Temporality, Genre and Experience in the Age of Shakespeare: Forms of Time by Lauren Shohet (review)

Temporality, Genre and Experience in the Age of Shakespeare begins by setting out its immense task and scope; which, in editor Lauren Shohet's words, is to 'sketch broadly' a 'macro-view of form and temporality' focusing on the age of Shakespeare (7). The collection's intention is to provide an overview of temporality and its many forms in early modern theatre. The collection's emphasis is on how temporality connects to form, and how forms alter in relation to time. The title boldly displays buzzwords such as 'genre' and 'form', though the collection contains no firm definitions of either. Shohet states the book's intention to approach genre as 'the matrix of conventions that make up not the context, outside, or prehistory of the work, but the very being of the work in time', a broad definition of genre that sidesteps much of the most rigorous critical work in genre theory (7–8). This sidestep is easily forgotten, however, when recognizing the richness and variety of the case studies, and Shohet's introduction does a fine job of establishing expectations for the coming pages.

The collection includes essays on a variety of subjects and texts, which fall under five sections, each with their own formal focal point regarding temporality, genre, and experience. Each section focuses on a specific form of time and contains two or three essays that unpack the form with an emphasis on genre and experience. The first section, 'Illumination', contains three essays, all of which concentrate on how dramatic form shines a light on time. Kent Cartwright's 'Shakespeare's Theatre of Comic Time' postulates that comedy constitutes 'the dramatic genre that most recognises, manipulates and engages its audience consciously in the witnessing of time' (42). Time, in this sense, takes on a role as physical force within comic action which can stretch itself to extend encounters or push characters inextricably forward against their will. Comic characters are helpless to Time's natural rhythm, and Cartwright notes that the comedies self-consciously reference time far more than do the tragedies. Raphael Falco, in 'Suspense Revisited: The Shared Experience of Time', extends the temporal experience into the realm of dramatic technique. Falco explores the idea that dramatic form and technique can create an interchange between the experience of the audience and the actors, a relationship that is dynamic. The audience share a collective understanding of both the present and future in terms of time, and this can be shared with some theatrical characters and not with others, mostly depending on certain situations of dramatic irony. This overall relationship between temporality and dramatic form leads to suspense. Finally, Philip Lorenz's essay offers an insight into Henry VIII. Lorenz studies the play and its apparent temporal stasis in the baroque, and the issues of inheritance and sovereignty contained within. Lorenz uses this discussion to argue the tragic nature of Shakespeare's history play. All three essays use form and technique as a method of 'illuminating' the temporal discussion in relation to dramaturgy and action on stage.

Section two concerns itself with form's ability to synthesize time, or the ways in which time and form work against this synthetization. Andrew Griffin's 'Is Henry V still a history play?' analyzes Henry V through the unique inconsistency between historical moments that are 'neither present nor alive' and the immediate temporal elements of theatre (79). Theatre encourages the past to converse with the immediate present, and Griffin attempts to reconcile, or at least acknowledge, the synthetic instability of these two temporal moments. Shohet also has an essay in this section, entitled 'Allusion, Temporality and Genre in Troilus and Cressida and Pericles'. This essay focuses on hybrid forms such as tragi-comedy and satiric tragedy, and the dramatic relationship between texts and genre. The essay focuses, overall, on themes of repetition and how they act as a healing force in romance but a limiting...