The ministry of higher and secondary specialized education of the republic of uzbekistan karshi

Yüklə 492,47 Kb.

Pdf görüntüsü

tarix	01.05.2022
ölçüsü	492,47 Kb.
	#86362

2 5404646880892164234

STATE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FILOLOGY FACULTY COURSE PAPER

THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND

SECONDARY SPECIALIZED EDUCATION OF

THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN KARSHI

STATE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FILOLOGY

FACULTY

COURSE PAPER

THEME:

Shakespeare’s historical dramas

Submitted by: Fayziyev Firdavs

Course: 020-129

Confirmed by: Xoliqova Muhayyo

Qarshi-2022

Content

Introduction…………………………………………………………...…......3

Chapter 1. Summary of the Henry VI plays

1.1. King Henry VI……………………………………………………….…..6

1.2.

The second part of Henry VI…………………………………………….10

1.3. The content of this play…………………………………………….....16

Chapter 2. First successfully play

2.1. Unified play………………………………………………………………….....22

2.2.Thenatureofkingship…………………………………………………..............27

Conclusion…………………………………………………………….….…30

List of used literatures………………………………………………….….....32

Introduction

In the Elizabethan Age, Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, was

profoundly interested in the period of civil war that centered in the Wars of the

Roses. This general interest is reflected in The Mirror for Magistrates (1559) in

Samuel Daniel's “epic poem,” The Civil Wars between the Two Honses of York

and Lancaster (1545), in Michael Drayton's Mortimeriados, and in the various history

plays antedating those of Shakespeare. This concern of the Elizabethang can be

easily understood if one notices our parallel interest, today in the United States, in

our own Civil War. From 1392, when Richard II was dethroned by Henry IV, until

1485, when Henry VII, the ﬁrst Tudor monarch, defeated Richard III at the Battle

of Bosworth Field, the English had experienced almost continual war, either civil

or foreign. Even after the ascension of Henry VII, who cemented the peace by

uniting the houses of York and Lancaster through his marriage with Elizabeth of

York, minor insurrections took place. In Shakespeare's day, the refusal of

Elizateth I to marry and provide an heir to the throne was a source of anxiety to the

general populace, who feared that rebellion or civil war might break out with her

death. As early as 1561 Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville produced

Gorboduc in the Inner Temple, in part to encourage Elizabeth to empower

Parliament with the authority to name an heir, if she should not provide one

through marriage. As E. M. W. Tillyard points out in his discussion of Gorboduc:

Most of the substance indeed is general, applicable to all princes; but the

references to the succession are plainly directed at Elizabeth. They are gathered

together in the last speech of all, when Eubulus, the king's secretary and the

counsellor who is always in the right, comments on the whole action and foretells

the future course of events. The country's case is disastrous, for

No ruler rests within the regal seat;

The heir, to whom the sceptre 'longs,

unknown.

The result is anarchy.... Anarchy, he Eubulus j says,

doth grow, when, lo, unto the prince,

Whom death or sudden hæp of life beroaves,

No certain heir remains, such certain heir

As not all only is the rightful heir

But to the realm is so made known to be.

Once the prince is dead, parliament lacks the authority to back up its nomination

of a successor.

No, no: then parlianent should have been

holden

And certain heirs appointed to the crown,

To stay the title of established right

And in the people plant obedience,

While yet the prince did live; whose name

and power

By lawful summons and authority

Might make a parliament to be of force

And might have set the state in quiet stay.

Because Henry VII had deposed an anointed king, he did not feel secure about his

right to the crown. To strengthen his claim, therefore, he fostered two historical

notions that became accepted without question during Shakespeare's lifetime. The

ﬁrst notion was that an organic part of history had ended happily with the union of

the houses of York and Lancaster through Henry's marriage with Elizabeth of

York. The second was that he had a claim to the throne through his Welsh

ancestry. The ﬁrst notion forms one of the themes of eight of Shakespeare's

history plays. Although the influence of the second is not so apparent as that of the

ﬁrst, it, too, probably was at the back of Shakespeare's mind.

