From Henry VI, Part Two:
Pride went before, ambition follows him.
While these do labour for their own preferment,
Behoves it us to labour for the realm.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
For fear, Boehner followed the wimp route to preserve his seat, win or aim to hobble the infirm, before mob rule shut it all down.
The inaugural Shakespeare Follow-Up is dedicated to Rebecca.
As she can tell you, when Puck is first introduced in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he meets a fairy who tells him:
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moone’s sphere;
But what is the moon’s “sphere” and why should we believe it is particularly swift? To fully appreciate this line, and many like it across the canon, it’s important to know a little bit about how Shakespeare and his contemporaries viewed the cosmos.
In the Metaphysics, Aristotle described a system of concentric spheres, based on the works of pre-Socratic philosphers. Each observable planetary body, including the Moon, was embedded in one of these spheres. The spheres were made of transparent matter, in contact with one another, and able to rotate independently. (Positing a thin layer of WD-40 between spheres would have been beyond the technological capabilities of the ancient Greeks.) The Moon’s sphere was the closest to the Earth, and therefore, could move the fastest. This was followed by Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the sphere of the stars. Outside the spheres was the Prime Mover, which is the original source of all motion. God, if you like.
Claudius Ptolemy was an astronomer living in Alexandria in the 2nd century AD, while Egypt was part of the Roman Empire. Ptolemy noticed that some of the data, particularly retrograde motions of the planets, could not be explained by the existing model. He added the idea of epicycles, spheres rotating within spheres, which allowed for irregular movement of the planets, and the concept remained the dominant cosmological model for centuries.
Around the 12th century, Aristotelian concepts (including Ptolemaic cosmology) became intertwined with Christian theology. By the time Copernicus developed his heliocentric model in the early 16th century, it was not only a challenge to Aristotle and Ptolemy, but also to Church teachings that God put man in the center of the universe.
This is the world that Shakespeare and Galileo were born into in 1564. The theories of Copernicus were known, but not commonly accepted as true. It should be noted, however, that even Copernicus accepted the idea of celestial spheres; he just put the Sun in the center instead of the Earth. Shakespeare makes reference to the spheres all throughout his plays, often metonymously for the cosmos as it affects our fates, or simply as a shared cultural reference.
So the Bastard in King John can ask “Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,/ Where be your powers?” as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream observes “Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,/ As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.”
Fixed and unchangeable, the spheres also serve as a convenient metaphor for the rightfulness of hierarchies here on Earth. Shakespeare draws this comparison often, most notably in this speech from Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida:
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron’d and spher’d
Amidst the other; whose med’cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth.
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure!
When we see the Sun referred to as “the glorious planet Sol,” it has the power to remind us just how much distance is between the scientific understanding of Shakespeare’s time and our own. And reading this in 21st century America, we also feel the gap in worldview as we see hierarchic culture defended so fiercely. Both celestial spheres and geocentrism will likewise fade in the century following Shakespeare’s death, but the ideas remain forever embedded in Shakespeare like the planets in their spheres. Thus, we understand that when, in 1 Henry IV, Hal tells Hotspur that “Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,” it’s Elizabethan for “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
Astronomers during Shakespeare’s lifetime, most notably Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, already began using observational data to cast doubts about both geocentrism and the celestial spheres. The observation of comets was making the sphere model difficult to maintain. Galileo also took up the idea of heliocentrism and, after a long battle with the Church, was pressured into recanting. But the theories of Isaac Newton and the Scientific Revolution later in the 17th century gave heliocentrism a much stronger grounding in modern science which led to a wider acceptance as the culture became more open to the reexamination of our scientific understandings.
It wasn’t until the 20th century, however, that science learned that none of these models was the center of the universe, but rather one solar system among billions across a vast sprawling cosmos.
One can only wonder what Shakespeare might have done with such a revelation.
This.
Enthusiastic and meme-hip as it is, my one-word review of The Hollow Crown, Sam Mendes’s four-part television adaptation of Shakespeare’s second tetralogy, probably deserves further elaboration. I’ll be watching the productions on DVD, so I may be somewhat out of sync with your local PBS airing currently underway. But you can also catch the series on streaming video through the PBS website, so it’s all good. This review will focus mostly on Richard II, the first of the four plays, because I haven’t watched the other three yet.
