Clifford Odets: Playwright-Poet by Harold Cantor (review)

Reviews 193 go off in different directions from the rest of the book. The author does not convince me that in Hamlet “Shakespeare undertook a unique examination of the function of the dramatic poet and of theater in the political life of a kingdom,” or that while “Hamlet is the spokesman for a Renaissance ideal conception of the social effect of theater,” “The Player King is the spokesman for a very different conception of theater.” It is true that the play shows all of life in Elsinore as acting and playing, but Kernan admits that “The internal plays in Hamlet hold a very ambiguous mirror up to nature, and they do not finally have any very immediate effect on the world.” Though he claims at the end of his first chapter that Hamlet and Edgar “are much clearer images of the dramatic poet” than Oberon, he notes that “in the end they too drop back into their plays as characters rather than emerging distinctly as playwrights who control the play and stand outside its action.” Each is fascinated by the theme of illusion, but neither, I think, presents a clear image of the dramatic poet. The final chapters return eloquently to the main theme. Kernan shows clearly, as he quotes the Chorus in Henry V, that “the playwrights were never as satisfied with their theater as recent critics have been,” since they longed for a theater of the imagination such as the magic circle of Faustus, or the walled Capulet garden “where the lovers, Romeo and Juliet, create an imaginary ideal world of love.” A penetrating analysis of the masque in The Tempest leads to this fine statement of Shakespeare’s conclusion: “A play, baseless fabric of a vision though it may be, is finally a true image of human life and the world, not so much because of what it may say, its content, as because of the nature of theatrical performance itself, its momentary illusion of being intensely real. . . . Plays are not real, but then neither is the world itself.” Kernan demonstrates how Shakespeare reached this conclusion: “The paradox, represented by the image of the poet as magician, of art as mere illusion and high vision, was forced upon Shakespeare by an irresolvable con­ flict between his Renaissance conception of poetry as a superior kind of truth and his material situation as a professional playwright working in the public theater where plays were only transitory shows.” This image of the poet as magician has remained one of the dominant images of the poet in the modern world. I enjoyed reading Kernan’s book, and I think others will enjoy it. MARK ECCLES University of Wisconsin Harold Cantor. Clifford Odets: Playwright-Poet. Metuchen, N. J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1978. Pp. 235. $10.00. Here is a plea, as impassioned and sincere as any made by Odets’ memorable characters, to reconsider the work of the dramatist and conclude that Odets deserves a better fate in the history of American drama than previous critics have been willing to allow him. Cantor’s 194 Comparative Drama objective is to separate the man from the legend and to provide an assessment of Odets’ work from a study of his strengths rather than the weaknesses which past critics have been unable to avoid. Such singleminded devotion, however, also has strengths and weaknesses. It becomes necessary to point out that other critics have deeply admired Odets’ work and even come to some of the same conclusions which Cantor argues with an abundance of carefully ordered details. Few, in fact, could question his knowledge of Odets’ plays. Cantor, however, seems driven to his task with a fervor which sometimes detracts from clearly excellent research and suggests a warped view of true scholarship. With the exception of the superior studies of Odets by Michael Mendelsohn and Gerald Weales, to whom Cantor owes and acknowledges certain debts, Cantor dismisses past criticism with a quick comment. In particular, he scoffs at the biographical-critical approach, looking instead for the “figure in the carpet” which will epitomize Odets’ contribution and finding it in that “unique individual expression” which he terms “poetic.” Rather than original insight, Cantor claims a syste­ matic...