Shakespeare's English history plays are arranged in a rather curious sequence. First

to be written was a tetralogy of four closely-linked plays: Henry VI. Parts I, II,

and III and Richard III. King John, Shakespeare's next history play, was followed by

a second tetralogy of four plays which also deal with the Wars of the Roses:

Richard II, Henry IV, Parts I and II, and Henry V. These plays were followed many

years later by another isolated play, Henry VIII. Except for the two isolated plays,

the two tetralogies make a single unit. In developing Shakespeare's idea of the

nature of kingship, I shall be concerned only with this set of eight plays. I have

omitted King John because of the controveray over dates and because it adds

nothing to Shakespeare's view of kingship that is not dealt with in the other plays.

The extent of Shakespeare's contribution to Henry VI is still in dispute, but a

growing consensus among scholars credits the entire play to him. It is usually

considered his ﬁrst play and is thought to have been completed between 1590 and

1591. For a more complete discussion of this play, see Tillyard, Shakespeare's

History Plays.

Henry VI is quite generaily considered as written by Shakespeare. The accepted

date is 1591-1 592 E. K. Chambers, Wlliam Shakespeare. A Study of Facts and

Problems (Oxford, 1930)

Henry VI is also considered to be Shakespeare's own. The accepted date of

composition is 1592-1593 .

At the present time controversy is raging over the dating of King John. Dates

range from 1591 to 1598. For full bibliographical data the recently revised Arden

edition, edited by E. A. Honigman (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954), shoul be

consulted.

Chapter 1 Summary of the Henry VI plays

1.1. King Henry VI

Henry VI is the work of a talented young playwright who had psychological

insight enough to note the different roles forced upon a young king by his society.

but who as yet was without the skill to integrate the various aspects that king's

personality into a uniﬁed characterization. While Shakespeare is able to

characterize Henry as a child in one part of a scene and as a king in another part,

he is not able to combine the two roles successfully. Thus, because the

characterization varies from scene te scene without credible motivation, Henry

seems a puppet moved by an external force. The young ruler is only an embryonic

character whom Shakespeare was unable to supply with a complete personality.

As a man, Henry is characterized only by youth and saintliness. He exudes

Christian virtue, but is not a good king. In fact, his strengths as a man lead to his

chief faults as a king. Because of his simplicity and sincerity, his blindness to the

treachery and evil in those around him, he lacks understanding of the political

situation and as a result often acts foolishly. Throughout the play he is the only

one who believes in Christian ethics and metaphysics. But although his attitude is

Christian, it is not Christlike, because he continually refuses to take any direct

physical action against the evil and corruption of the court. While even Christ

chased the money lenders out of the temple, Henry is almost never moved to

action. In fact, his bookish set of ethics and his passive Christian attitude seem a

substitute for action. But by not acting and by often ignoring evil, Henry does

more harm than he might do through any kind of action. On the other hand, when

he does act, the result is usually ineffective or harmful to the real and to himself

because he operates in almost complete ignorance of the situation.

Ethically, Henry has a wider perspective than those around him. But his ethic

fails because he is no judge of character and cannot distinguish between what men

say and what they do. For him words are a reality in themselves. If the other

charasters in the play had accepted the same Christian values he has accepted,

Henry might have been able to rule successfully. While the young king sees the

need for moral force, yet neglects the need of physical force, everyone else sees

the need for physical force and neglects moral forse. An efﬁcient ruler needs both

moral and physical force.

As king, one ﬁnds it is hard to determine whether Henry is acting on his own

behalf or simply following someone else's decisions. Only in the last scene is it

certain that he acts on his own. Here he seems to be an entirely different person

from what he is in the rest of the play. The only characteristic the youthful

monarch shows which is in keeping with the earlier picture of him is his

overevaluation of words.

