A Treacherous Secret Agent
How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
Will be published approx. on 9. June 2026
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-300-28282-5 (ISBN)
Description
A world-renowned critic's haunting and deeply researched account of the subversive acts of literary revenge performed during the Red Scare hearings of the 1950s
In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy targeted actors, directors, singers, filmmakers, writers, and prominent scientists, accusing them of disloyalty, subversion, and treason against the United States of America. HUAC and McCarthyism ruined careers and lives. But something striking also happened during the hearings: the poems, plays, novels, and song lyrics cited in the witness testimony spoke back, offering uncanny counter-testimonies and remarkable acts of "poetic revenge."
This book is an urgent, probing exploration of the HUAC, its attempts to bowdlerize and contort facts, and the voices that rose out of history to oppose and subsume it. Marjorie Garber shows how writers versed in the literary tropes of revenge appear in the hearings: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, George Herbert, Francis Bellamy, and others. But the agent of revenge is not the author of the work; it is the work itself, with all its cultural power and relevance, spanning years or centuries.
In narrating the destructive history of the Red Scare, Garber powerfully illuminates the constructive force of literature in opposing political oppression.
In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy targeted actors, directors, singers, filmmakers, writers, and prominent scientists, accusing them of disloyalty, subversion, and treason against the United States of America. HUAC and McCarthyism ruined careers and lives. But something striking also happened during the hearings: the poems, plays, novels, and song lyrics cited in the witness testimony spoke back, offering uncanny counter-testimonies and remarkable acts of "poetic revenge."
This book is an urgent, probing exploration of the HUAC, its attempts to bowdlerize and contort facts, and the voices that rose out of history to oppose and subsume it. Marjorie Garber shows how writers versed in the literary tropes of revenge appear in the hearings: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, George Herbert, Francis Bellamy, and others. But the agent of revenge is not the author of the work; it is the work itself, with all its cultural power and relevance, spanning years or centuries.
In narrating the destructive history of the Red Scare, Garber powerfully illuminates the constructive force of literature in opposing political oppression.
Reviews / Votes
"Enlightening. . . . Some of Garber's best chapters unpack moments . . . when a literary reference pops into the public record and reveals a hidden pocket of historical meaning."-A. O. Scott, New York Times"The great pleasure of A Treacherous Secret Agent lies in its faith that literature gets the last word."-Charlie Tyson, The Atlantic
"In this dazzling, absorbing, entertaining, and erudite book, Marjorie Garber shows once again why she is one of our most insightful and inventive cultural critics. She finds totally unexpected ways of making literature always timely and always dangerous to those who want to shut down artistic expression."-Lynn Hunt, author of History: Why It Matters
"No one but Marjorie Garber could produce this amusing and timely book. Garber combs through the records of the investigations, and her unexpected coupling of the House Un-American Activities Committee with Shakespeare reveals a treacherous Shakespeare who effectively mocks the investigators."-Jonathan Culler, Cornell University
"In this scintillatingly staged confrontation with the Red Scare bullies, it's the old books that have all the best lines. Some are real zingers. Literature gets a well-deserved revenge."-Bruce Robbins, author of Who's Allowed to Protest?
"In Marjorie Garber's expert hands, Shakespeare becomes a key to unlock the anxieties of the HUAC era-and maybe our own. A smart, shrewd book."-William Germano, Cooper Union
"As artists, writers, and performers come under attack from the forces of authoritarianism, we can take heart from Marjorie Garber's witty and perceptive account of how cultural warriors resisted McCarthyism."-Ellen Schrecker, coeditor of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom"With the U.S. regressing to McCarthyism (or worse), Garber makes a bracing case for literature as a treacherous secret agent, taking 'poetic revenge' on the scoundrels who, as she shows, are right to fear it."-Joseph Litvak, The Un-Americans: Jews, the Blacklist, and Stoolpigeon Culture
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
30 b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 218 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
440 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-28282-5 (9780300282825)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Research Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of twenty books, including Shakespeare in Bloomsbury. She lives in London, UK.