Technology and Séance in Shakespeare's Early History Plays

Journal Article Bratchell, D. F. ed., Shakespearean Tragedy; Watson, D. C., Shakespeare's Early History Plays: Politics at Play on the Elizabethan Stage Get access D. F. Bratchell, (ed.), Shakespearean Tragedy. Pp. ix + 166 (Critical Approach Series). London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Hardbound £25.00; paperbound £8.99. D. G. Watson, Shakespeare's Early History Plays: Politics at Play on the Elizabethan Stage. Pp. xiii + 177. London: Macmillan, 1990. £35.00. John Drakakis John Drakakis University of Stirling Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 39, Issue 1, March 1992, Pages 93–95, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/39.1.93 Published: 01 March 1992

Women's Matters: Politics, Gender, and Nation in Shakespeare's Early History Plays. By Nina S. Levine. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses. 1998. 193 pp. 29 [pounds sterling]. In Nina Levine's very interesting, historiographically oriented approach to Shakespeare's early history plays, she assesses and defines ways in which the politics and culture of the 1590s in England may have pressured Shakespeare to revise, even to reconstruct, England's earlier history. In the process, she corrects more narrowly focused feminist approaches to these plays which, she believes, do not always take into account the impact of specific political situations upon Elizabethan myths of gender and their realization on the stage. She suggests as well that the presence of Elizabeth and, to a much less extent, Mary on England's throne afforded their subjects the opportunity to question and re-evaluate age-old assumptions about the efficacy of patriarchal power structures. When Shakespeare comes to stage England's history, Levine suggests, he interrogates, revises, and rewrites his historical sources (themselves often contradictory, often written to accommodate prevailing political currents) in the light of contemporary events and contemporary patterns of belief. Thus Shakespeare in 1 Henry VI largely disregards the historical record in order to stage a series of conflicts between domineering, anarchic, sometimes `demonic' women and `chivalric' noblemen, conflicts which serve not so much to validate patriarchy as to expose the egoistic self-interest of aristocrats who, then as in the 1590s, engulfed England in foreign conflict and civil discord. In 2 and 3 Henry VI, Shakespeare similarly interrogates the chronicles, this time in order to invite scepticism about their truth and doubts about their integrity: in 2 Henry VI, for instance, scepticism about Eleanor Cobham's alleged necromancy and treason from a historiographic perspective similar to that of Foxe in his vindication of Eleanor; in 3 Henry VI, scepticism about the Yorkist demonization of Margaret of Anjou from a perspective that privileges national interests rather than normative expectations of gendered behaviour and the politics of the aristocracy. In the last play of this tetralogy, Shakespeare empowers women, especially the two Elizabeths, as sources and protectors of monarchical power; they are consequently the guarantors, even the restorers, perhaps, of patriarchal order. …

Reviews: History and the Media, Writing Biography: Historians and Their Craft, Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938–1940, Benjamin Now: Critical Encounters with ‘The Arcades Project’, Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books, Shakespeare's Culture in Modern Performance, Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage, Secret Shakespeare, Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare, Language and

