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Substantial Pageants
- University of Toronto Quarterly
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 56, Number 3, Spring 1987
- pp. 463-464
- Review
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SHAKESPEAREAN PAGEANTRY 463 articles - under the titles 'the Beowulf manuscript' and 'the Nowell codex: In a similar way, the Index ofManuscripts lists three references to Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 173, ignoring several mentions of an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle MS A (PP 410-11, 4131 415), a text that the General Index for some reason treats as distinct from the Parker Chronicle, even though all three names designate the same codex. But such slips, few and far between, will keep reviewers alert and Oxford cheerful. This volume stands as a monument to the mastery that has been gained in Anglo-Saxon studies thanks to the vision and generous labours of individuals like Peter Clemoes. Substantial Pageants ANNE LANCASHIRE Pageantry in the Shakespearean Theater. Edited by David M. Bergeron University of Georgia Press 1985. 251. $26.00 (us) English Renaissance pageantry, as a respectable subject for academicresearch and study, has come into its own over the past twenty years or so, as editor David Bergeron points out in his introduction to this volume. Long considered by scholars to be a kind of poor relation (in aesthetic though not in financial terms) of the so-called legitimate theatre, pageantry first acquired respectability above all through studies of its manifestations in court masques, and now, as the essays in this splendidly eclectic collection demonstrate, has also gained serious attention in many of its other varied forms: for example, in royal entries, in progress entertainments, and in more routine social occasions (such as funerals), as well as within stage plays (where it is now examined above all as a changer of dramatic perspective or plane). Indeed, if anyone has hitherto remained in doubt as to the importance of the study of pageantry to our understanding of stage plays, sthe should not miss Michael Neill's remarkable essay, in this volume, on knowledge of the pageantry of Renaissance funeral processions and rites as illuminating works such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Shakespeare's Othello and Hamlet. Likewise anyone who has hitherto thought of pageantry as interesting or significant only in its relationship to legitimate theatre should also read Neill's piece for its revelations of the internal philosophical and aesthetic complexities of Renaissance mortuary rites and art. . The volume proceeds from general relationships between pageantry and its audiences (Stephen Orgel on the ambiguous association of the court with pageantry and theatre - not very different from today's association between politicians and the media, though Orgel does not make this connection) to considerations of specific pageants (Leah Marcus, for example, writing fascinatingly on Jonson's courtly The Golden Age Restored as a particular response to Munday's civic Chruso-thriambos; we see socio-political debate carried on through 464 JACQUES ALLARD pageantry) to finally more general concerns again, above all in relation to the Shakespearean canon (Bruce Smith on Shakespeare's changing use of obvious pageant moments, within drama, in what Smith persuasively defines as three phases of Shakespeare's dramatic career in this respect). Within this framework we have diversity, though most of the essays relate above all to Shakespeare's plays. Gail Paster, comparing court masque and civic show in general, admirably focuses on 'the idea oflandon' as celebrated in London's own civic pageants, and insists on the interest and complexity of these pageants in themselves. Gordon Kipling explores the political use of Biblical metaphors in the words, actions, and visual displays of pageantry dUring the reign of Richard II, and richly provokes both ouragreement and new questions. Gerard Cox andJames Black focus each on one Shakespearean play: Cox looks at chivalric conventions as used in 1 Henry IV, and Black, the least concerned of aU the contributors with pageantry outside the theatre proper, suggests use in the Aumerle scenes of Richard II of Harrowing of Hell tradition - making one wish for a development of the implication, in this suggestion, thatBolingbroke's presence chamberis a political hell. Barbara Palmer looks at the political utility of civic pageantry, both in itself and as discussed and treated withln the drama, in an examination of Shakespeare's second tetralogy. Neill's splendid essay I have already mentioned - though not its excellent accompanying illustrations of funeral pageantry. James...