Richard II

[MadgeUK]

I agree with Everyman that it is a two-fold process but there is also absolutely no reason why you should not allow Shakespeare to say all those things to you. That is how producers of the plays have managed different interpretations through the ages and one of the reasons why works which lend themselves to such varied treatment are called 'classics'. They are all things to all men. And whatever the critics says, or whatever the interpretations are given by learned scholars, your own interpretation is still as good theirs - unless you happen to be sitting an exam of some sort, of course:). So rage away at the nonsense of DRK, call the Duke of York a rotten father - it is your play too!

As for me, I am an elderly Englishwoman long steeped in my country's history and politics so I cannot read anything without applying what I have learned. Whether I have learned any 'universal truths' I do not know because I have no doubt that someone will come along one day and say that my black was white.

[[deleted user]]

For a while I felt guilty about requesting the extra week for Richard II; frankly, in part, I wanted to make sure I had time to get up to speed on the looming Paradise Lost. But now I am glad I did because it has opened up a rich thread of discussion about the context in which we read a work of literature. I think we will encounter some of the same issues with Milton.

In addition to the standard three dimensions (time of the narrative, time it was written, time it is read) I would add a fourth: the reader him/herself. Reading is a creative act. We bring ourselves and our experience of life and past reading to the work. This can be wonderfully constructive--or limiting. If I am not mistaken, some academic literature departments claim that the work is nothing more than symbols and all meaning is a social construction.

In the case of Shakespeare, Mark, I don't think you need to feel "let down" at all. His work is so rich, so deep, so "bottomless" as Ron Rosenbaum argues in an entertaining introduction to his book Shakespeare Wars."

As Peter Brook puts it: "Each line of Shakespeare is like an atom. It contains infinite energy--if you can split it open."

Richard II is not as great a play as Hamlet. But it still offers plenty of "atoms." For example, you don't need to have the least bit of interest in English history to be amazed by the range of imagery Shakespeare deploys for the crown .

for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

-----
Richard: Here cousin:
On this side my hand, and on that side yours.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen and full of water:
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
....
King Richard II. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine:
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

Last, I think the most important thing is not the way various perspectives affect the work we are reading, but the way the work we are reading affects our perspective on our own experience. Goethe's response to Shakespeare puts it well:

The first page I read of him made me his own for the rest of my life, and as I finished the first play I stood like one who has been blind from birth and given the gift of sight by a miraculous hand.

[Mark]

Great post, Zeke. The crown passage is definitely one of the language gems in the play. Although my sometimes overly-long posts have focused on my grapplings with interpreting S's view of DRK and other historical context stuff, you are right to get me back to the wonderful poetry and language. With only some mostly unsuccessful struggles with Shakespeare in high school and college, I'm thrilled to find this language accessible. So I'm grateful for the evangelism and encouragement from Everyman and all of you that convinced me I could access this literature.

Some other language/poetry in RII that resonates:

--The powerful language in the mutual accusations of Bolingbroke and Mowbray in 1.1, e.g.:
Bolingbroke: "...which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth
To me for justice and rough chastisement.
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it or this life be spent.

--Gaunt's language in 1.3, where he expresses his fear that, at his age, he won't survive his son's banishment:
King Richard: Why uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt:
But not a minute, king, that thou cast give.
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage.
Thy word is current with him for my death,
But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

--Gaunt's often quoted passage on England--"This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle. . . ." Quoted and commented on before here, Madge gave some great British perspective on it. I had my RII paperback with me on a family trip to New England last week for my daughter's graduation, and my sister-in-law had to put up with me quoting that passage, doing my best to channel Sir Laurence Olivier reciting it. Powerful (the language, not necessarily my performance of it!).

--Richard's soliloquy at the start of 5.5, about "thoughts" while he is imprisoned. Amazing.

Thanks to all for a great discussion.

