Supreme Attachments: Studies in Victorian Love Poetry by Kerry McSweeney (review)

Abstract

YES,31, 200 YES,31, 200 concerned to examine the Barrymoremyth and test its viability:was his Hamlet as great as it was said to be? How, precisely, was it achieved? What was the performancelike? Morrison sets the scene in terms of Barrymore's Shakespearean predecessors, especially Edwin Booth, Henry Irving, Richard Mansfield, and Johnston ForbesRobertson , and the gradual change from Victorian 'bravura'acting to a style that was more psychologically based, played more swiftly, and which seemed more in tune with 'modern' sensibilities.This has to do with critics'sense of theatrehistory, rather than Barrymore's.The historical perspective enables a comparative evaluation of Barrymore'scriticalreception. The sense of excitement and freshnessthat his performancesof Richard III and Hamlet arousedwas preciselybecause he was breakingwith traditionat a time when many criticsand audiences were hungryfor such a break. Barrymorewas fortyyears old at the time he opened in Hamlet.His background, his earlycareer, and his development as a seriousactor are described,especiallyhis moving performance in Galsworthy'sJustice.The work on preparing his Shakespeareanperformancesis meticulouslycovered:the decision to do it, the collaboration with ArthurHopkins, Robert Edmond Jones, and Edward Sheldon, and also the voice trainingwith MargaretCarrington. In reconstructingthe performances, Morrison draws on designs, promptbooks, correspondence,reviews,and, acknowledgingthe limited informationtheyprovide, later recordings. Where this material relates to visual impact, it is quite vivid; in seeking to reproduce Barrymore'sspeech patterns, it is less successfuland destroys rather than creates any sense of the vitality of the performance. Nevertheless, the documentation is meticulous and the overall impact of both productions well conveyed. The Barrymoreproductionsof Richard III (1920) and of Hamlet (1922-2 5) were intended to be ground-breaking, and were representative of a whole modernizing movement in American theatre. In giving such detailed attention to their history, the process, and the achievement, Morrison contributes to the myth by enrichingboth itsglory, and, in Barrymore'sinabilityto sustainthat, itspathos. GUILDHALL SCHOOL OF MusIc & DRAMA DIANA DEVLIN SupremeAttachments:Studiesin VictorianLovePoetry. By KERRYMCSWEENEY. (The Nineteenth Century) Aldershot, Brookfield, VT, and Singapore: Ashgate. I998. xi + 186pp. ?40. Supreme Attachments startspromisinglyenough. The experience of sexual love, which might seem unique to us, is actually played out according to others' story lines. KerryMcSweeney quotes Michael Ignatieff:'Wewant to write our own scriptand our own plot. And we cannot [... ] because love itselfis discursive:we are the heirs of romantic traditions which move us, despite ourselves' (p. 2). The Victorian response to love, as evinced by poetry, testifiesthat love falls into pre-determined literaryformulae and genre. And yet there is also something distinctiveabout how the Victorians write poetry on love: the emergence of women writers as love poets, the interest in marriage and the Woman Question, the appropriation of Sappho, the recourse to sexual love as compensation for the loss of religiousfaith. The studythus follows the unfolding of Victorian love poetry, through chapterson Browning, Tennyson, women poets, Clough, Meredith, Morrisand Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Patmoreand Hardy. Although McSweeney side-stepsrecent new historicist,feminist, and psychoanalytical approaches to Victorian studies, the blend of biographical and formalist concerned to examine the Barrymoremyth and test its viability:was his Hamlet as great as it was said to be? How, precisely, was it achieved? What was the performancelike? Morrison sets the scene in terms of Barrymore's Shakespearean predecessors, especially Edwin Booth, Henry Irving, Richard Mansfield, and Johnston ForbesRobertson , and the gradual change from Victorian 'bravura'acting to a style that was more psychologically based, played more swiftly, and which seemed more in tune with 'modern' sensibilities.This has to do with critics'sense of theatrehistory, rather than Barrymore's.The historical perspective enables a comparative evaluation of Barrymore'scriticalreception. The sense of excitement and freshnessthat his performancesof Richard III and Hamlet arousedwas preciselybecause he was breakingwith traditionat a time when many criticsand audiences were hungryfor such a break. Barrymorewas fortyyears old at the time he opened in Hamlet.His background, his earlycareer, and his development as a seriousactor are described,especiallyhis moving performance in Galsworthy'sJustice.The work on preparing his Shakespeareanperformancesis meticulouslycovered:the decision to do it, the collaboration with ArthurHopkins, Robert Edmond Jones, and Edward Sheldon, and also the voice trainingwith MargaretCarrington. In reconstructingthe performances, Morrison draws on designs, promptbooks, correspondence,reviews,and, acknowledgingthe limited informationtheyprovide, later...