Abstract
Addressing a theme which has long raised the attention of early modern scholars, Andrew Hiscock offers in his Shakespeare, Violence and Early Modern Europe (2022) a thorough and finely researched study on the pervasive and multifaceted nature of violence in early modern culture, with special focus on its representation in Shakespeare's history plays. Through a rigorous exploration of historical, cultural, and literary contexts, Hiscock roots his argument in a wide selection of early modern and contemporary texts, ranging from early modern military treatises to modern scholarship on violence, smoothly handling the writings of Alberico Gentili and Sir John Harington as well as those of Hannah Arendt and Zygmunt Bauman. Across six extensively researched chapters, Hiscock traces the early modern cultural ‘appetite for violence’ in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, at the scaffold and on bookstalls, reflecting on its effect on people's attitudes towards warfare and state power, as well as its personification in some of the most well-known men of action of the time, such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. His thorough study of the representation of violence focuses on its performance on the stage, where Shakespeare's history plays serve as a focal lens to examine how military force functions as both spectacle and a means of asserting power – a ubiquitous tool of authority that paradoxically exposes the inherent instability and ambivalence in power won through such means.
In the Introduction, Hiscock addresses the object of his study as the early modern need for ‘theatres of conflict’ that make the cultural debate over this thorny topic visible and accessible to larger audiences, already accustomed to a wide literary and dramatic production on the subject, as well as real-life spectacles such as executions and celebrations (e.g., Accession Day tilts and knightly performances at court) (p. 2). The primacy of such topics in the English cultural scenario, according to Hiscock, lay in the necessity of considering as well as questioning armed conflict as an instrument of state polity ‘for political continuity or change management’ that also responded ‘to individual or collective insecurities’ (p. 3). However, these considerations also benefit contemporary readers, who are often overwhelmed by extreme acts of violence. As such, the introduction of Shakespeare's history plays in this study is fundamental in translating Hiscock's criticism to a more epistemological level, where readers (as well as on- and off-stage spectators) are ‘forced to reflect upon their own ethical integrity – nay, complicity – in bearing witness to the unfolding cycles of horror’ (p. 5). This introductory section also hints at some key concepts that Hiscock develops throughout the following chapters, such as the encounter with the political and geographical ‘Other’, the violent/passive role exerted by women in these contexts, and the ambiguous status of morality and religion on the battlefield.
Chapters 1 and 4 investigate the figures of Sir Walter Ralegh and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, respectively, accounting in detail for their lives, relationship with power and main undertakings in both military and political terms. Presented within a larger discussion of the ‘political capital potentially available in the business of war-making and history-making’ (p. 29), both men, as Hiscock convincingly demonstrates, were central to the maintenance of state authority yet simultaneously posed a threat to it, reflecting both the capriciousness of monarchical power and its precarious reliance on those who enacted violence on its behalf. The meticulous description of their lives and careers varies in Hiscock's narrative focus rather than in the detailed research underpinning it. Regarding Ralegh, Hiscock primarily focuses on his military campaigns and ventures, often granting space for a profound examination of the questionable morality of soldiers and captains on the battlefield. Conversely, Essex's political brilliance and diplomatic ties as spymaster constitute the core of Chapter 4, which closely examines his influence on not only English but also European political decision-making. Starting from broad considerations on the early modern necessity of understanding England's survival in association with the borders of the kingdom and its neighbouring states, where the ‘Other’ – often construed as savage and contagious – frequently shows signs of troubling similarity to the onlookers, Ralegh's and Essex's ventures, as well as accounts of Ireland and the Americas, represented ‘a specific way of engaging with the past, that is the military re-enactment of the empire-building of the peoples of antiquity’ (p. 43).
