Senatus Populusque Romanus

The delightfully-named Katharine Eisaman Maus, who supplied the introduction to Titus in my edition (“What edition is that, James?” Christ, we’ve been over this), argues that to the early moderns ancient Rome was less a physical place than “an anthology of stories” to be appropriated as required in the production of new art. Your typical Renaissance artistic standpoint. And, though Titus Andronicus is the only purely fictional of his Roman plays, as Eisaman Maus (again, great name) notes, Shakey “puts a great deal of emphasis on the play’s ‘Roman-ness’, making constant reference to classical myths, to legendary and historical figures, to imperial institutions, to the places and customs of ancient Rome.”

Mythologically, Ovid’s version of the story of the Athenian princess Philomela is particularly important, as is the Roman legend of Lucretia (whose rape was the catalyst for the formation of the Republic and to whom Shakespeare will return in his narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece). Not only are these stories useful to Shakespeare from a plotting point of view but, in an almost postmodern twist, he has the characters on stage make near-constant reference to how like the story of Philomela the events unfolding around them seem.

Now, to the matter at hand.

The play begins in the aftermath of the death of an unnamed Caesar with an emperorless Rome on the brink of civil war. Leading the opposing sides are the two sons of the deceased Caesar (the Decaesar? …no?), Saturninus and Bassianus. Saturninus, the older of the two, sees the crown as his birthright, while Bassianus wants to put the decision to the Senate and people of Rome. A tribune, Marcus Andronicus, manages to calm the fraternal factions by announcing that the plebs would have his brother Titus, a general right this moment on his way back into Rome in triumph, as their emperor. The brothers agree to offer the throne to this third party and disband their followers, whereupon Titus Andronicus arrives on stage, with some high-profile captive Goths in tow. This party of inexcusably malignant miscreants comprises of the following: Tamora, queen of the Goths and conniving wench; her sons Alarbus, Demetrius, and Chiron – the latter two, at least, degenerates both; and one of the most one-dimensional, demonically evil, and racially problematic characters ever to corrupt a stage with his presence – Tamora’s lover, Aaron the Moor.

Goths in Rome. Wait...

In a play in which approximately 40% of the named characters that appear on stage will be killed (all horribly and mostly, the Dowager Countess would be delighted to hear, in full view of the audience), Shakespeare wastes no time. Despite Tamora’s pleas for clemency – pleas that see her debasing her royal status by kneeling in supplication to her captor – Titus allows his own sons to drag her eldest, Alarbus, to the wings and murder him as a sacrifice to honour the Romans killed in battle. The body count has begun, as has the instigation to horrible, horrible vengeance.

Now, though the first death happens off-stage – meaning we can’t really comment on how nasty it is (though Titus’ sons, Quintus, Mutius, and Lucius, do re-enter “with bloody swords“) – I promise you this the exception rather than the rule.

Suffice it to say there will be limb chopping.

Deal.

Titus Andronicus. It's a meaty role.

I’m jumping over the end of the most recent Henry play in the interest of getting a decent start back into this thing. It’s been read, but nothing’s been written on it as yet. Ideally, I’ll do a general overview of all the Henrys when they’ve been finished, and I hope to get back to it then.

So, to move on.

For your consideration, I present to you our boy Shakespeare’s very first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, the play T.S. Eliot called “one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all”. Harsh words, Thomas. The hatchet-job reviews don’t stop there, mind. Samuel Johnson, he of the dictionary (not to mention Dictionary 2: The Return of the Killer Dictionary) fame, complained that “the barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience”. The list of detractors is long and filled with legions of leering literary luminaries and acrimonious academics alike. More recent scholarship holds the play, by and large, in higher esteem; its shortcomings are looked upon as those of a young playwright trying his hand at tragedy for the first time. But do let’s try and make up our own minds when we come to it.

