Shakespeare's Noise by Kenneth Gross (review)

Reviews is thorough, even exhaustive, though the reader must confess, finally, to experiencing more exhilaration than exhaustion while working through the book. Vision , the Gaze, and the Function ofthe Senses in Celestina is by no means an easy study to read. But die reader should sense early on that the reading is definitely worth the effort. * Kenneth Gross. Shakespeare's Noise. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 2001.282p. Michael Pringle Gonzaga University In Shakespeare's Noise Gross gives us an interesting but unsettling look at Shakespeare's use of rumor, gossip, "slander, defamation, insult, vituperation, malediction, and curse" (1). Gross shows how Shakespeare explores language's power to damage, expose, and violently disorder our social world. Gross chooses the word "noise" for its older connotations ofdisturbance, quarrel, and scandal, as well as to evoke die human voice in theatrical productions. He argues that this staged "noise" invigorates and enlivens drama for an audience trapped in a social world ofpropriety and blandishments, and diat slander and the fear ofcalumny are important negative components ofthe early modern, humanistic notions of fame and honor. IfGross' argument seems a bit self-evident in diis briefsynopsis, his treatment ofindividual plays quicklyshows how innovative and fresh his approach is. Hamlet becomes a world of deadly words, words, words, where the poison poured in the King's ear leaches out ofthe mouth ofhis dangerous son. Slanderous rumor permeates the play, ghostlike, infecting listeners and turning young Hamlet into avulnerable, yet cutting, libeler and satirist. Invoking Castiglione's The Courtier, Gross shows how "Hamlet brings within the world of die Danish court a truly corrosive network ofpuns andjests, a labyrinth offragmentarystories and allegories , mutterings, marred resonances and allusions, haunting and infectious innuendoes —ifwe have the ears to hear them" (11). The noise in Hamlet builds until the ghosts are exorcised, dien the rest is silence. In his second chapter ("The Bookofthe Slanderer") Gross gives a broader, new historical "thick description" ofslander and libel in early modern culture, which adds depdi to his subsequent readings oíMeasurefarMeasure, Othelb, Coriolanus, and King Lear. As with Hamlet, the focus of each subsequent chapter is on the dangerous and damaging power oflanguage, and like his treatment ofthe melancholy Dane, each sets its respective play in a new light. Gross convincingly shows FALL 2002 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 91 the early modern preoccupation with slander and demonstrates how that cultural anxiety adds tension and vitality to Shakespeare's works. Gross adds acoda ("An ImaginaryTheater") concerning the current theater and die continuing role oflibel and slander in drama. In fact, he goes beyond linking the early modern and postmodern in claiming that "noise" has always been an integral part oftheater and always will be. Jumping across literary historical periods from the ancient Greeks to postmodern productions oíHamlet, diis portion ofthe study is the least contiguous. The codahas die musing quality ofan outline for a future study, to which I lookforward, but touches on far too broad a topic to cover in its 14 pages. Shakespeare's Noise provides an entry point into familiar plays that leads us to new terrain and better appreciation. The study has made me reevaluate some of what I "know" about Shakespeare—as the best scholarship should—and has enlivened my reading (and I hope my teaching) ofShakespeare's plays. The groundwork Gross sets down readily applies to works he does not discuss, and has given me new inroads into plays such asMacbeth, Henry V, andJulius Caesar. This book belongs on your Shakespeare shelf. %& Jonathan Lamb. Preserving the Selfin the South Seas, 1680-1840. Chicago: The University ofChicago Press, 2001. 345p. Greg Grewell University of Arizona Jonathan Lamb is at home in the university and at sea. In the summer of 2001, Lamb not only served as a consultant on a BBC historical adventure series that retraced part of Captain James Cook's eighteenth-century exploratory voyage through the Soudi Seas; he also sailed six weeks on a replica of Cook's ship the HMS Endeavor, performing the labor once common to an ordinary seamen. For the past several years, Lamb has been collecting, publishing, and writing on sea narratives and sea studies: in 1994, Lamb, Robert P. Maccubbin, and David...