DOCSLIB.ORG

Liquid Assets: the Functions of Forgetting In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

LIQUID ASSETS: THE FUNCTIONS OF FORGETTING IN SHAKESPEARE’S SECOND HENRIAD by JONNI KOONCE DUNN Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON DECEMBER 2012 Copyright © by Jonni Koonce Dunn 2012 All rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS An awareness of how much I owe to so many people humbles me even at this time of deep personal satisfaction. I am hopelessly indebted to Kevin Gustafson, whose serendipitous remark about forgetfulness and whose indefatigable encouragement and cogent advice while supervising this project have been indispensable. The other members of my committee, Jacqueline Stodnick and Amy Tigner, are also due my heartfelt gratitude, the former for prodding me through Anglo- Saxon English when I wanted to drop out, and the latter for insisting that I foreground my own arguments. Other members of the UTA faculty who generously shared their knowledge with me throughout my graduate study are Johanna Smith, Stacy Alaimo, the late Simone Turberville, Tom Porter, Laurin Porter, and Rajani Sudan. I will resist the temptation to thank every teacher I ever had, but Dr. Joe Cash, formerly of Abilene Christian University and recently retired from McNeese State, deserves my thanks for reading my essay aloud in 1965 and kindling a lifetime interest in English. My children, Cassel Dunn Talley and E. Fletcher Dunn, have been enthusiastic supporters of my academic efforts, sacrificing in their own lives to see that I complete this long-desired goal. I am grateful to my late dear mother, Genevieve Vickers Koonce, who taught me to love reading, and my extraordinary father, Phil Barrett Koonce, who taught me not only the value of perseverance but also, through his confrontation with Alzheimer’s, the deepest meaning of forgetfulness. I thank my husband, Riley Dunn, for his unflagging encouragement and love that have been more instrumental in my achievements than he knows. My sincerest acknowledgement is the debt I owe to God, who “makes my feet like the feet of a deer; He enables me to stand on the heights.” (Psalm 18:33). November 8, 2012 iii LIQUID ASSETS: THE FUNCTIONS OF FORGETTING IN SHAKESPEARE’S SECOND HENRIAD Jonni Koonce Dunn, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2012 Supervising Professor: Kevin Gustafson This dissertation examines Shakespeare’s second historical tetralogy, in which the playwright employs forgetfulness despite its pathologized position in early modern culture and its seeming incompatibility with history. In Richard II , the King’s forgetfulness attempts self-stabilization while his sustained forgetfulness, in response to the historical sublime, results in tragic poetry. Nietzschean ideas of judicious forgetfulness and plasticity, Langerian concepts of comedy, and the Andersonian notion of a unifying national amnesia inform a comparison of the functions of forgetfulness for Henry IV, Prince Hal, and Falstaff in 1 Henry IV . In 2 Henry IV forgetfulness first deploys in the figure of Rumor, who uncovers the constructed, amnesic nature of history, and then in nostalgia that mirrors national amnesia, and culminates with the rejection of Falstaff. In Henry V the forgetful official history given by the Chorus is contrasted with the play’s action, forgetfulness of guilt proves essential to the King’s pursuit of greatness, his amnesic rhetoric to his army functions to craft a “band of brothers,” and the benefits of judicious forgetfulness are shared with Katharine by Henry V. Often using images of liquidity, Shakespeare foregrounds the beneficial role that forgetfulness plays in the negotiation of life’s traumas, in the achievement of greatness, in the creation of national unity, and in historiography itself. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………………iii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................... iv Chapter Page 1. EARLY MODERN FORGETTING, HISTORY AND THE SECOND HENRIAD……………………….. ............................................................ .1 1.1 Memory and Forgetting in Early Modern England ........................................... .3 1.2 Early Modern Views of History and Historiography ......................................... .9 1.3 Forgetting in Shakespeare: A Scholarly Opportunity ..................................... 13 1.4 Critical Views of the Second Henriad ............................................................. 17 1.5 Founding Principles of the Argument ............................................................. 22 1.6 An Overview of Chapter 2 Richard II .............................................................. 23 1.7 An Overview of Chapter 3 1 Henry IV ............................................................ 25 1.8 An Overview of Chapter 4 2 Henry IV ........................................................... 28 1.9 An Overview of Chapter 5 Henry V ................................................................ 29 2. RICHARD II .................................................................................................................. 33 2.1The Abridged Richard...................................................................................... 34 2.2 Unsettling Historiography: Uncertainty and Making Choices ......................... 36 2.3 Double Amnesia: Fair Succession and England’s Landlord .......................... 38 2.4 Forgetting and the Shattering of Identity ........................................................ 42 2.5 “Who Do You Think You Are?”: Richard and Experimental Identity .............. 48 2.6 Language, Literature, and the Creation of Tragic Art ..................................... 49 v 2.7 “Whose Idea Was This in the First Place?”: Richard Jump-Starts the Future .................................................................... 51 2.8 The Historical Sublime and Forgetting ........................................................... 53 2.9 “He Thinks He’s Jesus Christ!” Richard and Christological Identification ....................................................... 61 2.10 Richard and Self-Incrimination ..................................................................... 64 2.11 Richard Onstage: Self-Disintegration as Performance Art ........................... 66 2.12 “The Lamentable Tale of Me”: De Casibus to Take Away ........................... 70 2.13 “And Now for Something Completely Different”: York Family Values ...................................................................................... 72 2.14 The Tragic Artist Talks About His Work: Imagery and Timing ..................... 73 2.15 “But Will It Play in Peoria?”: Richard II as History ........................................ 75 2.16 “What Just Happened?”:The Meaning of Richard’s Death .......................... 76 3. 1 HENRY IV .................................................................................................................. 79 3.1 “The Center Cannot Hold”: Decentralization in 1 Henry IV ........................... 80 3.2 Why Nietzsche Now? .................................................................................... 81 3.3 What Nietzsche Says About History and Forgetting ..................................... 82 3.4 Shakespeare’s New Deployment of Forgetfulness in 1 Henry IV ........................................................................ 85 3.5 Forgetfulness at the Court of Henry I V .......................................................... 87 3.6 Falstaff: The Poster Child for Early Modern Forgetfulness ...................................................................... 95 3.7 “If You Have to Explain It, It’s Not Funny”: Falstaff and Comic Theory ........................................................................... 96 vi 3.8 The Play Extempore: The Best Days of Their Lives ................................... 100 3.9 Hal and His Own Private Forgetfulness ...................................................... 102 3.10 The Long-awaited Encounter: Hal vs. Henry, Who Never Sees It Coming .................................................... 106 3.11 Forgetfulness at Shrewsbury: Separation and a Unified Account .............................................................. 110 3.12 Hal, the Best at Being Vast ........................................................................ 113 4. 2 HENRY IV ................................................................................................................ 115 4.1 Rumor and False History ............................................................................. 116 4.2 The Eternal Sunshine of the Perpetual Present .......................................... 119 4.3 “No, Really. Who’s Dead?” The Blurring of History and Fiction .............................................................. 120 4.4”Old Men Forget”—And That’s Really Important .......................................... 121 4.5 Goodbye to the Boar’s Head and Falstaff ................................................... 124 4.6 “Take Him Out!” “Leave Him In!” Critical Response to the Rejection ............................................................. 127 4.7 Andersonian Imagined Community ............................................................. 136 5. HENRY V .................................................................................................................... 140 5.1The Apologetic, Patriotic Chorus ..................................................................
Recommended publications
  • Plutarch, Machiavelli and Shakespeare's Coriolanus Patrick

