(SQUEEEEEE!)

[ricardienne]

So thanks to thynk2much, I have now seen the Globe Richard II (anyone needing references for good karma on her behalf can apply to me). By rights, then, this should be a long post, but, fortunately for you all, I think it might not be. I am not sure why. For one thing, I am still feeling the effects of post-good-Shakespeare-meltiness. But also, I don't find that I have lots of burning things to say. I don't actually know the play incredibly well. It isn't like Measure for Measure, where I've been spordically obsessed since seventh grade, but it isn't one I've studied in school either (which, granted, isn't very many) or, more the point, one that I've even read in an edition that had notes and critical essays at the back.

I was thinking about Richard today -- I watched the first half last night, and decided that I had really better hold off on the second half as it was already past midnight and I had a piano rehearsal/coaching in the fairly early morning. (It's odd to be thinking about II instead of III.) Or rather, I was thinking about Shakespeare's Richard. It was a very basic question I was asking myself, with an obvious answer perhaps, but I needed to think it out: why isn't he a villain? He's a bad king: not only weak but wasteful, arbitrary, and not incredibly scrupulous, in fact. He's had his uncle murdered; he thinks nothing of wishing his other uncle dead so he can seize his lands and revenues. But that's the important thing, I think. He doesn't think. Richard (at the beginning of the play) isn't even aware that what he's doing and has done might be wrong. Villainous villains always know, whether they know and dismiss it, know and feel (a little or a lot) guilty, or know and revel in it. Richard, if you pointed it out, would just get indignant; he wouldn't understand. And so while it's a realization of his mistakes that he comes to, and maybe even an acceptance of death, it isn't really repentance, and, consequently there isn't a sense that he got his just deserts, even that he really deserved to be deposed and murdered. Henry Bolingbrook isn't a villain either, but he isn't the hero of the play. I wonder, though, if this is just moral reduction, to say that because Richard does not realize that he is acting immorally, he is somewhat exonerated. At some point, ignorance can't equate down to innocence. Innocence, however, is not what I'm talking about, is it? If he doesn't realize that he's guilty, then he isn't guilty. For guilt is really an interior emotion that must be felt. And I think that this last may be a logical fallacy, whereby I am using two senses of a word commutatively. But there's the connection to Measure for Measure, in fact. In what Harold Bloom extolls as the nihilist and comedic center of the play, Barnardine is so "unfit" to die that he can't even be executed -- because he won't acknowledge that he can be executed, i.e. that he's guilty. Actually, the connection is not nearly so strong as it seemed in my head. Never mind.

It was a little odd, watching Richard II with Measure for Measure still so much in my mind. (I think I'm on to what I saw, now, and not the play in general). Essentially the same company of actors wearing many of the same costumes, even (although different people were wearing different costumes -- I know, I know: I get great drama and I sit here drooling over the needle-lace), and very distinctive costumes (as well as sets, music, etc.) at that, was really very nice, in many ways. It all felt so familiar. But then, it made Rylance and Brennan's (and others', actually, but those were the main two) characters seem oddly parallel -- the inept, frivolous ruler vs. the efficient, serious ruler; bright and ornate costume vs. black and severe.

I shall probably have more thoughts about this later.

EDIT
Indeed, I have been. The parallels I was seeing are for the most part specious. It's the result of the same actors playing in the same kind (most broadly speaking) of play. In fact, it's happened to me before. Good actors do make you believe they are who they portray, and someone with a very distinctive mannerisms (e.g. Mark Rylance) is going to really get that effect. It might be compounded in Shakespeare because the language is just that much removed from my normal one, and that, combined with the non-contemporary setting and the fact that it's all part of the Shakespeare Canon makes any play seem like part of some greater, meaningful whole, where there would be grand hidden patterns. I mean, I think you could do this legitimately with some plays: a lot of the comedies could have giant parallel lines drawn through them all in certain characters. You know what? It's 1:15 a.m., and I'm really not able to even explain what I'm thinking coherently. Time to stop


Total comments: 289

1	achyvi		63
2	voglia_di_notte		58
3	kaskait		33
4	flyinghouse		11
5	angevin2		6
6	silverfyshxin		5
7	ea14spk68weeper		3
8	executrix		2
9	tif123		2
10	anonshadow		2
11	arriterre		2
12	thynk2much		2
13	queenxii		2
14	grapeyquoter		2
15	wyldlittlepoet		2
16	joshwriting		1
17	hobbit_em		1
18	deathandglitter		1
19	camlina		1
20	macmauve		1
21	perulovesyou		1
22	decollete		1
23	saraken		1
24	cretey		1

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So maybe this will make some of you feel a little guilty and start commenting? Or maybe this means that I have exceptionally boring entries. Alas, I doubt that this one helped.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Damn. Now I shall be all twitchy until I've written a proper reply to this. ;)

(I've been driving all day and thus am no good for coherence, you see.)

