Carnival and theater : plebeian culture and the structure of authority in Renaissance England /

Strong on critical and historical social theory, Carnival and Theater is especially significant for its contribution to the sociology of theater in the English Renaissance. The Marxist revisionism of Mikhail Bakhtin provides the point of departure for the thesis that the theater of the public playhouses was a continuation of the social and political life of the common people and, thus, an ongoing political dialectic, which centered on issues of authority, domination, and popular initiative and resistance. As a professionalized form of carnival, the popular theater was less an art form than an active participant in Elizabethan culture, providing both a celebration and a critique of the forms of collective life. Hence, ``Carnival {{and theater}} ... is assumed to have both a social and an antisocial tendency.'' This reading of Elizabethan drama enables Bristol to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of critical theories, from those of E.M.W. Tillyard and C.L. Barber to the current theories of Stephen Greenblatt and Jonathan Dollimore. The notes and bibliography are first-rate: the brief two-page index reflects the text's strategy of concentration, one that succeeds very well indeed in light of the wide scope of the contents. The printing and binding are excellent. Highly recommended for scholars, critics, and advanced students (i.e., graduate and upper-division undergraduate) of Renaissance literature and culture.-R.P. Griffin, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale