A Catalogue of Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library: "As Imagination Bodies Forth." by William L. Pressly (review)

Reviews273 American Shakespearean painting. His "Key to Reading the Catalogue" is clear and concise. I miss a list of the illustrations, but given so many delights in this beautiful book a reviewer cannot help but be pleased. BERNICE W. KLIMAN Nassau Community College William L. Pressly. A Catalogue of Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library: "As Imagination Bodies Forth." New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Pp. 385; 34 plates and 333 figs. $50.00. From the large and largely uncatalogued Folger collection of paintings , William L. Pressly has brought order to over two hundred paintings connected with Shakespeare, his plays, and productions of them. Eight Renaissance portraits or miniatures are discussed, while the majority of paintings date from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century and are categorized into: "Literary Illustrations"—paintings inspired by the text; "Theatrical Portraiture"—paintings of actors in productions; "Portraits of Shakespeare," "Portraits of Shakespeare's Contemporaries," and "Shakespeareana." The detail with which the cataloguing has been undertaken results in a book of interest for any historian of the Shakespearean legacy as well as for the art collector. For example, the first portraits of Shakespeare which are included are two copies of the Droeshout engraving for the title page of the First Folio. These are analyzed impartially in terms of their function and imperfections. They are also there as a point of reference as the possible model for several paintings which follow, whose complex and frequently disputed provenances are considered in detail. As a further point of reference and comparison, the author includes an illustration of the Flower Portrait of Shakespeare from the RSC Collection. The aims of these paintings are inevitably diverse and range from imaginative metaphor to an attempt at theatrical record, with an interesting genre in which the two combine as, for example, in the anonymous late-nineteenth-century portrait of Ophelia approaching the brook, where the white dress given her was taken from current theatrical convention (p. 50, fig. 21). One also learns that Frank Howard's depiction of Shylock hearing Portia's adverse judgment, which shows the scales fallen to the floor from his hand, was similarly borrowed from staging practice at the time despite Howard's claims that "I have in no instance consulted theatrical effect ... but have only considered ... the impression on the mind" (p. 90). By contrast, Thomas Sully painted a romantically idealized Portia, a compassionate blond, whose undisguised femininity one hopes would never have been allowed onto the stage for the court scene (Pl. 15). Sully's metaphoric conception compares with Millais' society portrait based on Ellen Terry's performance, 274Comparative Drama where again one questions whether Terry on stage would not have modified the bloom of womanliness which Millais gives her. Such a large and eclectic collection, which contains portraits of the main protagonists from all but Shakespeare's most contentious works, and executed from various artistic perspectives, is beyond the scope of a short review, but the opportunity to know what the Folger holds is to be valued, and the organization provided by the Catalogue provides the scholar with a welcome guided introduction. SANDRA BILLINGTON University of Glasgow CORRESPONDENCE To the Editor: In his recent review in Comparative Drama (Winter 1993-94) of my iconographie study Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare's Cymbeline (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992), Michael Bath makes a number of astounding factual errors that can only prejudice readers against my book. Although differences of opinion between a reviewer and an author are to be expected and are very much part of the scholarly tradition, I believe that incorrect statements of fact and the careless misrepresentation of an author's argument are unacceptable in a book review appearing in a reputable literary journal and must be corrected. First, after approving of certain aspects of Myth, Emblem, and Music, Dr. Bath writes that "The idea that the whole play is a spiritual and neo-Platonic allegory of the soul's quest for God is a more challenging assumption, however, and one which I have to say I do not find wholly convincing" (Bath, pp. 468-69). I never claimed such a thesis for Cymbeline and would not even consider it...