Now, if you’re a faithful reader of this blog or, well, met me once, you know this is the kind of thing I live for, and you’ll be prepared for the breathless effluence of a hardcore fan. But truth be told, I can be a tough audience. Because I know the play so well, it’s hard to get me to suspend my disbelief. And this is a tough play. The language is lofty and poetic, even by Shakespeare’s standards, so it’s harder to get the words to sound natural.
And yet, I found myself riveted by the dramatic tension of the scenes, despite knowing not only what was about to happen, but also the exact words that were about to be spoken. I don’t know how that’s possible, but truly I was engrossed the whole time. The actors were top-notch across the board, and the direction was very clear in telling the story. The scenes were beautifully shot and in high definition. True, I was watching it on DVD, but I checked out the streaming feed for this review, and was very impressed at how high you could set the picture quality. Welcome to the future of Shakespeare.
The opening scene started with voice-over of Richard’s “let’s talk of graves” speech, the speech that “the hollow crown” comes from. I must confess feeling a moment’s hesitation, as I worried the director was going to get cute with the play. But then Richard calls for his uncle, John of Gaunt, and it’s Patrick Stewart. Lines are spoken, and I’m feeling the brain burst. This is going to be a wild 148 minutes.
We don’t get much Patrick Stewart, but we do get the “royal throne of kings” speech with full Tom Hooper Les Miz close-up. It’s fantastic, of course, but it’s the subsequent scene between Gaunt and Richard that I had to put back and watch again. And then (spoiler) Stewart’s gone, but we’re given no less than David Suchet (York) to take up the baton. And those are just the supporting players.
Worth mentioning is Rory Kinnear as Bolingbroke. His demeanor is somewhat understated, as is appropriate to the character, but he has some really nice subtleties to his performance. But the real standout in the cast was Ben Wishaw as Richard. I didn’t know much about him outside of Shakespeare Uncovered and James Bond, so I was completely unprepared for just how good he was going to be. Wishaw creates a soft, pampered Richard through his body posture, vocal intonations, and a not-insigificant contribution from a monkey. But then, as his place is challenged, his character arc transitions from entitlement-fueled rage to deep melancholy despair without losing any of the qualities Wishaw had established for Richard. He made me feel the “let’s talk of graves” speech, which I’ve taught phrase-by-phrase, as though I was hearing it for the first time. His performance in the (spoiler) abdication scene alone elevates him to a level of greatness where I can say that his participation in any future project will be no less of a draw for me than a Patrick Stewart or a David Suchet, and that’s no small compliment.
I do have some very minor quibbles that have much more to do with my own Shakespeare pedantry than anything lacking in this production. Some lines I like got cut, but I’ll get over it. Northumberland and especially Henry Percy are underdeveloped. This wouldn’t be a big deal if it were a stand-alone production of Richard II, but the characters reappear in later plays, and the fact that the Percys supported Richard’s ascension in this play adds an ironic layer that’s only possible when you do the plays together. But I understand Jeremy Irons will be playing Henry IV, so maybe the other actors will be replaced as well. Also, I missed the Duchess of Gloucester. Would it really been so hard to have called up Helen Mirren or Vanessa Redgrave or somebody and ask if she had a day to come in and do a scene with Patrick Stewart?
But these are my problems and not yours. If you like to order your Shakespeare well done, you won’t be disappointed. If you’re not a fan of Shakespeare, this might be your way in. And if you are a fan of Shakespeare, but not the histories (Duane), you owe yourself this unique opportunity to see what all the fuss is about.
I’ll post more reviews as I watch the rest of the series.
ETA: Duane’s already on it.
This is the last in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.
So far, we’ve had one parody for each of Shakespeare’s 38 plays and one for the sonnets. We finish the Shakespeare Top 40 with a tribute to all of the plays, one last time.
Enjoy!
We Love the Plays of Shakespeare
sung to the tune of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel(With appreciation to everyone who has followed along on the journey…)
Harry, Suffolk, Somerset,
Richard Plantagenet;
Warwick, Edward, Margaret, Rutland,
Younger Lord Clifford;
Lord John Talbot, Tony Woodeville,
Duke of Bedford, Joan La Pucelle;
Duke of Clarence, Tower Princes,
Richard the Third…Antipholus, Dromio,
Balthazar, Angelo;
Titus gets Tamora by
Baking her kids in a pie;
Tranio, Petruchio,
Katharina, Widow;
Proteus and Valentine have
Bid Verona goodbye…We love the plays of Shakespeare,
Jumping off the pages,
Burning up the stages.
