Irish Books

Herbert Croly was a journalist and writer who wrote his most significant work just after the beginning of the twentieth century. He makes the case most simply: there have been two contending forces within liberalism fighting for the soul of the country from the very beginning. That is, there have been two distinct liberalisms. One was the Hamiltonian emphasis on the nation as a whole, as something transcendent over narrow interests. He called for a national purpose or interest to structure political dialogue. On the down side, the individual American might be forgotten in the process. The Jeffersonian view, on the other hand, valorized the individual and deemphasized a larger national purpose. Croly argued that both had serious flaws, but that the time was right to try to meld the two together for the good of the republic.

His contention was that we had to wed the national purpose orientation of Hamilton with the focus on ordinary people from Jefferson. His appeal was for "positive government," the use by government of various tools to advance the national interest and the welfare of the people. This was an early salvo on behalf of the Progressive movement. With the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, this orientation became the dominant thrust of American politics for five decades.

The book was written as a kind of half-time review of US history. "Half time" of course as seen hundred years later, with over 200 years of history.
The title is at first a bit repellant, smelling of "chosen country" sentiment. That's not what it really implies. The "promise" was something real for many immigrants, it meant opportunity and equality. Why then make a title out of it? Because things were moving into a direction which seemed to indicate that the promise was about to be lost. Croly asks what can be done to keep it. His solutions look a bit like the "social market economy" of Germany in the 50s to me.
The language is in parts amazingly fresh and contemporary. The chapter on Jeffersonians versus Hamiltonians could have been written today, same as the short Lincoln bio chapter. The chapter on government by lawyer is a gem.(I am aware that his focus on Hamilton is not generally accepted. Why not Adams? But somehow Mr.Hamilton must have had a period of superiority in estimation, as proven by his face on money, where there is no Adams.)
On the negative, in some places, the language is roundabout and absolutely not to the point, to the extent that the point remains hidden. I suspect this is done by age. We have another wave length in many respects. Or maybe Croly actually sometimes wrote less than clearly.
I opened the book with some reservation not only due to the potentially ideological title. I read the 89 reprint, not the 2005 version. That was at the end of the Reagan era and the book was sold like some kind of Reagan prophecy. Don't blame Croly for that.
He wrote at the time of Teddy, when the US was developing into something new, away from the pioneering age, into industrial monsterdom, on the back of several decades of economic revolutions after the civil war. Society was changing. The old individualist view of democracy was clearly becoming inadequate, a new Hamiltonian view of things towards protection of progress and efficiency of government seemed needed. Society had outgrown romantic start up notions of freedom and equality.
Another negative observation: the chapter on the reformers is just sub-standard, no real analysis of their programs, more like contemporary newspaper leader articles. His view of TR is on the level of a state owned newspaper's praise of the Chief.
It is not just a book about history, but essentially about ideas and interaction of structure and content.
I find it particularly fascinating to watch how words change their meaning over time. Croly uses the word nationalism in a sense which baffled me at first, until I got it: he uses it in opposition to "all states for themselves", building a nation out of a group of less-than-nations. Being European, I am so used to understand nationalism as something which says: we first, above the others. (Deutschland ueber alles, literally...)
Another instance of changed paradigm is Croly's naive assumption of racial stereotypes. He takes it for granted, that "negroes are inferior". He couldn't have written that at the end of the Reagan period.
One editing comment: my 89 edition has a very incomplete list of contents. All chapters have several subtitles, but the content list gives only the first one of each. That might be repaired in later editions; if not, it should be.

I first read Herbert Croly's 1909 book, "The Promise of American Life" while in graduate school in 1980. I recognized then that it offered a powerful, seminal, and motivating statement for the Progressive movement then dominating the United States. It presented a manifesto for change in a time when Americans felt keenly that the nation had "run off the rails" and set on course a liberal tradition that reached fruition in the "New Deal" of the 1930s and the "Great Society" of the 1960s. On recently rereading it I find it speaks to the America of the early twenty-first century as well, for his statement of the problems of the nation remain valid and his prescriptions for resolving them still offer hope for the future.