The theme of memory and its role in ‘the business of war-making and history-making’ (p. 29) is deeply investigated in the second chapter on the Henry VI plays, where the resources of ‘textual and artefactual memory’ employed by Shakespeare and the characters themselves aim to restore Britain's heroic narrative (p. 57) and feed the appetite for ‘stainless military gods of a craftily edited past’ (p. 61). At the same time, however, restlessly rehearsing antique instances of political authority underscores how such greatness and political stability can only be temporarily reinstated within the playhouses. In this light, ‘memory and violence offer precious hermeneutic modes with which to resist the unremitting experience of marginality and trauma’ (p. 60). Indeed, as shown in the third chapter devoted to the Henry IV plays, the failures of government and patronage are addressed through the deployment of armed force. Here, ‘the plays construct a narrative in which the newly instituted Lancastrian ascendancy is resolutely committed to evading these very questions of historical indebtedness, to masking its own origins of power, to editing the passage of time and, ultimately, to affirming legitimacy through the spectacle of military might’ (p. 92). Analysed in Chapter 4, Henry V brings concerns of ‘metadramatic reflection, theatrical potentiality and the intelligibility of violence’ to the extreme as the protagonist merges the attributes of the blood-thirsty warlord with those of the patriotic hero (p. 127). Divided into numerous sections, the Shakespearean chapters develop crucial topics, such as the emerging primacy of international warfare in English, the ambiguous role of faith on the battlefield, and the seductive as well as destructive power of violence from countless perspectives that sometimes leave the reader's curiosity unanswered. These chapters give a generally good, coherent account of the plays, although many of the arguments within them may already be relatively familiar to scholars of Shakespeare's drama. Also, the amount of early modern and contemporary quotations used to substantiate such claims sometimes halts the narrative flux and jeopardises the efficacy of Hiscock's reading of these dramas as deeply sceptical towards violence, recognising its ubiquity as a way of asserting power and authority yet also demonstrating how the power won through violence is always equivocally held.
Similarly, the concluding chapters may at first make the reader question their relevance, as they return attention to the figures of Ralegh and Essex and their afterlives in later literary and dramatic production. Despite the initial dizziness caused by the abrupt change in topics, Chapter 6 interestingly brings the figures of Ralegh, Essex, Elizabeth, and Shakespeare full-circle as it addresses the literary and dramatic processes of ‘celebration, heroisation and memorialization’ reserved for them from Essex's execution to the 1770s (p. 181). The chapter divides the vast corpus of texts and dramas mentioned into three chronological macro-periods (1600–1630s; 1630s–1650s; after the 1650s). Each period is explored in both its English and European production, creating a wave-like movement between here and there, motherland and foreign lands, where the cultural ghosts of these characters endlessly roam.
This literary wandering ends in the Conclusion, which initially focuses on the figure of Shakespeare being relentlessly re-written onto the stage throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in line with the Continental fascination with the Tudor era. Here, Hiscock ultimately connects his analysis to contemporary concerns, reflecting on how violence still permeates and shapes our everyday lives as both a tool of power and a subject of cultural debate. As in the early modern period, the investigation of violence raises questions concerning nation-building practices, where physical and psychological suffering often constitutes the emotional foundations of shared experiences and identities. These considerations eventually lead to the conclusion of Hiscock's study, where the author warns his readers about the importance of constant scrutiny of our body politic, whose renewal is often envisaged and negotiated through the terrifying display of brute power.
Overall, Hiscock's study offers fresh insights into how early modern audiences grappled with the same questions we face today: the legitimacy of violence, the instability of authority, and the human cost of power. Most importantly, it shows how the monopoly of violence, in Glete's words, does not work seamlessly on the Shakespearean stage, where it opens up possibilities for thought and resistance for subjects and spectators, offering ‘insights into the alternative to, the evasion of, the non-performance of, violence’ (p. 117). Although only momentarily touched upon, Hiscock's reflections on the correlation between military inertia and linguistic collapse, as well as on the role and power of amnesia and ars oblivionis in the early modern period, may prove fertile ground for new research in this field, which has surely been deeply enriched by Hiscock's meticulously researched and thought-provoking work.