RENAISSANCE forum Volume 1 Number 2, September 1996: David Hale

Paola Pugliatti. 1995. Shakespeare the Historian. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 265 pp. ISBN 0-333-63329-6. Ł40.

Paola Pugliatti's Shakespeare the Historian asks just what did Shakespeare contribute to the history play as a dramatic genre, and how do his contributions relate to Elizabethan historiography. As her title implies, may Shakespeare be regarded as a historian as well as a dramatist? The resulting essays form an often stimulating analysis, taking a worthy place in late twentieth-century criticism.
The first section, nearly a third of the book, considers history and Shakespeare in general terms, carefully defining a position among other Anglo-American historicists, but with greater use of Continental theorists than is often the case. Pugliatti quotes John Hayward as epitomising the issues and tensions in Shakespeare. Apparently rhetorical questions -- how to begin and how much emphasis to give various subjects -- are placed in larger contexts. Sometimes a writer must concentrate on his readers' profit, other times on their pleasure; Horace's utile et dulce may be redefined in varying social and political situations. A writer of history must also look to his own credit and avoid the suspicions of the authorities for raising politically inconvenient issues. Finally, one must consider 'what liberty a writer may use in framing speeches, and declaring causes . . . of events'. Shakespeare frames a lot of speeches for historical and nonhistorical figures, frequently leading to conflicting readings of events and their causes.
Delicately reformulating the positions of Rossiter, Rabkin, and others, Pugliatti sees the multiple perspectives on historical events and their meaning as one of the distinguishing features of Shakespeare's histories. She consequently credits Shakespeare with the invention of the genre, although the point is not argued by comparison with other plays or playwrights. Like many anti-Tillyard critics since 1950, she does not see Shakespeare following the general Elizabethan practice of retelling, or purporting to retell, established accounts and interpretations; he does not establish his credit as historian by conceiving the profit of his audience as the inculcation of the dominant political and religious ideology. Quotations from Daniel, Braithwaite, and Halle illustrate conventional claims that the truth of historical writing derives from its ancient sources, instead of new truth based on what we would call research. Two qualifications come to mind. Such authenticating claims have a long and problematic tradition; one might recall the Gesta Francorum and the charter in the Church of Laon cited in The Song of Roland, and, more notoriously, the book of Lollius from which Chaucer claims to slavishly retell Troilus and Criseyde. Evidence of Elizabethan historical research has been described recently by Ellen C. Caldwell (Studies in Philology [1995]), detailing John Stowe's copying variant texts of Jack Cade's petition and printing some of them.
One of the dangers of history, as Hayward and Shakespeare knew, is that the events of the fifteenth century could resonate powerfully in the sixteenth. The reign of Richard II illustrates one way the past can be seen as impacting on the present. Shakespeare briefly dramatizes other aspects of the issue. In Hamlet, Claudius asks if there is any offence in the argument of 'The Murder of Gonzago', to be assured ironically that there is none. Shakespeare also parodies historical allegory, or its excesses, through Fluellen's 'figures in all things' to compare Henry V and Alexander the Pig. As Pugliatti admits, there is very little evidence about which historical parallels were noticed by Elizabethans or what the impact of these observations might have been.
There follows a group of studies of individual plays showing various ways in which Shakespeare's complex perspectives illustrate and depart from the practices of historians of his time. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the long last chapter on the creation of a 'significant subtext' through middle-class and working-class characters, who have no place in formal history. Although these nonhistorical commoners are unlikely to represent accurately popular culture, they suggest the possibilities of alternative voices, conflicting views of historical truth. There are extended discussions of ineffective legal officers from Justice Shallow through Fang and Snare, the murderers and scrivener in Richard III, the vagrant Simpcox in 2 Henry VI, and the three English soldiers of Henry V. This analysis might profitably be extended to commoners in additional plays by both Shakespeare and others, such as Marlowe's Edward II or Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday, that pendant to Henry V.
Four other chapters consider specific plays. Pugliatti reads King John as the most topical of Shakespeare's histories, dealing explicitly with questions of royal legitimacy and authority. She draws an extended comparison of the difficulties in Hubert's not blinding Arthur with those experienced by William Davison and Sir Amyas Paulet over the execution of Mary Stuart. The topicality of John should now be considered in conjunction with Robert Lane's article, also in Studies in Philology (1995), about legal issues in the play and the succession of James Stuart.
The chapter on the Henry IV plays starts promisingly with Rumor, leading to a discussion of the problematic nature of representations of time and the reliability of sources on which history is based. Unfortunately this tails off into a formalist account of various corruptions in the world of the court, the rebels, and the tavern. The linguistic diversity of Henry V exemplifies its political ambivalence, further shown by the contrast between the celebratory assertions of the Chorus and the characters and actions which follow. A similar ambivalence is found in the Cade scene of 2 Henry VI. Considered in themselves, the rebels are to be condemned; in the light of the activities of the aristocrats, however, the rebels appear much less malevolent.
On balance Pugliatti's book is very suggestive of issues and questions which may be profitably explored in other plays. There is little reference to Shakespeare's contemporaries, or indication of the extent to which his innovations recur in other dramatists. Nor is there much reference to performance, Elizabethan or modern, indicating how, if at all, the perceptions of critics are or may be communicated on stage, film, or television.

DAVID G. HALE
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, BROCKPORT