For Croly the individualistic, libertarian America of the agrarian eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was gone, swept away by the forces of the industrial revolution, urbanization, centralization, and modernity. He advocated a new political consensus that included as its core a form of Hamiltonian nationalism, but with a sense of social responsibility and care for the less fortunate. Since the power of big business, trusts, interest groups, and economic specialization had transformed the nation in the latter part of the nineteenth century, only the embracing of a counterbalance to this power would serve the society of the future. Croly pressed for the centralization of power in the Federal Government to ensure democracy, a "New Nationalism." As Croly wrote, "the traditional American confidence in individual freedom has resulted in a morally and socially undesirable distribution of wealth" (p. 22). He argued for a national government that was more rather than less powerful than it had been, as a bulwark against overbearing self-interest, greed, corruption, and unchecked power. At the same time, Croly valued the individual motivated by civic virtue and "constructive individualism" and urged all to pursue this objective.

In sum, despite his emphasis on state power for good, Croly's public philosophy is as much a plea for preserving and cultivating individuality in a time of consolidation as it is a call for a renewed American nationalism. Croly's ideas seem even more appropriate for the early twenty-first century than they were for when first written a century ago. Corporatism, greed, and self-interest currently offer no less a threat than in Croly's time. His prescriptions still hold: collective action through a strong, democratic government.

"The Promise of American Life" is a powerful, evocative statement of the potential of humanity to remake the world into a much better place through cooperative action. Its lessons are still useful a century after its publication.

Samuel Beckett's text on Marcel Proust's work was published in 1931, when Beckett was 25 years old. Even though it was written before Beckett had reached his "mature" phase, this is a brilliant piece of criticism. Beckett's close reading (see, for example, his detailed list of the eleven points of departure for Proust's involuntary memory) is supplemented by deep analysis - not "cheap flashy philosophical jargon". Though focused on his discussion of Proust, Beckett also shares with us numerous aphorisms of wider import (e.g. "Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.").

Also included in this volume are the famous three dialogues between Beckett and Georges Duthuit (1949). In them, Beckett states his opinion on artistic creation: "The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express". Duthuit's conception of art seems to be much more traditional, and the dialogues sometimes (supposedly) become heated.

A word of advice: it makes much more sense instead of buying this edition to buy Volume IV (Poems, Short Fiction, Criticism) of the Grove Centenary Edition of Samuel Beckett's works, since both texts ("Marcel Proust" & "Three Dialogues") are contained therein.

Alexandros Gezerlis

Beckett's 'Proust' is a powerful and revelatory work, largely because it analyses not only the writing of Marcel Proust but also perception itself: the literary high. It can only enrich the reader's life. I'd recommend it to anyone.

One of the best studies ever written about Proust's novel is also one of the earliest. Beckett's reading underscores the novel's pessimism--the bleak futility of human relations, the stupifying effects of Habit, the "poisonous ingenuity" of Time--yet is itself a brisk, erudite, hilarious, dark, and exhilarating piece of Modernist literary criticism.

Ms. Ramon's diligent research has shaped a highly complete biography of James Stephens, the founder of the IRB--the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Her exploration of Stephen's relationship to the American Fenian Brotherhood of America is cogent. Stephen's was a very complex man, yet Ms. Ramon dug out all facets of his personality in a lively style. Her book will not be matched in our lifetime. Some scholar must take on the task of providing us with great biographies of Michael Doheny and John O'Mahoney to close the Fenian ring.Highly Recommended!

