Antony and Cleopatra: Text and Performance by Michael Scott, and: Hamlet: Text and Performance by Peter Davison, and: Henry the Fourth, Parts 1 and 2: Text and Performance by T. F. Wharton, and: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Text and Performance by Roger Warren (review)

Reviews 383 venting that wild bear of a neoclassicist from seeming more predictable and fair than he really was. When addressing the inevitable contrast between Jonson and Shake­ speare, Dutton casts the junior dramatist as a cocky opponent to the writer of great romantic histories and other mixed plays. As tragedian, Dutton’s Jonson is the more intellectual, “truth[ful],” learned and thus the less “anachronistic,” “imaginative,” “emotive,” or given to mixing comedy and tragedy (even in Catiline, the implication wrongly is given.) The ultimate object in these tragical Roman satires is to “mak[e] the audience additional ranks of senators” in order to “as[k] what each member . . . would have done [then and] . . . what they are doing to guard against the same thing now." As comedian, Jonson “always at­ tempts to show an image of the times” and is “resolutely plausible and unfanciful about the things that guide human destinies.” With Shake­ speare’s return to Tales and Tempests, Jonson felt the need to write Bartholomew Fair as “parod[y of] the whole concept of Shakespearean romance and the conventions associated with it.” Hence, he depicted characters whose “lives . . . are determined not by numinous forces but by their own intrinsic natures, more or less governed by reason.” Ob­ viously ill-named, Grace Wellborn mocks Perdita, Miranda, and the Emilia of Two Noble Kinsmen—all of whom “find their perfect lovers through the action of some divine providence.” In short, readers will find here several interesting suggestions, some unexceptionable generalizations, and a few strained arguments. Special­ ists will be grateful to find the work of a dedicated Jonsonian in a single accessible volume (despite its many typographical errors). The general reader, however, will likely resort more often to another of Cambridge’s entries in this field, Anne Barton’s Ben Jonson, Dramatist. CLIFFORD J. RONAN Southwest Texas State University Michael Scott. Antony and Cleopatra: Text and Performance. London: Macmillan, 1983. Pp. 80. $7.95 (paper). Peter Davison. Hamlet: Text and Performance. London: Macmillan, 1983. Pp. 80. $7.95 (paper). T. F. Wharton. Henry the Fourth, Parts 1 and 2: Text and Performance. London: Macmillan, 1983. Pp. 84. $7.95 (paper). Roger Warren. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Text and Performance. London: Macmillan, 1983. Pp. 80. $7.95 (paper). The Text and Performance series under the general editorship of Michael Scott offers a cogent set of essays in an attractive format. Al­ though the first four texts are similar, each editor has shaped his material to suit his purpose. All four books show a cover photograph by Zoe Dominic of a re­ hearsal scene of Henry the Fourth, Part 1. Each has a one-page plot synopsis and list of sources. The first half of each eighty-page book discusses Shakespeare from a literary standpoint; the second half, specific stage and screen performances. Each contains a reading list, an index, 384 Comparative Drama and illustrations from the performances discussed. All four books are well written— clear, concise, graceful. These essays are as good as any to be found anywhere. Undergraduate and graduate students, academics, and the lay public should enjoy reading them. They are especially welcome now that performance has become such a vital part of our thinking and our teaching. Though the structure of the books suggests that the literary analysis is separate from the per­ formance section, references to performance in Part I, both to those covered in the second part and to others, make the point unmistakably: literary analysis is enhanced by performance analysis. As Peter Davison, the author of the Hamlet book, puts it, “Hamlet’s variety extends beyond character, diverse elements and implications: there is variety between the texts and traditions of performance, each with some claim to ‘authority’ ” (p. 18). In the literature section he suggests choices of “business,” each one with its individual effect—for example, for leaping in the grave or for the cellarage segment. He discusses textual additions to stage directions and their effect. Thus, though Part I of each book is subtitled “text,” Davison realizes that there is no one text and that per­ formance choices can help us to see all the possible texts. In the perfor­ mance section, Davison...