    Plutarch, Machiavelli and Shakespeare's Coriolanus Patrick

    The Changing Faces of Virtue: Plutarch, Machiavelli and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus Patrick Ashby University of Bristol [email protected] Introduction: The hinges of virtue ‘Let it be virtuous to be obstinate’, says Caius Martius Coriolanus, shortly before the catastrophe of Shakespeare’s tragedy (Coriolanus, 5.3.26).1 In uttering these words, he articulates a moral hypothesis which is of central importance to Coriolanus: the supposition that steadfastness of principle is a fundamental good. This is a theory which the play puts to the test. The idea of ‘virtue’ — in a variety of guises — is a key focus of this essay, which identifies as crucial those moments at which definitions of virtue are unsettled, transformed, or confronted with a range of alternatives. Several commentators have connected Shakespeare’s Coriolanus with the political ideas of Niccolò Machiavelli, the Florentine theorist whose notoriety rests upon his recommendation of moral flexibility for political leaders. For Anne Barton, who reads the play in the context of Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy’s history of early Rome, Coriolanus dramatises the futile persistence of obsolescent virtues (the valorisation of battlefield heroics) in an environment of subtler needs and growing political sophistication.2 In Shakespeare and the Popular Voice, Annabel Patterson hints at Shakespeare’s sympathy with the idea of popular political representation, proposing that ‘there is nothing in the play to challenge that famous interpretation of the tribunate which [. .] Machiavelli made a premise of Renaissance political theory’.3 John Plotz 1 William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, The Norton Shakespeare, ed. by Stephen Greenblatt, Katherine Eisaman Maus, Jean E.
  • Stratford's the Merchant of Venice and Alabama Shakespeare Festival's the Winter's Tale