The Fenian movement consisted of two linked Irish nationalist organizations, one centered in Ireland and the other in the United States. Fenianism was an outgrowth of the Young Ireland Rising of 1848. Many participants of that rising escaped from the British dragnet that followed to settle in France and America. It took ten years for these men to reassemble their forces again. In 1858 Young Irelanders, now old, under Michael Doheny and John O'Mahony living in the United States, signed up James Stephens to organize an army in Ireland to challenge the British right to rule. O'Mahony and his organization in the US promised military men to lead and to provide arms for a new Irish rising. Stephens did a masterful job of organizing Irishmen in Ireland into a secret society known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood or IRB. Unfortunately his organizing powers were much better than his ability to coordinate the hard decision to fight in 1865 and Stephens was written off as a vacillating failure by many nationalists. Desmond Ryan, an admirer of Stephens, wrote his biography (The Fenian Chief - published posthumously 1967) but it is outdated and lacks research material uncovered by Ramon and others in recent years. Ramon's biography brings scholarly research up to date on Stephens and details his life and his contribution to the Fenian movement. The book is very readable, meticulously footnoted and provides, at last, a scholarly biography of the supreme organizer of physical force nationalism in Ireland. Ramon's biography examines Stephens' character and offers well-thought out discussion concerning the motives for Stephens often criticized actions as the Chief of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. In addition to facts not before revealed of Stephens' life, this book is written with an objective clarity that is lacking in the Desmond Ryan's account. Ramon explains in a coherent manner the complex nature of Irish physical force nationalism, from its formation out of the failure of Young Ireland through the turbulent years 1865-1878. The Fenians laid the groundwork for the eventual independence of the Irish Republic that arose out of the 1916 Easter Rising. This book should not be missed by those interested in Irish and Irish-American history. A great biography of a man who altered the historical path of Irish history.

Required reading for anyone interested in the fascinating history of the Fenian movement. This will be the authoritative Stephens biography for some time to come. It is thorough, precise, enormously detailed, and altogether entertaining at the same time.

"As a young man Sydney Bolt witnessed some of the most remarkable events in recent world history. He reached India at a time when the Japanese armed forces were powering through Southeast Asia and dealing a humiliating blow to European colonial empires from which they would never recover. His memoir covers the period of the rise of nationalist revolt in India and the climax of Gandhi's civil disobedience movement. He was on the Burma front as British and Indian armies began finally to push the Japanese back in some of the bloodiest fighting of the Second World War. What makes Mr Bolt's memoir so significant is the perspective from which he viewed these events. Most memoirs of this period were written by soldiers, administrators and journalists, who accepted or at least acquiesced in the existence of the British Empire. Mr Bolt did not. He was a communist who had struck up friendships with Indian communists while he was at Cambridge University. Despatched to the East by the authorities, his aim was to 'bore into the British Empire from within." - from the Preface by Professor C. A. Bayly.
This book is stocked by, and can be ordered from,

This enthralling masterpiece by established historian Dr. Jacqueline Eales concentrates on a defining period in English history. Eales focusses on a volatile time with the lead up to the English Civil War and with great depth of understanding brings alive the political, religious and idealogical conflicts of the time. By taking the Harley clan of Brampton Bryan as an example of one family who supported Parliament against the King, Eales skillfully illustrates how courage and belief are lasting virtues in difficult times. Eales' shrewd analysis and confident style is an example to any aspiring writer. Published by Hardinge and Simpole.

dr eales is a great authority on this period. this book covers a fascinating period of the civil war in england and it is well up to her usual standard. any one interested in this period of english history should order this masterpiece at once!! it is also a great example of feminism at work in the english 17th century-what a powerful and competent figure brilliana harley must have been.the book is a wonderful tribute to her determination in the face of terrible odds.

When I first heard Eamon Grennan read his poetry and speak on Lannan Literary videos, I was stunned by his intensity and brilliance. I longed to see the poems on the page, and am not disappointed to see his workings of the 10-line, no-title form he's created.

