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Review: William Caxton and English Literary Culture, Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, Church and Chronicles in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to John Taylor

playwrights expressed criticism and escaped censorship by clever political allegory centered on the mock-king motif; Richard II and Thomas of Woodstock are two examples. Billington's two-part organization of her work offers one clue to her assumptions and methodology: social history and literature are two separate spheres; festive king-games inform the drama, which then can be seen to reveal and enact social and political tensions regarding kingship. Both historians and literary critics may be unsatisfied with her blithe treatment of the complex relation of history and literature, as in her claim that 'the subtleties and complexities inherent in outlaws and kings, in mirror image opposition, were absorbed into literature and the dramatic possibilities emerged in history plays'. More (or perhaps less) specifically, in seasonal folk festivals, the 'custom of electing a mock king was inherently questioning and subversive, and this inevitably transferred to the professional theatre' (emphases mine). Billington's work is nonetheless valuable for its recovery of the popular roots of a pervasive motif in Renaissance drama. Particularly enlightening are the discussions of summer and winter festival traditions and the social variants of mock-kings and lords of misrule. Billington resurrects an enduring fantasy; who among us does not relish Falstaff's mockery of Hal's father, King Henry, yet quicken as Menas tempts Pompey, 'Wilt thou be lord of all the world?' (Antony and Cleopatra II.vii.60).