Shakespeare's early tragedies: Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet: a casebook (review)

242 Reviews a most thoughtful appraisal of Byzantine imperial maniage extra muros. J. Haldon argues around the conventional wisdom that the Byzantine's excessive indulgence in diplomatic activity arose out of an equally excessive dislike of the cost of warfare: there is no clear cut answer. In thefinalpaper P. Antonopoulos, working from examples from the sixth-century master of Offices, Peter the Patrician, showsflexiblediplomacy in action as alternative aims are achieved when initial purposes fail. Thus, a rich collection of material full of insights, not yet a complete history of Byzantine diplomatics but an invaluable stage towards one. The one area which could perhaps have been explored more fully is the role played by the patriarch and the church in relations with foreign powers. That this was not always confined to theological matters is touched on in the survey papers, by S. FrankUn's paper (and in the original symposium by R. Morris on the eleventh century). But this is a counsel of perfection. The editors are to be congratulated on a weU presented and informative survey, an exceUent omen for the new series. EUzabeth Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Taylor, Ned and Bryan Loughrey, eds., Shakespeare's early tragedies: Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet: a casebook, London, Macmillan, 1990; paper; pp. 209; R.R.P. AUS$23.95. The Casebook series, now in its twenty-fifth year, has produced over a hundred anthologies of criticism of canonical English literature texts from Chaucer to Stoppard. This book marks a departure, in that not one but three Shakespeare plays are treated under the heading of Shakespeare's early tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, and Titus Andronicus. Only the last of these has had litde critical exposure, especially at the undergraduate level at which this series aims. It was obviously a marketing ploy to include it with Romeo and Richard despite perhaps more obvious critical pairing with Timon of Athens. W h o would buy such a book? W h o , even, studies Titus of Andronicus at undergraduate level? As one would expect no unified picture of Shakespeare's early tragic style emerges, despite a rather weary attempt by G. K. Hunter to show the structural simdarities between Romeo and Juliet and Titus. In fact the selection of essays on Romeo and Juliet is disappointing dull, the only genuine provocation to be found in T. J. L. Cribb's attempt to prove that it was a theatrical experiment in Renaissance Platonism, or, rather an untheatrical experiment since 'it is something which exists at a poetic level that may not be fully appreciable on stage' (p. 192). The desire to see Shakespeare as a phdosopher-poet rather than a working dramatist is stiU, apparently, ative and well in some quarters. Reviews 243 Not so in Peter Reynolds' exceUent essay, written specially for this volume, on 'Acting Richard 1IT, which looks at the Olivier 'star' version of the monster king, continued in Antony Sher's recent performances. Unfortunately neither Reynolds nor any of the other critics reprinted refers the reader to the lively dramatic tradition of the medieval Vicefigure,which is surely the place to begin in explaining Richard's mesmeric charm. Richard III and Romeo and Juliet are poorly served by this collection. Since there is so much criticism from which to choose, any selection of three or four essays looks both invidious and inadequate. Titus Andronicus, on the other hand, is presented excitingly in two essays by Albert H. Tricomi and Michael Hattaway, the latter an extract from hisfinebook Elizabethan Popular Theatre (London, 1982). Each writer brings a different critical perspective to bear on the problem of the excess of violence, both visual and verbal, in the play. For Tricomi, the play's language 'self-consciously focuses upon itself so as to demonstrate the manner in which figurative speech can diminish and even transform the actual honor of events' (p. 102). Hattaway is even more firmly based in the realities of theatrical experience. His essay constantiy refers to the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1955 production directed by Peter Brook and its 1972 production directed by Trevor Nunn in order to illuminate problematic...