[queenxii.livejournal.com]

*fails at commenting*

*and life*

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Eeek! I have to admit that I felt a little nervous posting about Richard II period with you on my f-list.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? I LOVE when people who aren't me post about Richard II, and nobody ever does! By all means, post away! :D

(Well, okay, one guy does, because he's a medievalist. But most people don't.)

[saraken.livejournal.com]

Haha, one comment. I lose. :(

[thynk2much.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have, now and again! (but point taken)

[thynk2much.livejournal.com]

SQUEEEEEEEEEEE HOORAYYYYYYYY! That was fast! That happens sometimes though, sometimes things come in a couple of days.

I think I know what you're getting at with the whole guilt/self-knowledge thing. I think the self-knowledge theme is so key to the play, it's his character arc and it's what makes us care about him in the end.

I too find it intriguing about the play that there is no real person on whom to lay the blame. This is especially true if you go on to Henry IV and see how Bolingbroke turns out as a king (and father). This interests me about Julius Caesar as well. And in a way I think the plays are as much (or more?) about political patterns as they are about individuals. I'm sure angevin2 will speak to that much more intelligently and informedly than I could, though. :) Oh and I always thought that one of the most insightful things she mentioned to me was about the production where the same two actors switched off playing Richard and Bolingbroke on consecutive nights, looking incredibly similar. There's something intriguing (and also kindof depressing) about the political message that sends. As the Who said best: "Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss."

Plus: kissing! ;)

[wyldlittlepoet.livejournal.com]

My life is barren. I need to comment more in your most wonderful LJ.

I read Richard II for my class, and my overall impression was that it was a most futile play on its own. Neither Richard nor Bolingbroke struck me as being particularly impressive characters. For some reason, I liked Mowbray best. But onwards.

I think that perhaps the reason why we don't feel like Richard is a villain or that Bolingbroke is a hero is that the plays aren't terribly concerned with individuals. They're about England. I think we see more of that in Julius Ceaser than we do in Richard, because there are actual everyday Romans running around in JC. But I think the power shift in England is what it's about, and I think that's why the plays are classified as histories and not tragedies.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Mowbray is so sad. I love his speech when he's banished, where he's saying that now he'll be condemned to silence as well. It makes you remember that English wasn't always so universal.

But I think that Richard II is pretty concerned with Richard, really. It's his downfall and his realization. There's not nearly so much there for any other character. Bolingbrook never reflects on what he's doing or has done or will be doing or will be done, or even talks about it the way Richard does.

But you're right that it's very much about England. There's so much about England, actually, and England with the emphasis on the -land, not the government. John of Gaunt rhapsodizes on "this sceptered isle" and Richard invokes England itself against his enemies, Henry announces that he will be a "true-born Englishman" no matter where he is. It really struck me. In some ways, I think Richard II is even more nationalistic than something like Henry V.

*uses Bolingbroke icon*

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Bolingbrook never reflects on what he's doing or has done or will be doing or will be done, or even talks about it the way Richard does.

This is because he's in serious denial. And because so much of the important stuf about Bolingbroke's characterization -- this is important in my dissertation btw -- comes in through what he doesn't say or do. Which is interesting though I imagine it'd be hell on an actor!

He does catch up on his reflection in the Henry IV plays, where he keeps taking out the fact of his usurpation and poking at it -- it's like a wound that's not really healed. (And a lot of the stuff he says is rather intriguingly revisionist!)

In some ways, I think Richard II is even more nationalistic than something like Henry V.

