Shakespeare's Speech Headings: Speaking the Speech in Shakespeare's Plays. by George WaltonWilliamsReview by: Karen SawyerThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 1209-1210Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2543427 .

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Book Reviews 1209

quadrivium, the then-known mathematical sciences, in the interests of the Renaissance and of an expanding Europe, compelling us to see the Renaissance in terms broader than humanism as well as geography itself in the larger framework not just of English imperialist purposes but of the West's global destiny. Can we credit Heylyn's assailant with harboring, if only dimly, any of these notions regarding the potentiality of this discipline that seemed now to vie even with divinity? John M. Headley ................. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Shakespeare's Speech Headings: Speaking the Speech in Shakespeare's Plays. Ed. George Walton Williams. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997. 213 pp. $39.50.

This collection of papers originated in the Textual Seminar of the Shakespeare Associa- tion of America, held in Montreal in 1986. It features the responses of eight scholars to a set text, "A Suggestion regarding Shakespeare's Manuscripts" by R. B. McKerrow, which is also reprinted in the volume. Originally published in The Revietv of English Studies (1935), McK- errow's article obtained wide acceptance in Shakespearean textual studies.The papers in this collection reexamine his argument and the assumptions which underlie it, documenting and, in some cases, attempting to redress its profound influence on editors and textual schol- ars. Though the appearance of the collection has been delayed, several of the papers have been cited and printed in other publications, so the impact of some ideas presented here has already been felt in Shakespearean textual criticism. Nonetheless, it is useful to have the papers finally available in one volume where the reader can benefit from their interplay.Wil- hams' preface contextualizes the collection with an overview of the seminar and an account of the discussion sparked by the papers.

According to McKerrow, variation in character designations can reveal the nature of the manuscripts which printers used as copy text.Those printed texts which designate a single character through a variety of speech headings were set from the playwright's holograph, he argued, while those with standardized speech headings were set from fair copy. Such copies might have been used either for reading or as promptbooks, for "a copy intended for use in the theatre would surely, of necessity, be accurate and unambiguous in the matter of the character-names."

This assertion provides one focus for discussion within the volume, eliciting emphatic, though divided, responses from several contributors. Sidney Thomas agrees that inconsistent speech-prefixes in Romeo andJuliet, for example, "would have thoroughly confused" prompters. However, Paul Werstine, William B. Long, and Randall McLeod convincingly refute McKerrow's assumption with the evidence of existing promptbooks, which do not regularize shifts in speech headings.

The papers also engage repeatedly with McKerrow's proposal that inconsistent speech headings are authorial. Indeed, the collection's very title is based on this hypothesis, though some contributors argue that scribal or compositorial intervention also introduced variant character designations. In his work on plays from the Shakespeare Apocrypha, Richard Proudfoot finds possible evidence for compositor identification in the varied abbreviations of character names. Sidney Thomas argues that some of the speech headings in Romeo and Juliet are "so eccentric or obviously mistaken" that they must be editorial. However, his argument posits unnecessary complications in the case of the designation "Old La." for Lady Capulet, since he acknowledges her other multiple identifications ("Wife," "Capu. Wife," "La.," and "Mother") to be Shakespearean. Thomas Clayton examines a number of cruxes

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1210 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXIX / 4 (1998)

in the assignation of speeches in Coriolanus; while successfully justifying some emendation, he also observes that editorial arguments for reassignment of speech headings often depend on the editor's own psychological interpretation of the character. In these "ambiguous cases," he argues, we should present the material as offered to us by its earliest printers, rather than emend it to fit our own vision.

Clayton's conclusion acknowledges a question raised by several other contributors: to what extent does editorial insistence on normalization of speech headings reflect our own prejudices and distort the text? The papers which enter this debate range over a number of works in the canon, and offer much to the general scholar as well as the textual specialist. Particularly insightful are the papers by Long and McLeod, both of whom argue for possible theatrical functions of variant speech headings. Long suggests that such variants might con- stitute an authorial shorthand of scene "types," providing blocking and characterization hints for sixteenth-century companies. By suppressing or dismissing these anomalies, editors ignore vitally important clues about theatrical practices in Shakespeare's day. In a paper full ofJoycean wordplay and typographical puns, Randall McLeod, writing here as "Random Cloud," wholeheartedly supports Shakespeare's "nomenclutter"; both the changes he rings on the playwright's name and his own choice of aliases underline his assertion that "Shakespeare's specific choices of tag... interpret dialogue through selective emphasis." Arguing against editorial dramatis personae lists, which arbitrarily limit character identifica- tions, (Mc)Cloud demonstrates that editorial efforts to mediate between the reader and the text tend either to eliminate creative and thought-provoking ambiguities, or to override the clear intentions of the author.

Unified by their attention to McKerrow's article, the papers in Shakespeare's Speech Head- ings present intriguing diversity in their methodology, textual emphases, and conclusions. Though the papers are uneven in terms of length (ranging from four to seventy-seven pages), many scholars will find this collection of interest, and it should provoke discussion far beyond its primary audience of textual critics and editors. Karen Sawyer ......... University ofToronto

Particular Saints: Shakespeare's Four Antonios, Their Contexts, and Their Plays. Cynthia Lewis. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1997. 250 pp. $39.50.

Through the use of church history, art history, and theater history, Cynthia Lewis exam- ines three questions: why do so many characters named Antonio appear on the English Renaissance stage, why are they so often paired with characters named Sebastian, and why do Shakespeare and other playwrights of his time portray these Antonios as fools for love? Her answers demonstrate that the medieval iconography and hagiography of St. Anthony of Egypt form part of a tradition, known to Shakespeare's audience, which he drew upon to depict his four major Antonios. How and why this awareness reshapes and refines an under- standing and appreciation of The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest becomes the focus of Lewis's penetratingly detailed and widely ranging study.

After a brief introduction, the first chapter describes the origin common to these Anto- nios, the iconography and hagiography of St. Anthony, and how they were transformed by the English Reformation, hence earning their title and the title of Lewis's book, "Particular Saints." In medieval Europe, Sts. Anthony and Sebastian shared patronage over some hospi- tals. Because St. Anthony was long associated with Christ, his name became synonymous with Christlike folly for Christian humanists. From these and other traditions emerges the

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