Mirror up to Shakespeare: Essays in Honour of G.R. Hibbard ed. by J.C. Gray (review)

HUMANITIES 405 deserted stretches but none so long as this. Reading entries shows that a surprisingnumberofthemcouldbe anywhere- those on p 233 offerclues, but nothingto putthem only in New Romney; onlythe previous page tells us that. Iam gradually entering my ownplace guides. Thisbookis already an essential reference tool for any library, so much so that I hope the second edition will add this next necessary thing. Before closing with praise I must add that the facsimile of an original map of London, c 1558, reduced to indistinctionbearingonehundred circled numbers identifying places and streets asks a Miltonic sacrifice of eyesight I cannot give. The map is, however, but the last of twenty-six Illustrations and Maps which comprise the last section of the Introduction, twenty-five of them a mixture of known and fresh and all valuable. But space denies even the few comments and questions I had. So rich and various is this collection and its organization that merely to sketch its contents is praise, especially when the material is so comprehensive and its handling so assured. The printer occasionally makes the user a reader but no time is wasted reading in this collection. Fashion unfortunately favours scholarship of literal weight; neither the learning nor the resultant book is carried lightly: what a relief to come on a book so worth its weight in scholarship. I add only that I am not R.1. (p xl) but R.W. INGRAM. J.e. Gray, editor. Mirror up to Shakespeare: Essays in Honour of C.R. Hibbard University of Toronto Press. x, 315. $35.00 G.R. Hibbard as editor of a number of Shakespeare's plays, as presider over summer conferences on Elizabethan theatre at Waterloo, as teacher, and as the author of such work as The Making of Shakespeare's Dramatic Poetry has done much to foster an integrated vision of Shakespeare's genius. This collection of twenty-one essays by eminent scholars and criticsfrom Great Britain, Canada, and the United States is a generous and appropriate tribute. Hibbard, as we learn from J.C. Gray's preface, endorses T.S. Eliot's well-known exhortation, 'we must know all of Shakespeare's work in order to know any of it,' and even if one continues to be a bit baffled by this remark- how does anyone ever begin then? - the contributors provide enough complementary insights on a variety of topics to make progress towards the desired end not only possible but actual. Still, seeing so multifaceted a genius as Shakespeare whole is easier said thandone. There are pitfalls thateven the eminentmayfail to avoid. In the lead essay, 'Eliot on Elizabethan Drama,' Kenneth Muir concludes that Eliot,like the best ofthe Scrutiny critics, is not concerned with the theatre, which is why, 'when the history of twentieth-century criticism comes to be written objectively, it will be found that the writings of Muriel 406 LETTERS IN CANADA 1984 Bradbrook have ultimately contributed more than Eliot's to our understanding ofElizabethan drama.' There is a large leap here that isrelated to the dichotomy Muir thinks he has spotted in some remarks about procedure or approach by L.C. Knights, who in 'How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?' said: 'How should we read Shakespeare? We start with so many lines ofverse on a printed page which we read as we should read any other poem.' To which Muir responds: 'In fact we start with an actor on a stage speaking lines to another actor.' Now apart from the fact that Muir answers a question different from the one Knights asks, and even if we allow'encounter' or 'experience' to substitute for'read,' there remain some puzzles. Where do the actors start? Why notwe also? As S.P. Zitner observes in his persuasive 'Staging the Occult in 1 Henry IV': 'staging depends ... on interpretation.' Just what is it that Muir is celebrating in Bradbrook at Eliot's expense? Can this be the way to enhance the attempt at keeping the whole of Shakespeare steadily in view? Muriel Bradbrook, in fact, contributes the collection's concluding essay, holding the mirror up to Jonson, Webster, and Heywood rather than to Shakespeare directly and providing useful information...