It is, but -- okay, this is sort of an analogy, but the only two times in Shakespeare where we see maps of Britain onstage are in 1 Henry IV and King Lear, and on both occasions this is because they're talking about dividing the land. Britain becomes visible as a consequence of its being in danger of fragmentation, and I think that Richard II's focus on Englishness is like this. I mean, John of Gaunt has that big famous speech about "This England" that everybody likes to quote (I think I was warped for life when I heard it in a British Airways ad when I was about six) but look at the context: "That England, that was wont to conquer others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself." It's a panegyric but it's also an elegy for an England that's passing into chaos (which is even more complicated when you consider that a lot of the rhetoric Shakespeare has Gaunt use is post-Armada triumphalism -- to which my point also applies, but it's present-day rhetoric, from Shakespeare's pov, made to lament a dying past. And that's weird). So it's sort of a via negativa nationalism, or something like that.

Actually Mowbray's lament for his native language ties into this, too -- even though I have to admit that every time I hear it, as beautiful a speech as it is, a little voice in my head goes "What the hell are you on about? French is still the language of the court! You're probably speaking French RIGHT NOW!" But, anachronism aside, it is a great moment.

with the emphasis on the -land, not the government.

Ah, but one of the problems of the play is whether these things are really separate -- the body of the king is the body of England, and all that...

this icon is from that production

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I think the self-knowledge theme is so key to the play, it's his character arc and it's what makes us care about him in the end.

Absolutely, yes, and it's one of the things that kills me about the Pomfret scene especially, because you can just see Richard hovering around the edges of something, and then he's killed and you just get this feeling of, I don't know, emptiness. Which might just be me. And, I mean, you have self-knowledge becoming an issue with Bolingbroke, too, who spends a lot of the play refusing to acknowledge the inevitable end of the course he's on (although Richard does his level best to shatter his illusions -- if he can't keep his own illusions, nobody else gets to do so either!) So there's that parallel again -- opposites but also the same.

Though I'm not sure, come to that, I necessarily agree with Barton's "Meet the new boss" interp either -- his point was that either man, in the other's place, would have acted precisely as the other did, and I think that de-emphasizes the role of individuals more than I'm really comfortable with -- it's sort of like a variant on the "providentialist" view of the histories except instead of providence we have a merciless political system, which leads me to:

And in a way I think the plays are as much (or more?) about political patterns as they are about individuals.

Perhaps, but then, my dictum for getting the histories right onstage is "Get the people right and the politics will follow" -- we see how the political patterns work by the way in which they operate on people, usually by tearing them to pieces, and it's this sort of concreteness that makes them so effective. Like -- okay, modern-dress productions of Richard II always bend my brain a little, because the notion of divine-right monarchy is so central to the play yet so foreign to us, but yet the play speaks to us anyway, even on a political level, so it works anyway, and that confuses the hell out of me. ;)

Oh, also, I reread Caesar recently, as I've mentioned on my lj, and agree with you about the parallels with Richard II, but then, I would. Brutus and Bolingbroke especially seem to have a lot in common. (Also Antony's act of theatrical submission where he goes and shakes the bloody hands of the conspirators gave me serious RII-vibes when I reread it -- "that I have given here my soul's consent / T'undeck the pompous body of a king" and so forth -- but part of that may have been the influence of That Fic. ;) )

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

No, you're right, you do, and commodorified does once in a while. And I love it! :D

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

And because so much of the important stuf about Bolingbroke's characterization -- this is important in my dissertation btw -- comes in through what he doesn't say or do.

But that sort of shunts him off to the side as far as character is concerned, doesn's it? (Or does it? I don't know.) Not that his character is unimportant, but, like you say, it's implicit rather than explicit, and so he seems like more of an agent than a person. Which is reducing it too far, I know.

It's a panegyric but it's also an elegy for an England that's passing into chaos (which is even more complicated when you consider that a lot of the rhetoric Shakespeare has Gaunt use is post-Armada triumphalism

So it's positive rhetoric to Shakespeare's time -- glorifying an England that is "wont to conquer other" used to lament a previous time when England did the same. That's a good way to open the Wars of the Roses cycle, though: it's a sort of a reminder that we're watching England plunge into chaos and fragmentation, but that it will come around to good times again.

[thynk2much.livejournal.com]

I can't handle the "meet the new boss" philosophy when taken to that extreme (literal twins) because it's too depressing! too fatalistic!

I'm with you that the stories are told through the individuals who are tremendously important in the dramatic sense, or in the narrative sense. Message-wise, I think the politics are perhaps more important but we take away lots of personal stuff also. Re the commenter who found the play futile and the characters unimpressive, I think sometimes this can happen when reading it rather than seeing/hearing it performed. I find the characters terribly compelling.

