Familiar Colloquy: Essays Presented to Arthur Edward Barker ed. by Patricia Brückmann (review)

HUMANITIES 411 Patricia Briickmann, editor. Familiar Colloquy: Essays Presented to Arthur Edward Barker Oberon Press. 230. $17.50 Considering Professor Arthur Barker's great and justified reputation as a Miltonist, one would have expected a higher proportion of Miltonic contributions in this collection than only four out of fifteen. But the range of the essays, from More to Milton, is a tribute to what the editor rightly calls 'a wide variety of interests' (p 5) indicated by Barker's writing and teaching. Not only is the catholicity of interests commended by the contributions; their quality is itself a compliment. Juxtaposed in the centre of the collection are two faSCinating studies in intellectual history, David Hoenigers on the naturalist Gesner and Patricia Vicari's on Robert Burton and astrology. Hoeniger has the scientific background lacking in most literary scholars, and his concise and lucid essay serves to correct commonly held misconceptions and assists in rescuing from long neglect 'the acknowledged authority on natural history : who was 'perhaps the most famous scholar in Europe in his time' (pp 81, 87). (A minor irritation is that in the essay the surname of Martin Rudwick, the authority on fossils, is misspelled.) Barker has had much to say in the area where literature and theology overlap and interact, and it is gratifying to encounter the study of Donne's sermons by Sister M. Geraldine Thompson, which ably demonstrates 'Donne's faith in the word as a potent instrument for good or iJI' (p 55) with apt and compelling citation of the preacher who can 'awaken with terror' and yet 'become ... a musical and harmonious charmer' (p59). Suchstimulatingreappraisal ofthefamiliar, surely a prime requisite of criticism, is manifested not only in the discussions of Donne in the volume, but vividly in Hugh Maclean's eloquent assessment of Herrick, based on the simple but central question: 'What is distinctive about Herrick's wit and his employment of it?' (p 39). This essay is equal in quality to Maclean's justly admired studies of Ben Jonson. Similarly, with Shakespeare, almost hopelessly familiar to all of us, we see what a really capable critic can do in William Blissett's superbly written and pointed study of Coriolanus; the quality of the essay, which emphasises the close relationship between the play and North's Plutarch, is at least suggested by this: Noise, disorder, confusion of mind and bad breath are all to be found in Shakespeare's mobs, but never before has the playwright faced the audience with the necessity of determining the justice and cogency of their demands . (P 147) 412 LETTERS IN CANADA 1978 Even Blissett's notes to his essay constitute a valuable contribution in themselves. But unfortunately the treatment of Julius Caesar and Hamlet by Camille Slights is a sad contrast, including as it does a gross misreading of a familiar passage in Julius Caesar (Lii.192- 5): 'Caesar confides to Antony that he distrusts the sleek-headed Cassius' (p 117). The four Milton essays which conclude the volume, though variable in quality, never decline to that level. Hugh MacCallum's discussion of the narrator in the Nativity Ode breaks new ground in the typically scholarly and substantial fashion we expect from its author; it also appropriately includes in the first paragraph a graceful compliment to Barker's 'decisive study of the pattern' of the Ode, which he 'deftly analyzes' (p 179), and Barker's study is in fact used as the starting-point for MacCallum's treatment. Two other essays deal with aspects of Milton which would once have been considered peripheral but are now increasingly seen as important. Thus Douglas Chambers (in 'Darkness Visible') deals with the intriguing topic of Milton's relationship to the visual arts of his day, particularly 'one of the major tastes of the seventeenth century - that for chiaroscuro and tenebrism' (p 165). This emphasis serves to make a connection sometimes hard to demonstrate, and the references to Bernini, Caravaggio , and Rembrandt are illuminating, though Rubens is given short shrift - presumably because he is not tenebrous enough. Surprisingly, there is no acknowledgment of Roy Daniells's pioneering Milton, Mannerism and Baroque, or H. James Jensen's more recent Th e Muses...