Intertexts

R e v i e w s Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. 3rd Edition. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. cii +312 pp. t n Since its original publication in 1984, Jonathan Dollimore’s Radical Tragedyhassustaineditssignificanceasaseminalcriticaltextinbothcultur¬ al materialism and Renaissance drama. It is abook that challenges the postEnlightenment “humanist” criticism of Renaissance texts, arguing humanistessentialismde-historicizesthosetextsbyviewingtragedy,inp^ticular ,asagenrethateithertranscendsthestructuresofpowerandthehis¬ toricalmomentorasadeviceofideologicalaffirmation.Dollimoreargues insteadthatessentialismisitselfanhistoricalconstruct,andearlymodern tragedy in fact neither validates nor transcends the dominant ideologies o earlymodernEnglandbutrather“interrogatesideologyfi'omwithin,seiz¬ ingonandexposingitscontradictionsandinconsistenciesandofferingalter¬ nativewaysofunderstandingsocialandpoliticalprocess”(8). In Part I, “Radical Drama: Its Contexts and Emergence,” Dollimore systemicallysetsforththebook’scentralargument,anditisinthisfirstsec tionthatperhapsthemostvaluableobservationsaremade.Dollimorest demonstrates that literary criticism—particularly essentialist humanism ^ not adequately accounted for the Renaissance’s own concern for relativism andideologicaluncertainty.DollimorecitesnumerousexamplesofRenais sancethinkers—Hobbes,Machiavelli,Montaigne,amongothers^whorec ognized that “epistemological and ethical truth was ...relative to custom andsocialpractice”(II).Asaresultofsucharecognition,thesethinkers had to examine “ideological considerations” (II) in amanner not un ie contemporary theorists. Dollimore compares, with numerous examples, e natureof“custom”inAlthusserandMontaigne,bothofwhomsuggeste ideaofa“decenteredhumansubject”(17),anideatypicallyantitheoco the conception of the Renaissance subject advocated by essentialist human ism. He shows that the notion of the centered human subject (as prescribe by providentialist ideology and natural law) is at issue in Renaissance drama¬ tistssuchasMarston(intheAntonioplays)andShakespeare(inTroilusand Cressida),andtheveryfactthatcensorshipwasarealdangerthatfaced dramatists of the period shows the potential ideological subversion inherent in Renaissance tragedy. Part 2, “Structure, Mimesis, Providence,” begins by discussing various approaches to Jacobean tragedy, particularly those ofA.C. Bradley and T.S. Eliot. Dollimore suggests that Bertolt Brecht—^who criticized the Arist h a t has 2 0 1 Intertexts, Vol. 8, No. 22004 ©Texas Tech University Press I N T E R T E X T S 2 0 2 totdian, bourgeois nature of contemporary drama and suggested that the disjointed nature of Shakespeare’s drama, which Eliot criticized, was ideo¬ logically more complex—offers amore accurate reading of Renaissance drama. Dollimore demonstrates that the two approaches to “art and reality” posited by Bradley and Eliot reflect the controversy concerning "‘mimesif’ during the Renaissance: idealist mimesis versus realist mimesis. Specifically, he looks at the literary criticism of Sir Philip Sidney who, Dollimore believes, prepares the way for Bacon’s “subversion of idealist mimesis” (82). Dol¬ limore calls the controversy between idealist and realist mimesis “a manifes¬ tation of the struggle in that period between residual, dominant and emer¬ gent conceptions of the real” (82). He concludes by picking up his previous discussion on “providentialist belieP and its disintegration in various Renaissance texts. Part 3, “Man Decentered,” addresses subjectivity and the notion of the decentered subject. Arguing that an essentialist definition of man “obscures therealhistoricalconditionsinwhichtheactualidentityofpeopleisrooted” (153), Dollimore views Jacobean tragedy as achallenge to Christian essentialism similar to Marxist materialism’s challenge to post-Enlightenment essentialism. Dollimore explores the subversion of various aspects of early modern ideology—such as virtus, courtliness, and manhood—in the tragediesBussyD’Ambois,KinjLear,AntonyandCleopatra,Coriolanus,and TheWhiteDevil.Materialistanalysesoftheseplayscallintoquestionthe conceptof“Renaissanceindividualism,”andtheemergentrealismofthis age“problematisessubjectivityratherthanforegroundingmanasaspiritual psychologicalunity”(176),whichhasbeenalong-standinggoalinessen¬ tialist humanism. o r The book concludes with Part 4, “Subjectivity: Idealism versus Materi¬ alism,”inwhichDollimoreadvocatesamaterialistapproachtoliterature, onethatallowsforabetterunderstandingofsubjectivityandonethattakes issuewiththepreviousessentialistcriticismthatreliesonmetaphysics(and the“universal”)andthatconsequentlyde-emphasizestheculturalmecha¬ nisms that construct self identity. As afoundational text for studies in cultural materialism. Renaissance drama,andthehistoricizingofliterarycriticism,Dollimore’sbookis,again, animportantworkthatcontinuestocontributetoliterarystudies.However, this 3rd edition also contains anew introduction by the author as well as a new preface written by Terry Eagleton, both of which help reposition the book’s central claims within the state of literary criticism today. Eagleton in hisprefacereaffirmsRadicalTragedyasaboldattempttodemystifyRenais¬ sance drama, and its success, he asserts, “rescues tragedy fi-om this sterile ideology, thrusting it firmly back within the complex cross-currents of actual historical life” (xi). Dollimore himself in his new introduction positions his original materialist approach amid the attacks of 9/11 and states that “old humanist universals” (xvi) have given rise to anecessity for multiculturalism Review of Radical Trajjedy 2 0 3 and arecognition of ethnic “difference,” thus convincingly suggesting that cultural materialism is now more relevant than ever. Both of these additions to the new edition demonstrate that Radical Tragedy is more ±an just a throwbackworkinculturalstudies;itisanecessarytextforanewgeneration of literary critics. While the benefits of this new edition...