Women's Matters: Politics, Gender, and Nation in Shakespeare's Early History Plays by Nina S. Levine (review)

Abstract

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...