:Selected Chansons from British Library, Ms Additional 35087

Abstract

Anon., Thomas of Woodstock, or Richard the Second, Part One, ed. Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge, The Revels Plays, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. xvi + 230, hb. £45, ISBN: 0719015634; John Ford, Love's Sacrifice, ed. A. T. Moore, The Revels Plays, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. xxviii + 323, hb. £45, ISBN: 071901557X; Janet Clare (ed.), Drama of the English Republic 1649-60, The Revels Plays Companion Library, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. xiv + 311, hb. £45, ISBN: 0719044820Thomas of Woodstock survives only in an anonymous, untitled, and rather damaged manuscript in the British Library. It has been edited eight times under seven slightly different titles - which creates problems for the compilers and users of library catalogues. It is a vigorous account of the corrupt reign of Richard II prior to the point at which Shakespeare's play begins; and, as the subtitle in this Revels edition suggests, it is possible that Shakespeare designed his own play as a sequel, or at least as a response, to Woodstock. (He seems also to have recalled material from Woodstock for the encounter between Hamlet and Osric, and for Lear's division of his kingdom). The play's language is plain, forceful, and idiomatic, its dramaturgy inventive, and its politics challenging: this is a play in which chronicles are consulted on stage, and a character is arrested for whistling treason. The Revels editors suggest that 'Shakespeare is perhaps the one known dramatist in the 1590s whose dramatic style most closely resembles that of Thomas of Woodstock' (p. 4), but disappointingly they do not offer any analysis of the play's language to support or qualify this view. In recent years the computer-aided analysis of dramatic language has generated many fascinating, if not always conclusive, results, and one might have looked for more detail at this point. The play dates from the first half of the 1590s, and the editors' introduction helpfully explores the sensitive political issues which, at that point in Elizabeth's reign, found echoes in incidents from the reign of Richard II. The manuscript itself, however, appears to date from the first decade of the reign of James I, and the editors argue that the indications of censorship which can be observed throughout the manuscript are Jacobean rather than Elizabethan interventions. The play is, therefore, doubly interesting for anyone seeking to explore the ways in which drama engaged with contemporary political sensitivities. The collation and commentary allow one to see that this putative Jacobean censor objected to lines celebrating the victories of the Black Prince (presumably because they might reflect upon the unwarlike James), and many passages on rebellion, the relations of subjects and sovereigns, and royal irresponsibility. A few details need attention in any reprint. In the line 'The planting and good husbandry hath nourished' (I. iii. 156) the last word is surely wrongly accented, and should be a disyllable, as is suggested by the manuscript spelling 'norisht'. Similarly in 'Than all the doting heads that late controlled us' (III.i.46), 'controlled' should also be two syllables not three (it is spelt 'contrould' in the manuscript). On p. 114 Hibbard's edition of Hamlet is part of the Oxford Shakespeare, not the Cambridge series. Turned apostrophes abound. But generally this is a sound edition of a remarkable play.John Ford's Love's Sacrifice (printed in 1633, but perhaps written in the period 1626-31) has been overshadowed by his more popular play 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, but this new edition by A. T. Moore brings it back into the canon of available scholarly texts. Moore is clearly an enthusiast for the play, and his 100-page introduction not only provides the usual information about date and sources (which may include the tragic story of Carlo Gesualdo), but also offers a scene-by-scene account of how it might have been staged in the indoor Phoenix theatre. …