Bookk review. Reviewed book: Jeffrey S. Doty: Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2017.Peer reviewe

Peltonen, Markku

The Review of English Studies

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Markku Peltonen

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JEFFREY S. DOTY. Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere.

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https://helda.helsinki.fiJeffrey S. Doty: Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere[Book review]Peltonen, Markku2018-02Peltonen , M 2018 , ' Jeffrey S. Doty: Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere [Bookreview] ' , Review of English Studies , vol. 69 , no. 288 , pp. 167-169 . https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgx088http://hdl.handle.net/10138/310806https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgx088unspecifiedacceptedVersionDownloaded from Helda, University of Helsinki institutional repository.This is an electronic reprint of the original article.This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail.Please cite the original version.JEFFREY S. DOTY, Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere. Pp. vii + 210.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.This is an important book. It examines the theme of popularity and its political andtheatrical dimensions in some of Shakespeare’s plays from 1595 to 1608. The playsincluded are Richard II 1 & 2, Henry IV, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Measure forMeasure and Coriolanus, which all dealt with popularity and contemporary politics.The underlying idea of the book is that the theatre was an ideal place to explore thethemes of popularity and publicity in early modern politics. These themes have ofcourse been extensively examined in recent historical and literary scholarship, muchof which is cited in this volume. There are some parallels here with Peter Lake’srecent How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage (2016). However, Doty is also ableto make a valuable contribution to Shakespeare studies and more generally to thisrecent work on popularity in early modern politics. He discusses several differentaspects of popularity and publicity in the plays he has chosen for his analysis. Theseinclude, how the audience could be seen as ‘a critical public’ but also how stagingplays about popularity and politics fostered political analysis. Doty argues thatShakespeare not only put popular political thinking onstage; he also prompted hisplaygoers to make analyses of contemporary politics. The theatre, as it were, playedan important role in turning early modern subjects into citizens. As Doty puts thecentral argument of the book, ‘when Shakespeare dramatized the tactics for winningthe love of the people, he subjected the Elizabethan controversy of “popularity” – andthe real figures associated with it – to playgoer[‘s] scrutiny’ (19). More specifically,he argues that in Shakespeare’s plays the audience could examine ‘how popularity …impacts monarchical politics’ (56). The audience created some kind of ‘a criticalpublic’ (59) and the theatre itself was ‘an emergent space of political uptake andpublic deliberation’ (64). Popularity is taken to mean both ‘the public circulation ofpolitical arguments’ (34) and the gaining of the favour of the people by flatteringthem.Each chapter mainly focuses on one particular play. Chapter one discussesBolingbroke as a popular man in Richard II and ‘reflects late Elizabethan concernsabout an emergent public sphere’ (29). Bolingbroke manages to depose Richard notso much by the support of powerful nobles but especially by popularity – by the loveof the people, which he adroitly cultivates. Richard, while he notices Bolingbroke’spopularity, does not understand its importance. Chapter two demonstrates how PrinceHal wins the support of the people in Henry IV and hence emphasises how monarchyis in large part based on the consent of the nobles and the common people alike. Inchapter three, Doty examines Caesar’s popularity in Julius Caesar. Surprisingly, hedoes not discuss the famous funeral orations by Brutus and Mark Antony. Yet, theywould have been of crucial importance not only because the political and civic orderof the Roman commonwealth is at stake but also because they show how everythinghinges on the common people. Chapter four focuses on monarchical popularity inMeasure for Measure. Doty explores Duke Vincentio and his cultivation of popularityas a commentary on James VI & I’s problems with the same and also shows theimportant role of news in public. The final chapter turns to Coriolanus. It argues thatCoriolanus’ hatred of popularity in fact emphasises its importance. There is also aninteresting discussion of the first Scene of Act one, where Coriolanus is depicted as atruly popular man.In offering these fine analyses Doty’s book makes a significant contribution to ourunderstanding of early modern popularity and the public sphere. However, there aresome weaknesses in the book as well. The first recorded use of the word ‘demagogue’was not in 1649 (14-15) but in 1629 in Thomas Hobbes’s translation of Thucydides.While it is true that in his philosophical works Cicero was very critical of the commonpeople (14), arguing for a republic governed by wise and virtuous optimates, in hisrhetorical oeuvre, by contrast, he placed the emphasis on the orator’s rhetorical skillsto persuade the common people. This brings me to the main weakness of the book,which is the omission of the early modern ars rhetorica. This would have beenimportant for several reasons. It was the ars rhetorica which offered an examinationof popularity in positive terms. For Cicero, ‘populus’ or ‘multitudo’ formed theorator’s main audience, and he even talked about ‘oratio popularis’ – ‘popularoration’ (Brutus, 51.191), and how in eloquence language should fit ‘the vulgar andpopular understanding’ (De oratore, 1.23.108). The early modern humanists followedsuit and likewise argued that the common people – the multitude – were the orator’schief audience. They also often used the word ‘popular’ in relation to eloquence.Moreover, although the humanists perceived eloquence as a means of persuading andgoverning the common people, many in early modern England also issued urgentwarnings about rhetoric in popular hands. Such orators were seen merely as peoplepleasers, who flattered the common people to foment sedition. In the characters ofBrutus and Mark Antony, we see these two different types of orators in action. Dotydoes not discuss any of this, although its relevance to his analysis would have beenobvious.I do not want to end on a critical note. Doty’s book is a fine account of the themes ofpopularity, popular politics and the public sphere in Shakespeare and it is a valuablestudy not only for literary scholars but also for historians of early modern England.MARKKU PELTONEN, University of Helsinki

Jeffrey S. Doty: Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere [Book review]

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Jeffrey S. Doty: Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere [Book review]

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