Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage

Abstract

With Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage, editors Lisa Hopkins and Helen Ostovich have very carefully and skillfully assembled fourteen wide-ranging essays about how representations of magic on the early modern English stage both reflected and influenced the culture of that time. In their introductory piece, the editors provide a clear and strikingly accessible introduction to the essays, noting how these pieces fit and work together. Insisting that magic is fundamentally invested in transformations, a particularly important concept given the social and cultural structure of the early modern period, they note that all the essays included are interested in considering whether the transformations depicted are positive or negative. Perhaps most interestingly, the collected essays contemplate “to what extent these plays may themselves help to effect transformation by working on the attitudes of their audiences”; or, put another way, plays about magical transformation may “do some magical transformation of their own” (3). Noting that many of the essays offer readings of canonical texts such as Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare's Macbeth, the editors also point out that some essays examine lesser-known works. While it might be easy to assume a huge difference in the quality of these plays, they note “the most obvious thing to emerge is the extent to which all these plays form part of an essentially coherent discursive web.” These plays are “agents of transformation in that they challenge perceptions and assumptions more often than they reinforce them” (15). The editors wish us to see that the plays and texts discussed in the collection ultimately open up the possibility that views about magic and witchcraft could be transformed, a compelling line of argument that appears most prevalently in the third and fourth parts of the collection.Part 1 of the collection is titled “Demons and Pacts,” and not surprisingly, all three essays are especially concerned with Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Barbara H. Traister's essay on Keith Thomas's seminal study Religion and the Decline of Magic considers whether his argument is borne out in the period's drama—that is, did the early modern English stage see a decline in representations of magic and demons? Looking at the period from 1590 to the 1620s, Traister argues that yes, both the humans who interact with the spirits and the spirits themselves become increasingly ineffectual as the period progresses, moving from well-respected intellectual men like Faustus to marginalized figures like the village witch. The devils themselves no longer appear but rather take the shapes of criminals and animals, leading Traister to see spiritual magic as having fallen out of favor. In many ways, Traister's essay is an ideal starting point, as it offers an introduction to the plays and sketches a portrait of how playwrights used magicians, magic, demons, and witches over the course of thirty years on the English stage.Next, in “Who the Devil Is in Charge?” Bronwyn Johnston deals specifically with Marlowe's play and considers the Faustian pact, arguing that the play is unusual in its depiction of demonic pacts precisely because the scholar does not believe he can escape from the contract. Looking specifically at the “terms and conditions” of the arrangement, Johnston argues that the play focuses on the pact as an “issue of contract law as much as it is a theological concern” (32–33). Noting the ways in which the early modern world and the play collapse the differences between the human and the devil, she posits that this allows for the possibility of the human out-maneuvering the devil, something repeatedly revealed in both writings on magic and popular legends. According to Johnston, Faustus is unfortunately unschooled in demonic contract law. In the final piece of part 1, Laura Levine's essay on the power and danger of words in Marlowe's plays interacts nicely with Johnston's piece. Levine considers how Faustus makes repeated promises throughout the play, which ultimately leads to questions about the efficacy of these utterances. Looking at sixteenth-century contract law, she argues that the play does not so much advocate a position as it “become[s] a vector for legal tensions in the period” (54). These three excellent essays offer important contributions to the large body of criticism on Marlowe's play while also opening up new possibilities for thinking about the relationship between conjurer and demon.The essays in part 2, “Rites to Believe,” are similarly fine contributions to the collection, though perhaps not as tightly connected to one another. The first, Alisa Manninen's piece on supernatural ritual in Macbeth, argues that such ritual is a central concern in Shakespeare's Scottish play and destabilizes social ritual to disastrous and indeed equivocating effect. This piece serves as a nice bridge between the first two sections of the collection, as the essay uses speech act theory to think about the play's social rituals, echoing Levine's work. This is a commendable and canny move by the editors, as the essays interact productively with each other. The next essay in this section, Verena Theile's “Demonising Macbeth,” performs a striking transformation at its outset. She begins by juxtaposing a scene from Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) with Rupert Goold's excellent Macbeth (2010) and then launches into a discussion of Macbeth's wickedness and the role the three weird sisters take in this representation. As the play revels in both human and supernatural malevolence, Theile suggests that the witches “become a stylistic device that allows the audience to anchor its fears” (77), thus alleviating the pressure of having to fully contemplate the title character's evilness. Yet overall, Theile's essay argues for a more malevolent Macbeth