MLR,96.3,200I 80I an indictment ofthefailures ofa central manifestly unrepresentative ruling elite' (P. 2I2), readincloseproximity toMarlowe's unfinished translation ofLucan's Pharsalia. However, Othello israther lessconvincingly seenaspossessing 'a (ghostly) Irishcontext' (p.226),despite Hadfield's fascinating account ofthepresence of Ireland inElizabethan drama. Whatemerges from Hadfield's admirable bookistheways inwhich notions of 'home'werequestioned through literary representations of'abroad',and how TudorandStuart ideology 'wascontinually interrogated, challenged, andundermined bythemanifold writings ofthegrowing literate populace'(p.266).This approach offers persuasive newreadings offamiliar texts byNashe, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, whilst alsobringing more unfamiliar texts tothe fore, such asWilliam Baldwin's AMarvelous Hystoty Intitulede, Beware the Cat. Whilst Hadfield isatpainsto stress that hisapproach doesnotforeclose other accounts oftherepresentation of travel andcolonization intheliterature oftheperiod, thebookdoesprovoke the question ofhow, inthe process ofdefining national identity, texts such asOthello and Raleigh's Discoverze ofGuiana shapedsubsequent English discourses ofempire, slavery, andracism, andhowdifferent geographical locations affiected political reflection; didtheEnglish reachthesameconclusions when they travelled eastas they didwhentravelling westwards intotheNewWorld? Nevertheless, Literature, Eravel, andColonial Wr?ting inthe English Renaissance isa distinguished andimportant addition tothe critical debate ontravel andcolonization inthe early modern period. ROYAL HOLLOWAY, LONDON JERRY BROTTON 7he Arts of Empire. 7hePoetics ofColonialism from Ralegh to Milton. ByWALTER S. H. LIM. Cranbury, NJ:University of DelawarePress;London:Associated UniversityPresses. I998 275PP £35 Walter Lim'sstudy follows inthefootsteps ofsomehighly distinguished scholars whohavebeenconcerned toemphasize theoften neglected colonial andimperial dimensions ofEnglish Renaissance literature. The scopeofLim'sbook,as the subtitle suggests, from Ralegh toMilton, hasalready beenwell-trodden bythe likes ofLouisAdrian Montrose, Mary Fuller, John Gillies, Richard Helgerson, Patricia Parker, KimHall,Andrew Hadfield, andJ.Martin Evans. Asa result, 171e Arts of Empire often reads likea particularly fluent andsophisticated digest ofrecent New Historicist andcultural materialist criticism on(toborrow another phrase from the pantheon ofNewHistoricist terms) 'thepoetics ofcolonialism'. Lim'sprocedure is similarly close tocurrent critical orthodoxy. Starting with Ralegh'sNe Discoverie ofGuiana, Limlaboriously works through material already covered byFuller, Knapp,and Montrose, to finally endorse Montrose's view ofthe text's 'anxious andimpatient patriotism', having tantalizingly (andalltoobriefly) contrasted Ralegh's work with Keymis's Relation ofthe Second Hoyage to Guiana. Similarly, the following chapter onDonne's theological justifications ofcolonial settlement touches onallthe appropriate material, already rehearsed by Gillies andSawday, without ever offiering newinterpretations ofthe poetry oreven thesermons, although providing a useful summary ofwork onDonneandcolonial exploration andexploitation. From hereonwards, Lim'sbookadvances through a seriesof missedopportunities. The chapter on Othello offiers someextremely suggestive comments onOthello's identity predicated onhis'travel's history' as a slave,yetdrifts off intoa comparison oftheplaywithTitus Andronicus (this is extremely closetoEmily Bartels's work, which isnotreferenced), anda series of historical observations, whilst thepoorplayfails togetevena quotation inthelast 802 Reviews thirteen pagesofthechapter. Limsimply asserts thattheplaydramatizes 'the motivations, fears, andanxieties that attend anyattempt toprocure union basedon ethnic diXerences' (p. I4I). Yetthis itselfbegs somany questions, andestablishes so many anachronistic terms foisted ontotheplay(suchas ethnicity), thatitwould havebeenmore productive toopenthechapter with such anassertion, rather than endit.Thesubsequent chapter, juxtaposing The Faerte Queene with A View of the Present State ofIreland, onceagainembarks onfamiliar terrain. Despite somefascinating comments on thewiderEuropean context ofSpenser's epicin relation to the imperial politics ofAriosto's Orlando Furtoso, LimoXers moreambivalence and anxiety inSpenser's vacillation between justice andpower, which seems toweakly deconstruct oratleast undermine the more explicit claims toempire-building inthe poem.Again,there is an uneasysenseofthiswork's beingcarried outmore thoroughly andcloser to thepoetry itself bythelikesofWilly Maley,andthe complete refusal toacknowledge Stephen Greenblatt's ground-breaking account of Spenser andIreland inRenaissance Setf-Fashioning isfrankly baffling. Thefinal chapter onMilton acknowledges itsdebt toJ.Martin Evans's Milton's Imperial Epic from the outset, andoffiers a useful account oftheways inwhich the'imperial narratives of Paradise Lost andParadise Regained point toMilton's disillusionment with England's failure tobuild a godly Commonwealth' (p.240), butMilton scholars arenotlikely tofind much new ofinterest here. 7he Arts of Empire isa very worthy butultimately derivative study ofthe poetics of colonialism ina standard andobvious selection ofEnglish Renaissance literature. Its problem resides initsinability tomove beyond simply deploying anachronistic notions of'colonialist discourse', 'ethnicity', and 'hybridity' ontotheperiod, recognizing their manifestations ina series ofkey texts, then pulling backfrom an ultimate condemnation ofthese texts asideologically bankrupt byreading for their 'ambivalences' and'anxieties'. Theproblem with this approach isthat somany of the texts seemtoresist suchreadings (which isinvariably thepoint atwhich Lim breaks oS toinvestigate relevant historical contexts), orwhere...