Shakespeare's play within play: medieval imagery and scenic form in Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear (review)

Reviews 153 Donne's resolution of aspects of the public and private in 'A Litanie'. Richard Axton and Dominic Baker-Smith present tantalizing thoughts on these subjects. The flowers of this posy are 'in partie coulors cled', varied, vivid and interesting, a fitting compliment to Dr Shire's clear and stimulating contributions to these fields. Rosemary Greentree Department of English University of Adelaide Guilfoyle, Chenell, Shakespeare's play within play: medieval imagery and scenicform in Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear (Early drama, art, and music monograph series, 12), Kalamazoo, Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University, 1990; cloth/paper; pp. xii, 159; R.R.P. US$22.95 (cloth), $12.95 (paper). Chapter IV of this study, 'A kind of vengeance: images of classical and divine revenge in Hamlet',firstappeared in Parergon in 1987 and, indeed, all but one of the other chapters have already been published in various journals. This gives the book the air of a collection of occasional pieces rather than that of a sustained argument. This is no bad thing in itself, although there are at times near-repetitions ofhalf-paragraphs from chapter to chapter which could profitably have been edited out. That said, it is undoubtedly a fascinating collection of essays, a most salutary and detailed reminder of the great weight of medieval dramatic and narrative imagery which Shakespeare would unavoidably have been familiar with and which came naturally to hand as he set about constructing his new-fashioned plays. There are four essays on aspects of Hamlet. The most impressive is that which links the visual imagery, or 'scenic form', of the opening scene to the Pagina Pastorum's elaboration of the story of the three shepherds watching on a cold winter's night and witnessing the appearance of a supernatural messenger. 'The Ghost's underlying message is of the Second Coming with its attendant doom ... In Hamlet, the prince's personal vengeance may end in confusion and disaster, but Shakespeare's audience is invited to contemplate a vengeance far beyond what m a n proposes' (pp. 2-3). In this reading the graveyard scene becomes a central image, reinforcing the subliminal message of a final resunection of the body. Ophelia, according to Guilfoyle, is both a Magdalen and a Christ figure at various points in the play: outcast, apparently 'fallen' woman in a patriarchal world, and 'sacrificial lamb' in her tragic (and ineffectual) death. The other two innocent victims, Desdemona and Cordelia, are similarly positioned as potentially redemptive. The scenic form of their deaths echoes, respectively, the Crucifixion and the Deposition, for an audience only recentiy deprived of the opportunity to watch these events depicted in the mystery plays. 154 Reviews Feminist and new-historicist criticism could do much with the suggestive close readings here offered. Perhaps the most fascinating close reading is in the essay 'The way to Dover: Arthurian imagery in King Lear'. This goes a long way towards making sense of Shakespeare's use of the Matter of Britain in this mysterious, quasiapocalyptic play. Guilfoyle mines Malory and other Arthurian texts to explicate many apparently random details of the play and shows convincingly that 'the ambience of Arthurian romance underlies the action in King Lear ... Shakespeare, having been at such pains to bewilder his audience as to its locality, finally brings his action to rest, with all its mysteries, on the firm ground of Dover with its ancient association with Arthur's return from France' (pp. 102, 104). Thus, finally, 'the subtextual image of Lear and the dead Cordelia is a prefiguration of what is to come in the legends of the Grail, since Joseph of Arimathia is the chief actor in the Deposition. The Quest is for redemption, the fulfilment if it is to come, through the symbol of the death and resunection of the king—quondam et futurus' (p. 107). Such a collocation of Christian and mythical imagery in the audience's subconscious minds might well begin to explain the peculiar power of this Renaissance drama. Guilfoyle's book is a consistently refreshing reminder of Shakespeare's, and his audience's, medievalism. Penny Gay Department of English University of Sydney Guillaume le Clerc, Fergus of Galloway, knight of King...