Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Approaches ed. by Harry R. Garvin, Michael D. Payne, and: Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Comedies: Turn and Counter-Turn by Richard P. Wheeler

Abstract

272 Comparative Drama former students or collaborators. As yet another former student, I join in the salute. It is not likely to make him rest on his laurels. G. L. ANDERSON University of Hawaii Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Approaches. Ed. Harry R. Garvin and Michael D. Payne. Lewisburg: Bucknell Univ. Press; London and Toronto: Associated Univ. Presses, 1980. Pp. 187. $12.00. Richard P. Wheeler. Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Come­ dies: Turn and Counter-Turn. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1981. Pp. xiv + 229. $20.00. The eminent historian J. H. Hexter once remarked that he had not specialized in literature because literary critics could get away with any­ thing whereas history kept one honest. While not impugning the honesty of the revisionist critics represented in these two volumes, I admit to some suspicion of styles that read like psychology textbooks or Marxist tracts. Although the iconographical approach taken by three of the articles in Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Approaches sometimes says more about art than about Shakespeare, it does have the value of being rooted in the period and of revealing the picture aspect of the “speaking picture” art represented for the Renaissance. Thus Elizabeth Truax shows striking similarities between Shakespeare’s description of Giulio Romano’s sculp­ ture in The Winter’s Tale, the aesthetic of Mannerist Art according to Vasari, frescoes designed by Romano, and the paintings detailed in Lucrece. Similarly, Frederick O. Waage examines the Romano reference in terms of mannerist art’s contribution to a “new way of seeing” in Shakespeare’s last plays. Finally, Clifford Davidson presents an extra­ ordinarily balanced account of Antony and Cleopatra by drawing on “many elements of opposition . . . all of them traditional” in references to the Whore of Babylon, Circe, and Venus. While the iconographical essays relate evidence from one art to an­ other within the same era, the two Marxian articles apply a modern political terminology to literature of the sixteenth century. Burton Hatlen’s “Feudal and Bourgeois Concepts of Value in The Merchant of Venice” explores the play’s complex treatment of value. Indeed, he could build a stronger case around Shylock, who, despite his materialistic ethos, would not sell his wife’s ring and quite correctly points out that the Christian, Venetian society condones slavery. Professor Hatlen does not automa­ tically assume feudalism’s superiority to capitalism, noting Shakespeare’s insistence that “rule of law is preferable to aristocratic privilege” even while demonstrating that the “organic” society represented by Belmont is better than the “mechanical” capitalistic one of Venice. On the other hand, Walter Cohen’s “King Lear and the Social Dimensions of Shake­ spearean Tragic Form” is simplistic. To call Macbeth “bourgeois” because he shows “materialistic individualism” is a service neither to Shakespeare nor to Marx. The classification of villains as bourgeois and heroes as aristocrats sometimes leads to interesting insights as in his analysis of Reviews 273 Antony and Cleopatra and Lear, but it is fortunate for his argument that he did not attempt Hotspur and Hal. The remaining six essays utilize diverse approaches to elucidate The Tempest. Lorie Jerrell Leininger’s “Cracking the Code of The Tempest” illustrates how a one-dimensional political approach can ruin a play— especially when read in conjunction with James P. Driscoll’s sensitive Jungian analysis in his article, “The Shakespearean Metastance.” Both essays are based on the play’s concerns with bondage, control, and freedom. However, Leininger’s analysis of the play as racist and unjust often begs questions in order to reach its conclusion. For instance, she thinks that “a genuine alternative has been excluded . . . that Caliban be viewed as a human being— and that his life, labor, and lands be respec­ ted.” But is such an alternative excluded? Caliban was respected (and taught) until he tried to rape Miranda, and is left with his life, labor, and lands to search for grace. In contrast, Professor Driscoll thinks that the play begins with Prospero’s control of Ariel and Caliban, but moves toward freedom: Ariel’s, Caliban’s, and most significantly Prospero’s. The Jungian approach works because the play’s most profound meanings do seem to revolve around the integration of the psyche. The relation...