TY - JOUR
AU - Pasupathi, Vimala C
AB - As indicated by its title, Jane Yeang Chui Wong’s monograph, Dissent and Authority in Early Modern Ireland: The English Problem from Bale to Shakespeare, seeks to upend a critical paradigm in early modern studies that has tacitly perpetuated Tudor assessments of Ireland and the Irish as the locus of a “problem.” For scholars following the inroads made by an “archipelagic turn” in British history and literary studies since the mid-1970s, claims that appear to merely redirect the source of a singular “problem” do not immediately signal fruitful ground in which to produce new or substantive insight. Yet, Wong’s book makes a more significant contribution to this body of scholarship than the simple reversal in its titular phrasing suggests. Its primary value lies not in the novelty of its focus—on “dissenting voices within the English community, and among colonial administrators in Ireland” (7)—but in the richly textured accounts of dissent that this focus yields. The prologue, chapters, and epilogue provide abundant proof of the fraught “nature of delegated authority” (164), whether the delegates in question are bishops, lord deputies, or lord lieutenants. In chapter 1, Wong examines Henry VIII’s struggles with the clergy through John Bale’s depiction of the titular monarch in King Johan. In addition to prior accounts of John I’s reign—including a thirteenth-century chronicle and Simon Fish’s Supplicacyon for Beggars (1529)—Wong discusses Bale’s play in light of the Papal Interdict (1208–14) and John’s 1210 Irish expedition, as well as within two sixteenth-century contexts, the Kildare rebellion (1534–35), and Henry VIII’s Irish Parliament (1536–37). In chapter 2, Wong considers both historical and contemporary limitations of English royal authority in Ireland in Gerald of Wales’s Expugnatio and in one of the many later works that drew upon it, Richard Stanihurst’s “Description of Ireland,” which appeared in the 1577 edition of Holinshed’s Irish Chronicle. Contextualizing the Geraldine chronicle alongside a contemporary Anglo-Norman verse, The Song of Dermot and the Earl, Wong establishes the English king’s reliance on marcher families for the transformation of Ireland into a lordship of England, and then shows its impact on the subsequent transfer of power to other parties. Stanihurst’s repurposing of Gerald’s chronicle is inflected by the politics of the intervening years: in particular, the competing approaches in English governance implemented by Sir Anthony St. Leger, who served three terms as Lord Deputy under Henry VIII, Edward IV, and Mary I, and by his successor, Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, appointed in 1556. Stanihurst’s chronicle is dedicated to Henry Sidney and occludes Sussex’s time in the office, functioning, Wong contends, as a plea for Sidney to adopt St. Leger’s more conciliatory emphasis on rehabilitation. The argument in this chapter leads smoothly into chapter 3, devoted to Sidney’s career as Lord Deputy and the long-standing conflict between the Earls of Desmond and Ormond that contributed to his alienation from Elizabeth’s court. Wong complicates the glorifying depiction of Sidney in John Hooker’s Svpplie of the Irish Chronicle (1587), from the second edition of Holinshed, with Sidney’s descriptions of his losses and frustrations in his Memoir (1583). Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the most canonical literary texts—respectively, Book V of Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1596), and Shakespeare’s 2 Henry IV (1597–98). In the first of these, Wong reads Spenser’s allegory of justice as an essential conflict between violence and mercy, with Artegall representing both the abstract quandaries of any lord deputy and the impossibility of acting as a stable, equitable arbiter in the specific Ireland of Elizabeth’s Lord Grey. In the fifth chapter, Wong discusses the conclusion of civil war in Shakespeare’s play in light of documents associated with the 1597 ceasefire agreement, grievances and conditions articulated to conclude what was later called the Nine Years’ War (1594–1603). Here, the broad claims to the originality of subject matter—that there has been “little discussion” (156) of Lancaster’s treatment of the rebels—seem overstated. However, Wong’s discussion of the play itself is sound and the textual pairing that animates it is novel and ingenious. As the book’s epilogue moves to the conclusion of that war under Lord Deputy Mountjoy, Wong addresses the brief tenure of the Earl of Essex in the position of lord lieutenant. It is a mark of Wong’s skill in constructing and relaying the stories of the crown appointees whose careers preceded both men that Essex’s often-discussed exploits seem almost unremarkable by comparison. The “New British History” is now a long-established, multi-disciplinary field, and Wong’s Dissent and Authority contributes ably to it by linking key texts and political players that will be familiar to scholars of early modern Ireland but that are not often included within the same study. Though its subtitle “from Bale to Shakespeare” conveys some sense of the book’s coverage, Wong’s layered narratives look as far back as the reign of Henry II (1154–1189) and thereby admirably surpass these already-wide parameters. The book’s scope with respect to both chronology and textual genres is genuinely impressive and its greatest virtue. If its insights do not always seem wholly new, its historical sweep and specificity ensure that readers will benefit and learn from it all the same. By highlighting connections between the governing structures of Tudor Ireland and earlier forms of proxy governance, Dissent and Authority succeeds in commanding the interests of both literature scholars and historians, adding greater depth and detail to our understanding of English imperialism and statecraft. © Folger Shakespeare Library 2022. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Dissent and Authority in Early Modern Ireland: The English Problem from Bale to Shakespeare. By Jane Yeang Chui Wong
JF - Shakespeare Quarterly
DO - 10.1093/sq/quab029
DA - 2022-01-17
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/dissent-and-authority-in-early-modern-ireland-the-english-problem-from-oSExwLg1wv
SP - 274
EP - 276
VL - 71
IS - 3-4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -