1 - Critical Studies

Summary

Good reference books are invaluable. Stanley Wells’ Shakespeare: A Reading Guide is a model of its kind. Designed to replace the English Association’s Pamphlet 61, A Shakespeare Reference Library, it contrives, while being of necessity highly selective, to cover an enormous amount of ground in a brief space, listing significant critical writings from the time of Doctor Johnson right down to the year of its appearance. Patrick Murray’s The Shakespearian Scene is both more restricted and more discursive than Wells’ pamphlet. Its avowed purpose is to offer some guidance to the general reader and the student by examining some of the major trends in Shakespearian criticism over the past forty years. Divided into four sections, it comments in a sensible and fair-minded manner on the controversy over character, the interest in imagery, the religious aspect of the plays, and the historical approach to Shakespeare’s work. Almost inevitably there is some overlapping, and the dangers of repetition are not avoided. A more serious shortcoming is that the centre of discussion is largely confined to the great tragedies and the problem plays. It is arguable that over the last fifteen years or so it is the emergence of new interpretations of Shakespearian comedy that has proved the most valuable addition to Shakespeare studies, yet the reader will look in vain for the names of Northrop Frye and C. L. Barber, while those of J. R. Brown and Bertrand Evans appear only in the Bibliography.