Henry is a good man born into a position he is not suited to ﬁll. He was only nine

months old when he came to the throne. During his “tender years,” the court is

doninated by the Lord Protector of the Realm, his uncle Gloucester. But

Gloucester is not in complete control; several powerful nobles stand in opposition

to him. Foremost among them is the young ruler's other uncle, the Bishop of

Winchester. Since Henry’s uncles are continually quarreling, the entire privy

council is divided, and the realm is in disorder, Throughout the play, with the

exception of Gloucester, everyone in the court tries to further his own gain at the

expense of the public good.

Almost as dangerous to Henry's precarious position is the dormant dynastic

struggle between the descendants of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of

Edward III, and the descendants of John of Gaunt, Henry VI's great-grandfather and

the fourth son of Edward III. The political situation is compounded because Henry

is a mere child, yet a child who wants to see justice done, Accordingly, in an

attempt to alleviate the crime done against the Duke of York's father, Henry

restores Yorks patrimony to him. With the wealth and position that he has been

given, York begins a plot to overthrow Henry that reduces the entire realm to civil

war.

The political climate cf self seeking lords surrounding Henry VI leads to the

French viciories in France. With the factious lords quarreling, Guiene, Champagns,

Rheins, Orleans, Paris, Guysors, and Poitters have been recaptured by the French.

When asked by what treachery these towns have all been lost, the massenger

replies:

No treachery: but want of men and money.

Amongst the soldiers this is muttered,

That here you maintain several factions,

And whilst a ﬁeld should be dispatch'd and fought,

You are disputing of your generals:

One would have lingering wars with little cost:

Another would fly swift, but wantath wings;

A third thinks, without expence at all,

By guileful fair words pease may be obtain'd....

Let not sloth dim yoar honours new-begot:

The Complete Works of Wiliam Shakespeares, ed. wiliiam Aldis Wright, (Garden

City, New York, 1936). All quotations in this thesis are taken from this book.

Already England has lost much of France because disorder in the English court

has spread to France, has seeped down through the commanders in the ﬁeld, and

has demoralized the common soldiers. This dissension among the peers has

prevented needed men from reaching the armies in France. Indecision at home has

prevented the generals from planning long-range strategy.

In Part I, the blame for Henry's actions is not completely his. He does not really

enter into the action of the play until Act III. Because he is a youth of "tender

years" (about ten years old), the Lord Protector of the Realm, Humphrey, Duke of

Gloucester, and the other peers rule the kingdom. Henry himself says, “When

Gloucester says the word, King Henry goes".

Although young, Herry does see the danger inherent in the quarrel of his uncles.

But since he is under their guardianship, all the youthful monarch can do is to

resort to words:

Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,

The special watchmen of our Engliah weal,

I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,

To join your hearts in love and amity.

In Henry VI. Henry’s age is impossible to deternine from the play. Since periodic

reference is made te his “tender years,” it can be assumed that in the early part of

the play Shakeapeare meant for him to be considered a young boy, but just how

young is hard to tell. Historical dates do not help to settle this question because

Shakespeare takes great liberties wits history. For example, in this play, after

Herry is crowned in Paris, he sends Talbot out to chastise Burgundy. Talbot is

killed in the ensuing battle. According to T. F. Tout, An Adyanced History of Great

Britain (London, 1914), Talbot is killed in 1455 at the Battle of Catillon. Henry,

however, was crowned in Paris in 1431, Historically, then, there is thirty one years

difference between the two events, although in Henry VI they happen almost

concurrently. Henry appears as an adolescent when he marries Margaret of Anjou,

bat according to Tout, the marriage took place in 1455 when Henry was a young

man of twenty-three. He was born in 1422.

1.2. The second part of Henry VI

In Henry VI Shakespeare failed to focus on one or two characters whose actions

are signiﬁcant, almost as if he did not clearly recognize what the central issues are.