We love the plays of Shakespeare.
First, we learned to read them.
Now, we go to see them.
Don Armado, French Princess,
Costard and Holofernes;
Romeo’s Apothecary,
Juliet’s Nurse;
Gaunt John, he passed on,
Henry’s back and Dick’s gone;
Quince, Flute, Snout, Snug,
Bottom’s got a curse…King John, Pope, France,
Bastard’s got a second chance;
Shylock and Antonio,
Portia and Bassanio;
Bardolph, Boar’s Head,
Prince Hal, Hotspur dead;
Tavern Hostess, Lord Chief Justice,
Henry on his deathbed…We love the plays of Shakespeare,
Jumping off the pages,
Burning up the stages.
We love the plays of Shakespeare.
First, we learned to read them.
Now, we go to see them.
Benedick, Beatrice,
Dogberry and Verges;
Cambridge, Scroop and Grey,
Fight on St. Crispin’s Day;
Cassius, Cicero,
Julius Caesar, Cato;
Duke Senior, Jacques,
Poems posted on the trees…O, O, O…
Olivia, Antonio,
Toby Belch, Malvolio;
Ophelia, Claudius,
Hamlet kills Polonius;
Falstaff once adored
Mistress Page and Mistress Ford;
Agamemnon, Pandarus,
Cressida and Troilus…We love the plays of Shakespeare,
Jumping off the pages,
Burning up the stages.
We love the plays of Shakespeare.
First, we learned to read them.
Now, we go to see them.
Helena for Bertram fell,
All’s Well that Ends Well;
Angelo, Claudio,
“Friar” Duke Vincentio;
Desdemona, Othello,
Duke, Iago, Cassio;
Kent’s stand, Lear’s Fool,
Edmund’s death, Edgar’s rule;
Three Witches, two Macbeths,
Scottish spirits come unsex;
Antony, Cleo P.,
Who else would you want to see?We love the plays of Shakespeare,
Jumping off the pages,
Burning up the stages.
We love the plays of Shakespeare.
First, we learned to read them.
Now, we go to see them.
Marcius, Cominius,
Volumnia, Aufidius;
Cupid, Lucius,
Timon, Flavius;
Gower, Thaliard, Pericles,
Antiochus, Simonides;
Posthumous is shipped to Rome,
Iachimo’s gone to his home…Autolycus, Leontes,
Perdita, Polixenes;
Stephano, Trinculo,
Ship, wreck, Prospero;
Henry starts a second life,
Anne Boleyn’s his second wife;
Kinsmen our guy partnered for;
May have helped with Thomas More…We love the plays of Shakespeare,
Jumping off the pages,
Burning up the stages.
We love the plays of Shakespeare.
And where we have gone,
The play will start anon,
Anon, anon, anon, anon, anon, anon, anon…We love the plays of Shakespeare,
Jumping off the pages,
Burning up the stages.
We love the plays of Shakespeare.
First, we learned to read them.
Now, we go to see them.We love the plays of Shakespeare!
Hat tip to Shakespeare Online for the chronology.
You can click to read all 40 song parodies here.
This is the 38th in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.
Enjoy!
Blood Lines
sung to the tune of “Blurred Lines”(With apologies to Robin Thicke, T.I., and Pharrell)
Come hither, Harry…
Hey, hey, hey!
Hey, hey, hey!
Hey, hey, hey!You took that crown
Before it was your time,
But you will find that
It was a minor crime.
In just a half an hour,
You’ll have that regal power,
Because I’m going to die.Okay, that Jack Falstaff
Tried to contaminate you,
But you’re of royal blood.
It isn’t in your nature.Just let me educate you (hey, hey, hey).
You don’t owe him favors (hey, hey, hey).
That man is not your greater (hey, hey, hey),
And that’s because your claim is…Rightful.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
Your claim is rightful.
You want details.
You’re the Prince of Wales,
And that here prevails.You’ve got the blood lines.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
Your claim is rightful.
I was King Harry;
Now you’re King Harry.
That name you’ll carry.
When you’re there aberrant,
It can scare a parent
Of the heir apparent;
You’re the next in line for the throne!
Your friend is poison (hey, hey, hey).
You can’t be loyal (hey, hey, hey).
What rhymes with loyal (hey, hey, hey)?Okay, that Jack Falstaff
Tried to contaminate you,
But you’re of royal blood.
It isn’t in your nature.Just let me educate you (hey, hey, hey).
