George Washington University

Shakespeare and the Dramaturgy of Power. by John D. Cox

Review by: Andrew Gurr
Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 103-105
Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2870662
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 BOOK REVIEWS 103

devices, and ensure that it looks exactly like every other beaten-up text to which you
have applied your theory" (p. 73).
Instead of this kind of thing,what he offersis a varietyof plays, each treated from
a differentpoint of view and provoking differentkinds of discussion: How can
character usefullybe defined in relation to drama, particularlyin Othello?How can a
careful focus on episodes of King Lear tightenour sense of its staging demands, and
how can this clarifythe question of its genre? What can the topical context of 1601
suggest about Troilus and Cressida? (Answer: it was writtenshortly after the Essex
crisis,and its dangerous resemblance to recent events was not appreciated until it was
ready for performance, at which point it was withheld.) How true is it, from the
evidence of All's Well That Ends Well, that Shakespeare popularized sexist platitudes
about male authority and female obedience? What are we to think about
Shakespeare's mixing of genres, styles,stories,even contradictoryviews of the same
person in a play, as for instance in Measure for Measure? These are the kind of
questions, questions such as intelligentcommon readers or students ask; they will be
encouraged by the directness of Honigmann's tone (many of these essays began as
lectures), but much more will they be attracted by his energy of mind, which has
found so much stimulus in the material even though it has been Honigmann's
constant concern through the years. This point is itself at the core of the book:
consider how simply intelligentthese works of art are and how easily they commu-
nicate a lively sense of things; see how various are the kinds of drama, the areas of
experience, the political and social questions addressed; and yetnotice how grounded
all this is, after all, in cultural, personal, and practical circumstances of which a good
deal is known and a good deal more can be (not unreasonably) inferred. The
cumulative impression is that this is an area that, given wit and elan, offersrewards.
Or, to coin a phrase, non illegitimos carborundum.

Shakespeareand theDramaturgyofPower.ByJOHND. Cox. Prince-

ton, N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1989. Pp. xviii + 282.
$29.50 cloth.

Reviewed by ANDREW GURR

Howevermuch the invocationof "power"in the titleof John Cox's book might
makeitseem modish,ithas less pretensionto radicaloriginality in itsapproach than
mostbooks tacklingthissubjectand is thestrongerforit.The generalsubjectis the
presentationof power in Shakespeare's plays,but the perspectiveis taken from
religiouswriting,withwhichstudiesof power have alwaysbeen uncomfortable. In
new historicist termsit is a studyof the displayin Shakespeareof the emergent
philosophicalmaterialism thataccompaniedChristianity'sshiftin the sixteenthcen-
turytowardspoliticalrealism.This is identifiedchieflythroughthe influenceof St.
Augustine,thoughCox offersa morediffuseand complexreadingofAugustinethan
does Greenblatt,and secondarilythroughthe evidenceof stylistic change.
Cox does not make iteasy forhimselfbyinvokingthreedistincttraditionsbehind
Shakespearethatare not veryreadilyassociatedwitheach other:popular religious
drama, Augustine'swritings,and the classical dramaticheritage.The medieval
tradition,whetherin the formof mystery playsor moralities,Cox definesas truly
"popular" because unaffectedby the learningof the rulingclass (pp. 54-55). The
influxofclassicalmodelsintopopularLondon dramahe sees as mostclearlysignalled
by FrancisMeres in 1598 and increasingly dominantthereafter. Shakespearebegan
underclassicalinfluencein hisearlyplaysin comicand tragicmodes,butthenmoved
intoan Augustinianmode, partlyby revertingto the popular religioustradition,in
hishistoryplays.The different manifestations
in Shakespeareof thepopularand the
classicaltraditionsare conspicuous,and Cox recordsthemscrupulously.It is Augus-

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104 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

tine,though,as the composerof a bodyof ideas whose timecame in the sixteenth

century,whosepresenceis mostelusiveand yetmostimportantforCox's readingof
thechangingpictureof powerin Shakespeare.The threetraditionscome together,
as Cox summarizesit,in thisway:
Even whena characterlikePrinceHal modelshiscareercloselyon thedevelopmentof a
moralityplay protagonist,the plays suggestthat he does so not as a sign of spiritual
self-transformation but in the interestof securingpoliticaladvantage-that is, in the
interestof power.Whilethisgrimsense of politicalrealityundoubtedlylooks forwardto
the explicitmaterialism of Hobbes, it also looks back to Augustine'sidea thatsocial and
politicalrelationsare definedbylibidodominandi. WhetherShakespearehad directaccess
toAugustine'sidea or not,he had indirectaccesstoitthroughthosecharacterswhopossess
politicalpowerin medievalreligiousdrama,whoserhetoricalbombastis a stylistic signof
the prideful"new fashion."
(p. 223)
Augustine'spoliticalrealismis presentedas the significant factorin the growthof
sixteenth-century philosophicalmaterialism. This generatesa fewproblems,sinceif,
as Cox does,youinvoketheRaymondWilliamsversionofnewhistoricism, presenting
processesas a runningconflictbetweenresidualand emer-
intellectualand stylistic
gentideas,thereis a questionon whichside of theconflict Augustinecan be made to
stand.Wisely,Cox privilegesAugustinianthoughtas a fixedentitythatwas used in
differentwaysat different times.Cox's preliminary chaptersbeginwithevidenceof
Augustine'sinfluenceon the philosophicalmaterialismof Lutherand the Spanish
Catholic Bartolome de las Casas, whose indictmentof colonial barbarityin the
Americas,writtenin 1552, appeared in Englishin 1583 and in fiveotherEuropean
languagesby 1626. Withtheseinstancesa verystrongcase can be made forAugustine
as a formativefactorin sixteenth-century intellectual
change.But does his influence
on the emergentside offermore thana kindof Zeitgeist-ish parallelto whatShake-
speare evolved for himself?Augustine'sinfluenceon Shakespearewas thoroughly
indirect(Cox acknowledgesthaton page 21), and the"popular"characterofreligious
dramamakesitstransmission of Augustineeven moreso. In thisuncertainterritory,
like so much historicaland new historicist work,keyquestionscan be glossedover
becauseof thelimitedquantityof surviving evidence.It is easierto be suggestivethan
persuasivewhenmakingconnectionsin such foggyfields.The uncomfortable ques-
tionof how much the disappearanceof the Corpus Christiguild playswas a conse-
quence of governmentpressureand how muchwas due to changesin popular taste
(their styleoutdated, for instance)can only be answered inconclusivelyon the
availableevidence.The fewreligiousdramasthatsurvivefromthesixteenthcentury
do not easily give up any record of transformation into Augustinianmodes of
thinking.Cox notesthatthereare no recordsof anypopularbiblicalplaysfortwenty
yearsbefore1587 (p. 58). This kindof historicism worksbestwhenwe are prepared
to restcontentwithsuggestivepossibilities.
Partlyas a consequenceof the limitedevidence,the book focusesmostcloselyon
figuressuch as Herod, the archetypalbiblicaltyrant.Herod figuresbecause the
centralconcernis powerand thegradualtransformation of theconceptof poweras
portrayedin theatricalfigures,fromtyrants like Herod to the Fletcherianheroesof
the Restoration.In this,whatAugustinecalled libidodominandi, whichis not quite
translatable as lustforpower,is a familiarconcept,and itsappearancein Shakespeare
has already been studied froma number of differentbases. Shakespeare and the
Dramaturgy ofPowersetsitup witha freshdistinctness, though,byusingthestockof
popular religiousdrama and simmeringit in the Augustinianimplications.The
theologyof power, and the de-theologizingof power in the sixteenthcentury,
deservesthiskindof scrutiny.
The book'ssequencingof Shakespeare'splaysin thelightof Augustine'sconcepts
is rathermore questionable,and scholarsmaywantto qualifysome of the readings
and note a fewomissions.The claim,forinstance,thatShakespeare'searlyclassical
input,apparentin Comedy ofErrorsand TitusAndronicus, was modifiedbyhis studies

