, from the “beginning” to 1642, evidence not only of all dramatic activities but of “minstrelsy” and “ceremonial” as well. Since these three areas are at times interrelated and in some docu­ ments are well-nigh indistinguishable, this is a generally sound editorial policy. It works extremely well with Chester’s records up through 1575, the last year of the cycle’s performance. Soon after this date, however, the records show all local public dramatic production coming to a halt, while minstrel and ceremonial activities continue to thrive and surviv­ ing records of them continue to increase. The result is that Chester’s is a lop-sided collection of data, more than two-thirds of which represent those many non-dramatic festivities produced annually after the cycle’s demise and up through the closing of the nation’s theaters in 1642. It is conceivable that some historians will find Chester’s non-dramatic records for these years quite interesting, and will be richly rewarded by tracing sixty-seven years’ expenditures on, say, the ribbons for the shoes worn by the Child in the Midsummer Show. Most readers, however, will browse through these late entries and will concentrate instead on the earlier documents relating directly to the production of plays in Chester. The main reason for the institution of the REED series is that medieval English dramatic records have until now been showing up piecemeal, often supplied by less-than-impartial scholars to support their own theories of how the plays were originally produced. Before any definitive dramatic history could be written, it was felt that all pertinent documents had, once-and-for-all, to be found, edited, and made avail­ Reviews 285 able to all scholars. Clopper’s volume performs this service for Chester with extraordinary thoroughness and care. Testimony to the breadth of Clopper’s research is the fifty-page introduction to the documents con­ sulted. These documents include city assembly books, mayors’ books, city treasurers’ account rolls, mayors’ lists, sheriffs’ lists, the cycle banns (early and late), various ecclesiastical records, the records of two dozen guilds, and hundreds of sixteenth-century antiquarian collections and compilations. A number of these records have never before been con­ sulted for this purpose; the entries taken from them all have for the most part never before been published. Proof of the care with which these items have been untangled, transcribed, dated, and identified is found in Clopper’s extensive end-notes. These notes offer further infor­ mation about many entries, candidly explaining difficulties that still pertain to some; they cite all appearances of items previously published, note errors of earlier transcriptions, and correct earlier misinterpretations of the evidence. The more one consults these end-notes, the more confident one becomes of the reliability of Clopper’s general editorial procedures and the care with which his thousands of individual judgments have been made. The glory of the volume is of course...