Reviews : The Singularity of Shakespeare and Other Essays. By Kenneth Muir. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 1977. 235 pp. £9.75. The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays. By Kenneth Muir. London : Methuen, 1977. 320 pp. £8.50
Abstract
ReviewsThe Singularity of Shakespeare and Other Essays. By Kenneth Muir. Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 1977. 235 pp. £9.75. The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays. By Kenneth Muir. London : Methuen, 1977. 320 pp. £8.50 SAGE Publications, Inc.1980DOI: 10.1177/004724418001004008 J. Drakakis The almost simultaneous publication of The Singularity of Shakespeare and other Essays and a revised version of The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays offers some indication of what Kenneth Muir has contributed over the years to the scholarly and critical edifice of the dramatist whom Ben Jonson characterized as "a Moniment without a tomb". The Singularity of Shakespeare and Other Essays collects together essays spanning some twenty- five years, and of the fourteen essays included, eight are concerned particularly with the study of Shakespeare. A further four deal with the work of Robert Greene, Calderon's comedies, H. R. Lenormand, and Congreve, while the final tw-o essays concentrate on the more general questions of "The Pursuit of Relevance", and "Poetry as a Criticism of Life". It is regrettable that space could not be found for the now virtually unobtainable essay on Shakespeare's soliloquies, while one wonders whether the claim that H. R. Lenormand is "one of the finest dramatists of