[Eliza]

I agree great post Zeke! I sometimes get so caught up in reading for meaning that I forget that in order for any work to mean anything to me the reading has to be personal. I tried with Richard II (and probably will again with Paradise Lost) to just read and enjoy. I probably missed quite a bit but now I have a foundation of understanding to go back and dig a little deeper.

I don't post very often mostly because it seems that someone has always said what I was thinking and said it a little better, but I really enjoy the discussions in this group.

A last thought about my reading of Ricahrd II. I loved the play and was trying to envision the action going on in my head as I read. When I got to 4.1 my brain took a turn towards Monty Python. after the third "He throws down a gage" I was smiling and when Aumerle asks someone else for a gage and then throws that down I burst out laughing. I know it wasn't written to be funny but my brain turned the scene into a comedic skit.

Thanks all for the great discussion. I'm looking foward to Paradise lost.

[Everyman]

Zeke wrote: "For a while I felt guilty about requesting the extra week for Richard II; frankly, in part, I wanted to make sure I had time to get up to speed on the looming Paradise Lost. But now I am glad I did..."

Great post.

I had two immediate thought on reading it, one somewhat trivial, the other maybe not quite so.

The somewhat trivial one was in wondering whether Shakespeare intended, in the line you quoted

"Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,"

Shakespeare was intending to presage Richard's death, which came at little more than a look from Henry.

The other, maybe not quite so trivial, is that while you are right about the dimensions of literature, I also believe that great literature is outside of any dimensions; that it approaches participation in the Platonic Forms, which exist and endure beyond any time or place or society.

And while I'm musing, one more: when you suggest that some academics claim that all literature is just symbols, yes, it's true that literature can be viewed as just symbols, but it's also true that all literature, whether printed, on a clay tablet, on a computer or Kindle, or wherever else is just an ordered set of atoms, and that reading can be viewed as nothing more than an electro-chemical response to those ordered atoms. Also true, but I'm not sure either one of those concepts gets us very far.

[Everyman]

Eliza wrote: "When I got to 4.1 my brain took a turn towards Monty Python. after the third "He throws down a gage" I was smiling and when Aumerle asks someone else for a gage and then throws that down I burst out laughing. I know it wasn't written to be funny but my brain turned the scene into a comedic skit. "

That's a wonderful example of how one's social culture affects one's reading. Our pop culture has made that image a matter of fun, even absurdity, but to Shakespeare's audience it was deadly serious and filled with high drama. In our reading we can attempt to intellectualize an understanding of what it meant to S's original audiences, but we can never replicate the visceral response which this action would have elicited from that audience, particularly those in the class where throwing down a gage was a statement of willingness to put one's life on the line to prove the truth of one's accusation of another.

[Mark]

Everyman wrote: "That's a wonderful example of how one's social culture affects one's reading. Our pop culture has made that image a matter of fun, even absurdity, but to Shakespeare's audience it was deadly serious and filled with high drama."

Everyman, don't you think that Eliza's reaction to the orgy of gage throwing in 4.1 might be consistent with how an audience in Shakespeare's time could have reacted? I found it comical and "Pythonesque," too. I thought the Scene 1 gage challenging to be deadly serious, but I thought the second go-round of gage throwing in Scene 4 to be almost farcical, perhaps intended to contrast with the Scene 1 episode. I thought the Aumerle pardon scene had a darkly comical aspect, too (OK, maybe very darkly), with the battle over the kneeling parents.

Maybe I'm in my same battle that I've posted about before, but I think Eliza is on to something. But, and not meaning to curry favor here, I quickly question my own reading where it disagrees with Everyman's take. But mightn't this multiple gage toss be some form of comic relief? Maybe intended to show what a chaotic mess looms ahead for King Henry?

