The Art of Commedia: A Study in the 'Commedia dell'arte', 1560-1620, with Special Reference to the Visual Records by M. A. Katritzky

Abstract

ii66 Reviews and thewoods. A chapter on Chronique des septmiseres explores thecrucial, Glissant inspired distinction between 'territoire' (a fixedand closed space, tobe dominated and defended) and 'lieu' (amore dynamic and unstable entity), arguing that themarket exemplifies the qualities of the latter. In another convincing reading,we see how the tropes of settlement, love, andwriting are interrelated inTexaco, while the concluding chapter on themost recentnovel, Biblique des derniers gestes, shows how themantle of writer (rather than transcriber or witness) has finallybeen assumed by the authorial alter ego,Oiseau de Cham. While each section ispacked with richmaterial, thehigh lights, for this reader at least, are Chapters 2 and 5. The formerexplores the notion of the abyss, an imagewhich recurs throughout Chamoiseau's work and which Milne brilliantly links via associated references to the 'matrice', to the foundational Antil lean experience of the slave ship. This vessel, asMilne argues, is also associated, via Cesaire, with literaryorigins, and is inChamoiseau's writing indelibly imprintedwith theprimal scream of negritude. InChapter 5 Milne argues thatL'Esclave vieil homme, ostensibly a novel about a runaway slave's attainment of subjectivity, is also an alle gory of theevolution of theAntillean writer. In another highly original argument, she traces four stages in this trajectory, moving from theexplicit references to the conteur, to the intertextual allusions toCesaire and Glissant, and ultimately she demonstrates how theprotagonist's discovery of the forest space can be readmetaphorically as the Martinican writer's eventual connection with his own local culture. Taking her cue from thewriting itself, and refusing to 'read back' from the ory (creolite or postcolonialism) to fiction, Milne provides meticulous close readings which open Chamoiseau's work up to a range of well-chosen approaches. It is to be hoped that her choice to publish in French will similarly expose thiswriter to a wider audience, given theEnglish-language bias ofmuch of thework being done on francophone postcolonial writing. QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST MAEVE MCCUSKER The Art of Commedia: A Study in the 'Commedia dell'arte', I560-I620, with Spe cial Reference to theVisual Records. ByM. A. KATRITZKY. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2006. 625 pp., incl. 340plates. ei8o. ISBN 978-90-420-I798-6. Commedia dell'arte studies, in thepast threedecades, have been moving in revisionist directions. In particular, Italian theatre historians have mounted a sustained cam paign todivorce perceptions of thegenre from images formed by nineteenth-century French scholars, startingwith Maurice Sand: toomany of these relied uncritically on inaccurate legendswhich theacting profession had created for itselfby theeighteenth century. The emphasis of research has been pushed back towhat was certainly the seminal creative period of Italian improvised theatre, and what some also see as its 'golden age', starting in themid-sixteenth century and ending around I630. It is on this period that the book under review also concentrates. M. A. Katritzky has for a long time been recuperating and publishing surviving visual images of comme dia dell'arte, pictures often previously unknown to text-oriented scholars. Many of them originate inGerman- or Dutch-speaking countries; so Katritzky has utilized her competence inboth those languages tobroaden the spectrum of evidence for the dissemination of Italian masks and troupes innorthern Europe. The Art ofCommedia is to some extent a retrospective of herwork, rewriting and combining inone volume a number of previously discrete discoveries and reflectionson this subject. In her opening section, introducing and explaining commedia dell'arte, Katritzky chooses tohighlight a particular body of evidence from the 1560s. She quotes docu ments relating to Italian performances inBavaria, and the diaries ofBavarian aristo crats visiting Italy; and spends some time on theparticipation in improvised theatre MLR, I02.4, 2007 I I67 ofmusicians, some of them Italian but others immigrants from the north such as Roland Lassus. The point being made is presumably the chronological priority of such information over much purely Italian material. Certainly ground is also laid for the quantity and importance of relevant visual images which come from north of theAlps. When Katritzky thenmoves to a summary account of the arte genre, her listof 'stock types and players' omits any discussion of theDottore, ofmale In namorati, and of female servants. However, she offers a timely corrective treatment of the figureofHarlequin/Arlecchino. The centrality...