noT impreSsed Eliot

Not only is this William’s first tragedy, it’s his first Roman play: his first dalliance with a genre that will bring us the likes of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and, currently undergoing a bit of a revival thanks to Ralph Fiennes’ new talkie, Coriolanus.  It’s a genre in which Shakespeare will become very comfortable. And no wonder, as ancient Rome and its citizenry make for good tragedy fodder. It seems that ancient Rome, particularly if we listen to Plutarch (as William certainly did), abounded with egos that were ripe for the stage. It was lousy with god-like autocrats. You couldn’t move for fellas bestriding the narrow world like Colossuses.  And not only were Roman lives larger-than-life, they were bloody as all hell. Raping and pillaging that puts the Vikings to shame. Incestuous sheets that Claudius and Gertrude would blush to sleep in. All in all, good tragedy material.

That said, Titus Andronicus, unlike the other Roman plays, is entirely fictional. Shakespeare, at this point in his career, is merely using ancient Rome as a setting. Later on, he’ll dramatise the lives of historical and semi-historical figures, giving us an entirely different sort of history play than he gives us in the History Plays. For now, Rome offers him a lofty and violent context to set his first revenge tragedy.

The revenge tragedy was a genre of play, prevalent during the era, that was hugely popular, incredibly violent, and enormous amounts of fun. And I think it’s in this light that we should view Titus Andronicus. Taken in the context of the theatre of the late 16^th century, the seemingly adolescent vengeance-bent slasher-movie approach to drama was all the rage. Shakespeare’s livelihood, and that of his company, depended on the success of his plays, so it’s entirely understandable that he would seek to cash in on the popularity of the genre. Let’s, therefore, take this next play as our own introduction to the revenge tragedy.

And what better bloody revenge tragedy for us to – o-ho! – sink our teeth into than that of Titus Andronicus, eh?

You’ll see why that’s funny in a few posts’ time.

Well, I say ‘funny’…

Bear in the Big Blue Playhouse

So. It’s the 1590s. Elizabeth is on the throne and I want to put on a play. Banned from performing in the City of London itself, I’m forced to produce it on the seedy south bank of the Thames, surrounded by bear-pits, prostitutes, and the actual Clink. Nevertheless, the show must go on, legs must be broken, there’s no business like show business, and it’s at least another ten years before we have to worry about saying ‘Macbeth’ with our customary reckless abandon – let’s get to it.

Hmm, what’s that? Ah, that Stratford chap’s got a new one? Excellent, let’s do that then. Oh, it’s another Henry play, eh? Well, people will go to anything that gets them in from the filth for a few hours. Call it Richard, Duke of York, or something – punters won’t realise what they’re letting themselves in for. No, don’t use that! Think of something better.

Anything strange or startling? A bit with a dog would be nice; went down very well in that Verona play last year. No? Well, never mind. Wouldn’t do to have the mutt humping Margaret of Valois’ leg while she’s petitioning the king of France, I suppose. Alright, well this seems fine. A few battles, some political intrigue, a bit of saucy banter with the commoner wife – very nice. Christ though, must they all be called either Richard or Edward? And we’ll need some different coloured hats or something so the poor buggers can tell who’s on which side. I hope you’re writing this down.

Right so, looks like we have ourselves a show, gentlemen. Now, casting – see if Burbage and Alleyn are about and…

What’s that? Yes, the second act, what about it? The battle scene with the York boys? Some special effects required? Oh, that’ll be no problem. We pulled off that gimmick with the heads on pikes kissing in the last one, didn’t we, so what’s he thrown at us this time?

EDWARD: Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?

Three blazing suns that appear spontaneously in the air, descend from the sky, float around the stage, then merge into one glorious prophetic beaming gaseous fireball?

Ah.

…

How combustible do you reckon Will Kemp is?

Edward IV. One character, many titles.

When you’re just reading the History plays it’s bloody difficult to remember who’s who and who’s on what side and when… and why has this character disappeared completely? (What’s that? Oh, they haven’t? They’re actually the king now? Ah.) This would, of course, all be overcome were I sitting there watching the characters in person, as opposed to dealing with their ever-changing titles in print.

