This collection of essays honors Dominic Baker-Smith. As a scholar of Renaissance literature Baker-Smith's interests were broad, from his work on Erasmus and Thomas More to his work on Philip Sidney and John Donne, and so too are the topics of the essays included in this volume dedicated to him. While the essays vary in focus—treating subjects from the sixteenth to the twentieth century—they are held together by the theme of humanism. Whether the essays illustrate the challenging nature of humanism itself or pose challenges to humanism (playing on the title), they maintain a degree of coherence throughout.

The first three essays embrace the work of More. Arthur F. Kinney argues that multiple meanings could be applied to More's Utopia throughout the sixteenth century. Since it was a book that was so open to different readings, it was read as a book on the best form of government, for poetic strategies, as a voyage of discovery, and as a skeptic's view on the relativity of knowledge. Providing several examples of the possible readings throughout the sixteenth century, he demonstrates that the wide readership and enduring relevance of More's Utopia was due to its broad range of appeal. Andrew D. Weiner takes on the question of how to take More's Utopia seriously. While he would claim that there is no coherent or fixed reading of the work itself, Weiner argues what the reader can take seriously in the work is More's humanism. More is to be taken seriously when he attempts to persuade readers to live somewhere (not Nowhere). Thrusting new ideas eloquently onto those perhaps not willing to listen could be a tool for change, and employing learning for the service of all could make men good. By looking at what More thought from his perspective, it is the humanist program underlying Utopia that we should take seriously. Elizabeth McCutcheon discusses More's Epigrammata, which actually rivaled Utopia in popularity for some time. Disagreeing with other critics, McCutcheon argues that the Epigrammata lack coherence. They vary in topics and moods and are frequently ambiguous in nature, often reinforcing and subverting at the same time. McCutcheon sees the Epigrammata not as a unified collection but rather as a grouping of More's perceptions of himself and the world around him over an extended period of time.

There are several essays of note dealing with humanism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Kees Meerhoff discusses Philip Melanchthon, Latomus, and Ramus in the context of critical reading, humanist commentary, and humanist institutions. He begins by making clear the influence of Erasmus and especially Agricola on them and arrives at the conclusion that all three saw rhetoric, logic, and commentary as parts of a single pedagogical approach (in the tradition of Agricola). Meerhoff completes the essay with a treatment of how each scholar saw different disciplines interact and what attempts were made to fully integrate them. Roderick J. Lyall comments on John Rolland's Court of Venus, a text that he sees as significant for the transmission of the materials and some of the values of Continental humanism into Scotland. The poem is strongly Christian humanist in tone and style, mixing classical references with biblical authority. While Lyall admits that Rolland's learning is broad but shallow, nevertheless the poem illustrates the expanding interests of the Scottish elite. W. A. Sessions considers Edmund Spenser and Francis Bacon and their attempts to write ideological epics to redeem a disjointed time, that is, the cultural breach begun by Henry VIII's break with Rome. To restore order from chaos Sessions skillfully argues that Spenser and Bacon embraced the model of Virgil. He claims they both built upon the Virgilian idea of renovatio, employing the remedy of labor for constructing a new empire out of the breakdown and disjunction of the destroyed culture. Spenser first took up this challenge, and Bacon's vision of modern science set forth in his texts owes much to Spenser's mythologizing.

Two final essays merit consideration. As a fine example of the challenges to humanism, Donald Stump provides a rather provocative essay. Stump argues that Philip Sidney's New Arcadia illustrates that he had lost faith in the humanist educational system. Citing numerous examples in changes between Old Arcadia and New Arcadia, Stump posits that Sidney subordinated humanism to Protestantism as the main influence on his work through a dark assessment of humanity and the failure of the paideia, rhetoric, and virtus in the text. The limits of humanist education for public service are evident as Sidney implies that the classical ideal of sapientia et fortitudo is not only unattainable but also inadequate. It is passive heroism, shown through suffering and self-abnegation, not striving, which takes center stage in the New Arcadia. Finally, focusing on humanism and the twentieth century is Ton Hoenselaars's essay concerning British film critics E. W. and M. M. Robson. Hoenselaars discusses the Robsons’ rewriting of Sidney's Defense of Poetry and their struggle against European fascism. Hoenselaars believes that the Robsons drew on the English Renaissance and its literature as a model for the film industry. British cinema had to improve itself and unequivocally praise virtue and punish vice, thus educating the masses. The Robsons, however, fiercely attacked Laurence Olivier's Henry V, claiming that Shakespeare had no place in the cinema and that there was even too much of an Italian Renaissance influence in the costume and decor. In so turning their backs on Renaissance experience, combined with their emerging xenophobia and insistence on strict moral standards—not to mention the continuing popularity of Olivier's film—the Robsons inevitably, in Hoenselaars's view, relegated themselves to obscurity.

As criticisms, one encounters a small number of typographical errors, most notably “ad fonts” in the introduction (19) and “Ailquis” (35). In a couple essays the connection with humanism seems only tangential, specifically John Neubauer's well-written essay on the First World War and literature. Yet these matters are minor and do not detract from the overall quality of the volume. This is a splendid collection, and those familiar with the work of Dominic Baker-Smith and those interested in humanism and its effects beyond the Renaissance will find it valuable.