[Everyman]

Mark wrote: "Maybe I'm in my same battle that I've posted about before, but I think Eliza is on to something. But, and not meaning to curry favor here, I quickly question my own reading where it disagrees with Everyman's take. But mightn't this multiple gage toss be some form of comic relief? Maybe intended to show what a chaotic mess looms ahead for King Henry? "

Not to curry disfavor, but it's usually a good idea to question Everyman's readings. But I think you and Eliza may be on to something here. You're right that the gage throwing in Act 1 is deadly serious. But would Shakespeare play games with such a serious subject later in the play? I'll re-read it with that qquestion in mind.

One question would be, which maybe Madge can answer, was trial by combat still going strong in Shakespeare's day? Or by then had it lost favor? If the former, it's perhaps less likely that this was intended humorously. If the latter, if trial by combat was considered an anachronism, sort of on the same vein as we today would view a father threatening to go after his daughter's seducer with a horsewhip, that would make it more likely that he would be playing it for laughs.

[[deleted user]]

Everyman: The somewhat trivial one was in wondering whether Shakespeare intended, in the line you quoted

"Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,"

Perhaps not so trivial; I agree it presages Richard's death. And if we look back at the deposition scene, it's noteworthy how poetic Richard's language is while Henry's is very prosaic and brusque.

Now this may be trivial, but the other thing that resonates for me in the passage is the antithesis between "kill with a look" and a King's supposed ability to heal with a touch that we discussed earlier.

[Everyman]

Zeke wrote: "Now this may be trivial, but the other thing that resonates for me in the passage is the antithesis between "kill with a look" and a King's supposed ability to heal with a touch that we discussed earlier. "

It may be trivial, but I like it.

[MadgeUK]

The last trial by combat in the UK took place in Dublin in 1653 so it was becoming rare in Shakespeare's time. However, there was a famous trial by Combat in 1386, attended by the court of King Charles IV of France, which is recorded in Froissart. This may have prompted Shakespeare to use the idea of a joust upon which to hinge the play.

I agree with Everyman that these things may seem trivial to us but in Richard's time (and probably Shakespeare's) these were matters of life and death where 'honour' was at stake and lives might be lost. Think of honour killings in certain cultures today, which seem absurd to us but which to those concerned are part of a way of life involving strict rules of behaviour - knights too had strict codes of behaviour. Duels, which were held until the 19C, were part of the same culture.

A 'gage' is a gauntlet/glove thrown down as a challenge to another knight to pick it up and accept the challenge, which was a very serious matter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet...

The whole play, in fact, hinges upon the challenges issued at the joust which is first shown in Act I Scene I when Bolingbroke challenges Mowbray:-


HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
Disclaiming here the kindred of the king,
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop:
By that and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.

THOMAS MOWBRAY
I take it up; and by that sword I swear
Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
And when I mount, alive may I not light,
If I be traitor or unjustly fight!

Later Richard decides to call off the fight:-

KING RICHARD II
Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;
Let's purge this choler without letting blood:
This we prescribe, though no physician;
Deep malice makes too deep incision;
Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;
Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.

In Act 4 the Duke of Aumerle calls his gage 'the manual seal of death/That marks thee out for hell'. Lord Percy says 'To prove it on thee to the extremist point/of mortal breathing, seize it if thou darest. Lord Fitzwater avers: 'If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe or live, I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness.'

Serious threats are being made here! This is no game! Richard's actions at the joust bring about a whole series of troubles and the quarrel in Act 4 Scene 1, where similar challenges are issued, end in the king's deposition.

I am afraid your laughter was misplaced Mark - there is nothing trivial about these scenes and Shakespeare's audiences would have taken them seriously.

[Mark]

MadgeUK wrote: "The last trial by combat in the UK took place in Dublin in 1653 so it was becoming rare in Shakespeare's time. However, there was a famous trial by Combat in 1386, attended by the court of King Ch..."

Thanks for the context, Madge, and the history. This certainly isn't the first and surely won't be the last time I will have been guilty of misplaced laughter in response to an artistic expression!