    Stratford's the Merchant of Venice and Alabama Shakespeare Festival's the Winter's Tale

    Vol. XVI THE • VPSTART • CR.OW Editor James Andreas Clemson University Founding Editor William Bennett The University of Tennessee at Martin Associate Editors Michael Cohen Murray State University Herbert Coursen Bowdoin College Charles Frey The University of Washington Marjorie Garber Harvard University Walter Haden The University of Tennessee at Martin Chris Hassel Vanderbilt University Maurice Hunt Baylor University Richard Levin The University of California, Davis John McDaniel Middle Tennessee State University Peter Pauls The University of Winnipeg Jeanne Roberts American University Production Editors Tharon Howard, Suzie Medders, and Deborah Staed Clemson University Editorial Assistants Martha Andreas, Kelly Barnes, Kati Beck, Dennis Hasty, Victoria Hoeglund, Charlotte Holt, Judy Payne, and Pearl Parker Copyright 1996 Clemson University All Rights Reserved Clemson University Digital Press Digital Facsimile Vol. XVI About anyone so great as Shakespeare, it is probable that we can never be right, it is better that we should from time to time change our way of being wrong. - T. S. Eliot What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions. -Walter Pater The problems (of the arts) are always indefinite, the results are always debatable, and the final approval always uncertain. -Paul Valery Essays chosen for publication do not necessarily represent opin­ ions of the editor, associate editors, or schools with which any contributor is associated. The published essays represent a diver­ sity of approaches and opinions which we hope will stimulate interest and further scholarship. Subscription Information Two issues- $14 Institutions and Libraries, same rate as individuals- $14 two issues Submission of Manuscripts Essays submitted for publication should not exceed fifteen to twenty double­ spaced typed pages, including notes.
  • The Tragedy of Hamlet

    The Tragedy of Hamlet

    THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET EDITED BY EDWARD DOWDEN n METHUEN AND CO. 36 ESSEX STREET: STRAND LONDON 1899 9 5 7 7 95 —— CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ix The Tragedy of Hamlet i Appendix I. The "Travelling" of the Players. 229 Appendix II.— Some Passages from the Quarto of 1603 231 Appendix III. Addenda 235 INTRODUCTION This edition of Hamlet aims in the first place at giving a trustworthy text. Secondly, it attempts to exhibit the variations from that text which are found in the primary sources—the Quarto of 1604 and the Folio of 1623 — in so far as those variations are of importance towards the ascertainment of the text. Every variation is not recorded, but I have chosen to err on the side of excess rather than on that of defect. Readings from the Quarto of 1603 are occa- sionally given, and also from the later Quartos and Folios, but to record such readings is not a part of the design of this edition. 1 The letter Q means Quarto 604 ; F means Folio 1623. The dates of the later Quartos are as follows: —Q 3, 1605 161 1 undated 6, For ; Q 4, ; Q 5, ; Q 1637. my few references to these later Quartos I have trusted the Cambridge Shakespeare and Furness's edition of Hamlet. Thirdly, it gives explanatory notes. Here it is inevitable that my task should in the main be that of selection and condensation. But, gleaning after the gleaners, I have perhaps brought together a slender sheaf.
  • Henry Iv, Parts One &