REVIEWS Donald G. Watson. Shakespeare's Early History Plays: Politics at Play on the Elizabethan Stage. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990. Pp. xiii + 177. $30.00. Robert C. Jones. These Valiant Dead: Renewing the Past in Shakespeare's Histories. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 172. $24.00. Twenty years ago, writing about Shakespeare's histories meant tilting with Tillyard's encompassing "Tudor myth"; today, such projects are always already framed by new historicist and cultural materialist arguments as well as by the agreements and distinctions between them, matters for vigorous debate over the last decade. Appearing at a time when those working in Shakespeare and Renaissance studies have been accommodating their critical practice to incorporate various strands of poststructuralism , these two studies map out strikingly different negotiations with and around such methodological currents. Watson's rout follows a modified new historicist track. A preface explains his attempt to "explore both the connections between the theatricality of the stage and the theatrical staging of Elizabethan power and the always potentially subversive expression of a dramatic, historical, and improvisational view of reality in Shakespeare's early history plays within a highly theatrical, iconic, and ideological culture" (p. xiii); an introductory chapter ("Theatre, History, Politics") and a conclusion ("Paradox, Play, Politics") rehearse pertinent political and cultural contexts. Although these contexts inflect his readings, Watson's particular interest in the plays' "theatrical dimensions" lies in integrating an "audience-centered " criticism with a more "traditional" interpretive approach; as it turns out, his methodology slips in and out between new historicist and Tillyardian strategies. Ignoring work such as the collection edited by Philip C. McGuire and David Samuelson (Shakespeare: The Theatrical Dimension, 1979), Gary Taylor's To Analyze Delight (1985) and Harry Berger, Jr.'s Imaginary Audition (1989) as well as Edward Rocklin's notions of "performable interpretation," Watson skirts a growing body of criticism on the practical as well as theoretical relations between theatrical and textual constructions and reception dynamics. For Watson, the material theater is trustworthy only insofar as it sends readers back to reexamine the text. Although the audiences he imagines consist of Elizabethan rather than present-day spectators, once he turns to individual plays, he quotes from reviews—primarily, though not exclusively, of the 1977 RSC productions of the Henry VI plays (initially misidentified as directed by Trevor Nunn, not Terry Hands)—to support his readings of the dynamics of comic response. Indeed, Watson's primary concern is finding laughter in the histories. Heroism and laughter, he argues, constitute opposed categories that keep "the darkness of history from completely engulfing [1 Henry VI]" 177 178Comparative Drama (p. 56). That play reveals "the fragility of orderly rituals of state" as well as "the theatrical nature of politics" (p. 38): its "darkly comic" spectacles of factionalism turn to farce; Henry VI himself is a "sadly comic" figure; and Joan's witchcraft generates "a strange kind of chauvinistic laughter" which later turns to "grotesque horror" (p. 43). Dramatizing a savage world beyond ceremony and chivalry populated by unsympathetic characters, Part 2 becomes a nightmare for Henry VI and Margaret as well as for audiences and remains deeply ambivalent about social unrest, hierarchical relations, and questions of anarchical conflict— most obviously when "the battle for the right to occupy the stage mirrors naturally the struggles for power in the larger social world beyond the auditorium" (p. 57). Focusing on the Peter-Horner scene (I.iii), the Simpcox affair (H.i), and Cade's rebellion (IV.ii-IV.viii), Watson argues that bringing on lower-class characters who are "theatrically unfamiliar" generates farcical effects and "grotesque comedy"; in each case, a movement from "safe" to "horrible" laughter underscores the social discontents shaping everyday lived experience. Watson finds 3 Henry VI a play "beyond ideology" (which seems to mean that the disorders of civil war radically undermine ideology); and, as with Parts 1 and 2, his reading synchronizes with Terry Hands' production, where ritual atrocities turn laughter against the audience and hence result in grisly comedy. Dramatizing the problematic nature of politics by means of "mutilated rituals, diabolical interventions [and] ideological fictions" ensures, says Watson, that the audience will "recoil from the sophisticated...