You don’t owe him favors (hey, hey, hey).
That man is not your greater (hey, hey, hey),
And that’s because your claim is,,,Rightful.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
Your claim is rightful.
You want details.
You’re the Prince of Wales,
And that here prevails.You’ve got the blood lines.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
Your claim is rightful.
I was King Harry;
Now you’re King Harry.
That name you’ll carry.
One thing I ask of you:
That my final counsel you listen to,
From a dying king to his offspring.
I stole this crown, but here’s the thing:
I have to say as I pass it down,
My son, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
With you, it will descend more quiet.
I mean, it’s still not easy, you try it.
Then, you must make my friends your friends.
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels, that action hence bourne
Out, may waste the memory of the former days.
More would I, but my lungs are wasted so.
O, the Holy Land!
I won’t be going there as I had planned.
But this room is named Jerusalem, where I’ll meet my end.Change the king, from Fourth to Fifth.
Do it quite forthwith, quite forthwith.
Now you’ll create a myth, hey!Harry, can you lead?
I know that this is sudden.
You’re now the crowned monarch,
From Manchester to London, uh huh.
No more schooling (hey, hey, hey),
‘Cause now you’re ruling (hey, hey, hey),
And that’s no fooling (hey, hey, hey).You know your claim is rightful.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
Your claim is rightful.
You want details.
You’re the Prince of Wales,
And that here prevails.You’ve got the blood lines.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
You know you’ve got it.
Your claim is rightful.
I was King Harry;
Now you’re King Harry.
That name you’ll carry.Now here I lie,
And here I die.
Hey, hey, hey!
Hey, hey, hey!
Hey, hey, hey!
From Henry VI, Part One:
Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!
It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp
Should strike such terror to his enemies.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
Warlike hurts, or deaths we cry at, in Boston lie.
Discuss hardships with kids and let them cherish familial relations.
This is the 31st in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.
Enjoy!
Rights
sung to the tune of “Lights”(With apologies to Ellie Goulding, and those planning to read King John… SPOILERS!)
I claimed divine rights,
Ruling here on my own.
There is a vague threat,
But the king will not be overthrown.And I’m not sleeping now;
The French king has forced my hand.
And if I’m staying strong,
I must do something drastic.You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
And so I tell my man he must be strong,
Inform me when he’s gone.And he’s falling, falling, falling way down,
Falling, falling, falling, down.
You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
Oh-oh-oh…I never thought
I would be king;
Never owned land,
As I’m the youngest brother.But that changed quickly when
My father and my brothers died:
Now the Bastard is
The only nephew who’s safe.You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
And so I tell my man he must be strong,
Inform me when he’s gone.And he’s falling, falling, falling way down,
Falling, falling, falling, down.
You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
Oh-oh-oh…
This is the 28th in a series of pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.
Enjoy!
Dutiful Gloucester
sung to the tune of “Beautiful Monster” by Ne-Yo(For Janai…)
In your life,
As Lord Protector,
You aim to serve
‘Till the king’s grown.But your wife,
So ambitious,
Wants to see
You ascend the throne.But, I don’t mind.
In fact, I like it.
I can use her pride,
And I’ll bring her down with you.Oh!
Duke of Gloucester,
Dutiful Gloucester,
Dutiful Gloucester,
Must fall behind.And I’ll use her.
Yes, I’ll use her.
Dutiful Gloucester
Must fall behind.Must fall behind (fall behind, fall, must fall behind),
Must fall behind (fall behind, fall, must fall behind),
Must fall behind (fall behind, fall, must fall behind),
Must fall behind.
Let her cast
Her magical spells.
Her true heart
Will shine right through.But, I don’t mind.
In fact, I like it.
I can use her pride,
And I’ll bring her down with you.Duke of Gloucester (Duke of Gloucester),
Dutiful Gloucester (dutiful Gloucester),
Dutiful Gloucester (dutiful Gloucester),
Must fall behind (fall behind).And I’ll use her (and I’ll use her),
Yes, I’ll use her (yes, I will use her),
Dutiful Gloucester (dutiful Gloucester),
Must fall behind (fall behind, must fall behind),
Must fall behind.And she’ll show her heart,
And you’ll be much maligned.Fall behind, and you’ll fall behind.
Fall behind, and you’ll fall behind.
Fall behind, and you’ll fall behind.
Fall behind, and you’ll fall behind.You’ll fall behind!