    Henry Iv, Parts One &

    HENRY IV, PARTS ONE & TWO by William Shakespeare Taken together, Shakespeare's major history plays cover the 30-year War of the Roses, a struggle between two great families, descended from King Edward III, for the throne of England. The division begins in “Richard II,” when that king, of the House of York, is deposed by Henry Bolingbroke of the House of Lancaster, who will become Henry IV. The two Henry IV plays take us through this king's reign, ending with the coronation of his ne'er-do-well son, Prince Hal, as Henry V. In subsequent plays, we follow the fortunes of these two families as first one, then the other, assumes the throne, culminating in “Richard III,” which ends with the victory of Henry VII, who ends the War of the Roses by combining both royal lines into the House of Tudor and ruthlessly killing off all claimants to the throne. What gives the Henry IV plays their great appeal is the presence of a fat, rascally knight named Falstaff, with whom Prince Hal spends his youth. Falstaff is one of Shakespeare's most memorable characters and his comedy tends to dominate the action. He was so popular with audiences that Shakespeare had to kill him off in “Henry V,” lest he detract from the heroism of young King Henry V. “Henry IV, Part One,” deals with a rebellion against King Henry by his former allies. The subplot concerns the idle life led by the heir to the throne, Prince Hal, who spends his time with London's riffraff, even going so far as to join them in robbery.
  • 4. Shakespeare Authorship Doubt in 1593

    4. Shakespeare Authorship Doubt in 1593

    54 4. Shakespeare Authorship Doubt in 1593 Around the time of Marlowe’s apparent death, the name William Shakespeare appeared in print for the first time, attached to a new work, Venus and Adonis, described by its author as ‘the first heir of my invention’. The poem was registered anonymously on 18 April 1593, and though we do not know exactly when it was published, and it may have been available earlier, the first recorded sale was 12 June. Scholars have long noted significant similarities between this poem and Marlowe’s Hero and Leander; Katherine Duncan-Jones and H.R. Woudhuysen describe ‘compelling links between the two poems’ (Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen, 2007: 21), though they admit it is difficult to know how Shakespeare would have seen Marlowe’s poem in manuscript, if it was, as is widely believed, being written at Thomas Walsingham’s Scadbury estate in Kent in the same month that Venus was registered in London. The poem is preceded by two lines from Ovid’s Amores, which at the time of publication was available only in Latin. The earliest surviving English translation was Marlowe’s, and it was not published much before 1599. Duncan-Jones and Woudhuysen admit, ‘We don’t know how Shakespeare encountered Amores’ and again speculate that he could have seen Marlowe’s translations in manuscript. Barber, R, (2010), Writing Marlowe As Writing Shakespeare: Exploring Biographical Fictions DPhil Thesis, University of Sussex. Downloaded from www. rosbarber.com/research. 55 Ovid’s poem is addressed Ad Invidos: ‘to those who hate him’. If the title of the epigram poem is relevant, it is more relevant to Marlowe than to Shakespeare: personal attacks on Marlowe in 1593 are legion, and include the allegations in Richard Baines’ ‘Note’ and Thomas Drury’s ‘Remembrances’, Kyd’s letters to Sir John Puckering, and allusions to Marlowe’s works in the Dutch Church Libel.
  • King and Country: Shakespeare’S Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company

    King and Country: Shakespeare’S Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company

    2016 BAM Winter/Spring #KingandCountry Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board BAM, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board The Ohio State University present Katy Clark, President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings Richard II • Henry IV Part I Henry IV Part II • Henry V Royal Shakespeare Company BAM Harvey Theater Mar 24—May 1 Season Sponsor: Directed by Gregory Doran Set design by Stephen Brimson Lewis Global Tour Premier Partner Lighting design by Tim Mitchell Music by Paul Englishby Leadership support for King and Country Sound design by Martin Slavin provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Movement by Michael Ashcroft Fights by Terry King Major support for Henry V provided by Mark Pigott KBE. Major support provided by Alan Jones & Ashley Garrett; Frederick Iseman; Katheryn C. Patterson & Thomas L. Kempner Jr.; and Jewish Communal Fund. Additional support provided by Mercedes T. Bass; and Robert & Teresa Lindsay. #KingandCountry Royal Shakespeare Company King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings BAM Harvey Theater RICHARD II—Mar 24, Apr 1, 5, 8, 12, 14, 19, 26 & 29 at 7:30pm; Apr 17 at 3pm HENRY IV PART I—Mar 26, Apr 6, 15 & 20 at 7:30pm; Apr 2, 9, 23, 27 & 30 at 2pm HENRY IV PART II—Mar 28, Apr 2, 7, 9, 21, 23, 27 & 30 at 7:30pm; Apr 16 at 2pm HENRY V—Mar 31, Apr 13, 16, 22 & 28 at 7:30pm; Apr 3, 10, 24 & May 1 at 3pm ADDITIONAL CREATIVE TEAM Company Voice
  • UNPACKING the MERRY WIVES Robert Brazil K