YES, 32, 2002 YES, 32, 2002 This book is a valuable source for students of early modern staging, acting, and audiences, and for those interested in the new Globe, its productions, or Shakespeareantheatreproduction. UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS CHARLES WHITNEY Women's Matters. Politics,Gender, andNationinShakespeare's EarlyHistory Plays. ByNINA S. LEVINE. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated UniversityPresses. I998. I93 PP. C29. In Nina Levine's very interesting,historiographicallyoriented approach to Shakespeare 's early historyplays, she assessesand definesways in which the politics and culture of the I59os in England may have pressuredShakespeareto revise, even to reconstruct, England's earlier history. In the process, she corrects more narrowly focused feminist approaches to these plays which, she believes, do not always take into account the impact of specific political situations upon Elizabethan myths of gender and their realization on the stage. She suggestsas well that the presence of Elizabeth and, to a much less extent, Mary on England's throne afforded their subjectsthe opportunityto question and re-evaluateage-old assumptionsabout the efficacy of patriarchal power structures. When Shakespeare comes to stage England's history, Levine suggests, he interrogates, revises, and rewrites his historical sources (themselves often contradictory, often written to accommodate prevailingpolitical currents)in the light of contemporaryevents and contemporary patternsof belief. Thus Shakespearein i HenryVI largely disregardsthe historicalrecord in order to stage a series of conflicts between domineering, anarchic, sometimes 'demonic' women and 'chivalric' noblemen, conflicts which serve not so much to validate patriarchy as to expose the egoistic self-interestof aristocratswho, then as in the i590s, engulfed England in foreign conflict and civil discord. In 2 and 3 HenryVI, Shakespeare similarly interrogates the chronicles, this time in order to invite scepticism about their truth and doubts about their integrity: in 2 Hen?yVI,for instance,scepticismaboutEleanorCobham's allegednecromancyand treasonfrom a historiographicperspectivesimilarto that of Foxe in hisvindication of Eleanor;in 3 HenryVI,scepticismabout the Yorkistdemonization of Margaretof Anjou from a perspective that privileges national interestsratherthan normative expectations of gendered behaviour and the politics of the aristocracy. In the last play of this tetralogy, Shakespeareempowers women, especially the two Elizabeths, as sources and protectors of monarchical power; they are consequently the guarantors,even the restorers,perhaps, of patriarchalorder. In KingJohn,however, Levine believes that Shakespeare interrogates political uncertainties generated by questionable bloodlines and peremptory wills through the lens of Elizabethan worries over the successionto the point where an illegitimateson is allowed 'to rewritethe orthodox discourseof nation figuredin the aristocraticmale warrior'(p. I44). Levine does not, of course, attemptto read all the anxietiesof the decade into the earlyhistoryplays.And she is cautious about the extent to which any one particular anxiety opens up these plays to reinterpretation. In her caution, perhaps, she overlooksother aspectsof Englishlife-experience in the I59os that might alsoprofit from re-examination. She says almost nothing, for instance, of the possible impact that staging might have had on how Shakespeare'saudience understood, reacted to, or imagined the history they saw enacted before them. Did, for instance, what may have been the sightof fairlyobvious stagedevices usedto showJoan or Mother Jordan raising up fiends encourage audience scepticism about the power and This book is a valuable source for students of early modern staging, acting, and audiences, and for those interested in the new Globe, its productions, or Shakespeareantheatreproduction. UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS CHARLES WHITNEY Women's Matters. Politics,Gender, andNationinShakespeare's EarlyHistory Plays. ByNINA S. LEVINE. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated UniversityPresses. I998. I93 PP. C29. In Nina Levine's very interesting,historiographicallyoriented approach to Shakespeare 's early historyplays, she assessesand definesways in which the politics and culture of the I59os in England may have pressuredShakespeareto revise, even to reconstruct, England's earlier history. In the process, she corrects more narrowly focused feminist approaches to these plays which, she believes, do not always take into account the impact of specific political situations upon Elizabethan myths of gender and their realization on the stage. She suggestsas well that the presence of Elizabeth and, to a much less extent, Mary on England's throne afforded their subjectsthe opportunityto question and re-evaluateage-old assumptionsabout the efficacy of patriarchal power structures. When Shakespeare comes to stage England's...

:<i>Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage</i>

This book examines the politics of gender in the Henry VI plays, Richard III and King John. Draws on a range of contemporary materials such as Tudor chronicles, polemical tracts, apocalyptic history, succession debates and court pageantry.

