Looking for an Argument: Critical Encounters with the New Approaches to the Criticism of Shakespeare and His ContemporariesRichard Levin
Book Review
Richard Levin is now in his fourth decade (at least) asthe resident gadfly of scholarship on Renaissance drama. He is the self-invited, usually unwelcome guest at family get-togethers who can always be expected to ask questions that ruin the mood of the party. Just when everyone else seems to be having a grand time, Levin shows up and begins interrogating the values and assumptions others take for granted. He obviously loves disputation (good luck, Mrs. Levin!), which is why the double-entendre embedded in the main title of his latest book--Looking for an Argument--is so appropriate. Levin is looking not only to start arguments but, more seriously, to find rational, defensible, persuasive propositions in the stances he challenges. He also claims to seek calm, logical opponents willing to engage in sober, extended debate. That he apparently finds so few such arguments makes his book both enlightening and entertaining, especially for anyone who loves a good intellectual dust-up; that he seems to have found so few such opponents makes for a fairly depressing assessment of the current academic scene. Ironically, this book itself may generate (in longer reviews than can be offered here)the serious counter-arguments it claims to seek. Or, then again, it may be largely ignored. Levin's antagonists may decide that the best response is no response at all. Ignoring this book would be a shame, since it has much to offer even those who would radically disagree with Levin's contentions. His book provides comprehensive, point-by-point challenges to many of the most widespread axioms (as well as many of the most specific claims) of recent literary scholarship, and even those who do not accept Levin's assertions will have to admit that he makes them clearly and seems unafraid of facing cross-examination. In fact, one especially impressive aspect of this volume is how often Levin includes within its covers whatever counter-arguments his own claims have generated. This is a book worth assigning to serious students, then, if only as an example of how academic debate should (or, in some cases, should not) be conducted. Levin often emerges as the more impressive interlocutor in these intellectual fisticuffs, either because his langauge is more lucid, his logic more solid, or his tone less shrill than those of his opponents. His writing does have an edge (he loves to mock antagonists' jargon, and he enjoys tripping up self-contradictors). There are even times when a sympathetic reader will laugh out loud as Levin adopts fashionable verbiage to skewer fashionable ideas or rips the mental rug out from under an opponent's feet. Even so, Levin freely concedes whenever he has made a mistake or relied on a false assumption, and he shows the ideas of his foes the basic respect of arguing thoughtfully against them. Levin's book provides a kind of condensed history (a bit biased, to be sure) of the most important issues of the past two decades in Renaissance studies in particular (and in literary studies in general). His typical procedure is to quote extensively from the books or essays he attacks, and, although some authors claim to have been quoted misleadingly, Levin in general seems a fair reporter of the views he disputes. His notes and bibliography alone make his book worth buying: he has assembled data on many of the most influential publications of the last twenty years of Shakespeare studies, even though he tends to dispute practically everthing he cites. Anyone who wants to kwow what all the fuss of the "culture wars" has been about will find a decent map of the relevant terrain within these covers. The thrust of this book is, however, by no means entirely negative or critical (in the unattractive sense of that word). Levin challenges many (but by no means all) of the most common assumptions of Marxists, Feminists, Freudians, New Historicists, Cultural Materialists, and Deconstructors, but he also makes positive, extended claims for the formalism and pluralism he prefers. His defense of formalism is particularly brazen: like St. Julian, he seems willing to embrace the leper who disgusts most others. Nevertheless, he convincingly asserts that his commitment to pluralism is even stronger than his formalist sympathies, which is one reason he is willing to engage so seriously with his opponents and why he welcomes vital argument and shuns consensus, whether it is imposed or freely chosen. Unlike some defenders of more "traditional" approaches or ideas, who tend to resort too easily to ad hominem arguments or appeals to emotion, Levin is perfectly capable of engaging in rational debate. No idea seems off-limits to him; no point of view is outside his willingness to consider it, even if he eventually finds it unpersuasive. Anyone who disagress with Levin can expect him to respond--can expect, in fact, to be reprinted and rebutted in Levin's next book! Levin is more, then, than the cranky uncle at the family reunion. He is even more annoying than that: he is the kind of interlocutor who forces a person (if he or she is honest) to be more careful, to take a bit more time, and perhaps even to re-examine dearly-held ideas. Don't expect to enjoy this book--unless you happen to agree with everything it says. But then, if that's the case, expect Levin to move to the next table, looking for someone who likes to argue. 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Photograph courtesy of Louise Dell-Bene Stahl © 2001