The Renaissance discovery of Classical antiquity (review)

Abstract

Reviews 191 has brought to bear on Henry VIII's second queen. Ives believes that Anne was misrepresented by friend and foe dike. H e sees her as an honest, intelUgent and strong-minded woman with a clear notion of what a queen's role could be and a determination to undertake it appropriately. Despite her few days as queen, he believes she made an active, not merely passive, impression on the direction English reUgion took by her influence on clerical appointments and her network of connections. Sybil M . Jack Department of History University of Sydney Taylor, B. S. and M. Rogerson, eds, The York Joseph and Mary Plays, Sydney, University of Sydney, Department of English, 1988; pp. viii, 40; R.R.P. A U S $3.00. All teachers of the English cycle drama will appreciate why Betsy Taylor and Margaret Rogerson have prepared this student-friendly edition of York XIII (Joseph's Troubles about Mary) XIV (The Nativity) XIX (The Flight into Egypt) and X X I (Christ and the Doctors in the Temple). Editions of complete cycles are neither affordable by, nor linguistically accessible to, most of our students, but modernized versions, acceptable as they may have been when medieval drama was the antiquarian's province, now read as very inadequate substitutes. Peter Happe's composite cycle (English Mystery Plays, Penguin, 1975) introduces extra problems for students as the dialects switch from play to play. Taylor and Rogerson provide texts in normalised spelling with margind glosses and foot-of-the-page translations, and just enough other information to satisfy the average reader and enable the interested reader to discover where to go next. Since the plays 'have in common the presence of Joseph and Mary as characters' (p. iv), and are apparently selected for that reason, the interested reader may well ask about the significance of 'character' in these plays. This edition is silent on that. Mary Dove Department of English University of Melbourne Weiss, J., The Renaissance discovery of Classical antiquity, 2nd. ed., Oxford, Blackwell, 1988; p. xii, 233; 16 plates; R.R.P. A U S $29.95. Blackwells of Oxford, publishers of both its journal, Medium Aevum, and the related monographs of the Society for the Study of Mediaevd Languages and Literature, issued in 1941, as one of the latter, Humanism in England During the 192 Reviews Fifteenth Century by R. Weiss (second edition, 1957). In 1969, in the year of his death they also published his, The Renaissance discovery of Classical antiquity. Both volumes are admirable and exact surveys of aspects of (pre-) Renaissance humanism, pre-Tudor English scholarship in thefirstcase, and in the second Italian concern with 'the concrete legacy of classicd antiquity' (p. xii), from the early fourteenth century to 1527. Thus the last book is really a history of classical archaeology in its early stages, showing how such scholars as Flavio Biondo, Bernardo Rucellai and Poggio Bracciolini sought to rescue, or, at any rate, record 'what was still left of classicd Rome', before it should findly vanish. The d m of Weiss was to give an account of the rise and early development of an interest in the tangible Roman remains - statues, coins, inscriptions, physical ruins - as an invaluable commentary on the ancient texts surviving. The present edition contains a detailed further bibliography (1969-1987) sectionalized by chapters, containing nearly 100 relevant items. It is, thus, indispensable to historians of archaeology, numismatics, antiquarianism and an incomparable introduction to 'modem' perceptions of classicd antiquity. J. S. Ryan Department of English University of N e w England ...