Nature and humanity are interdependent in Grennan's poetry. Nature illuminates, soothes, counsels, and guides the way. Opening "The Quick of It" at random, I find a favorite:

"Not the fierce fragility/Birds are: robins, waxwings, starlins that cluster along eaves or swirl about/The slate and copper rooftops, or gather in bare beech and sycamore branches/Whose last leaves drift in the no-wind and land so soft on water they cause no/Circles, are tiny boats fraught with light: not solid things but, like your breath,/Desperately there--warm,no words in it, nothing to build on or be sheltered by." (p. 35)

Reading Grennan's work is akin to decoding Buddhist scripture. It's all here. Grennan presents us with illustrated images of impermanence--that the world is not the solid one we think it is; that it is futile to grasp on to what is essentially ungraspable. But, not unknowable, if we grant this essentialized knowing first.

--Janet Grace Riehl, author Sightlines: A Poet's Diary

The Quick Of It is an anthology of poems by poet, essayist, translator, and Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize winner Eamon Grennan. Each poem is without a title and stretches precisely ten lines; explores its subject with acute, alert attention to detail. Creatures of nature are a recurring theme in this reflective, sometimes dark, sometimes wistful, always moving verse. So I keep saving the bees taken unawares by glass, / Shrouding their music in a bundled dishclothtill I shake / It outside and they float off over the fuchsia hedge. // So the moths that flutter up from curtain folds and out / Of the sleeves of old sweaters are fingersnapped at / To become Ash Wednesday stains on my handskin. // So the snail is lifted from the sand, laid on wet grass, / And so the yellow car in my dream is stalked till it turns / To a lean woman in suede leaning in to me. So who / Handles all this? Lays all of it out? Keeps the reckoning?

The Quick of It is an absolutely beautiful book. Eamon Grennan has found a striking balance between sonics, imagery and narrative. So that his poems "take us there," and in our reading of his work we forget ourselves.

It's a struggle to type an excerpt considering how well the poems work in their wholeness. Readers finds themselves reacting not to a single line or phrase but to the poems in their entirety -- I can't think of a much rarer occurrence in poetry. The poems are like miniature paintings, and yet we are taken in by just how full and lush they are.

In The Quick of It the physical world not only comes alive, it smiles back, full and fantastic and frightful.

I have not read a book of poetry this good in many months.

This review should be taken seriously considering I didn't really like "The Rape of the Lock" and still give this book 5 stars!

"History is not a vacuum," one of my university history professors always told us. Neither is literature for that matter! This book examines the mock-epic poem "Rape of the Lock" in its social, literary, and historical contexts. The poem takes up a small portion of the book, and the rest is made up of diary entries, letters, essays, newspapers, etc. that help to explain the culture surrounding Pope. The city of London, clothes, card games, coffee, makeup, social norms, and countless other things are discussed in very readable and enjoyable ways in order to make "The Rape of the Lock" truly come alive.

This poem serves two purposes. First, Pope wrote it in response to an upper-class quarrel over an event at a party in which a young girl had her hair cut. The incident itself was petty and stupid, but the families of the parties involved were taking it very seriously. Pope, then, wrote this poem in epic form (the most grand of poetic forms) to show the absurdity of the matter, and thus reconcile the offender and offended.

That is the first function of this poem. Even though the incident is long forgotten, the poem is still very funny. But there is a greater purpose to this poem--it was written like an epic. It contains several epic elements--an epic battle (at the card game), the invocation of muses and gods, the epic quest (to cut the hair), and several literary devices, such as epic-length similes and catalogs. This is what makes this poem so great, and what serves as a testimony to Pope's remarkable genius for wit and satire.

Pope was, in my opinion, one of the greatest English poets, certainly the greatest satirist. This is one of his greatest works, and it is short enough to read over and over again without investing too much time.

This is a highly intelligent book on one of the finest poems by the eighteenth century's most celebrated poet. Brilliantly written with wit, style, and a flair for interesting detail, Wall's book includes textual information and a wealth of carefully selected secondary material that makes this "one-stop shopping" for anyone interested in the work or indeed in the period. Because of its combination of lively writing and scholarly erudition, I would recommend Wall's book for a wide variety of interest and knowledge levels. Wonderful Bedford series idea and terrific book.

