llman's Jacobean Revenge Tragedy and the Politics of Virtue argues that the character

configuration of revenge tragedy in the Jacobean period mirrors and contributes to the
political debate over the nature of monarchical authority that was sparked by James I's
power struggle with Parliament. She focuses on four plays -- The Maid's Tragedy, The
Second Maid's Tragedy, Valentinian, and The Duchess of Malfi -- written and performed
between 1610-1613, a particularly rancorous ran·cor
n.
Bitter, long-lasting resentment; deep-seated ill will. See Synonyms at enmity.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin, rancid smell, from Latin period of
public debate about tyranny and anxiety over James's assertions of absolutism
absolutism

Political doctrine and practice of unlimited, centralized authority and absolute

sovereignty, especially as vested in a monarch. Its essence is that the ruling power is not
subject to regular challenge or check by any judicial, legislative, religious, economic, or .
Devoting a chapter each to the stage tyrant, the revenger, the androgynous
an·drog·y·nous
adj.
1. Biology Having both female and male characteristics; hermaphroditic.

2. Being neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or

behavior. hero, and the authoritative heroine, Allman works through each of these roles
in the three plays first mentioned, and then culminates in a reading of The Duchess of
Malfi as a play that transcends the genre of revenge tragedy, yet confirms her analysis of
the genre's cultural significance. Allman's analysis is sensitive and convincing on the
gender implications of these roles, as well as on the self-reflexive quality of the genre, in
which actors play characters who self-consciously play roles and attempt to create a
social script in which their political and moral agenda prevails.

Allman argues persuasively that the relationship between the tyrant and his male subjects
is a homosocial one. The tyrant represents an extreme of misogyny
misogyny /mi·sog·y·ny/ (mi-soj´i-ne) hatred of women.

mi·sog·y·ny
n.
Hatred of women.

mi·sog , asserting his power by casting his subjects in subordinate and therefore
feminized roles: "The tyrant's power over his male subjects relies, in fact, on their mutual
misogyny in understanding signifiers of femaleness as degrading to men" (41). The fear
of tyranny sparked by James's absolutist pronouncements and his power struggle with
Parliament is enacted in this figure, who represents not so much the reality of James's
rule but what his opponents feared it might become. The revenger, in this analysis,
counters this threat to his masculinity by creating a second persona for himself covered
by deception, that challenges and seeks to overthrow the tyrant. As rival to the power that
writes the dominant social script and chief manipulator of the play/s action, he becomes a
figure of the author. But by setting himself up as the opposite of the tyrant, the re venger
accepts his misogynist mi·sog·y·nist
n.
One who hates women.

adj.
Of or characterized by a hatred of women.

Noun 1. misogynist - a misanthrope who dislikes women in particular

woman hater terms of authority. Allman characterizes the revenger's career as "a
pathological retreat from the female, an attempt, like the tyrant he opposes, to control the
sexual Other through strategies of domination and appropriation" (85). Revenger and
tyrant remain locked in the homosocial rivalry for masculine control over the reviled
feminine.

The two characters who offer a way out of this impasse are the androgynous hero and the
heroine who gains a measure of autonomy from male control. Androgynous heroes are
the male characters who "avoid replicating the tyrant they oppose by rejecting the terms
of his rivalry; refuting the seemingly natural polarity between male authority and female
submission to support and even obey the authority of women" (102). Their authority
derives from that of the heroine they choose to support in lieu of the tyrant. And the
authority of such heroines as the Lady in The Second Maid's Tragedy, Eudoxa and
Lucina in Valeneinian, and ultimately the Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi is a spiritual
self-affirmation that transcends the political and physical authority claimed by the tyrant.
While heroine affirms patriarchal authority in the social realm, this spiritual self-
affirmation allows her to escape (albeit at great cost, sometimes of life) the role of mere
text or counter that the tyrant and revenger strive to create for her. In Allman's view, the
analysis of Jacobean misogynistic mi·sog·y·nis·tic also mi·sog·y·nous
adj.
Of or characterized by a hatred of women.

Adj. 1. misogynistic - hating women in particular

misogynous

ill-natured - having an irritable and unpleasant disposition politics in these four revenge
tragedies is deep and telling, but need not be read as an affirmation of those politics,
offering just as easily a point of view from which to critique them.

A great strength of Allman's book is its combination of theoretical sophistication

so·phis·ti·cate
v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates

v.tr.
1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly.
2. with clear, relatively jargon-free prose. Her early chapters provide a useful, concise
account of the way Elizabethan and Stuart dynastic politics served to confuse the
standard alignment of the male gender with familial and political power: Elizabeth's
patrilineal patrilineal /pa·tri·lin·e·al/ (pat?ri-lin´e-il) descended through the male line.

pat·ri·lin·e·al
adj.
Relating to, based on, or tracing ancestral descent through the paternal line. claim to
power was complicated by her female gender, and James's authoritarian politics and
misogynistic social policy were complicated by his matrilineal mat·ri·lin·e·al
adj.
Relating to, based on, or tracing ancestral descent through the maternal line. claim to
power and his notorious homosocial tendencies. But this broad perspective is not carried
through; and while Allman's focus on 1610-1613 provides a sharp focus, it begs the
question of how broadly her insights and conclusions can be extended to the Jacobean
period in general and the genre of revenge tragedy as a whole. Nevertheless, this
suggestive and clearly written study should be very valuable to a broad range of both
scholars and students.