    UNPACKING the MERRY WIVES Robert Brazil K

    UNPACKING THE MERRY WIVES Robert Brazil k HAKESPEARE’S play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, is filled with fascinating enig- mas. This comedy, set in the environs of Windsor Castle, weaves together a street level story of love, lust, greed, competition and humiliation with a commentary on society that, while it spoke directly to the concerns of its contemporary late six- teenth-century audience, abounds with references that are extremely suggestive today to students and researchers of the Oxfordian theory. Because Merry Wives was first printed in 1602, most standard commentators on Shakespeare consider it to be a mid- career play, written while the author was at the height of his powers, roughly simultaneous with Hamlet. Yet everything about the play, including the sensibility, the crude style, and the too-old contemporary allusions, suggests that it was an earlier work, its topical references and concerns those of the 1580s, with some 1590s references added to a later revival, to become an interesting anachronistic revival by 1602. The central ideas and plot elements in Merry Wives involve the high stakes wooing of young Anne Page by three suitors, the farcical woo- ing of Mrs. Ford by three other suitors, the complex humiliations of Falstaff, Master Ford, Slender, Doctor Caius and others, and Master Ford’s fear that he will be cuckolded. As the play begins, Shallow, Slender and Hugh Evans are walking into the village in front of Page’s house. Shallow states that he won’t change his mind, he is going to make a Star Chamber affair out of Falstaff’s offense, introducing a subplot that has little apparent rele- vance to the main plot, but which is filled with accurate descriptions of county lawsuits and disputes and the archaic Latin-based bureaucracy associated with the process.
  • Merry Wives (Edited 2019)

    Merry Wives (Edited 2019)

    !1 The Marry Wives of Windsor ACT I SCENE I. Windsor. Before PAGE's house. BLOCK I Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS SHALLOW Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire. SIR HUGH EVANS If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence to make atonements and compremises between you. SHALLOW Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it. SIR HUGH EVANS It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another device in my prain, there is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas Page, which is pretty virginity. SLENDER Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman. SIR HUGH EVANS It is that fery person for all the orld, and seven hundred pounds of moneys, is hers, when she is seventeen years old: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page. SLENDER Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound? SIR HUGH EVANS Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny. SHALLOW I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. SIR HUGH EVANS Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts. Enter PAGE SHALLOW Well, let us see honest Master Page. PAGE I am glad to see your worships well.
  • The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle

    The First Part of Sir John Oldcastle

    (the un iversity or a bic ag o FOUNDID BY J OH N D. ROCKEFELLEB T H E FIRS T PA RT OF SIR JOH N OLDCA STLE A H IS TORICAL DRAM A BY MICH ON , TH Y M H THW Y AND AN ON A A , ROBERT WILSON E E DIT D WITH AN IN TROD UCTION , CRITICAL TEXT . AND NOTES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE OF THE UNIVERS ITY OF CHICAGO IN CAN DIDACY FO R T H E D E G RE E O F DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (DEPARTM EN T OF ENGLIS H ) JOHN ROBERTSON M ACARTHUR J J J J J CHICAGO S C T T F RES M AND C M P Y O , O AN O AN 1 907 E L! CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGM ENTS HIS TORY OF T H E TEXT AND ITS EDIT IONS ’ Recor ds in Henslowe . Records in the Stationers Re r . E i s : B . R giste d tion A , , C , D , etc elations of ° A B . r E i . r , , C , D Othe d tions The Second Pa t of Sir John Oldcastle . SOURCES AND GROWT H OF T H E PLAY ' The Rea l Sir John Oldcastle . Immediate Sources — h Holinshed . Causes w ich led to the Wr iting of Sir John Oldcastle : Oldcastle and Falsta ff ; Influence of r r r s Foxe ; G owth of the Oldcastle Sto y in two fo m , Catholic and Protestant ; Wr iting of Sir John Old ’ cas tle ; Wee ver s Poem ; Influence of Henry IV and V ’ — on Oldcastle ; Influence of Peele s Edward I Rela ’ tions in detail ; Relation to Gr eene s Pin ner of Wake R rr E field ; elation to the Me y Devil of dmonton .
  • Edward II: Negotiations of Credit in the Early Modern Public Sphere Jane E

