At Zero Point: Discourse, Culture, and Satire in Restoration England by Rose A. Zimbardo (review)

Reviews the most part, Vendler is able to provide credible evidence for her interesting and, frequently, unexpected interpretations — particularly for those sonnets extolled as Shakespeare's ten or fifteen best. Believing that actors often do not spend enough time studying the sonnets to understand them and read them appropriately, Vendler chose to record selected sonnets herself. This CD recording, bound into the back cover ofthe book, provides a valuable tool in helping readers fully appreciate the textual and acoustical clues — the allure de la phrase — of Vendler's interpretation (33). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets is not intended to be read straight through nor is it intended for the novice. It is intended for readers already familiarwith the sonnets, although those who aren't but do keep a lexical annotated edition of the sonnets nearby should do fine. Readers should also have access to a good glossary ofpoetic terms as Vendler, author ofeight other books on poetry, uses critical terms generally unfamiliar to those not frequently engaged in the analysis of lyric forms. F Rose A. Zimbardo. At Zero Point: Discourse, Culture, and Satire in Restoration England. Lexington: University ofKentucky Press, 1998. 203p. Pauleite Scott Eastern Washington University Rose Zimbardo, a noted Restoration scholar for over forty years, presents a deconstructionist reading of Restoration culture, discourse, and satire in her latest critical study, AtZero Point. The book's title refers to Hans Blumenberg's concept of "zero point" — a collapse which occurs when an epistemological system disintegrates because ofinternal contradictions and a new epistemology begins to evolve. She locates this rupture at the end of the seventeenth century with the implosion ofthe Renaissance order and the construction ofmodernism, with its new conceptions ofself, nation, gender, language, subjectivity, and reality. In taking this approach, Zimbardo is reacting to scholars who view Restoration literature as a prelude to major eighteenth-century works. Through the investigation ofworks by Rochester, Oldham, Wycherly, and Swift, she illustrates the collapse ofRenaissance epistemology; in theworks ofDryden, on the other hand, she finds a constructive satire based on the "I" which projects order onto the external world. Chapter 1, "From Words to Experimental Philosophy," studies the shift from the medieval/Renaissance semiotic system to "the formation of a new semiotic code, a new system ofsignification" (17). Zimbardo shows how the new scientists such as Boyle and Sprat demanded a "transparent, mimetic discourse to describe the mechanical operations of nature" (17). With this came a new emphasis on SPRING 1999 + ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW Ir 107 "self" and experience as the sources of truth. The chapter closes with an analysis of the prose satire, The Whores Rhetoric, which ridicules both old and new language theories. Chapter 2 deals with the semiotics of Restoration deconstructive satire. Zimbardo argues "diat the eighteenth century binary model ofsatire, which determines that in order to be satire, a text must direct its reader to a positive norm, or must, at least by implication, uphold a clear alternative to foolish and ridiculous behavior ... is inappropriate" to the writers she discusses (17). She finds that Augustinian semiotics, which allows for the "'realpresence only of language" (44) is helpful in understanding Hobbes and Rochester. Chapter 3, "No T and No Eye," draws on Zimbardo's earlier work, Wycherley's Drama: A Link in the Development ofEnglish Satire (1965) and provides a brief sketch ofthe satyr-satirist trope in English literature. She sees Juvenalian satire as the preferred model of Renaissance and Restoration satirists. Particularly useful forscholars is her discussion ofWycherley's Plain Dealeras a satiric discoursewhich explores cultural institutions and codes while challenging their linguistic integrity . Zimbardo finds that "author," "character," and "speaker" are "destagilized and destabilizing tropes" in Restoration deconstructive satire (18). I agreewith her conclusion that The Tale ofthe Tub is "a deconstructionist dream, a text that overruns all limits assigned to it" (18 ). The chapter concludes by examining the satiric approaches of two deconstructionist satires, Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles and Rochester's "A Ramble in St. James's Park." While both works well exemplify Zimbardo's methodology, die attention to Blazing Saddles seems misplaced in a book devoted to Restoration satire. Chapter 4 characterizes gender, sexuality, and discourse in die Restoration and describes how...