I will take you up, though, on your earlier permission, in your post #101, to "allow Shakespeare to say all those things to [me:]." I just can't shake my suspicion that if Eliza and I went back in time and sat in the back of the Globe Theatre in 1601 where, I read, Shakespeare's troupe, The Chamberlain's Men, were commissioned to perform Richard II, that we'd have some theatre-goers who might react like us. We'd watch in rapt attention in Act I as the high drama of the mortal challenges of Mowbray and Bolingbroke were exchanged. But then, in Act 4, we'd start to nervously chuckle when the gage throwing started to get ludicrous-- and we might have some company laughing out loud when, after 6 gage throw-downs, Aumerle asked to borrow a seventh gage. We certainly would not think that mortal combat challenges were trivial, but we'd suspect the playwright was intentionally trivializing the tradition for some darkly comedic purpose.

[Everyman]

Mark wrote: "I just can't shake my suspicion that if Eliza and I went back in time and sat in the back of the Globe Theatre in 1601 where, I read, Shakespeare's troupe, The Chamberlain's Men, were commissioned to perform Richard II, that we'd have some theatre-goers who might react like us."

You might very well be right. There is certainly a slap-stick suggestion to the scene; hard to know just what S intended, and even harder to know how the audience would have reacted.

[MadgeUK]

I agree that in our time you can let Shakespeare say all those things to you but I really do not think that Shakespeare's audience would see any humour in this play (which is a tragedy) insofar as the challenges to combat are concerned. I just do not see any slapstick element at all in the context that it is written - how can challenges to a duel to the death be slapstick in this particular play? The first challenges ended up with Mowbray and Bolingbroke being exiled and the second challenges, which took place in Westminster Hall, outside Parliament, discuss whether to depose the king.

If a producer in a different era chose to make the whole play slapstick, to send it up, fair enough but I do not think that this could have been done in Shakespeare's time because these matters were so serious. Laughing about the deposition of a king could have landed you in the tower, especially as Elizabeth had faced so many such threats - one from the Earl of Essex which had brought the Chamberlain's Men's Richard II to the attention of the Master of Revels (as posted in the link above). 'Know ye not that Elizabeth I is Richard II'?!

Furthermore, there is no humour whatsoever in the speeches made during the challenges - they are all deadly serious. There is no Jester here, no Puck, no Porter. I rather think that the audience would have got very excited during this scene and perhaps would have egged the speakers on. At an actual Joust/Tournament people wore the colours of their favourites and cheered for them. Here is how public Jousts/Tournaments were announced in Richard II's time:-

http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/h...

I can see that if tournaments were being fought as a public spectacle, that there would be laughter and jollifications, just as at a football match, but the challenges to a joust in Richard II were not of this nature, especially in Act 4.

[Eliza]

Rereading the scene I have to agree that it wasn't intended to be funny. Sorry Mark! :) I found it funny partially because of modern pop culture and partially because it's hard to wrap my mind around the idea of armed combat being the decider of right and wrong. I wonder how many innocent people died in this age because they were physically weaker? I know that in their minds God would actually determine the truth and decide the victor, but trial by combat still seems to me a terrible way to resolve an issue.

When I read the scene again I actually see it as a scene where the characters and I think in some ways the audience is required to take a side. Henry or Richard? Divine right or the right man for the job?

[Mark]

Et tu, Eliza? You've abandoned your first, uncorrupted, honest take on the flood of gage-flinging in 4.1?

I now have some poignant insight into Act 3, Sc. 2, when Richard learned that his Uncle, the Duke of York, had abandoned him and joined Bolingbroke:

Go to Flint Castle. There I'll pine away;
A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
That power I have, discharge, and let them go
To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
For I have none. Let no man speak again
To alter this, for counsel is but vain. (3.2.216-21)

I hope the tongue in my cheek is obvious here and you don't think I have King delusions! But it is time to pick up and withdraw any verbal gages I've been tossing about scene 4.1. I've enjoyed the dialogue and all the comments and they helped me focus my thinking on an interesting part of the play. I also hope I haven't been too argumentative in my tone. I haven't found the general consensus on this point to be fully convincing, but thanks for helping me explore it. I'll be seeking out a live performance of R II and listening attentively for any tittering in 4.1!