than critics have traditionally been willing to recognize. Alternatively, Jill Delsigne examines The Winter's Tale and suggests that the scene of Hermione's magical resurrection at the play's end can be read simultaneously as a moment of hermetic magic and a celebration of Catholic sacrament, leaving the audience with a distinctly positive magical transformation. Delsigne spends a good portion of her essay tracing how the play recasts pagan religion to explore Catholicism, a move she calls “cultural palimpsest” (94), and this fits nicely with the section's larger thematic interest in ritual. Near the end of the essay, she contrasts Paulina's restoration of Hermione with Friar Bacon's magic in Robert Greene's comic play Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, but the gender dynamic here goes unexplored. This points to something all of the essays in the collection do well: they not only offer fresh readings of plays (no small feat itself), but they open up avenues for further consideration and debate.Part 3 of the volume, “Learned Magic,” looks at how plays from the period use magic as a way of contemplating something other than magic. The first essay, Peter Kirwan's piece on The Merry Devil of Edmonton, argues that the play minimizes its use of magic (even as its subject is the Faustus-like scholar and conjurer Peter Fabell) as a way of representing the Chamberlain's Men's ensemble composition. Noting the close link between magic and authorship, Kirwan argues that the text deliberately downplays magic in order to highlight the company's move toward ensemble work. This chapter is particularly resonant given the recent decision by the editors of the New Oxford Shakespeare to credit Christopher Marlowe as coauthor of the three Henry VI plays. Indeed, as he closes his piece, Kirwan writes, “Merry Devil's magic creates a space for articulation of the importance of dramatic craft that neither destroys nor exposes the author/conjurer, but instead makes him an integral and subservient part of his own craft” (122). Next, Jasmine Lellock's essay explores what she calls “alchemical poetics” in Shakespeare's The Tempest, arguing that the transformations explored in the play are not necessarily literal and physical, but rather ethical. By focusing on the specific alchemical element of tempering and temperance, Lellock contends that Prospero is an alchemist whose material is The Tempest's characters. Lisa Hopkins's essay, which rounds out the section, is impressive in its scope. Drawing on seven plays, including Doctor Faustus and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Hopkins argues that these works utilize magic to activate a sort of political wish fulfilment. There are four things that people want in these plays, and they can be divided into two connected pairs: first, a link to the classical past and assurance of an imperial future, and second, national security tied to religious certainty. Read in this way, Hopkins suggests that these plays reflect the anxieties of early modern England—both what the nation hoped for and feared—and that, ultimately, magic “provides a crucial and versatile lexicon” for this project (140).The fourth and final part of the book, “Local Witchcraft,” is its longest, with five essays. Here discussions of gender and witchcraft are most pronounced, particularly in Judith Bonzol's essay on cunning women, Jessica Dell's piece on image magic and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, Helen Ostovich's consideration of Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, and, to some extent, Brett D. Hirsch's examination of wax poppets in the obscure Fedele and Fortunio. Drawing on a Star Chamber case and plays by Lyly and Heywood, Bonzol notes the ambiguous position cunning women occupied in early modern England, as communities' demand for their services outweighed any lingering distrust or fear of witchcraft. Dell's argument is a bit more pointed, arguing that Shakespeare's comedy deploys laughter as a way of countering and dismissing misogynistic views of women and challenging the superstition-fueled persecution of witches.Ostovich notes from the outset that Jonson's play is not about witchcraft in any specific way but rather is infused with the various cultural beliefs and assumptions about it. Looking specifically at the play's older women, she notes how they are aligned with image magic, specifically the construction, consumption, and commodification of human shapes. Hirsch is interested in placing Fedele and Fortunio into the critical discussion of early modern drama and witchcraft, while noting the degree to which much around it remains uncertain. The focus on ambiguity pairs nicely with Bonzol's essay, and Hirsch's most provocative point, that the play equates Elizabeth with Medusa, is handled tentatively with a number of “may have” and “may also” formulations, perhaps a judicious decision. The final essay of the section moves away from image and toward sound as Andrew Loeb considers scenes from The Witch of Edmonton and The Late Lancashire Witches wherein music is stopped by magic. Loeb argues that these scenes reflect a concern about the destabilizing nature of magic and music and that by staging music, these plays implicate their audiences in the social construction of witches and thereby extend the threat posed by the witches beyond the stage and onto those around it.Although there is some variation in the degree to which the essays engage with transformation, this is nevertheless to be expected with an ensemble of fourteen diverse scholars. Indeed, Hopkins and Ostovich are to be commended for bringing together a group of scholars at various stages of their careers without sacrificing quality. Magical Transformations represents the very best when it comes to essay collections: a vibrant community of voices, bound together, offering new perspectives. The volume makes a significant contribution to the field of early modern English studies.