Renaissance Forum: Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 1998: Robert C. Evans

Howard Erskine-Hill. 1996. Poetry and the Realm of Politics: Shakespeare to Dryden. Oxford: Clarendon Press. xiv + 284 pp. ISBN 0-19-811731-0. Ł37.50 / $60.00.

The clarity of this book's title typifies the volume's general clarity as well: one is rarely uncertain of the author's argument or of the words he uses to make it. Erskine-Hill writes in plain English, and both his methods and conclusions seem sanely straightforward. He argues that drama, because it is dialogical, can explore historical events in subtler ways than one finds in more monological forms of discourse, and he illustrates his case by focusing especially on Shakespeare's history plays and on some historical dramas by Jonson and Dryden. Non-canonical authors (such as Martin Parker) are also discussed, but the attention paid to them is far briefer than the space devoted to such textbook stalwarts as Milton and Marvell. Erskine-Hill seems content to be slightly out- of-step with momentary critical fads and theoretical fashions, and although his book does offer some new evidence and does make (or support) some unpredictable arguments, the tone, modes, and results of his arguments seem largely unsurprising. This is a book one could easily recommend to students or general readers; it is not a volume written only for the cognoscenti.
Erskine-Hill deliberately focuses on politics with a capital 'P' -- that is, on affairs of state and questions of governance. He argues that many literary works of the late Elizabethan and Stuart periods can be properly understood only if we are alert to their often understated allusions to contemporary personalities, issues, and events. He argues, for instance, that Shakespeare's history plays are much preoccupied with issues relevant to the looming problem of settling on a successor for Queen Elizabeth, and the early pages of his book cover territory that will often seem quite familiar to specialists (particularly in his account of Elizabeth's reign). He suggests that Shakespeare's plays at first show a willingness to question hereditary right as the chief criterion for royal succession, and he implies that the playwright could have supported the founding of a new dynasty by someone such as Essex if such a step seemed necessary to ensure good government. (Bodin's distinction between lordly and royal monarchies is usefully employed.) Later, when James of Scotland peacefully and successfully assumed the throne, Shakespeare seems to have been more content (Erskine-Hill claims) to support the status quo. Repeatedly, though, he stresses the complexity of Shakespeare's treatment of historical topics. The playwright never emerges as dogmatic or doctrinaire; instead he seems as moderate, intelligent, and balanced as Erskine-Hill himself. This is a Shakespeare with whom many formalists (and other critics who see the world in shades of gray rather than in stark contrasts of black and white) would be quite comfortable. On the other hand, formalists would miss in this book the kinds of close reading and minute attention to specific textual details that they prize. Erskine-Hill, like many historians, often works with a large canvas and paints with bold strokes. This is not the sort of intricate historical criticism practiced so well (for example) by Leah Marcus in her essays on Jonson's masques; it is, instead, historical criticism carried on at a higher level of abstraction.
When Erskine-Hill does delve into details and knotty complexities, as in his discussions of potential and often previously over-looked allusions, his book becomes especially valuable. His comments on the potential links between Hamlet and the Scottish Darnley plot (for instance) are quite fascinating and provocative, as is his suggestion that King James's Basilikon Doron is an important text for understanding King Lear. Even here, however, Erskine-Hill shows admirable interpretive restraint: he never pretends to have found the skeleton key that unlocks all the complexities of a play, and in fact throughout his discussion of Shakespeare he emphasizes what Keats would have called the bard's 'negative capability' -- a talent for exploring multiple facets of any character, event, or theme.
Despite his usual caution, Erskine-Hill is not afraid to stake out unfashionable positions. He argues, for instance, that kingship is the fundamental political question of the seventeenth century and that very few writers (not even Milton) were republicans in a very strict or practical sense. The closest England comes to republican poetry, he claims, is to be found in Milton's sonnets; Paradise Lost is an altogether more complicated issue, since all the main characters are described, in one way or another, as monarchs. Erskine-Hill also contends that Marvell's famous Horatian ode is much more decidedly Cromwellian in its sympathies than is sometimes assumed, and he furthermore asserts (in one of the most provocative sections of his book) that Cromwell has much in common with Milton's Satan (or vice versa). Even when making arguments such as these, however, Erskine-Hill never seems unbalanced. One comes away from his book with the distinct impression of having been in the company of a thoughtful person who would be willing to consider and respect arguments that contradicted his own.
In the concluding portion of the volume, Erskine-Hill juxtaposes the experiences of Milton and Dryden as Restoration poets, and here again his sensitivity to allusions serves him well. Sometimes the parallels he draws seem at first implausible (as, for instance, when he compares the William Penns, father and son, to Manoa and Samson in Samson Agonistes), but he always offers logical reasons to support his case, even if the case finally seems unproved (perhaps because it is unprovable). Indeed, many of the arguments in this book inevitably seem speculative, and one sometimes wishes that Erskine-Hill could have produced firmer archival evidence that contemporary readers might have seen things as he does. (Imagine the impact, for instance, if we could only find evidence that several seventeenth-century readers wrote 'Manoa=Wm. Penn' in the margins of their copies of Samson Agonistes.) On the whole, though, Erskine- Hill makes his arguments about allusions with the kind of restraint that lends his arguments credence.
In a brief summary chapter, Erskine-Hill clearly reviews some of his key contentions. He especially stresses the hold that monarchy, as a concept, continued to exercise on the imagination of writers throughout the seventeenth century. Republican visions, he contends, seem comparatively pallid, even in the works of such nominal republicans as Milton. Erskine- Hill challenges the idea that the century's literature shows a growing emphasis on parliamentary liberty. The focus instead is usually (he contends) on kings, on influencing kingship, and on other sorts of strong leaders. It is perhaps this challenge to a 'Whig' interpretation of English literary history that gives Erskine-Hill's book its greatest relevance to current critical debates.

ROBERT C. EVANS
AUBURN UNIVERSITY AT MONTGOMERY