[Everyman]

Eliza wrote: "I know that in their minds God would actually determine the truth and decide the victor, but trial by combat still seems to me a terrible way to resolve an issue. "

That's certainly how, I think, most modern people would take it. But during an age which believed absolutely that God not only could but would intervene actively in human affairs and would absolutely aid the cause of justice and punish the cause of injustice, it made perfect sense, particularly since it was only engaged in between nobles who had received specific training in arms.

We may prefer our modern trial by jury system, but too often that means that the person with the better lawyer, not necessarily the better cause, wins, so is our belief in this system really that much more sophisticated than their belief in trial by combat was?

[Everyman]

Mark wrote: "Et tu, Eliza? You've abandoned your first, uncorrupted, honest take on the flood of gage-flinging in 4.1?
...

I also hope I haven't been too argumentative in my tone. I haven't found the general consensus on this point to be fully convincing, but thanks for helping me explore it."

Your tone hasn't been too argumentative, you had an idea and both presented and defended it enthusiastically, but your comment to Eliza came close to the edge of impoliteness and a personal attack, both of which are unacceptable in this group. It's fine to disagree with people, but it should be done politely and respectfully. And respecting people includes respecting their right to change their minds about a passage or point during the discussion of it without being "called out" on that. After all, if nobody ever changes their mind about anything or develops their thinking beyond the point they started at, what is the point of discussion?

You should offer Eliza an apology, either publicly or by private message, and please be careful in future not to appear to attack people because they happen to disagree with you or are persuaded away from your point of view by the discussion.

[Mark]

Gosh, E-man, and Eliza, I certainly meant no impoliteness or offense of any kind. I thought I had telegraphed that I was feigning offense (for an apparently awkward attempt at humor) at being abandoned with my "Et tu, Brute" allusion. And the tongue in cheek comparison of Eliza's re-evaluation of her opinion to York abandoning Richard--wasn't that an obvious joke allowing the posting of some great language from the play? Oops--apparently not sufficiently obvious.

So, yes, I certainly apologize if Eliza or any of you found my post offensive. Eliza has a lot of erudite company supporting her re-evaluation, so I guess I assumed my feigned outrage about her changing her mind would be seen to be obviously in jest. I'm a novice at this group dialogue stuff (have you noticed I can't always figure out how to lose italics when I'm not quoting?). I'm perhaps guilty of the kind of zeal a religious convert might show. Maybe I'm trying to hard to mix things up and post content that would stimulate some fun discussion. And maybe my limited, popular culture understanding of the Julius Caesar "Et tu, Brute" allusion is potentially offensive to Shakespearian scholars who know, much better than me, the specific power and connotations of it.

So, forgive me Eliza and Everyman. I'll lurk for a while, so I can watch the rhythms of the dialogue and learn better how to participate without offense. I'm really troubled that I might have offended anyone. When I come back, and I plan to, I'll try to rein in my ego a bit. I'm sure that is part of my problem.

All, say smart things about PL and I'll catch up.

[Everyman]

Mark wrote: "So, forgive me Eliza and Everyman. I'll lurk for a while, so I can watch the rhythms of the dialogue and learn better how to participate without offense. I'm really troubled that I might have offended anyone. When I come back, and I plan to, I'll try to rein in my ego a bit. I'm sure that is part of my problem."

Thanks for the gracious apology. No need to lurk for awhile, that's not necessary.

Obviously I didn't pick up your intended humor, nor am I sure that Eliza did. I suggest that you -- that we all -- just need to be aware that humor is more difficult in an on-line format than it is in real life where there are tones of voice and expressions available. I have also had trouble in the past where I thought I was being funny, but it didn't come across that way to others. I've found that it's best not to try to be subtle about humor, but either to make it very obvious, or to skip it.

