Understanding Shakespeare's England: A Companion for the American Reader.

Wilson, Luke

Subtitled A Companion for the American Reader, Jo McMurtry's Understanding Shakespeare's England is based on the premise that such a reader is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to understanding Shakespeare, though, as the opening sentence of the in- troduction informs us in a not unstingy litotes, "American readers

are not without intelligence or imagination . . ." (I). Whether they deserve it or not, such readers may occasionally feel condescended to in this nevertheless informative and well-organized introductory text. With an index and detailed table of contents, Understanding is easy to find one's way around in; it is divided into chapters - "Degree and Rank," "Elizabethan Money," Education," "Outsiders," and so on - which are themselves broken down into short

(2-3 page) subsections. A student wishing to learn more about Elizabethan usury, for example, will have no trouble using either index or table of contents to locate the two-page discussion of the absence of central banking m sixteenth-century England, English attitudes toward usury and its association with the jews, the emergence of the commodification of capital and the acceptance of the practice of taking limited interest.

McMurtry's bibliography is somewhat short and, perhaps in an attempt to avoid intimidating the American reader, omits periodical

literature altogether. Several of the important works published in the 198os (Gurr's Playgoing; Cook's Privileged Playgoers) are listed, but not those works which, during the same decade, rethought the aims and procedures of historical criticism. The reader will not learn here, either directly or by example, of recent developments in the field. Perhaps this is for the best, but probably not. I would feel more comfortable recommending the book if its bibliography were more inclusive.

This is not to say, however, that McMurtry leaves the impressionable American reader entirely without guidance in this respect. Her discussion of Elizabethan cosmology, for example, footnotes Lovejoy and Tillyard, calling them accessible views to this way of thinking," but continuing: "The reader is cautioned against adopting either work as a source of instant push-button answers to the period's literary and philosophical complexities. " Her illustration of this, however (the paradoxicality of change in Spenser's Mutabilitie Cantos) doesn't really address the methodological question, and some may consider the caution insufficient. Rather than presenting the "world picture" idea and then qualifying it in a footnote, McMurtry might better have integrated the substance of recent discussions regarding the inadequacies of the idea into the text itself Even if this modification would have made the text less easily accessible (which isn't necessarily the case) it would have been well worth it: the early modern period isn't always easy to understand, and pretending that it is will benefit no one.

In attempting to convey an appreciation for historical differences McMurtry often resorts to analogies designed to make the American reader get the picture. Thus we learn that the Lord Mayor's ceremonial procession upon taking office was "an annual extravaganza as familiar to Londoners as the Rose Bowl parade is to us" (86). How far does the analogy extend? Apart from the issue of popular familiarity, what other information, possibly misleading, does the analogy convey? No pedagogical disasters are in the offing here, of course, but one may ask whether such analogies are really of much use. Similarly, when Autolycus's ballads are described as progenitors of "the tabloids available at supermarket checkout counters, " we may ask whether the difficulties with such an analogy outweigh the benefits.

These objections notwithstanding, McMurtry's book is highly accessible, accurate in the things that matter most, and a useful introductory reference work for students of the period. I should add that it includes I2 pages of plates illustrating various aspects of Elizabethan life, with brief discussion in the captions.