Four Middle English mystery cycles: textual, contextual, and critical interpretations (review)

Reviews 157 The book is a splendid advertisement for in-house publishing, being handsomely produced at the astonishingly low price of about $20 from cameraready copy prepared in the Department of EngUsh at the University of Sydney. It makes a genuine contribution to the study of Middle English romance in its ownright,and simultaneously provides a user-friendly textbook in an area where such a book is sorely needed. MedievaUsts have cause to rejoice. T o m L. Burton Department of EngUsh Umversity of Adeldde Stevens, M., Four Middle English mystery cycles: textual, contextual, and critical interpretations, Princeton, P.U.P., 1987; pp.xv, 360; R.R.P. A U S $99.00. Stevens treats the four surviving cycles of English mystery plays as single units, focussing on one main unifying factor or group of factors in each. Commentators have generally dedt with these plays by examining individud pageants or sequences or by identifying recunent themes within or across the cycles. Stevens stands back and looks for a single whole pattern in each cycle. The complexity of the cycles makes the reader uneasy about the narrowness of focus implied by the chapter headings: York is 'City as Stage'; Wakefield, 'The Playwright as Poet'; N-town, 'Dramatic Structure, Typology, and the Multiple Plot'; and Chester is "The Sense of an Ending'. The differences between the cycles are stressed. Each is seen as having a 'unique beauty', which is undeniable; a 'unique purpose', which is debatable; and, less convincingly, 'its own interpretation of sdvation history' (p. 11). This last point is made even more strongly in the Preface: 'This book argues that the English mystery cycles were major works of dramatic art, each exploring its metaphysical universe in its own unique way' (p.ix). The chapter heading for Chesterreferstothe closure achieved by the use of the Antichrist play before the Doomsday play. Stevens sees the treatment of Antichrist as part of an extended commentary in the cycle on the nature of impersonation, imitatio dei or false parodic imitation as seen in the actions of the Devil or Antichrist, and the serious 'games' of dramatic impersonation. The N-town cycle is least amenable to interpretation in terms of unity. Compiled from various sources, its provenance is still uncertain, there are problems about the manuscript itself, and the banns of the cycle do not agree with large sections of the play's text Stevens argues for a 'find reviser' (p. 184), a compiler who should be acknowledged as the author of the cycle (p.190). 158 Reviews Stevens dso sees a single intelligence, that of the Wakefield Master, controUing the version of the Wakefield plays surviving in the Towneley M S . He attributes more of the text to the Wakefield Master's direct composition than is conventiond and argues that he is likely to have been its 'only important reviser and compiler' (p. 124). The criticism of authority which Stevens observes in the York plays (for example, p.80ff) seems to me to be familiar and conventiond rather than subversive. York's treatment of the Old Testament nanative is similar to the other cycles and cannot be considered 'much abridged' (p.72). Many of Stevens' arguments about the forces within the texts which create a unity for each cycle are persuasive and stimdating. However, there seems to be too great an emphasis on the differences between the cyclesi since they share so much with one another and with other literary expressions of religious celebration and instruction which were current during the 200 years or so of their performance. The differences are instructive — about different kinds of authorship, variations in the locd organization of the plays, and modulations of religious attitude over a long period of time — but they are more dike than different in their interpretation of sdvation history. Betsy Taylor Department of EngUsh University of Sydney S H O R T NOTICES Colman, E.A.M., ed., William Shakespeare, Henry TV Part I (The Challis Shakespeare), Sydney, Sydney U.P., 1987; R.R.P. A U S $3.95. Riemer, A.P., ed., William Shakespeare, Troylus and Cressida (The Chdlis Shakespeare), Sydney, Sydney UP., 1987; RP.P. A U S $3.95. The...