[Eliza]

Mark wrote: "Gosh, E-man, and Eliza, I certainly meant no impoliteness or offense of any kind. I thought I had telegraphed that I was feigning offense (for an apparently awkward attempt at humor) at being aban..."

Thank you for the apology Mark. I agree with Everyman, there's no need to lurk. This format for discussion is missing the important body language cues that face to face conversation gives us. I've made mistakes and so I'm sure have a lot of others.
Rest assured I understood that you meant no offense and am not in any way upset.

I hope to see you in the Paradise Lost discussion.

[Mark]

Thanks, Eliza and Everyman. I know on an intellectual level that communicating in this medium lacks some of the components of face to face, but maybe I needed to be burned to internalize the distinction and learn the hazards. My mind's ear heard loudly my inflection conveying the cleverness of my humorous, feigned indignation as I typed that post. Duh.

I'll look for opportunities to contribute content of group interest, and try to resist being too clever. On those occasions where my predisposition to humor can't be suppressed, I'll remember to give fair warning!

I really enjoyed the RII discussions.

[MadgeUK]

Mark: I have found your contributions perfectly acceptable and quite amusing too. It is good to have an opposing p.o.v. Do continue to throw your gages down - please do not 'pine away'!

(I was listening to a TV documentary on the British fight for and withdrawal from Dunkirk over the weekend and the film showed British men signing up to fight in WWII and saying that if necessary they would 'die for their King and country', which made me think of you. We might not agree upon reasons for combat, as with Iraq for instance but if a soldier says he is proud to fight and die for this or that cause, we do not laugh at their avowals. So, I guess, it was with the 'soldiers' around King Richard II.)

[MadgeUK]

Right up your street Mark!:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/...

[Mark]

MadgeUK wrote: "Right up your street Mark!:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/..."

Thanks, Madge! I enjoyed the Guardian piece and I also your expression "right up your street." You may not know that we Yanks have managed to diminish the dignity of the roadway metaphor in our version of that fine expression--we typically would say "right up your alley." It's almost like we are conceding something about the relative classiness of American English versus your original version. American English must slink down the back alleyways, while your King's English proudly strides down the middle of the street!

I'm continuing off topic here, but there is a nice article in the June 7 New Yorker magazine that supports the point I just made. It is about the huge match coming up next weekend--England vs. USA in the World Cup Soccer Tournament (the rest of the world sensibly calls the game "football" while we apply that name to a game where the players only infrequently apply their feet to the ball).

The article includes some history of the Miracle on Grass--the shocking U.S 1-0 upset of the English team in 1950, the last time the two teams met in World Cup competition. I can't give a link, unfortunately--New Yorker requires a subscription (I get the print version mailed to me).

The relevant part of the article for my point relates to extent to which we Americans have borrowed language from the British game:

"Still, American soccer sensibilities look toward the British game--its ethos, its personalities, even its idiom. Among aficionados, a field is a "pitch." Cleats are "boots." A scoreless game is "nil-nil." A team is a "side," and a side is plural--as in "Chelsea have won the Premiership." In at least this one area of endeavor, Americans are still colonials, living in thrall to the great faded empire. As if to underscore the point, ESPN, which will be televising the World Cup in the United States, has selected four commentators to announce the games; three of them are British and one is a Scot."

We do so love your glorious language, Madge! I'm a huge soccer fan. My son and I have scrupulously blocked our calendars for the June 12 England-USA game. By the way, no likelihood of another Miracle on Grass. England's team play and your amazing striker Wayne Rooney will be too much for the Yanks.

[MadgeUK]

LOL. As the playwright George Bernard Shaw said 'England and America are two countries separated by a common language'! Have you read Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue? There is a lot of interesting stuff there about our language - you would be surprised how much Shakespeare we quote in our daily lives, for instance.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mother-Tongue...

http://www.acampbell.ukfsn.org/bookre...