In the first three acts of the play the Duke of York’s eldest son, Edward, is firstly the Earl of March, then the Duke of York, before suddenly becoming King Edward IV. Alright, that one’s not too bad, I grant you; at least he’s called Edward in the margins the whole way through. More confusing is how his younger brother, the hunchback Richard (son of Richard, Duke of York – who’s now dead), suddenly disappears and the Duke of Gloucester makes a stunning return from the grave. Now, had I been sitting in a theatre watching the play I can only imagine that I’d have thought to myself “Hang on a moment, this Duke of Gloucester chap’s vertebrae are suspiciously out of kilter. Why, that’s Richard!” and the action would have continued apace, and all would have been well.  What actually happened was that I began reading Act III, Scene ii, and had to stop for a minute, flip back to the start of the play, and check the cast of characters. There it was under the ‘Of the Duke of York’s Party’ section: ‘RICHARD, Edward’s brother, later Duke of GLOUCESTER’. Sneaky. In my defence, my main issue was that the original Gloucester (well, probably not the original Gloucester; but the one I knew and loved) was a pretty big hitter in 2 Henry VI, and in that play he was killed fairly definitively, his body having been dragged on stage ‘n’ all. It just seems cruel to change the name of a character you’ve just gotten used to to that of another one whose death you’ve just gotten over.*

The Tudor Rose, combining the white rose of York with the red rose of Lancaster. The emblematic equivalent of "Oh, can't we all just get along..."

The stage directions help out a little sometimes, come to think of it. In the opening scene of the play the main players of both the Yorkist and Lancastrian sides pile onto the stage to fight over the throne. The stage directions specify that the Yorkists all wear white roses in their hats, the Lancastrians red. This would have been fantastic. Just think how easy it that is for a spectator: Richard’s wearing white, that guy’s wearing white – they must be on the same side! Simples. Unfortunately for me, in their boundless editorial wisdom Greenblatt et alia decided against highlighting the characters’ names in red and/or white for my benefit. But I live in hope for the next edition.

While I have you here, a quick word on the naming of this one. I’ve already gone through, at length, the composition and performance chronology of the 3 parts of Henry VI. As we learned, what we now know as 1 Henry VI was, in fact, written after parts 2 and 3 (indeed, a Roman tragedy comes in between the writing of the third and first parts), so, obviously enough, this play wasn’t originally called Henry VI, Part 2. In its earliest known published form (the octavo of 1595), it’s called The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke, with the further qualifier ‘as it was Sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his servants.’ Incidentally, it’s thought - for various reasons which I’ll leave to you, most esteemed readers, to wiki in your own time - that it was probably first performed at least three years before that. In the hallowed First Folio, on the other hand, the play has been titled according to the chronology of the events portrayed, rather than the order of composition, giving it the name The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Duke of Yorke. So there you have it.

It’s mildly interesting to note that in the octavo naming it’s seen as a play about the Duke of York, with the death of Henry VI thrown in for good measure, while the First Folio editors have it as a play primarily about Henry, with a bit of York death on the side.

…I did say mildly.

*This is a lie. I got over Gloucester’s death in 2 Henry VI pretty quickly. I didn’t really care about Gloucester, and it seems neither did Henry VI, as he completely passes the blame for losing England’s French territories onto him at the start of the play. He snivels to Warwick: “The Lord Protector lost it, and not I. / When I was crowned, I was but nine months old.” Yes, Henry, but you only lost France at the beginning of the last play, when you were fully grown, fully accountable, and shacking up with Margaret of Valois. AND Gloucester was your main supporter. Christ, won’t you just die already…

Regular service will resume shortly – anon, even.

Next in this series of children's entertainment / Shakespeare mash-ups: William Shakespeare Junior.

Henry V - what's not to love?

Rule #1 of the History plays:

Whenever Henry V isn’t on stage, all the other characters should be asking “Where’s Henry?”

Throughout 2 Henry VI, and at least for the first three acts of 3 Henry VI, which we’ve arrived at finally, Shakespeare has a great time referencing everybody’s favourite king: that one-time boozy rapscallion Prince Hal, later St Crispin’s Day speech-maker extraordinaire, the one and only Laurence Olivier Kenneth Brannagh Henry V.

It’s like he’s subtly advertising for a play cycle he won’t write for another seven or eight years. Is it possible that he mentioned him once or twice in passing and then got to thinking “Damn, Henry V was the best. Should’ve written about him. Oo, I know – prequels!”? Maybe.

Anyway, 3 Henry VI picks up where 2 Henry VI left off, not only in terms of action, but also as a Henry V love-in. In the third act Edward, Richard Duke of York’s eldest son, describes how Henry V “revell’d in the heart of France, And tam’d the king, and made the dauphin stoop.”

High praise coming from somebody who doesn’t recognise Henry’s legitimacy and is currently in the process of overthrowing his son.

Clifford, who fights on the side of Henry VI, has lost all respect for the crucifixated monarch, and laments:

And Henry, hadst thou sway’d as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
They never then had sprung like summer flies;
I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm,
Had left no mourning widows for our death,
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.

The message is, of course, that the current Henry should have been more like his father, the fifth one, and less like a cowardly dickhead. Shame, that. In the interests of full disclosure it should be borne in mind that Clifford has stumbled onto the stage a few lines prior to this with the direction “Enter CLIFFORD, wounded with an arrow in his neck”. So, understandably not in flying form. But things would have been a lot better had Henry V been about, and no word of a lie spoken in that.

Henry VI himself tries to cash in on his father’s reputation in the opening scene, declaring to the heckling Yorkists:

I am the son of Henry the Fifth,
Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,
And seiz’d upon their towns and provinces.

(lots of stooping Frenchmen, no?)

To which Warwick, a Yorkist, adds the quick put-down “Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.” Harsh but fair.

It isn’t all just foreshadowing of the later plays, though. The repeated references to the old Henry are central to a play preoccupied with fathers and sons: Henry VI can’t live up to his father’s legacy; Richard’s sons, on the other hand, are model children to their father, stopping at nothing while he’s still alive to have him installed as king; Prince Edward, Henry VI’s heir, is screwed over and robbed of his birthright by his own father when Henry surrenders the throne to Richard in the opening scene (with the proviso that he is allowed to serve out his life as king before York takes over); and during a battle sequence we meet two sets of fathers and sons who mortally wound one another when fighting on opposing sides of the civil war.

It’s “father” this and “son” that. You can’t move for the fathers and sons in this play; it’s wall-to-wall fathers and sons.

I'll stick this effin' pitchfork up your father/son theme

The interesting thing is that had Henry VI been more like his father and set about stooping some Frenchies, it’s more than possibile that none of this would have happened. To continue Edward’s  invective against Queen Margaret, begun above:

His father revell’d in the heart of France,
And tam’d the king, and made the dauphin stoop;
And, had he match’d according to his state,
He might have kept that glory to this day;
But when he took a beggar to his bed,
And grac’d thy poor sire with his bridal day,
Even then that sunshine brew’d a shower for him
That wash’d his father’s fortunes forth of France
And heap’d sedition on his crown at home.

On a few occasions Richard admits that it’s only because of the loss of their territories in France that he’s bringing up his rightful claim to the throne to begin with. Had Henry VI not been such an irredeemably damp squib, he’d have remained unchallenged as king and there’d be no Richard III to look forward to. And wouldn’t that be just terrible?

*sighs dreamily*

I wish Henry V was here.

Ms Hendricks, who plays feisty red-head Joan Holloway in AMC's Mad Men, denied rumours of the assignation, insisting that she, Matthew Morrison, and the Bard of Stratford were "just friends".

