Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage by Robert C. Evans (review)

Book Reviews245 knowledge. From such a perspective, Carroll's excellent book is a must for all film theorists and their students. PETER LEHMAN University ofArizona ROBERT C. EVANS. Ben Jonson and the Poetics of Patronage. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1989. 334 p. Throughout his study of Ben Jonson's poems Robert Evans asserts his allegiance to the post-structuralist theoreticians, most notably to Michel Foucault. Their concerns are his. Accordingly, despite Jonson's apparent confidence in himself and in language, Evans finds him ever distrustful: "Jonson's poetry reveals a radical uncertainty about the possibility ofever using words to make assured and certain contact with others. . . . Beneath the apparent assurance of his works lies a persistent dread that language may be only appearance" (204). The reader must decide whether this dread is more accurately Jonson's or Foucault/Evans's. About a third ofthe way through this book one begins to get a lowering sense of inevitability about Evans's modus operandi. Ifan epigram condemns the flattery ofX, that means Jonson is anxious about being accused offlattery himself. If his poem praises Y (a patron) for his generosity, that means Jonson fears the patron will be stingy. If the verses proclaim his own stoic independence, that means Jonson is insecure and well aware of how dependent he really is. And so on. I offer the following examples of Evans's perspective: "By highlighting the self-interests of others, he de-emphasizes his own and the ways this poem promotes them" (85); "His independent image made him a more valuable and attractive dependent" (61); the "Epistle Answering to One that Asked to be Sealed ofthe Tribe ofBen" conveys a "profound sense ofinsecurity" (177), despite Jonson's assertion that he will "Live to that point . . . for which I am man,/And dwell as in my Center, as I can." All ofthis is not to say, however, that Evans's study of Jonson's poems in the context of the patronage system of the age is anything short of engrossing and provocative. He delineates "a society permeated by the psychology ofpatronage relations," then goes on to examine many of Jonson's poems from the premise that in such a culture "even the 'simplest' instances of everyday behavior are full of complex, even contradictory implications; that their social meanings depend less on the performer's conscious intent than on the context ... ; that all social acts are performances and that most are designed (whether consciously or not) to enhance or maintain the actor's power" (11). Evans offers us a perspective on Jonson's "micropolitics" or politics on the "personal level," stressing Jonson's awareness of the tentative nature of his position and suggesting that he was a writer "much less in control of his writing than he wanted to be" (11-12). 246Rocky Mountain Review The patronage system, Evans argues, was a psychological one grounded in hierarchical assumptions and consequently on high-pressure competition. In such a world the clashes of personality must be made to seem conflicts of values or ideals; flattery must be made to seemjustly deserved praise; self-promotion must seem concern for the best interests of the other party. As Evans submits, this image ofthe poet is at odds with the Romantic version ofpoet as "self-discoverer, as self-presenter, as maker and wearer of masks" (38). He adds chapters on the masques and plays, also depicting Jonson as a self-promoter, always aware of the micropolitical circumstances of the presentation. May we congratulate ourselves for having come a long way since such benighted times? Contemporary poets, especially in the United States, can get away in their work with a recklessness bordering on libel and slander that would probably have astounded Jonson and the other patronage poets of the seventeenth century. Unhappily, this fact does not imply that poetry thrives in our time; rather, it suggests that the poet no longer matters. Even the most vitriolic and vituperous poem levelled at a public figure in the U.S. today is most likely to be neglected, to be shrugged off with even greater indifference than that reserved for political cartoons, or worse, to be unread. RONALD E. McFARLAND University ofIdaho...