Sean O'Casey: A Bibliography of Criticism by E. H. Mikhail (review)

108 BOOK REVIEWS removal of a kissing scene which is crucial to later events, ostensibly lest the censor condemn the playas pornographic, but in reality because it is his wife who plays the scene; and secondly, the "official" censor's condemnation of the ending (the victory of the oppressed natives and the defeat of their would-be European exploiters), which forces an impromptu and laboured revolt of the British sailors to satisfy a demand for the revelation of international revolution and solidarity. Dymogatsky's play is then approved for production in its mutilated form. Now he can consider himself a writer of inspiration, his fame and fortune secure. He is not remotely concerned with the fact that in pandering to the censor he has debased his art. Yet is Dymogatsky's future to be what he believes?A Cabal ofHypocrites takes up the theme and provides the answer in the negative. The central figure is Moliere, but a Moliere who is less an historical personage than a symbol of the artist whose genius permits him to rise above his having to flatter and fawn before the tyranny of external force, represented by Louis XIV, in an effort to have his creations performed. Yet his compromise cannot protect him from the plot mounted by the clerics, the "saintly hypocrites" whose anger he has aroused, and the fickle whims of his monarch. This is a powerful play, with a message no less valid today than when it was written in 1929. It points up the vulnerability of the artist and pleads the cause of freedom of artistic creation. The translations made by Professor and Mrs. Proffer do full justice to Bulgakov's well-developed linguistic skills and mastery of dialogue. While they remain faithful to the original Russian with only an occasional and excusable awkwardness as a result, ,they flow in a natural and thoroughly readable, indeed even "performable" style. The plays themselves are illuminated by Professor Proffer's excellent introduction to Bulgakov and a brief history of each play immediately preceding the individual text. Annotations are infrequent and are limited to those instances in which a topical reference would otherwise be lost to readers. Both Professor and Mrs. Proffer are to be commended for the quality of their work, which should earn for Bulgakov the recognition he merits as one of the major dramatists of the past fifty years. It is to be hoped that the promised companion volume, to contain Bulgakov's later plays, will appear soon. C.H.BEDFORD University of Toronto SEAN O'CASEY: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CRITICISM, by E. H. Mikhail. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972. xi & 152 pp.. $12.00. For checklists of commentary on modern writers there are, as yet, no settled forms and no clear expectations as to the degree or kind of the analysis of the materials listed, whether by way of description or arrangement. In Professor Mikhail's compilation there is almost no description of the contents of the works listed though he notes that one item is "a hostile criticism," another on the theme of "O'Casey's possible influence on Eliot's BOOK REVIEWS 109 technique," a third "on The Silver Tassie" and he gives, in a few other instances an indication of the burden of the piece in question. It is not clear why a few entries are furnished with such' notes and the vast majority with none. As to analysis by arrangement, the long section devoted to criticism in books is too indiscriminate a gathering. Under the heading "Books" appear monographs, collections wholly or partly devoted to O'Casey, collections of or including O'Casey's work, and memoirs, letters, critical surveys and so on, in which there is some (albeit brief) mention of O'Casey. The entries for the major works in this section include lists of reveiws but no indication of the contents of the books themselves. So, for example, the collection of essays edited by Ronald Ayling and the contributions to that collection are separately listed (by authors) but without cross-reference. The reader could find the contents of the Ayling collection by scanning all the entries under "Books." Nor, to take a different kind...