Reviews Nina S. Levine. Women's Matters: Politics, Gender, and Nation in Shakespeare'sEarlyHistoryPlays.Newark: UniversityofDelaware Press, 1998. Pp. 193. $36.00. Women's Matters: Politics, Gender, and Nation in Shakespeare's Early History Plays, by Nina S. Levine, has won the University of Delaware's Manuscript Competition for Shakespearean Literature. The judges did their job well, for this book argues its thesis with care, but also with elegance. Women's Matters focuses on Shakespeare's earlier history plays: KingJohn, Richard III, and most importantly, the three Henry VI plays, which have not received this kind of sustained attention since David Riggs's Shakespeare's Heroical Histories (1971). Levine focuses on the earlier plays because previous writers have seen Shakespearean history as moving inexorably toward the masculine triumph of Henry Vand therefore have underestimated the urgencywith which Shakespeare addresses "women's matters." Like other recent historicist critics, Levine concerns herselfwith the interaction of historical texts and English political realities in the 1590s. By focusing on the ambivalent figure ofthe female, she argues, Shakespeare rewrites traditional representations ofthe nation-state"as embodied in the figure of the male monarch" and so creates a national drama that is "more inclusive, and more iconoclastic, than either the dynastic histories set forth in the Tudor chronicles or the celebrations of power produced by the Elizabethan court" (15). Chapter 1, "The Politics of Chivalry in 1 Henry VI" revisits the thematic opposition between Talbot and Joan, the feminine figure who threatens the English "aristocratic ideal of military service and gentle blood" (27). Because Joan is positioned ambiguously, as a dangerous foreign woman who undermines English masculinity but also as a parallel to Elizabeth I, the orthodox 345 346Comparative Drama opposition between Joan and Talbot breaks down, revealing that "the most serious threat to Talbot—and to England—comes not from the outside, not from low-born French women like Joan, but from within the ranks of the English aristocracy itself" (27). Levine contrasts the way in which Accession Day tilts translated submission into heroic virtue by mythologizing the Virgin Queen with 1 Henry VTs darker vision. The image of Talbot prostrate at Joan's feet parodies the symbolism of the Elizabethan court and suggests that in a world ofdisruptive women and self-interested aristocrats, no single model ofauthority is possible. Shakespeare arrives at this position through active engagement with the chronicles, especially those of Hall and Holinshed. Neither chronicle makes one character central to the events represented in 1 Henry VI, recording instead "an endless cycle of conflict" built around "national stereotypes" (33). Shakespeare responds ambivalently to the chronicles' irresolution. His Joan is an Amazon who rejects all authority, even that ofher father. The English aristocrats , on the other hand, subject Joan to a "theater of cruelty" by joking callously about and eventually disregarding her claim of pregnancy: "We cannot support the damnableJoan, who is,afterall, England's enemy,but ifwe root for the English, we not only become complicitous in their cruelty, we also give legitimacy and power to aspiring noblemen whose interests are clearly against those of the nation at large" (45). Chapter 2, "Dangerous Practices: Making History in 2 Henry VI," offers a satisfying analysis ofEleanor Cobham's rhetorical function in that play, complementing the recent emphasis on Jack Cade's rebellion and re-examining Richard Helgerson's argument that Shakespeare was "in the business of'staging exclusion '" (50). In addition to other chronicle sources, Shakespeare turns to John Foxe's Acfs and Monuments for "methods as well as materials" (49) that help him interrogate "orthodox representations of power" (49). In Foxe's version, Eleanor Cobham and her accomplices ran afoul ofthe clergy because they were followers of Wycliff. In a similar vein, Shakespeare's Eleanor is involved with witchcraft, but she is more an observer than a participant in the conjuring ceremony and her crime is less heinous than it appears in most Tudor sources because she is used by her husband's enemies: "The duchess may think treasonous thoughts, and even consort with necromancers, but she is also the victim of what we might call political entrapment" (48). In Chapter 3, "Ruling Women and the Politics ofGender in 2 and...

Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage DominiqueGoy-Blanquet , viii + 312. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press , 2003. £60.00 (0 19 811987 9)

Characterization in Shakespeare's Early History Plays

Like many of his fellow playwrights, Shakespeare turned to national history for inspiration. This study provides a close comparison of the Henry VI plays and Richard III with their historical and theatrical sources, demonstrating how Shakespeare was able to meet not only the ideological but also the technical problems of turning history into drama, how by cutting, carving, shaping, casting his unwieldy material into performable plays, he matured into the most influential dramatist and historian of his time. Recent criticism of Shakespeare's history plays has often consisted of fierce arguments over their ideological import and Shakespeare's position on the spectrum of current political opinions. This book, however, stems from the belief that a more constructive starting point for research is the exploration of the technical problems raised by turning heavy narratives into performable plays, rather than the political motives that could inspire a playwright's representation of national history. This book includes not only close investigation of the verbal, poetic, and political texture of the plays, but also provides a broad overview of the wider 16th-century historiographical contexts of the plays, and their significance to Shakespeare's oeuvre more generally.

Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage DominiqueGoy-Blanquet , viii + 312. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press , 2003. £60.00 (0 19 811987 9)

