Reason Diminished: Shakespeare and the Marvelous.Peter G. Platt, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. 271 pp. $45. ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m : 0-8032-3714-6. Reason Diminished is a book with both large and modest ambitions. A study of "how wonder was conceived" (xii) in the English Renaissance The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century. seems a neatly confined aim, especially in light of recent books purporting to explain erotic choice or the patriarchy. Surely wonder is more manageable than sex or government. But Reason Diminished ranges far afield. It addresses the concept of the "marvelous" in Aristotle, Longinus, and Francesco Patrizi; in Reformation tracts, particularly those of More and Tyndale; in travel accounts; in the writings of scientists such as Bacon and Descartes; in English prose fiction by Greene, Spenser, Sidney, Lodge and Nashe; in the genre of the masque masque, courtly form of dramatic spectacle, popular in England in the first half of the 17th cent. The masque developed from the early 16th-century disguising, or mummery, in which disguised guests bearing presents would break into a festival and then join with their ; and in Shakespeare's late romances The late romances, often simply called the romances, are a grouping of William Shakespeare's later plays, including Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Cymbeline; The Winter's Tale; and The Tempest. - all in less than 200 pages. I admit to skepticism as I read the first half of the book, a study of cultural concepts of wonder ranging from theology to travel accounts. The narrative rattles past texts, biographies, philosophies and religious shifts with a speed that lends itself to shorthand. Yet my curiosity grew as I read and, willy-nilly, a certain fascination grew at the same time. Most Renaissance philosophers thought of wonder as an initial experience diminished by reason. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , an intellectual investigation domesticates wonder. Platt sees the Renaissance as marked by a "wonder shift," a "movement from an interest in the marvelous itself to an interest in how the marvelous works, how it is constructed" (63). The "wonder shift" would appear to explain the Renaissance emphasis on knowledge as triumphing over ignorant wonder. But Platt argues that an alternate strain of thought posited that wonder diminished reason, rather than vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. . The second concept is clearest in Renaissance fiction, where "knowledge claims are routinely destabilized by wondrous events that are shown not to have a rational, coherent explanation" (2). Thus the first half of Reason Diminished, the study of wonder in Renaissance culture, dances an uneasy line. In order to prove his point, given the "wonder shift," Platt must locate Renaissance examples that celebrate the marvelous even as they investigate its innards. He looks for - and finds - constructive investigations that do not diminish wonder. The third chapter, for example, maps two approaches to the natural world, the "marvelous tradition," and a scientific approach, deftly investigating a few figures who spanned both. "Wonder and the Natural World" is fascinating in its articulate discussion of travel accounts, monsters and curiosity cabinets, if frustrating in its brevity. The complex link between the marvelous and the rational is perhaps best exemplified in the interplay between the two approaches: I found myself wishing that Professor Platt had discarded other chapters, notably a speedy look at five Elizabethan prose writers, and expanded his arguments here. The second half of Reason Diminished is an investigation of Shakespeare's late plays. Platt argues that the late plays adhere to adhere to verb 1. follow, keep, maintain, respect, observe, be true, fulfil, obey, heed, keep to, abide by, be loyal, mind, be constant, be faithful 2. "a philosophy of wonder," rather than a "philosophy of skepticism" (126). The "wonder shift" becomes Shakespeare's oft-discussed emphasis on the "marvelous mechanics of his dramatic art" in the late plays, a dramaturgical dram·a·tur·gy n. The art of the theater, especially the writing of plays. dram  a·tur shift from "a focus on the marvels themselves to the making of marvels" (138, 152). In The Winter's Tale, for example, Platt reads the statue scene as unmasking the marvels of dramatic art, while at the same time the play moves away from the "epistemological e·pis·te·mol·o·gy n. The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity. [Greek epist tyranny of the rational" and towards celebration of the marvelous. The tension between the marvelous and the scientific is brilliantly exemplified by The Tempest's magic and by Cymbeline's living statue The term living statue refers to a mime artist who poses like a statue or mannequin, usually with realistic statue-like makeup, sometimes for hours at a time. This is an art that requires a great deal of patience and physical stamina. . Platt's last chapter, on The Tempest, best bares out his premise. As he notes, The Tempest addresses virtually every aspect of the marvelous discussed in Reason Diminished: philosophy, magic, monsters, travel writing and masques. Platt's lucid and convincing discussion of the play brings together the far-flung edges of his own text. Behind Prospero's manipulation of wonder, we see Shakespeare's manipulation of wonder, and behind the dramatist's, the complex and strained attitude towards wonder that Platt identifies in early modern culture. Wonder is staged as a dynamic force in the play, dangerous and yet necessary, vulnerable and yet triumphant. MARY BLY Mary Bly (born 1962 in Minnesota) is a professor of English Literature at Fordham University who also writes best-selling Regency romance novels under the pen name Eloisa James. She is the daughter of poet Robert Bly and short-story author Carol Bly. Washington University Washington University, at St. Louis, Mo.; coeducational; est. as Eliot Seminary 1853, opened 1854, renamed 1857. It has a well-known medical school and school of social work as well as research centers for radiology, space studies, engineering computing, and the , St. Louis |
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