Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-1660 by David Norbrook (review)

Abstract

choreographeddance which invites the audience'sjudgement of differentpoints of view. However, Donovan's argument, repeated by Bevington and Butler, that the Folio's typography, marginal stage directions, neo-classical scene divisions, and massed entries situate his plays 'within the tradition of learned Renaissance humanist drama', but 'stiflea reader's sense of [their] dramaticlife' (p. 61) seems only partly true. Although Jonson's publication practices are a revolutionary assertion of authorial status, they are not necessarily 'anti-theatrical' (see, for example, RichardCave'sobservationsaboutthe Folio'svalue asa guideto theatrical pacing and performance in BenJonsonand Theatre: Performance, Practice and Theory (London: Routledge, I999), pp. 23-32). The i616 Folio, after all, is the only contemporarydramaticpublicationto listthe originalactors,andJonson's marginal notes indicatingstagebusiness,set offas they areby the generouswhite space of his pages, are an innovative aid to visualizing theatrical action, always a difficult challenge to negotiate, as Lois Potterobserveslaterin the collection in some shrewd comments about editorialchoices (pp. 205-07). Other contributorsalso force us to revise simplisticassumptions.Potter'sreview of Jonson productions at the Swan Theatre in Stratford points to moments of surprising emotional depth; Hugh Craig's analysis of common word counts demonstratesthatA Taleofa Tubcontainsstratacharacteristicof bothJonson's early and late work;Knowles'sintroductionto TheEntertainmentfor Britain's Burse confirms Jonson's abilityto workin the polycentricJacobean court by tracingthe patronage connections of its manuscriptin the Conway collection to the circle of Protestant militants around Prince Henry; Michael Cordner's piece on the later fortunes of Bartholomew Fair questions the assumption of a knee-jerk anti-Puritanism in the Restoration audience. In one of the most impressivecontributions, Blair Worden examines the sources of Catiline to show how Jonson judiciously blended material from Sallustwith the humanistviewpointsof DurantinusFeliciusandJustus Lipsius to rehabilitate Cicero and comment indirectly on Jacobean England. All in all, readerswill find this volume in the EarlyModern Literaturein History seriesto be a valuable contributiontoJonson studies. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOISAT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN W. DAVID KAY Writingthe EnglishRepublic:Poetry,Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-I60. By DAVID NORBROOK. Cambridge, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. 1999. xiii + 509 pp.?I5.95; $24.95. This studyof'republican' writingwillpermanentlyalterhow we readauthorsof the period. Though it is sometimesvague or partial,it createsa much richercontext of understanding, for minor and major works alike. The feel of the times is finely conveyed, by a narrative account of the writings as responses to crisis, and by a discreetlymultiple approach to the texts. Yet the book saves its best to last, a new readingof Paradise Lostwhich is nothing shortof enthralling. To take those points one by one, I put the quotes on 'republican' because Norbrook casts his net rather wide. I was not convinced that the period's very serious study of Rome's republic and its downfall had this much to do with republicanism, for such study was a way for intellectuals to compare their own world with a powerful (and corrupt)predecessor;not so much to imitate it as to understand both. Furthermore, what and when exactly was the titular 'English republic'?As the authorhimselfsays, 'Ifhistorianshave never termedthe regimeof choreographeddance which invites the audience'sjudgement of differentpoints of view. However, Donovan's argument, repeated by Bevington and Butler, that the Folio's typography, marginal stage directions, neo-classical scene divisions, and massed entries situate his plays 'within the tradition of learned Renaissance humanist drama', but 'stiflea reader's sense of [their] dramaticlife' (p. 61) seems only partly true. Although Jonson's publication practices are a revolutionary assertion of authorial status, they are not necessarily 'anti-theatrical' (see, for example, RichardCave'sobservationsaboutthe Folio'svalue asa guideto theatrical pacing and performance in BenJonsonand Theatre: Performance, Practice and Theory (London: Routledge, I999), pp. 23-32). The i616 Folio, after all, is the only contemporarydramaticpublicationto listthe originalactors,andJonson's marginal notes indicatingstagebusiness,set offas they areby the generouswhite space of his pages, are an innovative aid to visualizing theatrical action, always a difficult challenge to negotiate, as Lois Potterobserveslaterin the collection in some shrewd comments about editorialchoices (pp. 205-07). Other contributorsalso force us to revise simplisticassumptions.Potter'sreview of Jonson productions at the Swan Theatre in Stratford points to moments of surprising emotional depth; Hugh Craig's analysis of common word counts demonstratesthatA Taleofa Tubcontainsstratacharacteristicof bothJonson's...