Reviews 91 Caliban’s role and argues for his multifunctional identity as a man symbolizing both the “touchstone of civilization” and the uncivilized creature who still “may be capable of redemption”; he may also be the monstrous reflection of Prospero’s evil. She concludes with two small but conceivable parallels between James’s work and The Tempest: the use of an illusory banquet and the three passions common to magicians. The last two articles are “Sight-Lines in a Conjectural Reconstruc tion of an Elizabethan Playhouse” by D. A. Latter and “The Smallest Season: The Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in 1974” by Peter Thomson. While not specifically on the “ideas” of the age (although unquestionably relevant to Shakespeare the Jacobean theatre owner), Latter’s paper gives a detailed picture of an ideal playhouse based upon the dimensions in the Fortune contract. With skill and accuracy, Latter accounts for the function of the prick-posts which determined the jutty forward for sloping galleries, the size and location of viewing areas from the pit to the upper galleries, the use of corridors for crowd control, the height of acting areas, and the seating of lords and gallants on stage all in light of the requirements imposed by sight-lines and the financial renumeration sought by the owners. Latter’s is an impressive study which will prompt much response and which goes a long way in answer ing some vexatious questions of playhouse structure. Thomson’s paper records and insightfully evaluates performances. Shakespeare Survey 28 is a valuable collection of papers on a broad and complex topic. Of course not all the essays treat the twin parts of the subject equally. Hurstfield admirably covers the ideas of the time but does little with Shakespeare’s plays; Weitz and Berry explore the plays in depth but, regrettably, cite few if any references to the con temporary climate of opinion. In fact, Berry searches for the “existential truth” of Hamlet’s tragic situation. But other essays (those by Schoenbaum , Nuttall, Gurr, Kirsch, or Latham, for example) combine the two halves of the topic with grace and insight, joining ideas and the drama which gives them artistic expression. PHILIP C. KOLIN University of Southern Mississippi Jeffrey Henderson. The Maculate Muse; Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975. Pp. xii + 251. $15.00. In translating Greek obscenities I have regularly used the nearest English equivalent. I hope and trust that no one will be shocked by these words. In any case, the reader will soon perceive that it would be at least cumbersome, and often impossible, to explicate the Greek texts by means of clinical, euphemistic, or Latin terminology. (Introduction, p. xii) With this caution, Jeffrey Henderson introduces his study, in detail and in depth, of Greek comic obscenity. Old Attic Comedy relied upon obscenity as an integral and indispensable ingredient. Yet, as Henderson 92 Comparative Drama states, comic obscenity has consistently been stigmatized as irrelevant, peripheral, or a traditional and unpleasant intrusion imported from Megara or Sicily. Only in reference lists such as that of Taillardat and sporadically in articles or in editions of individual plays has due attention been turned to obscenity, and the absence of any comprehensive inspec tion and evaluation of comic obscenity limits the accuracy and value of the judgments which are or can be made. It is Henderson’s purpose to deal synoptically with obscenity in Attic drama, to present and classify the instances of its occurrence, and to draw conclusions as to its nature, purpose, and effect. Initially, Henderson defines the difference in standards applying to obscenity in Greek society and those prevailing in Rome. In the latter, all sexual and excremental activities were considered dirty and tabu. Yet the Greeks recognized the physically natural and normal as acceptable. Good taste and a sense of propriety were the touchstones: aischrologia (abusive language) had its place, but bdeluria (disgusting or repulsive language or behavior) and agroikia (boorishness, speech or action lack ing tact or wit) were demeaning and not tolerated. In his discussion of comic obscenity, vis-à-vis pornography, Hender son clearly formulates the differentia. Obscenity, extroverted and direct, breaks through tabus to make...
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Jan 1, 1997
Jean Christian Dumont 
Open Access