Science and the Arts in the Renaissance

Abstract

viewed as the narrative frame within which Shakespeare weaves a number of tales "of resistance and discord," the most problematical being the mechanicals' parody of Pyramus and Thisby,' a "counter-model" of "the reconciliation and accom- modation" (p. 172)proposed by the play's typical comic conclusion.Similarly, Shakespeare's utilization in Hamlet of the festive ritual of "charivari" or " 'mirth in funerals'" (p. 161)reveals how the elements of clowning and "grotesque laughter" resist the reconciliation of "the unfathomable contradictions of political succes- sion" (p. 193).Bristol's claim, on the other hand, for the popular "agon or Battle of Carnival and Lent" (p.161) as a dominant rhetorical structure in King Lear -htdiv, the "Carnival king," is replaced by "Lenten severity" which fails to bring about harmonious rule (pp.21 1-12) -is disappointingly cursory.The analysis of the Battle of Carnival and Lent in Henry IV, Parts I and II is the least engaging, for it does not pursue the full significance of Falstaffs defeat.Falstaff s Camivalesque treatment of "honorable death as a joke" and his exultation in the excesses of the body render him the spokesman for "a plebeian consciousness that maintains itself des- pite sacrifices demanded in the name of the nation-state" (p.183) represented by Prince Hal, the "embodiment of Lenten civil policy" (p.206).Bristol, however, ignores the possibility that Falstaff s public rejection in 2 Henry IV \vcvg>\\QS Shakespeare's negation of Carnival as the voice of historical continuity.Although the problem of authority is not fully accommodated to Shakespeare's complex vision of history, the study is a significant and provocative contribution to revisionist criticism.