Jonathan Swift and the Church of Ireland, 1710–1724 by Christopher J. Fauske (review)

51 and Empire in the Restoration,’’HLQ, 63 (2000), 71–97. Criticism of Restoration tragedy has for two decades been dominated by the form’s inflection of domestic political concerns, whether on the grand scale of competing ideologies (J. Douglas Canfield , Derek Hughes), or in respect of minutely observed crises (Nancy Maguire , Susan Owen). Critics are now lining up to examine the engagement of the plays with foreign cultures and therefore —a leap of faith that some will not wish to hazard—with the early days of British imperialism. Ms. Orr joins the ranks without quite being conscious of doing so. Her principal hypothesis is that in heroic drama ‘‘the past and current versions of universal monarchy could be pleasurably—indeed spectacularly—explored and possessed, and securely disavowed .’’ So Dryden and the rest present us with a French or Hispanic model of imperial power that the more liberal English must exorcize. Be the ostensible setting Ottoman or South American, the model, as Ms. Orr reminds us, works every time. There are shadows of an argument here about the form’s evolution in relation to actual colonialism from the 1650s onward; as Ms. Orr notes, the nonabsolutist , mercantile colonialism of Southerne’sOroonokoandBehn’sTheWidow Ranter is a squalid thing measured against the heroism of those plays’ protagonists , while London audiences were notably uninterested in the quotidian details of colonial experience. Whatismissing : any explanation of why it is then valid to argue that heroic drama ‘‘disavows’’ heroic imperialism. There are discrete sections on the metaphor of empire in the conceptualization of English wit, and an interesting discussion of whether heroic plays attended to cultural specifics ratherthanproducing a generalized sense of ‘‘otherness’’ (piquant for a critic whose argument conflates Turkey and Peru). Interesting in both cases, but they contribute nothing to the argument. David Roberts University of Central England PELLICER, JUAN CHRISTIAN. ‘‘Cerealia (1706): Elijah Fenton’s BurlesqueofMilton and Spenser in Critique of John Philips ,’’ N&Q, 50 (June 2003), 197–201. Although Cerealia has been considered Philips’s self-parody, Mr. Pellicer strengthens Foxon’s attribution to Elijah Fenton by correspondence and internal evidence. Observing Fenton’s cleverness throughout Cerealia, Mr. Pellicer makes a strong case for renewed interest in Fenton , ‘‘even as a minor figure.’’ BOOK REVIEWS CHRISTOPHER J. FAUSKE. Jonathan Swift and the Church of Ireland, 1710–1724. Dublin : Irish Academic, 2002. Pp. xii ⫹ 190. $49.50. A book on Swift that centers on his relation to the Church of Ireland from 1710– 1724 might elicit the charge that its historical focus is too narrow and its approach 52 reductive. Generations of critics have assumed that the Church of Ireland was of marginal or only occasional importance to Swift’s major work. To argue that Swift’s political and philosophical positions (yes, he held philosophical positions) are grounded in the institution of the Church of Ireland, the history of which helps us explain both the genesis and composition of his texts, including those which, like Gulliver’sTravels, rarely refer to religion, let alone to the Church as institution, appears to reduce the obvious complexities of Swift’s work to a history external to it. In addition, by granting Swift a certain historical specificity, this book threatens grievously to complicate such myths, still jealously guarded, as Swift the ‘‘Irish patriot’’ or even, more pathetically, Swift the advocate of ‘‘liberty.’’ Such myths are not only sacred, they are also useful. Mr. Fauske himself declares his ‘‘preliminary and exploratory’’study ‘‘will perhaps raise more questions than it answers.’’ In his view, to locate Swift’s work in the institutional and ideological complex of the Church of Ireland (itself located in the broader context of the Church of England) is not to reduce or explain away the complexities of Swift’s texts, but to make the complexities and contradictions intelligible. His succinct and informed sketch of the history of the Church of Ireland in Swift’s time is highly suggestive. The Church of Ireland (as part of the Anglican Church)rested on a shaky theological foundation. Its establishment in law prior to its majortheological statements, namely those of Andrewes and Hooker, made it appear a product of human device rather than divine ordination. Swift’s own theology...