Modern-dress in Spacey's RII worked fine for me because, hmm I dunno!, I guess I just psychologically filled in the divine right bit for myself! because it seemed very clear to me. Perhaps other audience members would have missed that if they didn't know the play. Spacey was incredibly kingly, I have to say, even in his suit... he really had the air of someone anointed and well aware of it.

Both JC and RII tend to leave me feeling that one regime isn't much better than the other (although not literally interchangeable, as I said above). Yes yes yes Brutus and Bolingbroke both kindof seem like they want to think of themselves as above all the sordidness but in the end have to face that they really aren't. [Oh mannnn Ralph Fiennes really worked that bloody-hand shaking business, you know he did!]

Err sorry for spamming your LJ, Ricardienne! :)

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Message-wise, I think the politics are perhaps more important but we take away lots of personal stuff also.

Part of it is, though, that the political and the personal aren't separate. (cf Angevin2's comment above (or possibly below, I'm not sure) about the possible sameness of the king and the country) You have all these very powerful men, and the politics they make are pretty bound up in their personal feelings. Although that may be principally Richard's problem: he's a king, but he kings it like a private person.

(That definitely does not count as spamming!)

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[wyldlittlepoet.livejournal.com]

Sorry to interrupt, but I couldn't help myself.

I mean, John of Gaunt has that big famous speech about "This England" that everybody likes to quote (I think I was warped for life when I heard it in a British Airways ad when I was about six)

Every time I hear that speech, I get the post-colonial shudders. It's probably worse for my parents-- they had that whole England-is-the-superior-Mother-country thing dinged into their heads from birth.

Ah, but one of the problems of the play is whether these things are really separate -- the body of the king is the body of England, and all that...

That's what I find so intriguing about the play. The whole bit in Act 1 where Richard stops the duel from happening boggles my mind. I mean, the idea behind the duel to the death is that God chooses the victor, the victor will always be the morally right person, and everything is okie dokie again. But Richard, who is God's chosen vessel on earth subverts God's plan. It's a bit of a paradox.

Unfortunately, my English prof keeps glossing over that.

Oh, and ricardienne, you have Mariana on your layout! Squee!

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I admit that I love the "this England" speech but I am American, of British descent, and would appear in the dictionary next to "WASP" if I were only Protestant, so I can't help it -- I come from a long line of oppressors. If it helps I feel rather like I ought to be more cynical about it (the speech, not oppressing people, which is obviously a Bad Thing).

The whole bit in Act 1 where Richard stops the duel from happening boggles my mind.

Indeed, yes! I had a horrible time with it when I played Richard II, because as you say it's supposed to be a manifestation of God's will, but whoever wins, it's going to be bad for him, and yet he appears to have this firm faith in his own status as "God's substitute" (as John of Gaunt puts it), and...yeah. Not sure I ever really managed to work it out for myself satisfactorily. Of course this all works as an insight into what Shakespeare's saying about all of these things, but if one is trying to get into Richard's head (a scary place; I don't recommend it) what do you do with it?

(I sort of think that divine right in Shakespeare, whether or not he sees it as having any actual basis, does exist, sort of, as long as people assume that it does, or at least the system operates as if it did. Whether or not it really does, a matter on which the play is inconclusive. But that's a bit of a digression, no?)

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

But that sort of shunts him off to the side as far as character is concerned, doesn's it?

Hrm. Maybe, but I think that the sheer opacity is noticeable (indeed, Richard calls attention to it rather memorably -- "Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport"). Though it's hard to discuss: how do you analyze what you can't even see? (As I said to thynk2much, Brutus in Julius Caesar has a similar problem...)

That's a good way to open the Wars of the Roses cycle, though: it's a sort of a reminder that we're watching England plunge into chaos and fragmentation, but that it will come around to good times again.

I don't know that I see it that way, though: the 1590s, when the play was written, were a very anxious time, due to an economic depression (iirc) and anxiety over the succession, and I think that the fear for England's future that Shakespeare has Gaunt express is a very immediate thing to the original audience -- there's a sense that the good times might be on their way out again, and the Armada rhetoric really drives that point home. It's rather circular -- sort of like the history cycle itself, where Henry V ends by looking simultaneously forward (in history) and backward (in terms of Shakespeare's career) and saying "Well, it's all going to go to hell again soon."

