ESC: English Studies in Canada

R E V I E W S The Elizabethan Theatre VI: Papers given at the International Conference on Elizabethan Theatre held at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, in July 1975- Edited and with an introduction by George Hibbard (Toronto: Mac­ millan of Canada, 1978). xiii, 161. $11.95 The volumes of papers presented at the University of Waterloo’s biannual International Conferences on Elizabethan Theatre, of which this is the sixth, are enviably luxurious achievements in a time when conferences — intense or boring, innovative or nostalgic — proliferate, while the well-made, clothbound , scholarly book wanes. The proceedings of most professional meetings, admittedly, do not deserve such dignified treatment: we all remember con­ ferences where old so-and-so’s contribution to the atmosphere proceeded more from his pipe than his wit and where young what-you-may-call-it distin­ guished him (or her) self more in the toils of congress than in the broils of conference. But we all equally remember occasions when an innovative paper or a fierce discussion not only brought old friends and new acquaintances together over a drink, but fired our minds, uplifted our hearts, and reinforced our beliefs that our vocation is not only enjoyable but challenging and of real significance. The proceedings of the Waterloo conferences have understandingly never tried to recapture the atmosphere of their meetings; they have been pre­ sented simply as autonomous collections of essays contributing to the under­ standing and enjoyment of the Elizabethan theatre. At times, they have pre­ sented an awkward miscellany of highly technical discussions of Elizabethan theatre-building or acting beside close verbal analyses of a play-text. Looking back at the five previous volumes, certain individual papers stand out as excellent, but if we look back at the past decade’s landmarks in our changing understanding of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, while we may glance at one or two essays in these volumes, none has changed our thinking really significantly. Searching for the right word to describe the overall quality of the six collections, I have rejected both “cliquish” and “provincial,” but En g lish Studies in C anada, vi, 3, Fall 1980 there is a little of each quality in the disarmingly miscellaneous, low-key although unquestionably civilized nature of the volumes, perhaps reflecting what the conferences themselves have been — relaxing meetings of assorted enlightened and civilized men and women, offering discoveries and opinions, and soliciting approbation and discussion. While, as I remarked at the outset, they are enviable signs of luxury — for which Macmillan of Canada, the CFH and the University of Waterloo be praised — together they represent something of a lost opportunity to be more astringent, to embody and give direction to the best that is being discovered and thought on the subject. The present collection is perhaps more disparate and unfocussed than previous volumes. Its miscellaneous nature is epitomized by the presence of an entertaining essay by the editor, George Hibbard, entitled “Love, Mar­ riage, and Money in Shakespeare’s Theatre and Shakespeare’s England.” Very characteristic of its author, this is a delightful ramble over familiar territory, but one could in no sense consider it a contribution to either theatri­ cal or literary scholarship. Nor is it connected to any of the other essays in the volume. It would, unquestionably, have been a superb public lecture and, in fact, it was delivered as such — not at the Waterloo conference, but at the University of Toronto. The other papers are less entertaining and of rather mixed quality. Two — Reavley Gair’s “The Presentation of Plays at Second Paul’s: The Early Phase (1599-1602)” and “The Revenger’s Tragedy Revived” by Stanley Wells — ■ stand out as the most valuable. The others either repeat ideas more persuasively developed elsewhere or are of little significance. Those by Wil­ liam Babula, “The Avenger and the Satirist: John Marston’s Malevole” and R. A. Foakes’s “On Marston, The Malcontent and The Revenger’s Tragedy” cover similar ground from very different viewpoints. Their occasionally stimulating discussions could have used some post-conference cross-referenc­ ing by the editor, or else some judicious revisions by the authors themselves, to show something of the arguments that...