It’s been exciting to see Shakespeare so much in the news lately. The confirmation of the discovery King Richard the Third’s skeleton last week has thrust our beloved Bard back into the international spotlight. But just how relevant is Shakespeare to this discovery? How closely related is Shakespeare’s classic villain to the original owner of the bones found under the Leicester parking lot?
Shakespeare wrote that which we call History plays, but these are plays and not histories. Shakespeare often wrote about “real” people and events, but he always put his unique take on it. He could change any details that he wanted. Did you know that the real Hotspur was 23 years older than Prince Hal, even though the two men were portrayed as contemporaries in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV? That Rutland, killed as a small child in Shakespeare’s 3 Henry VI, was actually older than his brothers George and Richard? That there were two different men named Edmund Mortimer, conflated into a single character by Shakespeare? And obviously, no matter how historical his characters, we all understand that he certainly was willing to put words in their mouths.
None of this matters, of course. Saying that Shakespeare got it wrong misses the point entirely. Shakespeare’s intent was to create entertaining theatrical plays. And Richard III is one of the most enduring and popular works of art ever to spring from the human imagination. So, yeah, I’d say Shakespeare actually got it right, wouldn’t you? An archeological discovery can tell us about history, and this is a particularly exciting discovery at that, but it sheds no new light on Shakespeare’s work. We already knew that Shakespeare based his work on Tudor historians, and that he shared their bias towards the Tudor view of history.
So when we ask whether characters from Shakespeare are “real” or not, it may not be such a binary question. I would prefer instead to think of it as a spectrum. More specifically, I have created a seven-point scale to compare how real the characters from Shakespeare actually are.
Enjoy!
Even at the highest level of Shakespeare’s reality-based characters, there is still a lot of spin-doctoring going on. Shakespeare doesn’t just write about his country’s greatest heroes without a little glorification. But the stories Shakespeare tells about characters at Level Seven are fairly consistent with their historical accounts. Shakespeare himself must have been at least somewhat impressed with his own account of the life of Henry VIII when he originally gave his play the title All is True.
I wanted to make a distinction between historical figures that Shakespeare wrote about from relatively recent time periods, and those from antiquity. There are numerous historical accounts of the lives of the ancient Greek and Roman leaders, so Shakespeare was actually writing from sources, but there is only so much faith that we can put in them. The primary difference between Level Six and Level Seven is the amount of time that has passed since the historical figures lived.
Here we can put the characters that Shakespeare had a political reason to vilify. We see a version of history, but it’s a version that’s unapologetically slanted in the direction that Shakespeare’s audiences or benefactors would have appreciated most. Shakespeare is still writing mostly from sources, but the sources may themselves be politically biased, or Shakespeare just felt free to add his own spin to events as he wanted to portray them. The character of Richard III can go here.
There really was a historical Macbeth, but it’s doubtful he did many of the things attributed to him by either Shakespeare or history. Sure, Shakespeare was writing from a historical source, and had political reasons to vilify Macbeth, but the story is so far divorced from reality that we really need a new category to describe it. Level Four is for a character who really lived, but isn’t necessarily portrayed doing the things the original historical figure would actually have done.
Did any of these people really exist? And if they did, are the stories about them true? Probably not. But the stories were passed down from generation to generation, either in oral traditions or written texts, as though they were true. We can’t prove that there wasn’t some actual human being in the dark backward and abysm of time that inspired the legend. Level Three quantifies the precise amount of benefit-of-the-doubt I’m willing to give to that possibility.
These are fictional characters, but audiences at the time would have understood the public figures they were based on. Maybe. If Polonius was based on William Cecil, Lord Burghley, then he could be placed one step above a completely fictional character. This is Level Two. Shakespeare expressly denied that Falstaff was meant to be John Oldcastle to satisfy one of Oldcastle’s noble descendants. But what was Shakespeare’s original name for the character Falstaff? It was John Oldcastle.
These are purely fictional characters, invented by Shakespeare or his literary sources. They are not real people. They are not based on real people. We will not be finding their bones under any parking lots. We are not worried about pleasing their descendants. If Shakespeare had simply confined himself to his own considerable imagination, we would still have an impressive panoply of Shakespearean characters to entertain us. But the conversations and controversies surrounding his plays would not be nearly as interesting.
From Richard III:
O, that thou wouldst as well afford a grave
As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!
Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
To unearth late Richard the Third’s gamy bones would teach us, seem to alienate the vastly-followed myth.
No halo was found.