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194 LEITERS IN CANADA 1996 and their critics. The Othello essay, which examines the playas a kind of charivari,is profound and original. Buildingon the acknowledged comedic origins of Othello, Bristol shows that this play, which he describes as a 'comedy of abjection,' is a central document in the disgraceful and tragic history of the constitution of racist sensibility and ideology in Western culture. The essay on The Winter's Tale discusses the issue of the transmission of value over time, and that on Hamlet explores the complex and eternally puzzling problem of how that play continues, still and always, to speak to the hwnan predicament. The author tackles and exposes the most difficult theory in precise and lucid language. His argument is deep but straightforward; and the clarity with which he presents complex philosophical,political, and literary.issues is exemplary. (DEREK COHEN) Laurie Maguire. Shakespearean Suspect Texts: The 'Bad' Quartos and Their Contexts Cambridge University Press. xvii, 42 7- us $59-95 Laurie Maguire's study of the Shakespearean 'bad' quartos offers witty insights into the development of the New Bibliography, its triumphs, and finally its essential incapacities and unwillingness to come to grips with artistic or creative processes related to Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The most interesting and valuable part ofthis very well written book traces the friendships and professional connections between the major figures who invented twentieth-century textual studies, searching for the ephemeral will-o'-the-wisp, the lost (or last) authorial intention, the true and complete readings of the great works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries . Maguire concentrates on the leading figure of the movement, W.W. Greg, .whose sober textual analysis 'sometimes conceals rather than banishes the flagrant anti-factual approach which underpins his narrative' at the beginning, at the middle, and at the end of his career. She finds the systematic confusions and repeated patterns of self-delusion that marked much of the most influential work affecting Shakespearean textual criticism, and she refers us to the few voices which unsuccessfully attempted to bring common sense, rigour, and self-ques~oning into the New Bibliographic exercises. After Maguire reviews the major arguments offered by adherents ofthe New Bibliography to support 'memorial reconstruction,' she finds that Jthe common denominator of all the above studies, from Greg to Hoppe, is an apparently stringent diagnostic ("scientific") methodology which nonetheless conceals a large measure of illogic.' The efforts of the New Bibliographers to explain what they felt were anomalies in 'bad quartos' simply do not stand up to close analysis. They were essentially unfounded and without any lasting value. HUMANITIES 195 As she moves to her own explications of possible memorial reconstructions , she finds only limited support for the theory. Shorthand was not likely capable of reporting anything as complex as a play text. In her efforts to imagine Elizabethan playhouse conditions that would support a theory of memorial reconstruction, she is led to propose less and less likely scenarios and analogues. Twentieth-century experiments in the recall of narrative details of stories first heard under controlled conditions, or the recollection of folk ballads by early performers, or the appearance of brief passages from playsin earlymodem commonplacebooks, or the variations from scripts introduced by players in the BBC-TV/Time-LifeShakespeare videos do indeed suggest that memory introduces changes in a remembered text. However, other agents, such as composing or revising playwrights , also may introduce similar changes. Maguire tracks a series ofpossible signs of memorial reconstruction. She concludes that of all ·those suggested by the New Bibliographers, 'only evidence of faulty long-term memory ... can lead to a claim for memorial reconstruction.' She then offers in tabular form a review ofeach of the plays whichhavebeen 'identified' as memorial reconstructions; she evaluates the claim.s and describes the symptoms, and she concludes that of all the claims, none are unquestionably supported. For only four (includmg The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602) does she feel the evidence is sufficient for a strong case to be made. For three others (including Hamlet, 1603), she feels a case can be made that they are memorial reconstructions. She does not make these cases, however, and we must seek elsewhere to find arguments and...

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