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Re the commenter who found the play futile and the characters unimpressive, I think sometimes this can happen when reading it rather than seeing/hearing it performed.

Confession time: I felt a bit like this first time I read it. Obviously I've since come around! The bloody thing just crawled under my skin -- this is probably because I expected going in that I'd love it and didn't, and (in English-major fashion) felt I needed to work through my issues with it by writing my BA thesis on it.

Spacey was incredibly kingly, I have to say, even in his suit... he really had the air of someone anointed and well aware of it.

Sure. And, I mean, the play's examination of the effects of power on people and the way people respond to power is very relevant still, and very true. Some of the specifics translate oddly -- not even as much the divine-right thing as, e.g., the trial by combat (which Stephen Pimlott, in the production Sam West was in for the RSC, dealt with by giving the combatants fire axes to underscore the absurd brutality of it all).

Agreed too about JC and RII -- it's like there's no good answer really.

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

I definitely defer to your actually knowing what was going on in England at the time, whereas I was sort of just making it up based on the little bits of stuff I've read in various places.

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

*posts a non-intelligent comment*

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

I mean, the idea behind the duel to the death is that God chooses the victor, the victor will always be the morally right person, and everything is okie dokie again. But Richard, who is God's chosen vessel on earth subverts God's plan.

But couldn't one interpret it as that Richard, God's deputy on earth, enacts God's plan by his intervention in the duel? But I think that gets at another issues: Richard is trying to take on power for himself at the expense of his nobles' autonomy. And so they take him down. Perhaps this is because I remember hearing something about "(historically) Richard was a renaissance prince in a medieval period." I don't know whether or not this is true, but he is setting up absolutism for himself, as when he arrogates John of Gaunt's lands, instead of letting them automatically pass to his son, which would be acknowledging the supremacy of the nobility, kind of. Which does relate to my idea about the duel, really. If Bolingbrook and Mowbray get to decide their argument "by God's will," they are more in control than if they have to receive God's will through his deputy, Richard.

Ah, but one of the problems of the play is whether these things are really separate -- the body of the king is the body of England, and all that...

Although, when John of Gaunt describes Richard as no longer a king, but "landlord or England," he's positing a separation, one that didn't exist previously, (in keeping with the 'times used to be better' idea) between the body of the king and the body of England. Which is kind of odd, considering the point I just tried to make. Richard is asserting himself arbitrarily as the sole "body of England" to the annoyance of the old nobility, but is being spoken of as though he is becoming less and less one with England. I need to think about this some more.

Re: *uses Bolingbroke icon*

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this is because I remember hearing something about "(historically) Richard was a renaissance prince in a medieval period."

That is interesting -- I don't know if I'd put it precisely that way, because would-be absolutists in England never ever did very well (cf. Charles I). Rather there's always been a certain level of tension in England over the prerogatives of the monarchy versus those of the nobility and, later on especially, Parliament. But Richard was very definitely a would-be absolutist, who was very interested in centralizing and strengthening the monarchy, at the expense of the traditional aristocracy. Historically this probably has a lot to do with his lengthy minority (he was, in fact, underage for half of his reign) and the fact that he had some quite serious conflicts with his uncles over autonomy (most notably in 1387 where a group of noblemen led by the Duke of Gloucester arranged a major parliamentary smackdown in which a lot of Richard's favorites were removed and rather extralegally executed, and Richard himself may actually, some historians think, have even been temporarily deposed although he was quickly restored when the nobles couldn't agree on who ought to succeed him).

One thing I find rather interesting about the play, actually, is that -- I don't know if this is just me, but I always have the impression from the play that this firmly entrenched notion of divine right that Richard is so into is presented very much as The Way Things Are, probably because divine-right is the line the Tudor authorities took, but historically Richard's insistence on it was a highly, highly transgressive act, and Bolingbroke's coup quite reactionary.

Richard is asserting himself arbitrarily as the sole "body of England" to the annoyance of the old nobility, but is being spoken of as though he is becoming less and less one with England.

Part of the complication is that there's a bit of a semantic tangle here -- not on your part, just generally -- because "body politic" has two different meanings. One of them is, basically, the office of king, or kingship as a mystical identity or whatever: the part of the king that's divine, immortal, infallible, whatnot, if one subscribes to ideas of divine right. The other is the state as a collection of all the individuals in it. And then Richard loses the one and consequently the other as well...