The Staging of Romance in Late Shakespeare: Text and Theatrical Technique (review)

In an ambitious enquiry, Christopher J. Cobb brings together Shakespeare, performance criticism, romance, genre study, mimesis, heroic action, wonder, and social transformation, among other subjects. Cobb describes Shakespeare's final plays as risky experiments in dramatizing romance, arguing that because the limits of mimetic acting are stretched by the frequently fantastic demands of romance, the plays are explorations of theatrical technique. In addition, he sees these plays as examples of "generic conflict" (20), with the genre determined by the response and experience of the individual listener, whether character or audience member. Cobb maintains that Shakespeare's purpose in dramatizing romance in these last plays is to inspire spectators with admiration, transforming them and encouraging social harmony.

The book focuses on The Winter's Tale, which Cobb describes as "a summa of its genre" (27), although since the genre is determined by performance and audience reaction, it is hard to know exactly what that means. Cobb's second chapter deals with the play's first act. Chapter 3 then examines "The Development of Dramatic Romance, 1570-1610," and discusses Clyomon and Clamydes, The Queen's Entertainment at Woodstock, Tamburlaine, The Famous Victories of Henry V, Mucedorus, Fair Em, and Philaster. The main question this chapter raises is why it is not chapter 2, not only because that would make sense chronologically, but because its placement interrupts discussion of The Winter's Tale. The next two chapters return to The Winter's Tale to examine Hermione and Paulina's resistance to Leontes and the liberating, transformative opportunity that pastoral offers the younger generation. The final chapter discusses The Tempest, Henry VIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen, particularly with regard to "post-performance reality" (224): in this chapter, the commentary on the plays is often excellent, although the discussion of Shakespeare's intentions and the spectators' responses is highly speculative.

Cobb's complex thesis sometimes seems to require unorthodox readings of the plays, particularly of the book's centerpiece, The Winter's Tale: for example, Cobb describes Leontes as having "to face uncertainty" (31), a description that seems much more applicable to Othello. Subsequently, Cobb acknowledges Leontes' "tragic certainty," which he feels brings Camillo "close to adopting Leontes' values" (40, 41), although the play makes it clear that everyone else in the play thinks Leontes insane. Cobb poses the question of "how exactly do Hermione's actions have power to move the lords?" (127), since heroic actions are a significant component of romance: however, the play seems to suggest that it is not what Hermione does, or even what she says, but who she is that makes her innocence clear to everyone but Leontes.

Cobb raises a number of interesting points, such as the parallels he sees between Lear and Tamburlaine and the possible effects of onstage audiences upon offstage audiences. In addition, his discussions of performances of The Winter's Tale are often enlightening, and more would have been welcome. But while Cobb can write engagingly, the style in many places is discouraging, consisting of long sentences constructed of multiple prepositional phrases, often as many as nine or ten per sentence. Such sentences, combined with occasional outbreaks of rhetorical questions, make much of the book unnecessarily heavy going.

Cobb has discerned a pattern in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century dramatic romances, and he asserts that this intricate pattern applies to many plays. Where the text fails to conform to the pattern, the text is reinterpreted —a task made easier by the "uncertainty" that is defined as integral to romance. Romance itself is an uncertain term here, since it may refer to subject matter, genre, action, or values: the latter meaning is particularly ambiguous, because while Cobb often refers to "romance values," he never defines what these are. Although particular values are occasionally mentioned —"strength of ancient friendship," "human capacity for growth in goodness," and "social harmony" (30, 37, 64) —they usually apply...