Apologies. Somebody once told me that the best way to direct traffic to your blog was to include commonly searched words in the title. Et voilà.

I need all the traffic I can get at this stage. Oh, the shame of having the last post on your blog read “Proper post tomorrow. Honest.” and then not updating it for 2 months. But I’m back, and this little project of mine will be seen through to the bitter end no matter how long it takes.

So help me god, I’ll always read Shakespeare again.

Right, when last we met, we were stuck in a history play – The First Part of the Contention…, I believe, otherwise known as 2 Henry VI.

Disclaimer: this post will be plot-heavy and disjointed for reasons of the play being plot-heavy and disjointed, coupled with my wanting rid of it.

The basic plot of the play is that Richard, Duke of York, wants to be king, but isn’t. To be fair, he has a better claim to it than the current king, Henry VI, based on his descent from an elder son of Edward III. On top of this, nobody really trusts anybody else, and Henry himself is fairly ineffectual and preachy. His queen, Margaret of Anjou, is particularly disdainful of him and is probably (and by that I mean DEFINITELY) sleeping with William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk.

The real loser in all this is Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who gets smothered in his bed for simply being in the way. Shakespeare goes all Greek tragedy on his death scene, having it occur behind a curtain at the back of the stage, only for the body to be unveiled later to the king (who, being a wussy ineffectual cross-cuddler who may as well have WWJD engraved on his crown, faints at the sight). Poor Gloucester.

Other exciting events include the conjuration of an evil spirit by Gloucester’s wife, Christine O’Donnell Eleanor, and an utterly baffling interlude involving a man who claims to be blind, then lame, and ends up being neither. Simon Simpcox (referred to by Gloucester as “the lying’st knave in Christendom” – awesome) is his name, and it seems he and his wife decided on the cunning ruse as a means of scamming people out of money. It doesn’t work. Some lovely bawdy dialogue, though.

About half-way through the play York is sent to crush a rebellion in Ireland. He goes, and plans to stir up the Irish, variously called “uncivil kerns” and “shag-haired crafty kerns”, to a different cause: to have them back his claim to the throne. He leaves behind Jack Cade, a commonor, to stage a mini-rebellion in England to test the public’s receptiveness to a monarch from the house of York. Cade does fairly well, and embarks on a killing-spree across London. He has men killed for being able to write their name, for protesting that their wife is being raped (the nerve), and for calling him by his own name. He’s a lovely chap, really.

My favourite line of the play comes during this episode actually. Cade has gathered the decent working folk of London to spout some class-struggle rhetoric at them (all the while claiming that he’s of noble lineage, wants to be king, and that they should all ‘worship’ him – now that’s good socialism). One of these decent working men shouts from the crowd, establishing what their priorities should be in this uprising:

Good advice.

DICK: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

To which Cade replies “Nay, that I mean to do.” Wonderful.

The play, and this post, ends with York returning with troops from Ireland and declaring publicly his claim to the throne. The king’s forces are routed, and York looks set to get his wish. Will he succeed? Only time, and 3 Henry VI, will tell.

Oh, there were also pirates at one point.

But then, pirates could happen to anyone.

But to keep you all salivating for more Shakespearean fun and frolics, here’s Rowan Atkinson and that guy off House doing  a sketch for Comic Relief.

I love this. Rowan Atkinson’s clearly just channeling Blackadder and enjoying himself immensely. I suppose if we wanted to get all canon on its ass, we could think of him as a cousin of Lord Edmund from the second series. Second season? Are we saying season now? Fine.

Anyway, back to Henry VI shenanigans tomorrow, and thanks to the Film Cricket for reminding me of this video.

Speaking of whom…

Coming soon! A blog crossover like nothing you’ve ever seen!

The Fustilarian and the Film Cricket will join forces in the boldest comp. lit. move since I compared The Decameron to Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors in an undergrad essay.

Stay tuned.