I know nothing whatsoever about football or footballers but as a small token, I have planted my patio containers with red white and blue bedding plants this year:):).

[[deleted user]]

This belated post will hopefully be seen by Everyman or Madge or someone else who can help me. We know from Shakespeare that one of the knocks on Richard II was that he gave away much of the gains England had made in France under his grandfather Edward III. Now, from a biography of Henry IV that I am reading, I learn that the peace was negotiated by Henry's father John of Gaunt!

The biographer, Ian Mortimer, explains that John had decided on a strategy of rapprochement with Richard in the hope that he would recognize the Lancastrian line of succession and as a means to block the Duke of Gloucster.

Any further thoughts?

Overall, the biography is doing a good job of unveiling the motivations and psychology of a rivalry that goes back much farther than Shakespeare can show.

Also, I was interested to learn that Henry actually made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem early in his life. This is significant since in IV Henry 1, we hear him express the desire to do so (as expiation for his usurption?) and, of course, we see him die in a room called "Jerusalem."

[Everyman]

Sorry, Zeke, I don't know enough about that period of history to be helpful. What I do know is that Shakespeare treated the facts of history pretty casually, so what we "know from Shakespeare" is often quite different from what we know from credible historians.

This is, of course, for several reasons. One, of course, is dramatic value. But another is that he was writing in an age where you could lose your head for making the power that was "in" look bad, so facts sometimes had to be suppressed in favor of survival. And a third was that they didn't have the same research tools and degree of commitment to historical fact that most modern Western historians have.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks E-man. You're the best. As it turns out, the treaty I referenced was rejected by an annoyed Parliament, so I guess it wasn't the one that I thought it was.

This biography is a great example of why history is "better" than fiction. But, paradoxically why, in its own way, fiction is "better" than history. In other words, different but both special.

One thing for sure: both are better than "historical fiction." Though I can't wait to read Wolf Hall when it comes out in paperback next month.

[[deleted user]]

Zeke wrote: "One thing for sure: both are better than "historical fiction." Though I can't wait to read Wolf Hall when it comes out in paperback next month. "

I dunno. I'd take well researched historical fiction over badly written biography any day of the week.

[[deleted user]]

Well, Kate, that's a good point. And I am glad you made it. I suppose the real key is "well written" for both categories. I get frustrated by fiction that purports to be "historical" bur only serves to provide versions of historical people/events that strike me as modern people in costume.

I know there is a lot of well researched historical fiction that avoids this, and I would welcome hearing your favorites. I find that it tends to be fiction written by authors with no interest in writing a series, but I could be wrong.

[[deleted user]]

Zeke wrote: "I get frustrated by fiction that purports to be "historical" bur only serves to provide versions of historical people/events that strike me as modern people in costume."

Blech. I hate those. I tried to read a well recommended one the other day and in the first chapter there were corn fields in 12th C England as well as 20th C sensibilities towards servitude. I felt like throwing it at the wall, but it was a library book so I refrained. :)

I enjoy writers like Sharon Kay Penman and say, Dorothy Dunnett to pull from both ends of the historical fiction spectrum. (But you know, they both tend to write series! LOL ) Penman writes fictionalized biography and Dunnett uses 15th and 16th century history as a back drop for her stories.

[[deleted user]]

I've heard good things about Dunnet, but, in the end, the series looked like more investment than they were worth. (Although a respected source said he had read about 1500 pages in a couple of weeks.

[[deleted user]]

Zeke wrote: "I've heard good things about Dunnet, but, in the end, the series looked like more investment than they were worth. (Although a respected source said he had read about 1500 pages in a couple of weeks."

:D Dunnett would appeal to people like Madge and Everyman who bemoan the modern education system. She litters the Lymond Chronicles with Old French and Latin and doesn't bother to translate either one. (She's also one of the few authors who can send me to the dictionary), but I found her worth the effort.