Unterecker's "Reader's Guide," a vade mecum for the apprentice
or seasoned reader, informs and instructs. As commentary or teaching tool, it advances a concise, systematic way to interpret the ideas, literary devices, images, symbols, and occult motifs that permeate Yeats's poetry, a thematic
analysis that connects one poem with another and reveals the visionary design at the center of Yeats's work. From the allegorical quest in "The Wanderings of Oisin" to the meditative panorama of "Under Ben Bulben," Unterecker explicates the motifs of Yeats's evolving mythology of a unified self.

In terms of understanding the writings of WB Yeats, this book is a must. It provides insights into otherwised missed subtleties that allows for a greater appreciation of the work of a great artist. (I use the diction of great artist because this truely describes his work). Anyway, this book is well written and recommended by myself.

Unterecker's "Reader's Guide," a vade mecum for the novice or seasoned reader, informs and instructs. As commentary or teaching tool, it advances a concise, systematic way to interpret the ideas, literary devices, images, symbols, and occult motifs that permeate Yeats's poetry, a thematic analysis that connects one poem with another and reveals the visionary design at the center of Yeats's work. From the allegorical quest in "The Wanderings of Oisin" to the meditative panorama of "Under Ben Bulben," Unterecker explicates the motifs of Yeats's evolving mythology of a unified self.

If you want to know what this book is about, read the other reviews, which do a decent job of summarizing the contents. I'll focus on what those other reviews don't tell you.

First, Eric Sams is a remarkable writer, a remarkable mind. His background is in music, and he has two breathtaking abilities: one is the ability to hold in his head large quantities of information, and the other, to sift through that information and spot patterns. In Shakespeare's writing he identifies recurring thoughts, metaphors, associations; he identifies word usages, turns of phrase, images, all of which, taken together, truly seem to be characteristic of Shakespeare and as unique as a fingerprint.

Second, he gives you perspective. If you browse in the works of Shakespeare professionals for long enough, you encounter all sorts of speculations about the conflicting texts, who wrote what, possible collaborators, and how this scene must have been written by somebody else, and this quarto must be "memorial reconstruction" -- the term they use to say that a couple of actors who once played those parts reconstructed the play from their own recollections and then filled in the blanks. These same academics dismiss plays like Edward III and Edmund Ironside as inferior to the works of "the canon" (works they all agree were written by Shakespeare): they couldn't possibly be Shakespeare, the academics say; they're all by "other writers." While academics make frequent references to these other, unknown playwrights, collaborators, and actor-writers, Eric Sams puts all such speculation into perspective. He clarifies two things: first, that there is no real evidence that these playwrights, collaborators, or actor-writers ever existed; they're convenient figments of the academic imagination. Second, these men who lived in and around London and were contemporaries of Shakespeare and writing plays -- these men numbered perhaps two dozen at most. And we already know the names of more than half of them. So if a play like Edward III contains those usages and images and comparisons and types of word play that seem unique to Shakespeare, well, you've got only a handful of possible unknowns to whom you can attribute such a play -- and all those peculiar images, usages, etc. It's not scientific certainty, but for circumstantial evidence, it's pretty telling and the best we're likely to get.

Most of the biographical works I've read are long on speculation and short on facts. Not so with this book. Facets of Shakespeare's life that are touched on and dismissed in other works are thoroughly explored here -- like Shakespeare's Catholic background, his legal experience, poaching, etc. And instead of speculative sentences that begin, "Young Will may have longed for..." or "... may have attended..." or "may have learned about..." -- Eric Sams delivers what facts we have. In one chapter he simply lists ALL of the significant documents from Shakespeare's lifetime (and just before and just after) and summarizes their contents for you. Boom. That's it. That's all there is.

What I never would have guessed from reading other works is that, in fact, it's quite a LOT. Sams speeds through a wealth of information, little clues here, little clues there that, when combined with patterns he uncovers in the plays themselves, form a remarkably coherent picture of Shakespeare.