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 BOOK REVIEWS 105

ofpowerin thehistoryplays,theconsequencesofwhichare manifestinAll'sWellThat

of thesebroils.
Ends Welland MeasureforMeasure,leaps over some of the firstlings
Romeoand Julietgets only half a sentence. The Taming of theShrewis not mentioned.
And to claim thatAll's Wellis the only play showinglove betweensocial unequals
requiresthatTheMerryWivesofWindsor is notmentionedeither.The sectionson the
historyplays are outstandinglywell-supportedwith historicaldetailing-it was a
delight to discover why it should be the Bishop of Ely who appears with the
Archbishopto open HenryV, forinstance.The proofof thepudding,though,has to
be soughtin the chapterson All'sWelland MeasureforMeasure.Of thesethe firstis
much more penetratingthan the second, which is not as suggestiveas Steven
Mullaney'sstudy,in ThePlace oftheStage,of theparallelsbetweentheDuke and King
James.
There are manypitfallsin historicist approachesto Shakespeare.Playwriting was
a transientand trivialmatter,so playsare at best smallsymptomsof the conflictin
culturalhistorybetweenresidualand emergentideas. Playsportrayedpowerfroma
positionof powerlessness.Whetherin consequencetheyflatteredthe powerfulor
offeredcovertsubversion,or whethertheyused a detachedpositionon thesidelines,
the traditionin whichtheywere composed and the occasion for whichtheywere
writtenalwaysrequired them to offeroriginalityof some kind. This creates the
problemof allowingforindividuality withinhistoricalprocess,whichis mostat risk
when Shakespeareis the subject.It understatesthe sortof negativeskepticismor
sideline detachmentthat can broach such anomalies as, in the most politically
localized of all Shakespeare'splays,a fableabout the bellywithits kinglycrowned
head, in a state that has just become a headless republic.Intertextuality
assumes
shared knowledge,likelanguageitself,but is reluctantto takeaccountof individual
divergences.Cox's book maintainsa delicatelinkagebetweenthehistoricalprocessof
change and individualchanges.He setsup a playwright thinkingseriouslyand for
himselfabout his society,withoutfallinginto the grandiosity of assumingthathe
workedin whata felicitousmisprintcalls Plato's"artistocracy."

Is ShakespeareStill Our Contemporary? Edited by JOHN ELSOM.

London: Routledge in associationwithThe InternationalAs-
sociation of Theatre Critics, 1989. Pp. 192. $49.95 cloth,
$13.95 paper.

Reviewed by PETER ERICKSON

This volumeis a record,thoughnot a completetranscription, of the proceedings
of a recentInternationalAssociationof TheatreCriticsconference.The conference
consistedof,in additionto generalopeningand closingsessions,six discussionsthat
focusedon specifictopics.Because the topicsbelongto distinctlydifferentordersof
magnitude,the overall momentumand level of intensityare uneven. The four
sessionsthatconsidertheproblemsof translating Shakespeare,of producingShake-
spearefornon-Englishaudiences,of performing Shakespeareanverse,and ofadapt-
ing Shakespeare'stheaterto the mediumof televisionare narrowlyformulatedand,
thoughnot withoutinterest,are conductedin relatively self-contained and routine
fashion.Two othersessionsthataddressthe questionsof Shakespeare'ssexismand
feudalismstandout as raisinglarge-scale,morefundamentalissues.
Despite a fine,forcefulcontributionby Sue Parrish,the sessioncalled "Is Shake-
speare Sexist?"neverreallygetsoffthe ground. Much of the energyis devotedto
denyingthatShakespeare'sworkdisplaysanybias againstwomenand to reassuring
us thatShakespeare'streatmentof genderpoliticsis ratherproto-feminist, thereby
reducingthisproblemto a non-question.Principaltestimony comesfromthedirector
MichaelBogdanov: "Can Shakespearebe a humanist-and sexist?For me, the two

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