So far during our readings for Shakespeare II, the plays have taken place away from England: Merchant of Venice in Venice, Italy and Measure for Measure in Vienna, Austria. Even during class this concept of taking place away from England has been a main idea in order for Shakespeare to distance himself away from the issues he raises to avoid conflicts with the people and rulers of England. Unlike the other two, his history play, Richard II takes place right in England. Obviously this is due to the fact that this play is supposed to be based on real events, but I wonder how the people took to Shakespeare’s view of what happened in the past?
In our society, history is constantly being made into books, movies, and plays. For example, the movie Pearl Harbor is based on real events but twisted into a love story in order to make it more appealing to audiences. Now I’ll be the first to admit my knowledge of European history is not very good, but Shakespeare had to have altered the content of the play a little bit in order to appeal to his own audiences. Such as the dramatized plot in Act 1 scene 4 for gaining money to go to war, as Richard says, “We are enforced to farm our royal realm, / the revenue whereof shall furnish us / for our affairs in hand” (1:4 lines 44-46) combined with the spectacular timing for Bushy to come with the news of John of Gaunt’s failing health. I realize that this idea probably did happen, but did it happen exactly like this, or is this something Shakespeare created to produce irony and to set the stage for later in the play?
But if the play was based in England and on England’s royalty, how did Shakespeare not get into trouble with this, especially since it seems as if the way Richard is portrayed here is not in a good light? From what I got from the reading it sounds as if Richard wants to get money from the wealthy people and then pay the wealthy people back with the taxes from the common people. Would that not make him a very unpopular king with the commoners? I’m not too sure whether or not he was considered to be a good or bad king yet, but it sounds like an unpopular idea to me. Would the audiences of this play agree that this is a bad idea and cheer Shakespeare on, or would the current King of England take offense to the idea that Shakespeare could be criticizing the past royal families? I know that Shakespeare writes plays on several of England’s kings, but after our discussion in class of him trying to avoid trouble and association, why did he become brave and create these plays? It makes me wonder that if he were alive and savvy to what was going on in America at any given time, what kind of plays and about which presidents would he write?
1 comment:
This is very insightful, Brooke, and anticipates several important points about the play. As I said in response to Nicole's post below, LAND, is very important in this play. You are right that Shakespeare, in bringing this play to EngLAND, is drawing his audience's attention to the shift in scenery. This is perhaps most obvious in John of Gaunt's speech (used later as in a voice over for British Airways commercials!).
We also will be talking about just how controversial this play actually was as we approach the end. Shakespeare really did get into some hot water for this one!
Post a Comment