This book is in large part an attack on the orthodox "Stratfordian" academic 'establishment'; not however from the point of view of someone claiming that a person other than William Shakespeare of Stratford Upon Avon wrote the works of Shakespeare (an impression which the cover picture and title might give at first glance). Rather, Eric Sams accepts that Shakespeare was Shakespeare, so to speak, but claims that the account of the writer's early life and literary development promulgated by 'orthodox" 20th Century British Shakespeare scholars is basically eroneous, and distorted by fashionable, unproved theories. His main claim is that Shakespeare started acting on, and writing for, the stage, much earlier than most modern academics allow, that he wrote plays (and perhaps pamphlets) other than the 'canonical' plays (i.e. those plays included in the First Folio of 1623, plus "Pericles"), and that he frequently revised or rewrote his own plays. In the first few chapters of the book Sams speculates on Shakespeare's early background and upbringing in Stratford. Sams sometimes brings in quotes from the plays to support his view of Shakespeare's early life, and this is perhaps a bit problematic, but on the whole his contentions are pretty convincing, and he persuasively argues that the oral traditions about Shakespeare should be taken seriously, and not simply dismissed as gossip or folk-tales. Sams' main bugbear is probably the 'memorial reconstruction' theory, which holds that the so-called "bad quartos" are the botched piratings of Shakespeare's plays by unscrupulous actors. Sams contends that there is absolutely no evidence for this theory, and instead favours the simpler and more convincing proposition that these "bad quartos" are in fact early versions of these plays by Shakespeare himself, which he later revised. There is much more in this book than I have mentioned above, and it is definitely well worth reading.

1.Eric Sams' The Real Shakespeare constitutes a determined attempt to reconstruct the early part of the playwright's life. It shows Shakespeare not as a late developer but as an early starter who assiduously revised his work and who, in fact, was responsible for early dramas, including apparent source texts, not usually accepted as part of the conventional canon. Clearly the result of much work and contemplation of extant records and other details, The Real Shakespeare looks initially at biographical issues: a Roman Catholic Shakespeare leaves school, probably at the age of thirteen, to help with family farm chores, becomes involved (as a clerk) with the legal profession (hence the character of his hand-writing), marries Anne Hathaway (already pregnant), and departs soon after for London to escape the consequences (whipping, at the least) of poaching deer owned by the influential, anti-catholic Sir Thomas Lacy. In London, Sams asserts, Shakespeare makes his connection with the Shoreditch Theatre, working his way up the proverbial ladder as ostler, call-boy, prompter and soon becomes a Queen's Man far earlier than Schoenbaum et al. are inclined to allow (58). 2.Biographical issues, however, cannot be detached from literary matters (which particularly dominate the second part of the book), and Sams, in looking at the Bard's young life, also takes into account the work and comments of contemporaries (e.g., Marlowe, Greene, Nashe, Spenser, et al.), the Parnassus plays, and Willobie his Avisa (1594) before turning to the Sonnets, the association with the 3rd Earl of Southampton, and the problem of the dedication in the first edition. He then moves to a consideration of the "early style" and ascription of both the 1589 and 1603 (Q1) Hamlet to Shakespeare, as well as A Shrew (c.1588), The Troublesome Reign of King John (c.1588), the first part of the Contention...(1594), and The True Tragedies of Richard... (1595); also offered as possible candidates for canonical authority are Faire Em and Locrine (of which there is, indeed, pace Sams, p.166, a modern edition). Attention is also given to bad quartos and the matter of memorial reconstruction, source-plays, derivative plays, dating, "collaboration," so-called "stylometry," and handwriting (a script, Sams suggests, of a law clerk suggesting links to the hand of Edmund Ironside [c.1588]). Curiously, for this strongly argued book, which contends in a detailed way with the conclusions of much twentieth-century scholarship (references to contrary opinion are carefully included), there is no concluding chapter, and the reader is left to pull the threads together. However, by way of addendum, Sams provides a section headed "The Documents 1500-1594," 205 biographical details and citations in chronological order, which under-pin especially the reconstruction of the early (Schoenbaum's "lost") years; and a bibliography (with + and * marks denoting items which support or counter Sam's arguments). An index concludes the volume. 3.It is always important to review evidence for conventional knowledge, to challenge the validity of accepted views, and to suggest plausible solutions to bothersome problems. Yet, at times, the greater wisdom, unfortunately, lies in uncertainty, in being sure of what one can and cannot know, and in Shakespearean scholarship, the fields of speculation are rather broad. Given the available documentation, many readers will find some of Sams' arguments, while intriguing, still unconvincing and will prefer to rest with the more cautious approach of Schoenbaun, Vickers, Wells, and others. The academic community has not blindly or wilfully rejected solid evidence, and should not be reproached for what might appear, to some critics, to be tradition-bound precepts or unduly conservative empiricism. 4.Could Shakespeare have known about ostlers and law-clerks without being an ostler or a law-clerk? Probably? Did he write Locrine? Almost certainly not -- given the style, and if he did, why did he not revise it? If Shakespeare was the dedicated reviser Sams claims that he was, why did he not rework the questionable scenes in Titus and Pericles? Were all the source plays (e.g., King Lear and Famous Victories) really by Shakespeare? Doubt could enter here. Does revision necessarily or "normally" mean that the resulting work will manifest two separate styles? No, it does not; though the reference to the Brahms' piano trio (Op.8) on p.187 is interesting, it does not, I think sufficiently support the general point. And what is the difference between an "ordinary" reader of Shakespeare and other kinds of readers (105)? Is one to infer that academic readers and textual editors lose some sensitivity? 5.Certainly, Sams' The Real Shakespeare will shake the scholarly stage a little, which is not a bad thing. But I should guess that, when the tremors have subsided, many -- perhaps most -- of the props will be more or less where they were before and others, which would be nice to have -- some certainty about the early years, for instance -- will still be absent.