Philippa Berry's Shakespeare's Feminine Endings, by contrast, is aimed at a much

narrower audience of fellow literary critics. It is a densely written look into the cultural
and psychological depths of Shakespeare's tragedies, deconstructing the patriarchal
discourse of the plays and finding in successive layers of imagery and cultural reference
the echoes of the suppressed feminine that "resonate" or "reverberate re·ver·ber·ate
v. re·ver·ber·at·ed, re·ver·ber·at·ing, re·ver·ber·ates

v.intr.
1. To resound in a succession of echoes; reecho.

2. " behind its cultural affirmations. Berry's deconstructionist and cultural materialist
analysis of death in Shakespearean tragedy is compelling and suggestive, but as a piece
of reading it is tough going. Determined readers will find a complex meditation that tries
to represent the discourse the plays (and their culture) have repressed re·pressed
adj.
Being subjected to or characterized by repression. , a discourse which exists therefore
only by figural fig·ur·al
adj.
Of, consisting of, or forming a pictorial composition of human or animal figures.

fig ur·al·ly adv.

Adj. or punning implication. And what Berry finds repressed above all in the discourse
of Shakespearean tragedy is the female body -- both as female physical experience
(female sexuality) and as representative of a general repression of the material world.
Berry's early chapter on "Double Dying and Other Tragic Inversions," is representative of
her approach. In it she explores the "inversion of death" implied in the flowery fertility
rite of Ophelia's death, in Desdemona's repeated crossing of the border between life and
death at the end of her life, and in Juliet's life-in-death in the tomb. Focusing in particular
on Juliet, she goes on to place these deaths in the context of Counter-Reformation saint
imagery, the philosophical concept of the animus Animus - ["Constraint-Based
Animation: The Implementation of Temporal Constraints in the Animus System", R.
Duisberg, PhD Thesis U Washington 1986]. mundi, medieval popular festival, and
astrology. The analysis is rich, but so complex it can be hard to follow. Berry is
convincing in her demonstration that the familiar connection of death with sexuality and
the complex of imagery surrounding the heroines' deaths undercuts death's finality, with
it the privileging of spirit over body. Less convincing, perhaps, is her rather sketchy
delineation of a homoerotic ho·mo·e·rot·ic
adj.
1. Of or concerning homosexual love and desire.

2. Tending to arouse such desire.

Adj. 1. preoccupation with the female backside or arse in the sexual imagery that
surrounds the heroines.

In each of the following chapters -- on Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear
respectively -- Berry performs a similar operation of teasing out wordplay, unearthing
half-buried imagery, uncovering layers of imagery, and bolstering her findings with
connections made to a broad range of Renaissance cultural movements and works of art,
pulled with seeming effortlessness out of an impressive erudition er·u·di·tion
n.
Deep, extensive learning. See Synonyms at knowledge.

Erudition of editors—Hare.

Noun 1. . According to Berry, Shakespeare's tragedies are quintessential works of the

"liminal liminal /lim·i·nal/ (lim´i-n'l) barely perceptible; pertaining to a threshold.

lim·i·nal
adj.
Relating to a threshold.

liminal

barely perceptible; pertaining to a threshold. " Renaissance period between the medieval
"animist an·i·mism
n.
1. The belief in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and
phenomena.

2. The belief in the existence of spiritual beings that are separable or separate from
bodies.

3. " view of death and the modern rationalized one. As such, they provide a glimpse into
a period of unstable transition that allowed for an upsurge of repressed cultural values.
The advantage of Berry's approach is that it demonstrates very clearly the ways in which
dominant cultural values, by dominating, distort or "disfigure disfigure v. to cause
permanent change in a person's body, particularly by leaving visible scars which affect a
person's appearance. In lawsuits or claims due to injuries caused by another's negligence
or intentional actions, such scarring can add considerably to " the competing values they
oppress op·press
tr.v. op·pressed, op·press·ing, op·press·es
1. To keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority: a people who were
oppressed by tyranny.

2. . Yet as much as Berry's reading works to deconstruct de·con·struct

tr.v. de·con·struct·ed, de·con·struct·ing, de·con·structs
1. To break down into components; dismantle.

2. the monolithic patriarchal order that Shakepeare's texts affirm on the surface, and have
been traditionally celebrated for affirming, at the same time it paradoxically confirms the
traditional privileging of Shakespeare in the canon of Renaissance writers, and of the
tragedies in the rest of the Shakespeare canon. Here again, as with All-man's book, I
found myself wondering about the implications of this analysis to the broader range of
literary works of the period. Would other texts -- say of Webster, or of Elizabeth Gary --
yield similar results if subjected to the same level of analysis? Or does Shakespeare
remain the special case, the quintessential work of literature, to whose level all others
aspire?

Nevertheless, and while some of the connections Berry teases out can seem farfetched,
the great advantage of her approach is that it brings alive the complexity and open-
endedness of the Shakespearean text and its permeability with the larger culture in which
it participates, including the repressed aspects of that culture. Berry's Shakespeare is
inexhaustibly rich, endlessly fascinating, always with more to tell us about ourselves as
culturally produced and culture-producing creatures. This is a colder view of humanity
than we get in Allman's look at the passionate attempt to shape political culture in the
revenge tragedy of 1610-1613. Both views are valuable; Allman's will reach a wider
audience.