The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism, and Painting in Early Modern English Drama (review)
difference between city, court, and country become clearly defined, with the first two fostering the development of literary, “legitimate” theater, and the last continuing the folk traditions of Robin Hood plays, mystery plays, and farces (Peter H. Greenfield). Of relevance also is Suzanne Westfall’s account of “household” plays, entertainments at country houses where women played an especially important “managerial” role. One especially valuable aspect of subsequent essays is the use of “case studies” in which particular plays are examined to illustrate the development of drama in their cultural context. The periods of theater controversy (1572–1603 and 1603– 42 [Diane Henderson and Roslyn L. Knutson]) which involved rival theaters, types of drama, and playwrights offer several plays for special examination. Among these are Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour (Richard Allen Cave), the King’s men at the Globe with Henry VIII in 1613 (Martin White), and Thomas Middleton’s A Game of Chess in 1624 (Richard Dutton). The wealth of historical detail, not readily accessible to the general reader, adds further interest and delight to these sections that cover the transition from Elizabethan to Stuart periods. David Lindley recapitulates and synthesizes scholarship concerning the development of the masque from its origins to the Stuart masque and the work of Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson, stressing the importance of the revolution in theater that would henceforth establish the “Italianate” concept of the illusionist stage. As coeditor of the volume, Peter Thomson presents a quasi-synthetic vision of the theater by a careful narrative of the evolution of the art of acting, “Clowns, Fools and Knaves: Stages in the Evolution of Acting.” In the penultimate essay, Martin Butler gives a clear and detailed account, almost to the point of ironic melancholy, of the condition of the theaters in 1642: the actual attendance at plays had been declining, the number of playwrights decreasing, and the Christmas season at Court had only one play: Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Scornful Lady. This work makes delightful reading, and reminds one of Costard’s remark that “they have been at a great feast of words.” For to the academic historian of theater, the world of words sustains the life of a reality that subsists on the words, sights, and sounds that once whirled about the circle of Verulanium, filled the air above the Globe, and glimmered beneath the candles of the Cockpit and Court theaters. FREDERICK TOLLINI Santa Clara University