The Language of Adam: On the Limits and Systems of Discourse by Russell Fraser

Abstract

360 Comparative Drama ment of Oh What a Lovely War is a case in point and represents one of the most penetrating analyses in the book, fully conveying the verve and satire of the play. First performed in Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, and helped by the élan of the performance, the work proved to be thought-provoking in its historical analysis and its suggestions for betterment. Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here l Come was enlivened by the sanguine influence of Tyrone Guthrie, from whom the dramatist learned that “theatre is an attempt to create something which will, if only for a brief moment, transport [us] on our strange, perilous journey, . . . move an audience emotionally and [make it sit] on the edge of its seats.” Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun with its mythical and fairy-tale elements does touch on nihilism, but is by no means subsumed by it. Meanwhile, some of the other interpretations worthy of mention are those dealing with Brendan Behan’s The Hostage, Samuel Beckett’s Come and Go, David Hare’s Slag, and Edward Bond’s Lear. The article which comments on John Hopkin’s Talking to a Stranger offers a per­ spicacious analysis of the differing characteristics of the drama of tele­ vision and that of the stage. DAVID BRONSEN Washington University Russell Fraser. The Language of Adam: On the Limits and Systems of Discourse. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Pp. xiii + 288. $15.00. With this book Russell Fraser completes his three-volume study of Renaissance thought begun with The War Against Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1970) and continued in The Dark Ages and the Age of Gold (Princeton University Press, 1973). In his preface to The Dark Ages and the Age of Gold Mr. Fraser says that “to write a worthwhile book one has got to engage the interest of the commuter as he journeys to work on the train” (p. viii). Since that time his language and his thinking have become so intricate that a journey on the Siberian Express would hardly provide time enough to digest The Language of Adam. His own structure reproduces some of the rhetorical ambiguities of the systems of discourse that he is analyzing. The beginning of his chapter on “Mysticism and the Scientific Doom” illustrates his progress by paradox: As new philosophy is hermetic and abstracting, it ought to look with indifference on the world and its business. But new philosophy is everywhere engaged, (p. 113) In spite of the increased convolution of the prose, Mr. Fraser’s new book is a worthy conclusion to his survey of the development of the modern age. His massive erudition permits him to draw examples from Richard Wilbur, Bishop Wilkins, or St. Augustine with a naturalness Reviews 361 that astounds. He can reach into Dante or Plato and come up with the exact line to support his thesis. He is equally at home with Kepler, Descartes, and Einstein; and he is as conversant with the scholarly work of Charles Singleton and Frances Yates as with his primary sources. But, as important as his learning is Mr. Fraser’s skill as a poet. In addition to reconstructing the seventeenth century’s thought patterns, he also re­ produces their love of figures. The entire book is a metaphor with sub­ ordinate metaphors supporting the total structure. Adam, as we know, was given the job of naming the creatures of the universe; and, until the time of Babel, the world enjoyed the one word/one meaning unity that seventeenth-century thinkers tried to re­ construct through their efforts in various fields of learning. In his first chapter, “The Legacy of Nimrod,” Mr. Fraser gives us a survey of Renaissance attitudes toward words. “As the seventeenth century opens,” he says, “the forging of an exact correspondence between names and things becomes a matter of impatient concern” (p. 13). In spite of the differences of the great men of the century, they shared a “persuasion of grace abounding” (p. 40). Chapter Two, “The Word Made Flesh,” studies the rise of will and the contradictory attitudes toward order, which, Mr. Fraser says, “is great disorder” (p. 48). He sees...