Secret Rites and Secret Writing: Royalist Literature, 1641-1660 by Lois PotterReview by: Kate Gartner FrostLibraries & Culture, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Summer, 1992), pp. 330-332Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25542457 .

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330 UkC/Book Reviews

scholarship, Midelfort illustrates how debate is shaped by definitions grounded in

temporal religious or political precommitments (p. 20). The dilemma of investing

meaning in scripture that might not be there out of concern for social legitimacy is

raised by Bedouelle as he deals with issues of biblical exegesis, canon law, and

political necessity in relation to the divorce of Henry VIII from Catherine of

Aragon. The recourse of such notables as Zwingli to the Old Testament, of Luther

to Paul, and of Bucer to the consciences of all parties in his search for the public in

terest in matters of divorce illustrates the nature of the "conversation" alluded to

above. Hendrix carries this interest in the formation of common civil values to the

undermining of one institution's granting moral legitimacy in society (Catholicism) to that of another (Lutheranism) in establishing such.

Third, the ways in which particular exegetes altered their positions through con

temporary debate, while evident in each contribution, are demonstrated by Irena

Backus and Payne. Payne illustrates this in Erasmus's interpretation of Romans

9:6-24, becoming more Augustinian after his debate with Luther. Backus traces

change similarly in Bucer. Her concern is to show how Bucer's exegesis of John 6 (in commentaries of 1528, 1530, and 1536) developed in the course of intra-Protestant

debates at Marburg (1529) and toward the drafting of the Wittenberg Concord

(1536). She shows that while Bucer abandoned his earlier polemic against

Lutheranism, he did not accept Luther's eucharistie emphasis on the ubiquity of

Christ's body in space.

Finally, three contributions draw conversation back in time and adumbrate the

future. Kaiman P. Bland's study reminds us of issues in contemporary Jewish ex

egesis. This work is helpfully set next to that of R. Gerald Hobbs, "Hebraica

Veritas and Traditio Apost?lica, ' '

who deals with the problem confronting exegetes when the New Testament gives readings of Old Testament texts that are not the best

ones suggested by the Hebrew text itself. If such work points back to the context out

of which conversation over the place of the Bible grew, Kenneth G. Hagen helps us

to look beyond the century toward the onset of historical criticism with its further

break from a consciously unified community of conversation.

In conclusion, apart from the particularities of scholarship presented by each con

tributor, this book raises several points for general reflection. First, the importance of the literary genre of a commentary in dealing with contemporary issues is

underscored. Second, commentaries are shown to shape and to be shaped by con

temporary literary and political debate. Finally, the ways in which the sixteenth cen

tury appealed to ideas and ideals from the received tradition illustrate the struggle to

live beyond what we might otherwise expect based on socioeconomic realities

alone. These points stand as further contributions to the larger debate today over

Christian ecumenicity and interreligious dialogue.

Rodney L. Petersen, Boston Theological Institute

Secret Rites and Secret Writing: Royalist Literature, 1641-1660. By Lois Potter. New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. xvi, 242 pp. ISBN 0-521-25512-0.

The tide of this useful book may mislead those intrigued by the hermetic en

codings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Professor Potter here is concerned

with encoding in a larger sense: to cope with the threat to their hierarchical perspec

tive and with the horror of the king's execution, Royalists went underground during

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331

the Parliamentary ascendancy in a number of ways. From a complex abundance of

literature, she has constructed a study of subversive Royalist publications and actual

coded writing that reveals the dangers, real and psychological, to aristocratic

authors and to the idealized concept of the king that often served as their inspiration. The study begins with an examination of the actual dangers faced by Royalist

publishers and proceeds to coded epistolary discourse. The problem of interception of Royalist correspondence was a real one that gave rise to a variety of ciphers, most

intriguing that employed by Charles I. However, the capture and decoding of the

king's private correspondence at Naseby revealed an embarrassingly duplicitous monarch who proposed concessions to the Roman Catholics and who belitded his

loyal supporters. The revelations of the king's Cabinet were to have a major effect

on Royalist literature.

At this point, in her third chapter, Potter's study begins to take coherent shape as

she examines encoding in a larger sense, specifically treating the romance and

tragicomedy as genres that encode the hopes, anxieties, and authorial ambivalences

of the Royalist community. The romance, a genre often aesthetically unavailable to

the modern reader, proves a powerful example of the mutual transference between

genre and experience. It is a particularly "Royalist plot," for it provides a political

commentary on the nature of authority (with its warring, lost, and restored kings)

and, by emphasizing love as transcending conflict, it mythologizes to a point of

some comfort the politically troubling marriage of Charles and Henrietta. Less suc

cessfully, tragicomedy moved away from symbolic reconciliation of political discom

forts to a confrontation with psychological realism?uncomfortable when the psy

chology was a king's. With the execution of Charles I, the comedie terminus proved

impossible, and it is no surprise that William Davenant's unfinished Gondibert

signals the collapse of the genre in the face of the king's murder.