Reviews329 the comments on the role ofJessica or the friendship ofAntonio and Bassanio. On the other hand, the remark that "[t]he Italian garden, as represented by Shakespeare, mediates between private and public worlds" (136), does not measurably advance either the argument or our knowledge of the Shakespearean landscape. It seems to me, however, that the problems run deeper than this. Despite D'Amico's assertions about the uniqueness ofItaly's open society, there remain too many moments in the book when I am reduced to asking myself,"What is peculiarly Italian about this?"Are Italian interior spaces so very different from those in, say, Hamlet? Is an Italian court so much more open than that represented in the rural France of Love's Labours Lost? Or, looked at the other way around, might one not argue that Measure for Measure, despite its ostensible setting in Vienna, is not really more Italianate than many a play set on the other side of the Alps? The opening premise—the ruler sets up a subordinate to do the dirty work and take the fall—comes from Machiavelli; the sexual atmosphere resembles the Venice described by Coryat. Similarly, the court of Denmark , with Polonius setting spies and agentsprovocateurson his own son, then hiding behind the arras as ifit were the most natural thing in the world, comes much closer to Elizabethan imaginings of Italy than any play openly set there. Shakespeare's Italian, or Italianate, musings can go further than D'Amico allows. Fritz Levy University ofWashington Dominique Goy-Blanquet. Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. 400. $85.00 casebound. In 1592, as the vogue for what came to be called history plays was still in its infancy, Thomas Nashe described their subject matter as largely"borrowed out of our English Chronicles, wherein our forefathers valiant actes (that haue lyne [lain] long buried in rustie brasse and worme-eaten bookes) are reuiued, and they them selues raysed from the Graue of Obliuion, and brought to pleade their aged Honours in open presence: than which, what can bee a sharper reproofe, to these degenerate effeminate dayes of ours?" (Pierce Penilesse, 26). The usefulness ofsuch dramatic productions layin their abilityto reinstall in the popular consciousness the memory of half-forgotten heroism—half-forgotten because the historians had failed to do their work—and so cajole the audience. According to Nashe, the model to follow in this worthy aim was King HenryV, not as he appeared in in Shakespeare's redaction but in some earlier version. 330Comparative Drama Four years after the defeat ofthe Armada,with the Spanish war as precarious as ever, and with groups ofsoldiers among the theatergoers,this might be thought a laudable aim for the new genre. To reinforce his argument, Nashe then insisted that the plays (and, presumably,the history from which theywere drawn) demonstrated"the ill successe oftreason,the fall ofhastie climbers, the wretched end ofvsurpers,the miserie ofciuill disstention, 8c howe a iust God is euermore in punishing ofmurther" (Nashe, 26v). The clear message was that God's providence had been at work in the past and would continue to work in the dangerous present. Nashe's account is familiar enough—it is quoted, in whole or in part, in the introductions to most ofthe editions ofthe plays making up what is now commonly known as the first tetralogy, and it is referred to in Goy-Blanquet's book as well. What is noted less frequently is how badly the description fits these early Shakespearean histories.After the death ofTalbot in 1 Henry VI, the kind ofheroism praised by Nashe is in very short supply; indeed, much ofthe fighting takes place on English soil, and the killing of one Englishman by another can hardly be said to merit such admiration. Nor are the operations of Providence readily discernible in the three parts of Henry VI: not every murderer is punished, treason sometimes succeeds, and usurpers—when they can be recognized as such at all—do not always come to a wretched end. Not until RichardIIIdo we find a play saturated in the sort ofprovidentialism Nashe had promised. Yet Nashe's...

Journal Article Dominique Goy-Blanquet. Shakespeare’s Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage. Get access Shakespeare’s Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage. By Dominique Goy-Blanquet. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. x + 312. $85.00 cloth. Lawrence Manley Lawrence Manley Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 55, Issue 4, Winter 2004, Pages 466–469, https://doi.org/10.1353/shq.2005.0029 Published: 01 December 2004

Journal Article Robert C. Jones. These Valiant Dead: Renewing the Past in Shakespeare’s Histories.Donald G. Watson. Shakespeare’s Early History Plays: Politics at Play on the Elizabethan Stage.C.W.R.D. Moseley. Shakespeare’s History Plays: Richard II to Henry V: The Making of a King.Larry S. Champion. “The Noise of Threatening Drum”: Dramatic Strategy and Political Ideology in Shakespeare and the English Chronicle Plays. Get access These Valiant Dead: Renewing the Past in Shakespeare’s Histories. By Robert C. Jones. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 172. $24.00 cloth.Shakespeare’s Early History Plays: Politics at Play on the Elizabethan Stage. By Donald G. Watson. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990. Pp. xiv + 177. $30.00 cloth.Shakespeare’s History Plays: Richard II to Henry V: The Making of a King. By C.W.R.D. Moseley. London: Penguin Books, 1988. Pp. x + 217. $4.95 paper.“The Noise of Threatening Drum”: Dramatic Strategy and Political Ideology in Shakespeare and the English Chronicle Plays. By Larry S. Champion. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1990. Pp. 172. $29.50 cloth. Alexander Leggatt Alexander Leggatt Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 43, Issue 4, Winter 1992, Pages 489–493, https://doi.org/10.2307/2870870 Published: 01 December 1992