Patterning in Shakespearean Drama by William Leigh Godshalk

Abstract

90 Comparative Drama Orrey’s argument in favor of opera as lyric stage rather than as dramatic singing. Mr. Orrey, who is well known for his book on Bellini, is understand­ ably at his best when discussing later developments in opera, those which occurred in the late eighteenth century, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His treatment of earlier opera and its possible antecedents is less satisfactory. Here his evolutionary bias leads him to assertions that cannot very well be supported—i.e., that liturgical drama constitutes the roots of opera and that it leads inexorably to Mystery plays, the conti­ nental Sacre R appresen tazion i, and ultimately to opera. It is not necessary to prove that the liturgical drama leads anywhere, in spite of the “Shrews­ bury Fragments” which would seem to indicate that there was some inter­ action between Latin sung drama and vernacular spoken drama (see W. L. Smoldon, “Liturgical Drama,” The N e w O x fo rd H isto ry o f M u sic, II, 189). As Leo Schrade has pointed out, “If the history of art has strangely been said to be the history of revivals, at least with equal right it can also be said that it is the history of things forgotten, discontinued, and forsaken” (T ragedy in th e A r t o f M u sic, p. 37). Thus, the liturgical drama continued up into the sixteenth century, and then dropped out of sight until the revival of interest in things medieval in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It would have been better if Mr. Orrey had simply begun his book at the point of the researches of the Italian humanists and the literati of the Florentine Camerata into the principles of ancient Greek tragedy and metrics, researches which led to the discovery of recitative and which led toward the development of operatic form more or less as we know it today. Mr. Orrey does mention the Camerata; but perhaps because their operas were not as successful as those of Monteverdi, he passes over their contributions very quickly. However, he does give Monteverdi, who benefitted from some of the experiments of the Florentine group, the ap­ preciation that he rightly deserves. He also properly singles out Mozart and Wagner for special attention in the later development of opera. In all, the author tries to encompass the whole history of opera in a very short space; he makes a noble attempt at writing a popular, yet re­ spectable survey. Although the success he achieves must of necessity be a limited one, nevertheless the pictures make the effort worth it all. AUDREY DAVIDSON W estern M ichigan U n iversity William Leigh Godshalk. P attern in g in Shakespearean D ram a. The Hague and Paris: Mouton & Co., 1973. Pp. 199. Godshalk’s thesis is that “Shakespeare was, from the beginning of his career, a master of the well-built play” (p. 179). Viewing the playwright’s skillful dramatic patterning as a constant, the study “thus stands in con­ Reviews 91 trast to the prevailing developmental or evolutionary bias of most recent critical interpretations of his work” (p. 13). To support his argument, Godshalk provides ten chapters that take up ten different plays in their chronological order. Chapter 1 discusses T itu s A n d ron icu s; Chapter 10, T he T em pest. The final sentence of the former chapter illustrates the author’s thesis: “With all its diversity, T itu s has a singular integrity, and it is apparent that, even from the beginning, Shakespeare was the master of dramatic patterning” (p. 41). The book is commendable for at least two reasons. First, each chapter includes, often in the text, the most significant commentaries on the patterning of a play. In discussing The T em pest, for instance, Godshalk does not overlook the contributions of Frye, Knight, and Traversi, to name only a few of the scholars mentioned. Thus the work is a useful compendium of Shakespearean criticism. Secondly, and more importantly, Godshalk’s own insights are often noteworthy. Several examples of these must suffice. In his chapter on T itus A n dron icu s...