"The  essence  of  a  kingly  barbarian  is  that  he  has  no  middle  range  of
conduct;  when he  is  shocked  out  of  his  grand  behaviour  he  f a l ls  straight
to  the  level  of  cruelty  and  violence." 

(p.127)

What  is  needed  here,  of  course,  is  an  historical  corrective  of  the  kind  G  K
Hunter  (1967,  pp.  139ff.)  supplies  in  his  seminal  essay  on  Othello,  examin-
ing  Shakespeare's  manipulation  of  response  in  this  play  in  the  light  of  Eli-
zabethan  attitudes  to  the  black  man. 
It  simply  w i ll  not  do  to  say  that  "the
tragedy  . ..  hastens  to  its  dreadful  end,  fed  by  i ts  own  fuel  and  obedient  to
its  own  inexorable  laws"  (pp.  128-9),  when  the  play  is  so  clearly  dealing
not  with  impersonal  processes  but  with  social  and  racial  conflicts  of  con-
siderable  complexity.  To  be  f a ir  to  Wain,  though,  this  mistake  is  made by
practically  a ll  critics  of  Othello.

Similar  criticisms  might  be  made  of  the  section  on  the  Comedies,  which  is
rather  dull,  and  insufficiently  focused  on  the  social  divisions  and opposi-
tions  upon which  these  plays  are  founded.  But  the  discussion  of  the  History
plays  is  good,  and  is  free  of  the  sentimentality  which  mars  so  much  c r i t i-
cism  of  (especially)  the  Henry  IV  plays.  And  in  general,  the  book  is  de-
signed  to  stimulate  discussion  and  theatrical  experiment  rather  than  provide
definitive  analysis,  and  this  it  does  at  almost  every  point.

Notes  and  References

David,  R.  1978:  Shakespeare  in  the  Theatre.  Cambridge.

Hunter,  G K.  1967:  "Othello  and  Colour  Prejudice".  Proceedings  of  the

British  Academy,  X I I I.

Jones,  E.  1971:  Scenic  Form  in  Shakespeare.  Oxford  University  Press,

London.

Warren,  R.  1979: 

"A  Year  of  Comedies:  Stratford  1978",  Shakespeare  Sur-
vey,  32,  Cambridge.

On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy
Author:  John Jones
Published  by  Chatto  & Windus 
1980 
Price:  R9.45

Represented  in  South  Africa  by
Oxford  University  Press

Professor  John  Jones'  book,  On Aristotle  and  Greek  Tragedy,  f t r st  published
in  1962,  has  become  a  classic  in  the  f i e l d,  and  the  reprinted  'aperback
from  Chatto  and  Windus  promises  an  underpinning  of  the  book's  status.

Jones,  in  an  author's  note  as  preface  to  the  book  has  this  to  say:

I  have  imagined  this  book  as  the  f i r st  part  of  a  t r i l o gy
dealing  with  the  presentation  of  the  human  self  in  Western
literature. 

It  is  also  meant  to  stand  on  i ts  own;

Professor  Jones's  thesis,  that  the  way  to  a  proper  understanding  of  Greek
Tragedy  lies  through  plot  and  action  rather  than  character,  might  appear
today  to  be  standard  reasoning,  but  it  forms  the  basis  for  provocative
investigation  and  analysis,  He  demonstrates  what  Aristotle  was  really
saying,  in  the  face  of  generations  of  misinterpretation  of  Poetics.
This  book  includes  valuable  analyses  of  the  Oresteia.  Electra,  Antigone
.Ajax  and Sophocles'  two  Oedipus  play,  as  well  as  the  Electra  of  Euripic
of  Euripides.
The  book  should  become  standard  reading  in  the  f i e ld  for  any  who  care  about
performance. 

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