Shakespeare and the Culture of Paradox by Peter G. Platt

Abstract

528 Reviews on the food-related fates ofAaron and Tamora in Titus Andronicus (p. 124). More of a starter than a main course, Food in Shakespeare shows how far feeding and feeling, as Duke Orsino well knew, go hand in hand as well as hand tomouth in the diet of earlymodern drama. This is not rich repast, but its small portions are well seasoned. University of Glasgow Willy Maley Shakespeare and the Culture of Paradox. By Peter G. Platt. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 2009. ix+25ipp. ?55. ISBN 978-0-7546-6551-9. Ithas long been acknowledged thatparadox is central to Shakespeare's plays, nearly all ofwhich could be called problematic'. Theirmixed ideological messages, refusal to support any single idea, and general open-endedness are, arguably, what make them a source of continued interest and debate. As Norman Rabkin once claimed, polyvalence and polysemy are implicit governing principles inmany of the greatest works of literature.What is less known, however, is that Shakespeare's use of paradox is informed by and representative ofwhat Peter Platt terms 'theRenais sance culture of paradox. Adopting a New Historicist approach, Platt successfully situates Shakespearian paradox within the context of an age thatwas fixated with the unexpected, the uncertain, and the contradictory. The first chapter, '"New, Straunge, Incredible, and Repugnant to the Opinion of the Hearer": The Power of the Paradox in Early Modern Culture', highlights the chief versions of paradox that concerned (and often delighted) Renaissance thinkers: the literary-rhetorical and logical versions?whose roots are primarily classical?and the Christian versions. This chapter also discusses the effectiveness ofparadox as a political tool and itsability to 'transform themind' (p. 12). Claiming that critics of Shakespeare have not sufficiently recognized the power of paradox, Platt is of the opinion that paradox is connected more to activity than passivity (p. 15). He thereby positions himself against scholars, such as Gary Taylor, who consider paradox as ultimately paralysing and ineffectual. After setting the historical scene (Piatt's grasp of history and his extensive use of non-literary material is one of the book's main strengths) and outlining his theoretical standpoint, Platt goes on, in the following three chapters, to look at specific 'sites' of paradox: Venice; equity law and its courts; and the Shakespearian stage. In theVenice chapter Platt examines Renaissance accounts of Venice that establish itas a liminal space between East andWest, land and sea, Protestant and Catholic, before reading TheMerchant of Venice's and Othello's epistemological, ontological, racial, and sexual complexities through Venice's symbolic geography (p. 58). He then focuses attention on the complex issue of equity which led to the paradoxes surrounding legal judgement in Measure forMeasure and TheMerchant. As a law that appreciates the shifting, restless, and paradoxical nature of theworld, equity ends up, ironically, justifying rather thanmitigating the use of strict justice inboth plays. Piatt's last chapter, '"Double Dealing Ambodexters": The Paradoxes of Playing', MLR, 105.2, 2010 529 is almost twice as long as the preceding ones and by far themost ambitious. In it,he takes on themammoth task of examining the paradoxes of performance: the duality of the actor; the paradox of the boy actor; and the paradox of the relationship between audience and player. The Henriad and Hamlet are summoned in an exploration of the paradox of the actor in particular, while TwelfthNight and As You Like It are pivotal to Piatt's discussion of the boy actor and the paradoxes of gender identity.And finally, The Winters Tale and The Tempest are invoked in his analysis of the audience's encounters with the paradoxes of the stage: many antitheatricalists feared, after all, thatviewers could become what they saw, could be both spectator and actor. One suspects that the subject of Piatt's last chapter requires book-length study itself, for it is impossible to do it justice within the scope of sixty-eight pages. Despite this one criticism, this is a stimulating and enjoyable read as well as an important reappraisal of Rosalie L. Colie's Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition ofParadox (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) in the light of post-structuralism. Queen's University Belfast Adele Lee The Key of Green...