    Edward II: Negotiations of Credit in the Early Modern Public Sphere Jane E

    Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 5-2018 Edward II: Negotiations of Credit in the Early Modern Public Sphere Jane E. Kuebler Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Recommended Citation Kuebler, Jane E., "Edward II: Negotiations of Credit in the Early Modern Public Sphere" (2018). All Theses. 2856. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2856 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Edward II: Negotiations of Credit in the Early Modern Public Sphere A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts English by Jane E. Kuebler May 2018 Accepted by: Dr. Elizabeth Rivlin, Committee Chair Dr. William Stockton Dr. Andrew Lemons ABSTRACT This paper addresses the role that Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II plays in the establishing and expanding of an early modern public sphere. By examining the ways that power is earned, and wielded in the play, Marlowe demonstrates an economy of cultural credit that operates in both the financial and the socio/political spheres of public life in early modern England. Marlowe applies the logic of that economy beyond the realm of the common people and subjects the historical monarch to the same parameters of judgement that flourished in society, drawing parallels with the currently reigning Elizabeth I, and opening up a discourse that reexamines the markers of credit, power and birth-ordered hierarchies.
  • Shakespeare's

    Shakespeare's

    Shakespeare’s Henry IV: s m a r t The Shadow of Succession SHARING MASTERWORKS OF ART April 2007 These study materials are produced for use with the AN EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH OF BOB JONES UNIVERSITY Classic Players production of Henry IV: The Shadow of Succession. The historical period The Shadow of Succession takes into account is 1402 to 1413. The plot focuses on the Prince of Wales’ preparation An Introduction to to assume the solemn responsibilities of kingship even while Henry IV regards his unruly son’s prospects for succession as disastrous. The Shadow of When the action of the play begins, the prince, also known as Hal, finds himself straddling two worlds: the cold, aristocratic world of his Succession father’s court, which he prefers to avoid, and the disreputable world of Falstaff, which offers him amusement and camaraderie. Like the plays from which it was adapted, The Shadow of Succession offers audiences a rich theatrical experience based on Shakespeare’s While Henry IV regards Falstaff with his circle of common laborers broad vision of characters, events and language. The play incorporates a and petty criminals as worthless, Hal observes as much human failure masterful blend of history and comedy, of heroism and horseplay, of the in the palace, where politics reign supreme, as in the Boar’s Head serious and the farcical. Tavern. Introduction, from page 1 Like Hotspur, Falstaff lacks the self-control necessary to be a produc- tive member of society. After surviving at Shrewsbury, he continues to Grieved over his son’s absence from court at a time of political turmoil, squander his time in childish pleasures.
  • Henry V Plays Richard II

    Henry V Plays Richard II

    Colby Quarterly Volume 26 Issue 2 June Article 6 June 1990 "I will...Be like a king": Henry V Plays Richard II Barbara H. Traister Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Quarterly, Volume 26, no.2, June 1990, p.112-121 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. Traister: "I will...Be like a king": Henry V Plays Richard II "I will . .. Be like a king": Henry V Plays Richard II by BARBARA H. TRAISTER N BOTH RichardII and Henry v, the first and last plays ofthe second tetralogy, I kings engage in highly theatrical activity. Each play, however, has a very different metadramatic focus. In Richard II acting becomes a metaphor for the way Richard sees himself. The focus of audience attention is the narcissistic royal actor whose principal concern is his own posturing and who is his own greatest, and eventually only, admirer. Richard is an actor and dramatist, the embodiment of Elizabeth I's comment: "We Princes, I tell you, are set on stages, in the sight and view of all the world duly observed" (quoted in Neale 1957,2:19). However, his self-ab­ sorption and blindness to the world around him lead the audience to make few, if any, connections between him and the actor-dramatist who created him. The play is nearly empty of self-reflexive dramatic overtones despite its complex portrait of a player king.