The Masks of Anthony and Cleopatra (review)
as consul, acted extralegally by having the conspirators summarily executed. Catiline is thus usually seen as an endorsement of James’s emergency powers, but Lemon’s reading finds a good deal more irony and ambiguity in the play. Lemon argues that Jonson, like Donne, undermines the “simplistic dichotomy” between the ruler’s will and the good of the nation. Lemon concludes the chapter by claiming that post-Gunpowder Plot England was wracked by public debate among both Catholics and Protestants about the legal parameters of treason. Despite James’s continual assertions of absolute power, he faced challenges from not only radical Jesuits but also from Protestant and Catholic “middlegrounders” (159). In a somber afterword Lemon claims that her study illustrates “the danger the law itself poses as a mechanism for increasing state authority in a time of emergency” (163). Lemon adds that threatened states simply cannot distinguish between necessary and oppressive strategies for dealing with treason. That task, she says, falls to the arts. Lemon’s book provides valuable New Historical leverage on how early modern English writers dealt with the problem of treason and tyranny, a problem becoming familiar again. JOHN D. SCHAEFFER Northern Illinois University