Analyzing Shakespeare's action (scene versus sequence) (review)

206 Reviews highlighted by the allegorists in fact reinforce the literal doctrinal message of the poems. Garde asserts that her study is concerned with the interpretation of EngUsh vernacular poetry in medieval Christian context, rather than with literary criticism, and in her endeavour to find doctrinal patterns common to the poems, rather than to account for their individual qualities, she does not engage with the texts closely at the stylistic or verbal level. Indeed, the reader's familiarity with the poems and their state of preservation is often assumed. References are made, for example, to Liber I and Liber II in the Junius manuscript, without preliminary explanation of the codicological and paleographic reasons for this division. For this reason, her study will probable be more useful for the specialist reader than for students, and principally for its assemblage of sources and analogues relevant to the doctrinal content of the poetry. These range from early patristic writings to contemporary Old EngUsh texts. Greg Waite Department of EngUsh University of Otago Halle tt, Charles A. and Elaine S., Analyzing Shakespeare's action (scene versus sequence), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991; cloth; pp. xi, 230; R.R.P. AUSS85.00. Regrettably not even the C U P imprint can guarantee a good new book on Shakespeare these days. Earnest worthy even, the Hallett's undertaking is typical of what one thinks of as old-fashioned American criticism: stating the obvious with the specious help of a pseudo-scientific conceptual framework. In this case, it is the notion that to think of the action of a Shakespeare play in terms of the First Folio's scene-divisions can be counter-productive. Instead, they proffer analysis via 'beats' and 'sequences'. A 'beat', according to the Hallets, is 'a group of lines joined together by a common purpose (generally to introduce, intensify, sustain or conclude an action) and thereby distinguishable from other beats with which it is grouped. In each beat a single character is usually given the active or propelling role' (p. 31). Introductory beats, interpolated beats, linking beats, intensifying beats, sustaining beats, climatic beats, and more, are all identified. Competent directors and actors have been doing this for years (though not as far as w e know, in the Renaissance theatre) with one basic question, 'What is m y character trying to achieve at this point, and what are the forces impeding him or her?' Perhaps the Hallets thought of their book as bringing this sort of know-how to the reader in the study. Indeed, there is no need for such an emphasis, but I would be sorry to think that scholars felt that the adoption of the Hallets' system would be a sufficient bow in the direction of performance-oriented criticism of Reviews 207 Renaissance (or any other) drama. Many of their readings of 'beats', and even more so of 'sequences' ('observing', 'meditating', 'reporting', 'intenogating', 'persuading', 'disputing', or 'commanding' sequences) are simply old-fashioned practical criticism. It is no revelation to be told, for instance, of Othello, III.3, that the reversal at the end of this sequence also marks a reversal in Othello's attitude toward Iago. The initial suspicion has been dispelled, and the two who were at odds when, racked by the pain of uncertainty! Othello cried, "Villain, be sure thou prove m y love a whore," are now as one: Iago's "truth" has become OtheUo's truth, (p. 171) This is an example chosen at random from the Hallett's dogged dissection of a small number of favoured scenes. But why, for instance, do they not deal with Henry V s speech before Harfleur, with the Duke's proposal to Isabella at the end of Measure for measure, with Hermione's begging Polixenes to stay at the end of The winter's tale! I take these examples at random also, but the answer is implicit in them: they are scenes of which the effect the 'meaning', may vary enormously according to the performance choices of the actors. Only the broadest of outlines of the significance of any scene or sequence can ever be fixed. W e may say that Shylock exits defeated from Act IV of The...