Robert Brustein (1927–2023)

A work that ties together a number of playwrights from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries in what the author refers to as "the theatre of revolt". He discusses each of these playwrights and the ways in which they rebel against modernity, religion, philosophy, society, the lack of religion, and much else. There is much in here that contradicts other scholars on some of these playwrights, especially Ibsen, but it is thought-provoking, even if some of it is hard to agree with. The book does suffer from too much assumption that these playwrights must have been particularly insightful in seeing everything the way they did, and that their philosophies were valid. Some of them probably are, but there were many questionable things in their writing, also. There is also the problem that at times the author makes a statement that sounds like a value judgment but may be merely a statement about what a particular writer believed, but it is impossible to tell when it is Brustein's opinion or, say, Strindberg's. It also suffers from assumptions that seemed to many to be valid in 1964, but have now been discovered to be scientifically inaccurate - in other words, some of the things presented in this book did not wear well. It would also be nice to find a theatre critic, any one of the writers of this time, who did not just dismiss Arthur Miller and Willy Loman. Overall, a worthwhile book, but one that shows the signs of its time.… (mer)

Robert Brustein, a theatre director and noted drama critic and author, tries to tackle the inner mind of Shakespeare in The Tainted Muse: Prejudice and Presumption in Shakespeare and His Time (Yale University Press, 2009). He examines six areas of Shakespeare's works (what he calls misogyny, effemiphobia, machismo, elitism and mobocracy, racialism and intelligent design), proposing that cases from each, "admittedly without conclusive proof ... may be the result of his personal convictions and experiences," as well as (in addition to) the cultural zeitgeist of his time.

Brustein notes at the outset that he "fully realize[s] the dangers of such an endeavor," recognizing A.D. Nuttall's frank conclusion in Shakespeare the Thinker that "we do not know what he [Shakespeare] thought, finally, about anything." But, he says, this doesn't stop us from speculating. It certainly doesn't in his case, as Brustein goes on to attempt to "draw a psychic biography of the man, examining how the obsessions of his characters and himself may have changed over the course of his career" (p. 9).

Through his six chapters, Brustein offers up examples which he suggests portray Shakespeare's personal feelings: toward faithless women, cowardly courtiers, manly soldier-types, the dangers of democracy and mob rule, racial minorities, and religious opinions. What he does not do (with the exception of alluding to Shakespeare's strained relations with his wife, and to Greenblatt's suggestion that Shakespeare's father might have been a Catholic) is connect these examples from Shakespeare's works with the biographical experiences which supposedly informed or shaped them. This is hardly surprising, since we don't know enough details about Shakespeare's life to make these connections. Tracking the changes in the author's views over the course of his career is interesting, but to prove his point, Brustein needs more confirmation than the historical record can provide. To his credit, he doesn't go further than the evidence warrants.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/06/book-review-tainted-muse.html… (mer)