The Play of Paradox: Stage and Sermon in Renaissance England.

This book is concerned with the "interplay between drama and theology in . . . stage and pulpit performances of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries" (x) - a connection underexamined due to modern misperceptions about Reformation preaching. Seventeenth-century preachers were more theatrical than those who followed them, combining elements of magic, prophecy, and performance. To delight and instruct, to transform an audience through disguised human ingenuity - these were the goals of preachers and players of Reformation England. Subjected to censorship yet concerned with subverting assigned propaganda, preachers used irony and rhetorical slipperiness such as paradox. The "prevalence of paradox in various genres of Tudor and Stuart literature is symptomatic of a widespread concern . . . with the simultaneous experience of contrary states" (19).

The paradoxes that informed and inspired Reformation sermons were those inherent in Calvinism. Luther exploited the effect of many paradoxes: humans were simultaneously saints and sinners; Christ was divine and mortal; although predestined, the elect were vile; and any human striving, though necessary, was useless. The effect was that "performative presentation of such contradictions [held] out the possibility of an experiential resolution, however partial or fleeting" (28).

Part 1 examines how religious polemics served paradoxes of the pulpit. The metaphorical "two-edged sword" implies that the word of God drives a wedge between the elect and the reprobate, identifying the wicked and collecting the elect, reinforcing the paradox that the body of believers is both inclusive and exclusive, and that one must go on living and striving despite predestination. Another metaphor employed is that of "holy cozenage" which capitalizes on the Protestant "cult of the ear" - a reaction to Catholic visual enticement. Through ingenuity and rhetorical skill, the preacher's task was to resolve paradoxes in "communal experience" (59) for the edification of the congregation.

Crockett investigates this edification in drama. Commonalities between a congregation and a theatrical audience (both of whom crave, in a senseless world, understanding of chaos and contradiction) are convincing, but the explication of theatrical paradox is less satisfactory than in the section on Reformation sermons. Part 2 explores the comic edification of satire - a genre, the author writes, as divisive as polemical sermon attacks of the time. The connection between satirical divisiveness or irony and the redemptiveness of paradox is unclear and therefore unconvincing. However, Crockett's discussion of the balance between judgment and mercy is much stronger. The paradoxical, simultaneous condemnation and pardon of the Bible is separated in successful sermons and dramas, thus evoking a state of receptivity and frustrating exclusion. In Shakespeare's romances like The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, judgment is delayed for years (time unfolds error), ultimately allowing a state of forgiveness and mercy among the characters and their audience.

Using an allegorical religious dialogue and The Duchess of Malfi, Crockett in Part 3 addresses tragedy and Protestant paradoxes, namely the difficulties concomitant with loving a God who damns the human race and predestines that damnation, a conflict made especially tricky since adherence without doubt is a sign of such election. In. Gifford's debate, life-loving Atheos's doubt condemns him while Zelotes, a boorish believer, is an elect. Webster's Duchess proves her election because she is able to embrace paradox; she accepts herself as saint and sinner, and trusts in God who has given her no reason to do so.

The chapter's coda, compelling though scattershot, contains some points about John Donne's ability to nurture metaphysical paradox in both poetry and sermon, and Shakespeare's handling of free will and determinism in Richard III. Although occasionally repetitive or obscured, Crockett's reasoning about the ways Renaissance sermons and drama addressed religious paradox for the edification of the Reformation audience is edifying for modern readers as well.

ANDREA SOLOMON University of California, Berkeley