In her fourth chapter, Potter contemplates the effect of the execution on the

Royalist author, particularly in the retreat into allusion, confusion with sources, and

even outright plagiarism that characterized much of the period's aristocratic

literature. Here are the "secret rites" of the tide: Potter sees the Royalist author as

overinternalizing the voices of his sources, lest he be exposed in his own voice?a

real danger in those times, one remembers. But the import is deeper: the notoriously irrational personae of the Cavaliers?the hysterical melancholic, the morose

prisoner, the tavern tippler?enable the writer to take on the public role of the

licensed fool. In effect, he submits himself to a communal persona in a literary rite

of irrational behavior and discourse, thereby hiding from himself his own real feel

ings of anger and depression. The secret rite is one of self-protection against the

anguish and loss of a real situation.

In her final and most successful chapter, Potter presents Charles Stuart himself as

an encoded text. The text here is actually a dual one: Charles is presented first as a

visual icon by means of emblematic tide pages and then as literary text through an

examination of Eikon Basilike. In her earlier chapter on enciphered languages, Potter

stressed the uncomfortable revelation of Charles's private, duplicitous persona. Here she emphasizes the creation of the idealized, even saindy Charles Stuart that

Eikon Basilike attempted. The tension between the symbolic and historical monarch

agonized the Royalist community, and one might expect this study to move on to a

larger consideration of its effects. However, Potter chooses to move her considera

tion of the monarch as text to what seems to me a less centrally related concern: the

perception of Charles as an essentially effeminate Christ figure, incompatible with

the male, militaristic requirements of the times. Certainly this is a real historical

concern: the king was constantly accused of passive compliance with the schemes of

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332 h&C/Book Reviews

Henrietta Maria and her Catholic advisors, and Milton characterized Charles as an

effeminate puppet in Eikonoklastes. But Milton also accused Charles of plagiarism, which seems more pertinent to Potter's argument, for the question of authorial sub

mission to a larger, traditional voice is one to which she gives serious consideration

in an earlier chapter.

Although Potter has generally avoided assigning all effect to political cause, as has

been recent fashion in some historical criticism, preferring to explore the more dif

ficult byways of publication, genre, and authorial voice, this detour into gender

studies, although a small distraction, is a manifestation of the book's one difficulty: the author has attempted to present the difficulties of the Royalists in formulating and promulgating a response to a situation for which there was no adequate

response. To do this she has had to wend her way through often marginal and

sometimes paradoxical literature?and take the reader with her. If the journey has

seemed a peroration, it is due to the breadth of her definition of encodement?a

definition that nonetheless leads to enlightening insights into a period and a

literature all too difficult of access historically and aesthetically.

Kate Gartner Frost, University of Texas at Austin

Postal Censorship in Imperial Russia. By David M. Skipton and Peter A. Michalove.

2 vols. Urbana, 111.: John H. Otten, 1989. ix, 488 pp. $113.00. ISBN 0-0945629

001-1.

This is a well-researched two-volume history of tsarist Russian postal censorship. It is most important, however, as a reference work for philatelists, because it pro vides extensive nineteenth and early-twentieth-century examples of censored and

perlustrated correspondence from various cities, regions, military units, prisons, and labor camps.

The work is divided into three main parts: volume 1 deals with various aspects of

perlustration and civil censorship of the mails?including foreign serial publications and mail connected with prisoners, exiles, and court officials?followed by four ap

pendices, three of which are lists of tsarist officials involved in the practice. Volume

2 is devoted to military censorship, focusing particular attention on 1905 and 1914

1918, followed by six appendices, including a lengthy, geographically arranged and illustrated list of military censor handstamps (pp. 281-465).

Each section demonstrates a command of Western and Russian-language secon

dary literature, and their application to actual examples of philately. The authors

place these practices into the unique context of tsarist Russia and suggest the

detrimental impact of this disruption in the free flow of ideas on Russia's intellec

tual and economic development. Both volumes are extensively illustrated with

photographs or photostatic reproductions of examples of purloined and censored let

ters, and it is this feature that makes this work of such great practical value. The

authors dissect each, indicating the relevant stamps, inks, seals, and other mark

ings. While they acknowledge that gaps in coverage exist, this is indeed the most

complete assemblage of such materials available to Western readers.

While informative and of practical use, this work is marred by some poor editing and organization, excessive repetition of material, and the use of colloquialisms.

One of the greatest disappointments is the notes section at the end of each chapter, [n contrast to the information-laden notes common to scholarly works, the notes

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