Bonfire of the Vanities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey McEleney
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Second Tetralogy

Chapter Two extends the work of the previous chapter by offering a more focused critique of the rhetorical and ideological strategies by which aesthetic pleasure has been devalued in both Renaissance and contemporary humanism. The chapter engages in an intensive analysis of Shakespeare’s Richard II in order to reveal how the forceful abjection of vain pleasures, as personified in King Richard and his sodomitical counselors, animates the play’s ideological machinery. It demonstrates further that, as a play, Richard II is itself a manifestation of the forms of futile pleasure that the dramatic world within the play aims to scapegoat. It ends by turning to the remainder of the second tetralogy to trace the plays’ reconstitution of pleasure’s vanity in the form of Prince Hal so that it can be reformed as useful once the prince is redeemed and assumes the throne as Henry V. This reading of Shakespeare’s texts is framed by an argument against commonplace narratives about the legacy of deconstructive theory. Just as Shakespeare’s second tetralogy stages and reinforces the submission of pleasure to use and vanity to virtue, so have critics tended to redeem the forms of queer pleasure for which deconstruction has been routinely vilified.

Sovereign Outlaws: Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-79
Author(s):  
Conor McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
History Plays ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Sovereign Immunity ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Second Tetralogy

This chapter asks whether the sovereign can (and perhaps must) act outside the law in a reading of the second tetralogy of Shakespeare’s history plays. The discussion opens with an examination of the notion of sovereign immunity, contrasted with a competing line of discourse against tyranny. It then argues that questions around the king’s status relative to the law constitute an important set of issues within Shakespeare’s Richard II,where both individuals (Richard and Bolingbroke) and events (Richard’s deposition) may be read as existing outside of the law in various senses. The chapter proceeds to consider the remaining plays in the tetralogy, arguing that Henry V, a sort of quasi-outlaw before gaining the throne, finds as king that he must act outside the law to defend the interests of his state. The discussion surveys a range of legal questions in Henry V, from his claim to the throne of France to his threats before Harfleur and his killing of prisoners at Agincourt. The chapter concludes with a brief glance at espionage in Elizabethan England, and the Elizabethan state’s recourse to methods of invisible power.

Hark what discord follows

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Ian Linklater
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second Tetralogy

"Richard II" is the first play in the second Tetralogy or group of plays broadly about the history of England from 1399 to 1415. It is followed by the two parts of Henry IV and climaxes in the so-called English Epic play Henry V. The first Tetralogy, obviously written before, comprises the three parts of Henry VI and culminates in "Richard III" and deals with the period of the Wars of the Roses from 1420 to the accession of Henry Tudor in 1485, which final date marks the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty.

scholarly journals "This Blessed Plot": An Ecocritical Approach to Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Silvia Barna
Keyword(s):  
Human Dimension ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Second Tetralogy ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

This research project aims at bringing to light the non-human dimension in Shakespeare’s second tetralogy, i.e., Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V. In the context of the military confrontations that preceded the Wars of the Roses, the disruption of human relationships bears an impact on the land and the non-human cosmos in general. Through his literary craft and thorough understanding of human and non-human nature, Shakespeare reveals an intricate network of relationships, which, even when broken, can be mended. My project is guided by a presentist understanding of literature. Studying the relationship between the human and the non-human in Shakespeare’s histories can also inform our own relationship with the land we inhabit and our mutual interdependence. Matter and spirit are integrated in this analysis and inspiration is drawn from Pope Francis’ so-called green encyclical <em>Laudato Si,</em> which invites us to see the earth as our common home and, consequently, exhorts us to be responsible and caring.

Telling the Story: Shakespeare's Histories in Performance

1990 ◽  
Vol 6 (23) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Andrew Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
History Plays ◽  
English History ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Henry Vi

The English Shakespeare Company was founded in 1986 by Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington with a commitment to take large-scale productions to regional venues. Henry IV, Parts One and Two and Henry V opened at the Plymouth Theatre Royal in November 1986 under the title The Henrys: they were then staged at the Old Vic and toured extensively. In December 1987 Richard II, with a two-part adaptation of the three parts of Henry VI (House of Lancaster and House of York) and Richard III, were added to the previous trilogy to create a complete cycle of history plays – The Wars of the Roses. The cycle was toured in England and abroad before playing at the Old Vic in the spring of 1989. It has since been filmed for television by Portman Productions. The only comparable treatment of the histories in the theatre took place at Stratford in 1964. when Peter Hall and John Barton staged seven plays as a sequence spanning English history from the reign of Richard II to the downfall of Richard III. Andrew Jarvis has been with the English Shakespeare Company since 1986 when he played Gadshill, Douglas, Harcourt, and the Dauphin. He has since played Exton, Hotspur, and Richard III. In 1988 he won the Manchester Evening News Award for Best Actor in a Visiting Production for his portrayal of Richard III. Prior to joining the ESC he had played many roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Here, he is interviewed by Stephen Phillips, lecturer in drama at the College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth, who is currently preparing a study of Shakespeare's history cycles in performance in the twentieth century.

Richard II, and:Henry V (review)

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-368
Author(s):  
Deborah Montuori
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry V

Metadrama in Shakespeare's Henriad: Richard II to Henry V

Poetics Today ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 195
Author(s):  
James L. Calderwood
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Henry V

scholarly journals Beyond the Epic. Richard II and the Nature of the Tragic in Shakespeare

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 120-141
Author(s):  
Igor O. Shaytanov
Keyword(s):  
History Plays ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Metaphysical Tradition ◽  
Second Tetralogy ◽  
Dramatic Technique ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

The major disagreement on the nature of the epic is rooted in the opposition of two concepts — either the epic draws on the myth, or its optics is regulated by history. In Leonid Pinsky’s opinion the way leading from the epic past towards the individual and inward self was the way of Shakespeare’s heroes both in his tragedies and history plays. Richard II (1595, opening the second tetralogy) follows one of the two archetypes suggested by Hugh Grady in his article “Shakespeare's links to Machiavelli and Montaigne.” Richard is not essentially a machiavellian type, though occasionally called a weak, “deficient” tyrant by critics and a “landlord” (not a king) by John Gaunt in the play. Creating this character Shakespeare makes the first step towards Hamlet. The climax is reached in the scene of his dethronement, much more known for its political topicality than being scrutinized for the discovery a dethroned king is to make. Who is he now? A nonentity, or a new being? The mirror he asks to bring lies, he thinks, when he recognizes his own unchanged face in it. Several scenes in the play (the Queen and Bushy, Richard and his jailor) demonstrate how the lyrical experience, Shakespeare must have acquired in the two plague years (1592–1594), had changed his dramatic technique. In Richard II he gave a start to a new metaphysical tradition.

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