MLR, 98.1, 2003 181 The Idolatrous Eye: Iconoclasm & Theater in Early Modern England. By Michael O'Connell. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2000. ix +198 pp. ?45. ISBN0-19-513205-X. In this learned and well-argued study Michael O'Connell explores the link between the pronounced iconoclasm of mid-Tudor England and the subsequent emergence of the public theatre. That the two events should somehow be related makes histor? ical sense. The iconoclasm practised in sixteenth-century England was the largest and most destructive iconoclastic period in history. Such wholesale and haphazard destruction of art, statues, stained-glass windows, and all visual manifestations of Catholicism obviously impacted upon other forms of spectacle and representation, includingthe theatre. As O'Connell demonstrates, this iconoclasm helped shape early modern English drama in manifold ways. Exploring the sudden change of sensibility experienced in the middle of the six? teenth century, O'Connell attempts to explain how 'in a comparatively short period of time, and in much of Europe, attitudes would shift so dramatically that what had before been created by highly developed artistic expression would, a few years later, be destroyed as a religious abomination' (p. 38). The inglorious history of Tudor ico? noclasm is well documented, and O'Connell deftly explores the impact on dramatic production. O'Connell begins by explaining the rather curious impulse of the reformers to attack the theatre as idolatrous. The public theatre in England was radically secular and contained little idolatry per se. The attacks, O'Connell persuasively argues, had more to do with the ostensibly 'Catholic' nature of spectacle than with any specific theological doctrine. In short, the conflict becomes one between image and word?the competing systems forthe acquisitionand dissemination of knowledge: 'The crisis in the relation of image and word in this period was productive of the deep disjunction in the culture's religious experience, one that could not but affecttheater' (p. 11). In other words, theatre's appeal to the eye both gave it power and made it suspect. O'Connell's research makes another point well worth emphasizing. For decades, historians have perpetuated the (now largely discredited) idea that medieval Catholi? cism basically died of its own weight, and the Reformation in England simply re? presented the will of the educated laity unhappy with theological impurities and the proliferation of popular devotions. Yet, as O'Connell argues, the historical record challenges that assumption: 'in the period there is no evidence, aside from occasional cautions against the excesses of pilgrimages and relic-mongering, that the educated did not derive equal satisfaction from modes of worship and devotion in which the visual and sensible played an important part' (p. 49). No body of evidence exists suggesting that widespread dissatisfaction among the educated laity with traditional religious practices precipitated the Reformation. The book also provides a trenchant account of the centuries-old tradition of the cycle plays. O'Connell explores the unfortunate process?revision/adaptation/ suppression?which led to the ultimate destruction ofthe cycle plays. The reformers could not, finally,refashion the plays into an acceptable form. As O'Connell states, 'the final sticking point was not Marian, ecclesiastical, or eucharistic dogma, but the physical portrayal of the divine' (p. 27). As a result, the cycle plays themselves re? ceived the same fate as stained-glass windows, choir lofts,and religious art of all types. O'Connell also considers how dramatists of Protestant sympathies firstattempted to fashion a reformed drama compatible with the new theology. Despite considerable efforts(and for a complex number of reasons), this attempt failed and led to the total repudiation of biblical and religious drama. In fact, given the history of drama in England and the influence ofthe Bible on the imagination, the early modern stage is notable for a manifest lack of religious drama. 182 Reviews O'Connell ends his study with a comparison of Jonson and Shakespeare. In the brief discussion, he shows how the two authors employed vastly differentperspectives on the nature of spectacle. Jonson, O'Connell argues, remained disturbed by the distracting nature of spectacle, while Shakespeare 'was far less anxious about the status of theater in relation to humanist canons of literary definition...
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May 21, 2012
Daniel Lassiter 
Open Access