As a result, he created a shot-gun effact which scatters attention and interest over

so many characters and events that all are blurred because of inadequate

treatment. Thus one gets the impression that all of the people in the play are cast in

minor or supporting roles with no main character to provide a center of interest.

Nor does any one event seem particularly important. What issues Shakespeare

was trying to explore in this play are not deﬁnitely apparent, but judging from the

title, The Second Part of Henry VI, one may consider it likely that he wanted to

explore the personality of Henry. On the surface Henry again has all the accepted

Christian virtues, yet as a king he is a failure. Considering the age in which he

lived and the attitude towards Christianity he expresses in his later plays, one is

inclined to doubt that Shakespeare was trying to deride Christian principles. Yet

Henry deserves to lose his throne. When he loses the Battle of St. Albans, Henry

is a piteous character, but he arouses in the spectator more contempt for his

weakness than pity for his misfortunes.

Henry is in many ways a complete fool. He understands little of what is going on

about him and is confused even by his religious values. For him Christianity is a

passive way of life that provides an easy escape from the intrigues and corruption

of the royal court. Virtue to him amounts to unawareness of evil, not a rejection of

evil nor a struggle against it. His holiness becomes an excuse for cowardice, a

negation of responsibility in an adult world. Thus Henry does not really represent

Christian life in a secular society. Only as an anchorite could he have lived what

for him would be a successful life.

While Henry follows Christian tenets literally and blindly. he never sees the

ramiﬁcations of his actions or too often, his lack of action because he always stays

on the surface. He loves everyone and never willingly harms anyone. But by not

injuring anyone nor hindering the actions of evil and ambitious men, he does great

harm to the kingdom. Not even his religious views are solid, for by the end of Part

II they drive him to the point of fatalism and despair, the great sin of the

Renaissance; despair signiﬁes dissatisfaction with God's ordering of the universe.

Guided by surface impressions alone, Henry never learns from experience and

never understands his environment. Every important person around him except

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and Lord Protector of the Realm, is obsessed by

ambition and is attempting to gain at least a share in the control of the kingdom.

Although various quarrels break out in his presence, Henry does not see their

signiﬁcance, or at least fails to act, with the result that the realm is on the verge of

chaos.

In trying to create a successful character whose chief personality traits are an

unworldly saintliness and a refusal to act, Shakespeare fails to give a rounded

picture of Henry, who is seen only as a static individual caught in a web of evil.

Since he undergoes no enlightenment during the course of the play, no

psychological or moral development of his character can take place. Most of the

action revolves around Henry because of his central position in the court, but he is

so inactive that he is hardly missed or considered when off-stage.

Worse yet, Henry's actions do not always follow his nature. Rather than speak

like a king, too often he sounds ike a priest reading a sermon which has little or

nothing to do with the subject at hand. At other times, for no ostensible reason, he

appears quite different. At one time he tells the court to forgive the rabble who

follow Jack Cade in his revolt against the crown. A little later he praises God for

removing a troublemaker when Cade's head is brought into court.

Since Henry shows no genuine internal conflict, his speeches often bring the

action of the play to a standstill or cause it to move along monotonously. As a

result, Shakespeare is forced to present nearly all of the action on a physical plane.

Because Henry's principles are those expressed in sermons and because he takes

no deﬁnite stand on pertinent issues, he seems to lack intellectual honesty.

Throughout the play he maintains a child-like kind of innocence and naivete that is

unconvincing.

Even this early in his career Shakespeare appeared to recognize that many

different traits exist within an individual's personality, but he had not yet learned

to portray them interacting upon one ancther. In Henry VI the inconsistencies that

exist in the characterization of Henry are fewer than those found in Henry VI. But

he still lacks any internal notivation. He appears to be moved by an external force

as a pawn is moved from square to square by a chess player. Part of the problem is

that Shakespeare was unable to handle more than one aspect of Henry’s character

at a time. Each scene reveals a part of Henry's personality, but does not show any

evolution of character or suggest other aspects of his character. In Henry VI,

Henry is noted for his saintliness just as in Henry VI. Although in Part II no

mention is made of "his tender years," he still behaves like a child in his refusal to

shoulder responsibility, in his lack of interest in governmental matters, in his lack

of insight into the courtly environnent, and in his surface acceptance of his

surroundings. At one point only in Part II does he develop some insight into his

own character when he realizes that he does not have the ability to be a successful

ruler. He confesses, "For yet may England curse my wretched reign.