An important part of appreciating (and teaching) plays from the Renaissance period involves understanding the relationship between the poet and the acting company, and the extent to which rehearsal practices of the period placed a large burden on the poet to include acting instructions within the play's text.

Drawing clues from a broad array of sources, Professor Stern provides a detailed look at rehearsal practices from the late sixteenth century and onward.

Especially as regards Shakespeare, understanding the very limited rehearsal time, especially when compared to modern day practices, employed by companies that put on essentially a different play every afternoon, offers a valuable new insight into the importance of rhetorical and metrical structure as well as many kinds of imbedded stage directions.

Tiffany Stern's book offers revelations about the theater based on her extensive research into the rehearsal processes of each period. Her writing is also accessible for those who may not love lit. crit. speak.

Tiffany Stern's groundbreaking book will revolutionise your view of Shakespeare in a fascinating discussion of day to day life in the theatre. Read how actors had copies only of their own parts - many didn't know the story of the whole play until performance. Learn about ad libbing clowns and heroines who fall in love, literally, on cue. The Shakespearean sections combine ingenious archival research (from coal bills to prompt books) with sensitive textual analysis. The Restoration and seventeenth century sections are alive with comic anecdote and original insight, not to mention Garrick's mechanical wig. This book will change your perceptions of drama in the past, but will also raise questions about theatrical practice today. Invaluable to all who love the theatre.

The Conclusion which crowns this, the most perfect book in the English language should be memorised and chanted sutra-like on a daily basis.

