Charismatic Authority in Early Modern English Tragedy by Raphael Falco (review)

and the Bed ofPolyclitus, Barkan discusses how these fragmentary works stimulated the beholder's imagination, producing endless poetic variations on a theme. In the case ofthe latter, Barkan imaginatively teases out all the erotic potential in a work that is not known to have been based on any classical narrative. The last chapter focuses on the unusual case ofBaccio Bandinelli, a man who rivalled Michelangelo and who was subjected to withering criticism by Michelangelo, Vasari, and Cellini. Barkan examines Bandinell's life and career in terms of the humanist concept of imitatio, especially in the drawings. According to Barkan, Bandinelli's career is shaped by the power of the rediscovered antiquities that he fully assimilated to create numerous variations on classical themes. Unlike otherartists, Bandinelli was in the habit ofplacing models in classical poses and then drawing them instead ofdrawing the originals. The mediating rhetoric ofBandinelli's draughtsmanship served as advertisements to patrons in the competitive world he worked in. Barkan's study bridges two worlds, that ofthe traditional art history and that of the new dieotetical art history. By moving in and out of these two modes, Barkan opens up a traditional topic to fresh cultural insights that reveal just how vital recovery of the past was for rhe presence in rhe Renaissance. Renaissance scholars will want to study this book. % Raphael Falco. CharismaticAuthority in EarlyModern English Tragedy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 243p. Kirk G. Rasmussen Utah Valley Statr College In CharismaticAuthority in Early Modern English Tragedy, Raphael Falco reminds us that tragedy "tends to record the failure of many kinds of human enterprise" (1), not merely the failure of the protagonist. He asks us to consider the dissolution of the charismatic group as a major component of the tragic experience in selected early modern English tragedies by Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton. The interrelationship between the group and the leader is "a systemic mutuality " (3) which, when destroyed, "routinizes" the revolutionary compulsion that brought it into being, a process which "compromises the original disruptive action , ultimately destroying the uniqueness ... of the bearer [tragic figure]" (18). Tragedy "requires the rejection of the status quo, the breakdown ofsocial order" (22), but ironically such disorder codifies itself into a new social order that disavows the charismatic figure that brought the new order into being.»0 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * FALL 2001 Reviews Once he establishes the terms and parameters for his study, Falco examines several of the forms charisma takes in early modern English tragedy. Marlowe's protagonist in the two parts of TamburUine the Great portrays "pure charisma"; Cleopatra in several of her Elizabethan manifestations exemplifies "erotic" charisma ; and Milton's Samson Agonistes represents "restored" charisma in the rehabilitation ofthe fallen protagonist as a messianic figure. Falco's arguments are extremely compelling in his chapter on Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke, which depicts competing charismas. Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) uses personal and physical ("pure") charisma to overcome Richard's "lineage" and "office" charisma — Richard's "dynastic" charisma which gathers its authority from tradition but which in Shakespeare's play cannot be sustained in the physical presence ofRichard's "natural body" as distinguished from his political incarnation as the "body politic." Richard's personality is not enough to keep a charismatic group intact while Bolingbroke's rebellion is rising. Yet, ironically, Bolingbroke claims the crown on his lineage and blood-ties to Edward III, thus laying the seed of the later Percy rebellion once his personal charisma becomes "routinized" by the demands ofoffice. Such an interpretation of Richard IIstrikes, I believe, at the very heart of the play. His arguments seem less successful in his chapter, "Individuation as Disintegration : Hamlet and Othello." Although intriguing, his claims that Hamlet's time in Wittenberg reflects early and sustained opposition to the authority of King Hamlet and that Yorick functions as a "surrogate father figure" (107) need more evidence to support his conclusion that Hamlet's delay in fulfilling the ghost's demands arises from his resistance to his father's authority. In addition, Falco's discussion ofthe Venetian army's group dissolution upon the marriage ofOthello and Desdemona, in which Othello "endangerfs] his honor for the sake ofhis wife" (134...