Literature and Revolution in England: 1640-1660.

Nigel Smith's book on literature and revolution is an ambitious undertaking. The literature of mid-century England - in the form of speeches, treatises, allegories, plays, poems, or propaganda - is voluminous and complicated. One could argue that as society broke down in the late 1640s the literature of the period became more convoluted, requiring an intimate knowledge of political detail and scripture in order to understand it. Always at issue was the matter of truth, propaganda, and censorship. Often historians read the political pamphlet literature of the civil-war period, but the literary pieces are sometimes neglected. In selecting a variety of texts from the time of the beginning of the Long Parliament through the Restoration, Smith redresses that balance, extending the parameters of his investigation to include the often overshadowed literature of the Protectorate period.

Smith argues that the literature of this period underwent a series of revolutions in genre and form in response to the crises of the 1640s. His premise is that the printed text in all its forms was an integral part - indeed the epicenter - of the political upheaval. Throughout the book Smith addresses the relationship between text and audience both together and individually. He is interested not only in the effect of events on literature, but also, conversely, in the "transformation of the nature of those texts by events" (3) as each informed the other. Genres - defined in his words as the "totalised identity of all the linguistic, rhetorical and narrative elements by which we recognize a particular speech act or text" (4) - link texts to society. They "define the parameters of public debate, the nature of change, and the means for comprehending that change" (4). Smith's contention is that texts altered thought and human behavior, but so did human behavior and events alter the vocabulary and meaning of texts.

As a theory, what Smith says makes sense. However, for the historian confronting the practical realities of the time, his thesis is more difficult to reconcile because the whole realm of "audience" is such a nebulous concept. Smith tells us that ultimately the "Puritan moment" may have affected very few people, touching perhaps only those who conceived and wrote religious discourse (129). How can we ever know, for example, who read Ranter literature? For a start we must know the degree of literacy we are talking about in that group, before proceeding on to the matter of motive (for example, would those already labeled Ranters read Ranter literature? If not, who did?) Perhaps it is somewhat simpler to gauge the audience for political literature, because here we can analyze the chronology and the subsequent events of printed texts. From the historian's position of hindsight, propaganda pamphlets may present the clearest definable example of the interaction of texts and society. Smith's example of the orator in Areopagitica addressing a Senatised House of Commons does indeed diminish the importance of the "often-made claim that there was no republicanism before 1649 (9).

Smith, in considering his own audience, has wisely divided his book into three parts and subdivided each part into chapters. The first part is a general discussion of writing, publishing and reading during the war period. The two chapters included cover the place of the newsletter (or corranto) and theater pieces and interludes during the English revolution. The second part addresses the matter of rhetoric in politics and religion with four chapters on the literature of church and state, political theory and republicanism. The third and last part addresses the topic of mythologizing the wars and the changes in genre as a result of social changes. It is comprised of four chapters that offer the most perceptive analyses in the volume, concerning, for example, the exploitation of the language of epic poetry by royalist propagandists. With regard to lyric poetry Smith notes that although the subject of war took over the content, the form itself ensured "the continuity of civilization inside the order of words" (250).

Smith's intimate knowledge of the period's diverse literature is evident. That he has read the texts closely and thought carefully about all of them is obvious. His organization of comment on this material linked only by the event of publication at the same time in the same place is beautifully conceived. In short Smith has done a remarkable job in analyzing what easily may be the most complicated of English printed materials. If he is to be faulted at all it is in his assuming too great a knowledge on the part of his readers - an assumption, though, without which it would not be possible to include such a wide variety of texts in a single monograph on the subject. The book will stand, then, not only as a standard commentary, but perhaps as an inspiration for scholars to read more widely in their search for the link between the written word and social upheaval.

MAIJA JANSSON Yale University