Magic on the Early Modern Stage by Philip Butterworth (review)

REVIEWS 225 validity of a Celtic identity, which Malcolm Chapman and Simon James see as a post-eighteenth-century invention, ensuing especially from the publications of Ernest Renan and Matthew Arnold, who privileged the presumably poetic and visionary Celt. Such claims are deeply embedded in a larger nineteenth-century quarrel between the Germans and the French as to whether the Anglo-Saxons or the Gallic Celts were the originators of Western civilization, a quarrel that appears rather pernicious in retrospect. As Patrick Sims-Williams admits, it is difficult “to find non-linguistic cultural characteristics along the Atlantic seaboard that neatly and exclusively correspond to areas where Celtic languages are or have been spoken,”4 but it is also instructive to note that fewer voices have called into question a Germanic or Scandinavian identity—linguistic or otherwise—and that the counter-Celtic claims arise primarily from English scholars. Long before Chapman arrived on the scene, Kenneth Jackson lamented “the ancient, deep-seated, and almost wholly unconscious English prejudice against ‘Celts’ and all their works.”5 One must also ponder the sinister correlation between nation-states finally gaining their independence at the same time that English scholars and writers begin to press for an acceptance of “cosmopolitan” attitudes. Another debate, running roughly along the same lines but indebted to the political cleavage between nationalists and Unionists, currently rages between postcolonial and revisionist scholars in Ireland. Sims-Williams rightly urges Celtic Studies to disengage itself from its Romantic Arnoldian roots by interrogating all cultural stereotypes , including the Celts’ reputed preference for the oral tradition, and he also encourages the disciplines of philology, history, and archaeology to use the term “Celtic” “with all due vigilance—in the way appropriate to each discipline .”6 Taking heed of Gayatri Spivak’s claims, one should always proceed with caution when assuming a collective agency or cultural solidarity among a heterogeneous people. Perilous, indeed, the realm of racial generality. KATHRYN STELMACH, English, UCLA Philip Butterworth, Magic on the Early Modern Stage (Cambridge University Press 2005) 295 pp. In his examination of texts which address the performance of magic, acrobatics and similar feats in early modern England (in a variety of official and unofficial “stages”), Philip Butterworth engages heavily in primary texts that record such performances. Admirably, Butterworth resists the tendency in recent criticism to fetishize a few historical records and organize a critical teleology which ultimately privileges literary texts. Drawing on a wide variety of texts (such as payment records, many of which are only recently available due to the ongoing work of the Records of Early English Drama project), Butterworth elucidates in great detail the occurrence, techniques and reception of a variety of public performances. Of particular value is his exploration of the lexicology of words connected to magical performance, such as “juggling” and “legerdemaine.” 4 Ibid. 11. 5 Ibid. 5. 6 Ibid. 8, 33. REVIEWS 226 Butterworth’s study is divided into chapters which address the role of the “juggler ” (or in modern terms, the magician), acrobatic elements of stagecraft, devices which involve the collusion or confederacy of pseudo-audience members, the creation of illusions of appearances and disappearances, the use of sound, puppetry, substitution (such as the use of dummies), other stage tricks, and finally, a chapter on terminology. The focus on primary historical documents allows for valuable explorations of these events, such as the section where Butterworth argues for a specific magician who invented and operated under the stage-name “Hocus Pocus,” but the absence of an engagement with cultural theory detracts from this research. For example, Butterworth discusses texts which refer to public and legal performances of “magic tricks,” texts which refer to incidents which were characterized as theft, and texts of published drama. While these texts clearly share a set of practices and conceptions of magic, Butterworth makes no effort to distinguish between their theoretical positions—they are simply quoted interchangeably to describe performance techniques. Such a slippery slope between entertainment and criminality could easily be connected to the large array of scholarship on the quasi-legitimate status of theatrical performances generally. Similarly, the question of whether the magic was perceived to be “real” or not could fruitfully be connected with the...