English Drama: Shakespeare to the Restoration 1590–1660 by Alexander Leggatt, and: Shakespeare’s Political Drama: The History Plays and The Roman Plays by Alexander Leggatt (review)

120 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 dualism and subsequent alienating reification of nature, both certainly consequent upon one strain of Renaissance humanism. For these 'meditations,' Spenser's epic serves rather more as occasion than subject, providing a gloss or parallel discourse to the one Kane develops through an 'interweaving of traditional and modern contexts of interpretation' into a pattern of intriguing diversity where Augustine shares prominence as Spenserian 'context' with Gregory Bateson, Hooker with C.N. Cochrane, Aquinas with Lorenz, Fieino with Freud, Neoplatonism with Darwinism. Source texts accumulate, strike sparks off one another, surge and converge into innovative, often stimulating and provocative patterns . Kane attributes these patterns to Spenser, but his evidence to support the attribution is typically unspecific and vestigial, thus makingit difficult to judge whether he has discovered them in or imposed them on Spenser's text. This methodological 'tendency,' Kane acknowledges in his preface, 'may be frustrating to textual scholars,' but I hope any 'frustration' with his methods will ,not distract Spenserian scholars, 'textual' or otherwise, from careful consideration of Kane's work: if it lacks conventional persuasiveness, it provides sources of stimulating 'aporia' in abundance. I think it noteworthy that both authors independently and warmly acknowledge classes taught by William Blissett as the seedbed in which the roots oftheir studies generated: clearly Spenser and Blissett represent a potent combination. Bothbooks are important contributions to Spenserian commentary, and Bieman's will repay attention not only from students of Spenser but also from anyone who values Renaissance culture. (MICHAEL F. DIXON) Alexander Leggatt. English Drama: Shakespeare to the Restoration 1590-1660 Longman Literature in English Series. Longman. 298. £15.95; £6.95 paper Alexander Leggatt. Shakespeare's Political Drama: The History Plays and The Roman Plays Routledge. xv, 266. £27.50; us $45.00 Alexander Leggatt, who is Professor of English at the University of Toronto, was an ideal choice to have written the history of English drama 1590-1660 for the new Longman series. Indeed, Leggatt had already written such wide-ranging works as Citizen Comedy in the Age of Shakespeare (1973), Shakespeare's Comedy of Love (1974), the section on 'The Companies and the Actors' in the Revels History of Drama in English: Volume III 1576-1613 (1975), and Ben Jonson: His Vision and His Art (1981), as well as a host of other interesting and persuasive essays. With the simultaneous publication of English Drama and Shakespeare's Political Drama, Leggatt has had something important to say about virtually every dramatic subject of the period. HUMANITIES 121 English Drama is an extremely literate, thorough, and fair-minded history. It offers little that is new for the specialist, but that is not its purpose; rather, it aims to be a history for the general reader and for students of the period, and in that it succeeds very well. It is highly informed without being pedantic, well written, and has a clear point of view. The broad framework of the argument is that the drama 'reflects a world in which old, shared values are collapsing and yet the individual, however compelling he may be, cannot quite emerge as the final realitY.' While Leggatt presses this interpretation throughout his study, he never presses it too hard; he does not, for example, over-attribute prophetic powers to the Caroline playwrights, but says 'we can at least see in Caroline drama a prophetic reflection of a society in danger of losing confidence in itself.' In the passages quoted above, Leggatt reveals his conceptual model of drama's relation to society in the terms 'reflect' and 'reflection.' Many a New Historicist today would challenge the passive model of drama assumed here; while Leggatt is certainly aware of their work, he clearly does not share their methodological critique. On the other hand, Leggatt is never reductive in his argument, and bears absolutely no resemblance to the wobbly straw-men some New Historicists have so energetically been knocking over. Leggatt's vision of the place of the drama in society might be termed centrist on today's ideological scorecard. What is most persuasive about this book is not its overall argument, in any event, which is a familiar one, but the steady pressure of...