Shakespeare and the Question of Theory ed. by Patricia Parke, Geoffrey Hartman (review)

Stuffe and Jacke-a-Lente, which 'situate themselves exactly at the frontier between elite and popular culture' (p 58). These texts reveal three often repressed attitudes of popular culture: first, the critique of privilege and an idealized hierarchical class system; second, an acknowledgment of conflict as essential to productive life; and third, an expression of the common people's desire for material plenty. Section three considers the theatre in terms of its relation to the structure of authority in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. It argues, very persuaSively, that the controversies over the morality or immorality of playhouses and actors was really a struggle about authority. Later attempts to explain the antitheatricalliterature as a failure to understand that value of art ignore the fact that the theatre represents 'a genuine rupture in the fabric of social authority' (p 110) because it embraces the clowning, mockery, and, above all, the 'uncrownings' characteristic of Carnival. This section also suggests that, as part of a 'project of legitimation ' (p "7) of the theatre, the prestige of authors was raised in order to combat the anonymous and improvisatory power of the players, who were closer to the fluid energies of popular culture. Not surprisingly, Ben Jonson is seen as central in this regard. I am puzzled, though, that Bristol does not comment on the Carnival anarchy of Jonson's plays, which is just as striking as their devotion to order and various forms of hierarchy. The concluding section of this study, called 'Carnivalized Literature: offers readings of 'minor' plays of the period, such as The Merry Devil of Edmonton and Locrine, as well as of Hamlet and King Lear. Since the tragedies are not usually thought of in terms of Carnival, Bristol breaks new ground here, in readings that are suggestive and convincing. To say that the reader is left wanting even more, about historical Carnival events as well as about individual plays, is a compliment to this study. Its central contribution to an understanding of the Renaissance theatre nevertheless stands clearly forth: plebeian culture is not the passive victim of authority but has its own resources, including the theatre, for sustaining and renewing its collective life. (DOUGLAS FREAI