I am repeatedly struck by two closely related challenges when considering critical explorations of magic in the context of early modern literature: first, the sheer diversity of the manifestations of magic in these works (with the concomitant complexity of possible ideological and psychological approaches); and, second, the difficulty of distinguishing between primarily literal or metaphorical expressions of these manifestations. The editors of the present collection, Helen Ostovich and Lisa Hopkins, grapple with this diversity and complexity in their introduction. They acknowledge that the essays “range widely over a number of early modern texts and contexts” but assert nevertheless, in keeping with their title, that “all the essays share a central, urgent interest in the question of transformation” (2–3). Yet they strain somewhat to establish a sense of coherence across the four categories they have constructed: “Demons and Pacts,” “Rites to Believe,” “Learned Magic,” and “Local Witchcraft.” The nature of the first group is self-evident. The second group interestingly includes considerations of “the symbolic potential of magic” to address topics “other than itself” (2). This description clearly indicates more metaphorical considerations. I initially wondered if the collection might therefore accentuate inherent challenges of coherence in this critical topic because, while an emphasis on transformation might be expected generally to encourage more metaphorical and psychological readings of magic, the current interest in material culture might conversely encourage more literal examinations of magical practices and cultural conditions. The third group seems the least clearly defined, especially in the introduction, perhaps because this group purportedly deals with questions of ideological legitimacy, and with the legal “effort to eradicate that potentially evil something that [itself] cannot be defined” (9). A greater sense of coherence returns in the fourth group, which focuses on image magic and, finally, the magical effects of music (in an interesting discussion by Andrew Loeb). The overall result, for me, is a collection of essays ranging from the highly remarkable to the fairly unremarkable. However, my judgment concerning unevenness may well be contested by other scholars and readers with different critical interests or ideological prejudices. In the final analysis this eclectic collection is indeed challenging, in the best sense of the word, and provocative.

One advantage of its eclecticism is that, as the publisher’s blurb and the editors point out, canonical and less canonical texts are put in a dialogue with each other. Because of, for example, Hopkins’s consideration of Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin, Brett Hirsch’s nicely if narrowly focused treatment of (possibly) Munday’s Fedele and Fortunio, and Judith Bonzol’s reading of Lyly’s Mother Bombie and Heywood’s The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, scholars should be encouraged to explore more closely these, and other, infrequently cited texts. In fact, critical neglect sometimes includes Shakespeare himself, and, after a somewhat shaky opening historicization, Jessica Dell offers a compelling reading of The Merry Wives of Windsor, contributing the collection’s most satisfying treatment of gender, with a powerful conclusion. Still, some of the most memorable essays involve canonical works. Laura Levine offers a fresh perspective on Marlowe’s Faustus by relating the play’s “odd capacity to resonate with [recent] speech-act theory” to “the legal tension surrounding the notion of a contract in the period” (48). While I question Levine’s final, apparently orthodox assertion that “the play preserves the notion of the efficacious word” (57), she traces how issues concerning human interiority and interpersonal commitment, anxiety, and repetition can be related to changing legal practices that reflect cultural assumptions about human subjectivity, in a way that will likely influence future critical inquiry on the play. Jill Delsigne intriguingly reads the statue scene in The Winter’s Tale as encouraging a “community of affect” for both onstage and offstage audiences, a possibly irenic experience of the play that transcends Catholic and Protestant doctrinal prejudices in favor of hermetic, syncretic prisca theologia. Whether or not readers will agree with all of her claims, she amasses a range of cultural references, particularly with respect to the Catholic (and hence, by her logic, pagan) milieu of the play, that is difficult to ignore.

Jasmine Lellock offers an exploration of alchemical and conjuring motifs in The Tempest. Although rhetorically weak in its opening and conclusion, it offers a very arresting contextualization of Shakespeare’s tragicomedy with a conjuring manual entitled The Sworn Book of Honorius, of great interest to all readers concerned with the magical, and psychological, patterns of this famous play. And finally, Verena Theile in “Demonizing Macbeth” essentially revisits the perennial question of how we can accept as tragic hero a character darkly terrifying in his commitment to evil. Although I disagree almost entirely with her reading of the play, the essay nevertheless poses very powerfully — and indeed transhistorically, through its consideration of postmodern cinematic contexts — the very problem of the reality of evil. Since there are clearly no easy answers to that particular question, any reader interested in the manifestations of magical motifs in early modern literature should choose to ignore my lingering personal reservations and peruse this significant collection.