Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare (review)

{ 175 } BOOK REV IEWS on to clarify the separate yet interconnected qualities of feeling, sensing, and emotion. Although other chapters include historical references to the subject at hand, Kassel never specifically addresses Delsarte or other systems of physicalizing emotion, which would provide an interesting sidebar to his discussion. Instead, he focuses on clarification of concepts, in part through an illustration, “The Feeling Pyramid.”At the end of the chapter he gives much-needed advice on how the actor can “step out” of character—a topic of special importance to beginning actors. In terms of pedagogy, Kassel’s approach is avowedly student-centered, with an emphasis on process over product. That being said, there are plenty of guidelines (not rules, he states) written in the imperative: trust in the process, attend to the task at hand, be in the moment—a veritable to-do list. Perhaps a sense of the imperative is unavoidable given the task at hand. In any case, Kassel hands the reins back to the student by grounding the acting exercises with reflective writing and thought, always encouraging the actor to discover his or her own style and technique of playing. In the final chapter, “Curtain Call—The Spirit of Playing,” Kassel gives the student a taste of the elusive elements of a good actor: a sense of presence, a sense of service (to the play and to fellow actors), and a sense of openness. These overarching ideals provide an excellent conclusion to the book, bringing the arch of performance back into a whole—a sum of the many parts explored in the previous chapters. In his preface Kassel freely admits that he is indebted to others who have written acting books—specifically, Viola Spolin, Robert Cohen, and Robert Benedetti. Although he covers similar territory, he aims to offer “a different perspective and emphasis” on actor training. As such, Acting: An Introduction to the Art and Craft of Playing provides easily accessible, well-articulated text and a valuable tool for the classroom. —ANNE FLIOTSOS Purdue University Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Edited by Scott L. Newstok. West Lafayette, Ind.: Parlor Press, 2007. 368 pp. $32.00 paper, $65.00 cloth, $18.00 Adobe eBook. Newstok has collected fourteen essays, including three heretofore unpublished items: “Shakespeare Was What?” a lecture given at Kearney (Nebraska) State \ { 176 } BOOK REV IEWS College in 1964;“Notes on Troilus and Cressida,”a response to a graduate student paper written when Burke was a visiting professor at Washington University (St. Louis), 1970–71; and “Notes on Macbeth,” composed in the 1970s and 1980s. Burke’s “Othello: An Essay to Illustrate a Method” (1951), surely his most widely read and influential writing on Shakespeare, acts as a fulcrum for the chronologically organized collection.“Antony in Behalf of the Play” (1935) and “‘Socio-Anagogic’ Interpretation of Venus and Adonis” (1950) are the most notable compositions leading up to it. Burke’s penetrating exegeses of Timon of Athens (1963), Antony and Cleopatra (1964), Coriolanus (1966), and King Lear (1969) follow. To these fourteen essays Newstok adds an elegant and perceptive introduction offering “a series of entry-points to Burke’s project (xvii)” to induce readers to read or reread Burke. He discusses the basic questions Burke asks in a critical engagement, Burke’s abiding focus on beginnings, some of his key terms and recurring strategies, and the apparent lack of a critical “standard” in his writing. Threaded through these discussions is Newstok’s sensitive and informed placement of Burke in the contemporary critical scene, a task he accomplishes without forcing the Irish renegade into a diminishing mold. Newstok teases out with special effectiveness the manifold significance of the fact that Burke’s impact is felt as inspiration as much as influence, a condition manifesting as acknowledgment “through indirection” (xxiii). Burke is at once lionized and avoided. Newstok argues that this response suggests a “complicated resistance among American intellectuals to come to terms with their native theoretical roots” (xxi). Burke was essentially self-taught. His career included many visiting professorships, but his perspective is non-academic, and his critical essays have appeared in periodicals, not in the mainstream of academic publishing: Guardian, Dial, New Republic, Bookman, Southern Review, and...