Henry IV Part I, and: Troylus and Cressida (review)

158 Reviews Stevens dso sees a single intelligence, that of the Wakefield Master, controUing the version of the Wakefield plays surviving in the Towneley M S . He attributes more of the text to the Wakefield Master's direct composition than is conventiond and argues that he is likely to have been its 'only important reviser and compiler' (p. 124). The criticism of authority which Stevens observes in the York plays (for example, p.80ff) seems to me to be familiar and conventiond rather than subversive. York's treatment of the Old Testament nanative is similar to the other cycles and cannot be considered 'much abridged' (p.72). Many of Stevens' arguments about the forces within the texts which create a unity for each cycle are persuasive and stimdating. However, there seems to be too great an emphasis on the differences between the cyclesi since they share so much with one another and with other literary expressions of religious celebration and instruction which were current during the 200 years or so of their performance. The differences are instructive — about different kinds of authorship, variations in the locd organization of the plays, and modulations of religious attitude over a long period of time — but they are more dike than different in their interpretation of sdvation history. Betsy Taylor Department of EngUsh University of Sydney S H O R T NOTICES Colman, E.A.M., ed., William Shakespeare, Henry TV Part I (The Challis Shakespeare), Sydney, Sydney U.P., 1987; R.R.P. A U S $3.95. Riemer, A.P., ed., William Shakespeare, Troylus and Cressida (The Chdlis Shakespeare), Sydney, Sydney UP., 1987; RP.P. A U S $3.95. The standard of the Challis Shakespeare series remains high both in production and in the qudity of editorial matter. The introductions seem to be getting a little longer. This is no bad thing, especidly when the prices of individud volumes remain so invitingly low. Of the two examples under review it is Henry IV Part 1 which will catch the High School market. E.A.M. Colman is pleased to be able to claim for it the distinction of the first known public performance of a play by Shakespeare in Australia, which took place in April 1800. He allows for its special apped to the recently-emigrated, Anglophile audience of those times, but hopes piously that i t will still go down Reviews 159 today. H e provides the necessary key to the puzzlingly large cast of historicd characters, though not in the familiar form of that luxuriating family tree, destined to be pruned so savagely during the coming winter of discontent Instead there is a glossary of historical names, just as helpful perhaps, supplemented by a map of England showing the m d n places mentioned in the play. To those traveUing backwards in time there is a curious sense of dija vu. W e think of T o m Jones, a kind of blend of H d and Fdstdf, travelling through the West of England to meet anotherrebeUiousnorthern horde. Troylus and Cressida, as A P . Riemer admits, is more of an acquired taste than Henry TV. It is unlikely to appear in High School courses, except for those reserved for students with specid interests and aptitudes. Like the history play, it confronts the reader or auditor with a bewildering number of names and relationships. Once agdn the editor gives a helpful glossary, together with textud collations (rather unnecessary, perhaps, in editions of this kind) and some short chronologicd tables. Riemer's brief, clearly-written discussion of the questions sunounding early imprints and performances is especidly welcome. The relatively advanced students who will study this play can be retied on to see that, in this instance above all others, consideration of such problems is a worthwhile undertaking, not a piece of useless pedantry. Lack of classicd knowledge is in some ways helpful to m o d e m readers approaching Troylus and Cressida. They will not be troubled by the bias, which Shakespeare inherited from a long tradition of medieval writing about the so-cdled Matter of Troy, towards the Trojan point of view. Readers and audiences reared on the plays...