Thoughts on Shakespeare
Dec. 29th, 2019 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeI watched the 2012 Hollow Crown film version of Shakespeare's 'Richard II' again the other day, this time reading along with an annotated edition of the play so I could actually understand a little of the context. I still love it a lot and I'm still convinced that it's highly relevant to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, although I'm not clever or literary enough to write the proper meta post analysing the narrative/theatrical links between them that really ought to exist.
Basically, what I find so compelling about Richard as a character is this: He is a bad king—in both the ethics and competence senses of 'bad'—and his downfall is an entirely predictable result of the bad choices he makes. Whether you think of Bolingbroke as a good person heroically rebelling against the unjust rule of Richard or simply an opportunistic pragmatist who sees his chance to grab more power and goes for it, it'd be easy to see the whole thing from Richard's perspective as a fairly straightforward story about consequences—except for everything about the way the whole thing is structured in the later parts of the play, the attitude Richard takes towards his fate and especially the language he uses to establish a position for himself in the midst of his own downfall.
Particularly in the deposition scene: Richard is at his lowest point yet politically and personally, 'down and full of tears', but by the language he uses and the way he manipulates the scene, he manages to gain a kind of poetical, theatrical victory over Bolingbroke—who certainly looks as though he understands exactly what Richard is doing. I find this fascinating!
So about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, in this context: I feel like Richard is in some ways a sort of anti-John Uskglass. The obvious difference is that Uskglass is a good king (certainly in the competence sense, if the ethics one can be disputed :P); but the way Richard uses language (and magic in Strange & Norrell is explicitly a form of language) is in many places strikingly familiar:
It almost feels as though Richard's problem is essentially that he's trying to be John Uskglass but he can't back up his words, his theatricality with actual power. But the words themselves still have a power, just as the words 'written upon the sky by the rain' do.
Anyway, that's what I think.
Basically, what I find so compelling about Richard as a character is this: He is a bad king—in both the ethics and competence senses of 'bad'—and his downfall is an entirely predictable result of the bad choices he makes. Whether you think of Bolingbroke as a good person heroically rebelling against the unjust rule of Richard or simply an opportunistic pragmatist who sees his chance to grab more power and goes for it, it'd be easy to see the whole thing from Richard's perspective as a fairly straightforward story about consequences—except for everything about the way the whole thing is structured in the later parts of the play, the attitude Richard takes towards his fate and especially the language he uses to establish a position for himself in the midst of his own downfall.
Particularly in the deposition scene: Richard is at his lowest point yet politically and personally, 'down and full of tears', but by the language he uses and the way he manipulates the scene, he manages to gain a kind of poetical, theatrical victory over Bolingbroke—who certainly looks as though he understands exactly what Richard is doing. I find this fascinating!
So about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, in this context: I feel like Richard is in some ways a sort of anti-John Uskglass. The obvious difference is that Uskglass is a good king (certainly in the competence sense, if the ethics one can be disputed :P); but the way Richard uses language (and magic in Strange & Norrell is explicitly a form of language) is in many places strikingly familiar:
This earth shall have a feeling and these stones
Prove armèd soldiers ere her native king
Shall falter...
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth
I have no name, no title—
No, not that name was given me at the font—
But 'tis usurped. Alack the heavy day
That I have worn so many winters out
And know not now what name to call myself
Oh that I were a mockery king of snow
Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke
To melt myself away in water-drops.
It almost feels as though Richard's problem is essentially that he's trying to be John Uskglass but he can't back up his words, his theatricality with actual power. But the words themselves still have a power, just as the words 'written upon the sky by the rain' do.
Anyway, that's what I think.
no subject
Date: Dec. 29th, 2019 06:41 pm (UTC)But in a way, literary kings reflect one another, whether it is an Arthur-like figure or one who just fails very badly.
Also, I am imagining that the Shakespeare in JSMN might have possibly been thinking about John Uskglass when he was writing these lines. And maybe the people in that world might also make a connection between Uskglass's speech and Richard's one. It would be a good topic for a fanfic for anyone nerdy enough to do it.
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Date: Dec. 29th, 2019 07:10 pm (UTC)Oh! You've reminded me of an idea that I forgot to mention in the post above: The William Shakespeare who existed in the JSMN universe totally wrote a history play about John Uskglass, right??? (In any case, the history plays must have been somewhat different since Richard II et al. were only the kings of Southern England!)
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Date: Dec. 29th, 2019 07:41 pm (UTC)Even when Shakespeare of JSMN universe had not written a play about John Uskglass, John Uskglass would have probably be mentioned in many plays. Midsummer's Night Dream, for example. King Oberon was in it and even though the play was set before Uskglass was even born, there would probably be mentions of him as a foster child who would someday be very great. Maybe some references to John Uskglass in Macbeth? There are witches in the play so it is possible.
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Date: Dec. 29th, 2019 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 29th, 2019 10:49 pm (UTC)I love the thought that subsequent generations of people would be more familiar with the Uskglass of the play (and all his historical inaccuracies) than with the actual person.
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Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 10:39 am (UTC)But I love the idea that magicians and historians kept trying to dispell historical inacurracies that were spread by the play. Maybe there were a lot of inaccuracies about magic in Shakespeare's play and the magicians were all like, "Shakespeare's play is great but that is not how magic works."
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Date: Dec. 29th, 2019 10:52 pm (UTC)The language you've pointed out it's very JSMN. Wow. Kings turning into snow!
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Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 30th, 2019 06:08 pm (UTC)