First Folio title page

2 Henry VI Acts I and II plot summary: everybody hates everybody else and everybody wants to be king, except the king.

So far so good with the history plays; much more engaging than you would at first think. Shakespeare’s approach, in this play at least, is to treat events fairly episodically so that you have the principal characters moving from event to seemingly unrelated event while various alliances and enmities are nurtured and crushed around them.

The play begins with the delivery of Margaret of Anjou to Henry VI by William de la Pole, Marquis – and then Duke – of Suffolk. Suffolk married her on Henry’s behalf and had her carted back to England to be crowned Henry’s queen, earning himself that dukedom in the process. It seems likely that Suffolk and Margaret have been getting up to their own, heh heh, political negotiations, heh heh, along the way. Oh yeah…

Margaret brings with her no dowry but a promise from the king of France of 18 months’ peace between the two nations so long as two English territories – Anjou and Maine – are ceded to the French.

This does not go down well with the scheming nobility.

A few introductions to said scheming nobility:

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester: The Lord Protector, who was charged with the welfare of the king while the young Henry (who’s also the Duke and therefore head of the House of Lancaster – do keep up) was not yet of age. Now that the king is of age, it’s unclear to others why Gloucester enjoys such a position – he’s believed to have ambitions towards the throne; however, he doesn’t want to be king, his intentions are for the most part fairly sound, and he’s a man of the people. Diana-like, he’d much rather be king of people’s hearts, and the Daily Express is still trying to cast light on his death.

Dame Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester: Humphrey’s wife, pictured

The Gloucesters enjoy a quiet moment together

here with her devoted husband at St Alban’s. Reckons her husband should be king for some reason (okay fine, he’s heir apparent if Henry doesn’t get busy with Margaret – who’s busy getting busy with Suffolk – complicated, isn’t it?). Enjoys walks in the garden, ambitious treason, and witchcraft. Indeed.

Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester: uncle to Gloucester, and great-uncle to the king. Suspicious of Gloucester, wants to protect Henry. Old.

Richard, Duke of York: the grand old Duke of York. Has 10,000 men. Enjoys marching them up, down, then halfway up hills, where he remains neither up nor down. Actually, this Duke of York is one candidate for the nursery rhyme duke, but not the most likely. Our Richard, Duke of York, is father to that dastardly hunchback Richard III, who we’ll hear all about later. He has a pretty solid claim to the throne, outlined in this dialogue from Act II, Scene ii., and it’s fairly safe to say he’ll make good on it somehow, though unfortunately not for himself. Leader of the House of York. Sneaky.

There are others, but who cares, right?

In the first two acts we’re introduced to this merry gang as well as some delightful commoners, a conjurer, a witch, a supernatural spirit called Asnath (there it is there on the left), and a man who pretends to be blind but isn’t.

It’s all very exciting. And confusing. But interesting too, yeah?

Yeah?

Would an ad campaign for Axe using the Claudius quote above - and where the 'offence' is B.O. - work at all?

Though I suppose in this instance the offence is with me and my tardy blogging, the great axe has been falling predominantly on woodworm-riddled kitchen cabinets at the back of leaky sheds.

To explain: I’ve spent much of the last week and a half in the 1950s. I’ve been helping my aunt move out of her house, a task that has mainly consisted of clearing out attics, throwing away antediluvian kitchen utensils, and chopping up and enskipping old wood. There hasn’t been a lot of time for Shakespeare unfortunately, but I have discovered that I tremendously enjoy destroying old furniture with an axe. Quite the little axe-wielding maniac I’ve turned out to be.

You’ve been warned.

Anyway, this is all by way of saying that a triumphant return to blogging is imminent. Expect more 2 Henry VI tomorrow. You have my word.

In the meantime, go look up The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski.

Official site: http://www.runleiarun.com/lebowski/

It really tied the room together: http://kottke.org/10/01/two-gentlemen-of-lebowski

Yeah, I’m not sure this would work at all beyond the realm of a “wouldn’t it be funny if…” conversation, but then this guy went ahead and did it anyway. Some people.