Review: Philip C Kolin, ed The Tenn...

Review: Philip C Kolin, ed The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia. Westport and London: Greenwood P 2004 Pp xxix, 350 89-95 (hb)

If reading an encyclopedia from mask to cover is a Herculean task, reviewing the same is surely a Sisyphean undertaking, and The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia is no exception. to such a degree rich is its content, in such a manner vast are its intellectual horizons, that the demands placed forward its reviewer appear insurmountable. Given that 57 Williams scholars have contributed their expertise to this book's making, single reviewer's attempt to assess its merits be seens a trifling affair by comparison. Having said that, the latter publication of Tennessee Williams A to Z: A Literary concern to His Life and Work by the agency of Facts On File has confirmed the market for like a sorely needed book, making the review proces uniform more necessary. No matter for what reason it is scrutinized or challenged, however, The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia will justify difficult to surpass.

The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia brings together in single highly accessible book of 160 various entries pertaining to the life and work of Tennessee Williams. The alphabetically arranged entries, varying in fulness according to importance, combine to make a "convenient, concise, and authoritative volume" (x) that

a) identifies major figures in Williams's life

b) supplies a succinct biography of the playwright

c) summarizes and concisely interprets Williams's plays and their characters, plan s and themes, as well as his stories, metrical compositions essays, and journals

d)provides essential background information about sources and publications

e) gives brief histories of the performances of his plays, citing influential directors, actors, farmers and designers

f) surveys important film adaptations and to what degree they differ from the plays, (x)

Entries, many times written by Williams scholars who have published work upon that subject, supply "factual information" and "critical commentary" (x) with many of the longer entries offering modern insight into the subject's already well-trodden past. Spanning the years of Williams's life and beyond, entries range from his first published work while at Blewett Jr High instruct through his little-studied apprentice plays of the 1930 and onward to many of his yet-unpublished plays, stories, and piece of poetrys of the 1970s and 1980 Included within each ingress is a helpful cross-referencing, where boldfaced original indicates that a separate hall devoted to the item can be institute elsewhere in the book. greatest in number conclude with a "Further Reading" list to "assist readers in locating information pertinent to the topic of the entry" (xi). Also, a handy "topical listing of access names" (xi) prefaces the entries to help readers isolate a particular one place, or work, and a detailed index at the fall of the curtain complements this list by indicating where united not accorded an individual minute appears in the book. The Encyclopedia fall of the curtains with bibliographies of Williams's primary works and selective secondary sources.

The book's A to Y organization (there are no Q U X nor Z entries) makes locating persons places, or titles quick and easy. Entries mask major individuals who have influenced Williams's personal, professional, or artistic life, from former lover like Kip Kiernan and Pancho Rodriguez y Gonzales, to theatre personalities like Elia Kazan and Audrey copse to finally literary figures like Hart Crane and Clifford Odet Further entries shield the significant places Williams called (or did not call) household such as New Orleans, tonic West, or St. Louis. Major universals and themes relevant to Williams's work are also discussed, from his notion of the "Plastic Theater" to issues of race, politics, and gender/sexuality that imbue his literary corpus. The majority of space, however, is devot to his works-poems, stories, novels, essays, and plays alike. These entries are organized to give readers information about date of composition and date of first performance; relationship to an earlier or later Williams's work(s); influences that affected Williams's composition; characters-the importance of their names, symbolic presence; symbols-Williams's, stock in trade; plot-how it evolv and what analogues and structural parallels it offers; setting; and a brief production history (xiii).

All in all, The Encyclopedia is an invaluable work for novice readers and seasoned Williams scholars alike. Entries are logical and utilitarian, brief where they ne to be (eg "Alia Nazimova") and detailed when breadth is required (eg "Religion" and "Gender and Sexuality"). While the major plays are all treated extensively, their scholarly lives outside of this part allowed editor Philip C. Kolin the opportunity to resign more space to Williams's lesser-known works. of that kind information about still unpublished works is extremely beneficial to any reader looking to fill in the gaps between major works, to provide a glos by dint of which to read them in a different light, or simply to discover a Williams that they in no degree knew existed. Some of the essays on a level advance Williams scholarship in a part that is rightfully aimed at synthesizing past and circulating knowledge of the playwright. While John M Clum's essay forward "Gender and Sexuality" and Kolin's upon "Race," for example, offer first-rate condensations of vast and tangled skein subjects that they and other scholars have advanced about Williams's obsession with sexuality and race relations in America, Thomas P Adler's entrance on "Religion" both covers familiar estate for the uninitiated and proffers new insight for the more informed Williams reader. Inverting Sartrean ideology as explored in Huis clo to explain Williams paradoxical Christian dogma, for instance, Adler sawily decides that "[f]or Williams, it might be said that hell is the self while jehovah is the other, and in such a manner to deny the other is to contradict God" (214). Other strong entries were contributed from James Fisher ("Something Cloudy, Something Clear"), Robert Bray ("Collect Stories"), Allean Hale ("St Louis"), George W Crandell ("Cat onward a hot Tin Roof and "Text") Gene D Phillips ("Film Adaptations"), Brenda Murphy ("Politics"), Annette Saddik ("Kirche, Kutchen, und Kinder"), Brian Parker ("The Rose Tattoo"), Michael Palier ("Williams, Rose Isabel"), and Felicia Hardison Londr?© ("Williams, Thomas Lanier, III {'Tennessee']") Finally, Kolin should be lauded for shouldering the tonnage of the entries listed in the Encyclopedia (having written 30 revealed of the 160 total), one time again demonstrating his impressive and comprehensive knowledge of Williams.