This work by Walter Pater, published in 1873, as
a volume of collected (previously published) essays
along with an essay on "Winckelmann", a Preface, and
a Conclusion was [and perhaps still is] an extremely
influential work of aesthetic criticism. The volume
helped shape [influence] the perceptions, the
attitudes, and the approaches of many youthful readers
in the late 1880's and 1890's. It is very interesting
to read, immensely engaging to consider and muse about,
but also offers cautions to the overenthusiastic,
easily influenced [or persuaded] disciple.
This volume consists of an Introduction [by the
editor, Adam Philips], a Preface [by Pater], 9 chapters,
and a Conclusion (in this particular edition
by Oxford Classics there is also a chronology, a
Selective Bibliography, an Appendix titled "Diaphaneite,"
and Explanatory Notes in the back. The chapter titles
(after Pater's Preface) are: Two Early French Stories;
Pico Della Mirandola; Sandro Botticelli; Luca Della
Robbia; The Poetry of Michelangelo; Leonardo da Vinci;
The School of Giorgione, Joachim Du Bellay; Winckelmann;
and Conclusion.
* * * * * * * * * *
What's the problem here? Well, unfortunately, Pater
is not completely reliable as an objective perceiver
or critic. He tends to be a bit eccentric in his
individualistic perceptions and interpretations of
the art works, but he goes ahead and defends this
approach in a very "modern" sounding fashion --
which seems to include a bit of "situational perceptions,"
subjective impressions of perception and response,
and subjective criticism. Which makes for extremely
engaging [sometimes irritating] reading, but leaves
something to be desired as far as objective and
judicious thoughtfulness and truthfulness. Pater
seems to believe that it is acceptable to "bend"
or even create facts to further his own it-pleases-
me-to-think-that-this-is-or-should-be-so desires.
We know that we are on a slippery critical slope
[though it will sound all too familiar to modern
ears and modern apologetics] when the editor Phillips
informs us: "In Pater's first published writing, his
essay on Coleridge of 1866, he had suggested that --
'Modern thought is distinguished from ancient by its
cultivation of the "relative" spirit in place of the
"absolute" ... To the modern spirit nothing is, or
can be rightly known, except relatively and under
conditions." It doesn't take much time to realize
that such a critical position is going to lead to
an end-position of aesthetic, critical, and moral
relativism ("You can't tell me I'm wrong, because
there is no one set way of seeing, analyzing,
believing, or evaluating."-- the spoiled, indulged child's
self-justification for the validity of its own
ego supremacy and authority against that of any
parental or adult restrictions. Such a position usually
means a lack of any meaningful in-depth self questioning
or objective evaluating of personal motives, and a
welcoming of lack of restraints in the pursuit of
pleasure and non-self discipline. And this, of course,
is the critical negative refrain that often comes
against the decadent followers of Pater's credo.]
The second fall-out effect of Pater's evaluations
and pronouncements is that some of his disciples
[self-styled] went farther than even he was willing
to approve with their hedonism and purposefully
shocking lifestyles and "decadent" behaviors and
aesthetic appetites.
But it came from statements like this, which Pater
may have meant one way, but which their subjective,
individualistic perceptions took another way: "The
aesthetic critic, then, regards all the objects with
which he has to do, all works of art, and the fairer
forms of nature and human life, as powers or forces
producing PLEASURABLE SENSATIONS [caps are mine], each
of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. [We value
them --he says] for the property each has of affecting
one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure.
Our education becomes complete in proportion as our
SUSCEPTIBILITY to these impressions increases -- in
depth and VARIETY."
Let the perceiver and the critic -- and the
experiencer -- proceed with extreme caution and good
judgment.
* * * * * * * * *

This book has changed many lives in a very
peculiar way: although its evaluations are
quite wrong at times, particularly the chapter
on the School of Giorgione(if you care, check
out the edition with an introduction by
Kenneth Clark), Pater's Renaissance still
shines with the very same light that made it a
cult among Victorian youngmen.

The "gemstone flame", the pervasive feelings
of which Pater invited us to share have not
vanished (in spite of the attempts of the
so-called modern art), and the book's
invaluable lesson is that you simply
do not need a fancy objet d'art to see
what true beauty is all about.

So basically this is what I have to say: if
you have ever derived aesthetic pleasure from
anything at all in life, you should read this
little book tomorrow. If you never felt any
such pleasure, you must read The Renaissance
right now, or you'll simply let the good
things pass you by. I mean it.