As a man Henry's chief characteristics are his over-concern with religion, his

desire to be a peacemaker, his poor judgment, his failure to ﬁght for his beliefs,

and his physical cowardice. Because of his religious nature, he lives within a

closed system of values. On every side in his corrupt world, he sees signs of God,

The fake miracle at St. Albans, immediately proved bogus by Gloucester, Henry

accepts blindly as an example of God's mercy and goodness. The defeat of the

drunker armorer, Horner, by his apprentice, Peter, and the defeat of Jack Cade by

the royal forces, he believes are revelations of Cod's justice. Blind to the evil,

treachery, and ambition about him, Henry natively ignores his obligation to

maintain order in the realm because he believes God will do it. Thus, by his

refusal to rule, he himself is ruled by the various quarreling factions within his

court.

Not only is Henry blind to what goes on about him; he is immaturely

impressionable, blindly open to suggestion. He becomes enamored of Margaret in

Part I before he has seen her, influenced solely by Suffolk's glowing description

of her charms. Part II opens with Suffolk introducing her to Henry. Careless of the

consequences of a marriage contract that costs him the provinces of Maine and

Anjou, Henry accepts her and insists that she be crowned as queen.

He proves himself pitiably impotent as a ruler when he fails to support

Gloucester. He knows Gloucester has faithfuily servad the realm, but he lacks

courage to assert his kingly authority in his defense. Protesting feebly that the

Lord Protector iš a loyal subject who is innocent of any crime, Henry does not

restrain Suffolk from arresting Gloucester in the king's name, although he suspects,

in his uncertain manner, that Gloncester will be murdered. With the fall of

Gloucester, Henry is surrounded completely by powerful, covetous, selﬁsh nobles.

Another of Henry's persoanlity weaknesses is evidenced by the interrelation

between his religious attitude and the value he places upon words. His religion is

not practiced but verbalined. From his Christian frame of reference, he can

interpret the smalest incident, such as the performance of a falcon at St.

Albans, as a reminder of the working of God's will.

But what a point, my lord, your faicon made,

And what a pitch she flew above the resti!

To see how God in all His creatures works!

Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.

In contrast to Henry's religiosity is the secular attitude of the rest of the court,

exempliﬁed by Beaufort when he accuses Gloucester:

Tay heaven is on earth; thine eyes and

thoughts

Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy

heart;

Thus, while Henry is contemplating the wonders of God, others are scheming to

get the crown.

In his attempt to uphold Christian ethics, Henry professes to love everyone. When

he dismisses Gloucester from his ofﬁce of Lord Protector of the Realm, he tells

him, "...go in peace, Humphrey, no less beloved/Than when thou were protector

to the king". Henry never ﬁnds fault with anyone. Even at the death bed of the

remorseful Cardinal Beaufort, palpably one of those guilty in the murder of

Gloucester, Henry admonishes Salisbury and Warwick to “Forbear to judge for

we are sinners all”. Christian and saintly as this admonition may be, such an

attitude is not likely to lead to the punishment of those involved in the murder, and

unpunished political murder can lead to social chaos.

But while Henry is Christian, he is not Christlike. He differs from Christ in that

he refuses, in a sense, to admit that evil exists. He expresses his value system

when he says:

What stronger breastplate than a heart

untainted!

Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just,

And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,

Whose conscience with injastice is corrupted.

Uttered shortly after the murder of Gloucester, one of the most virtuous of men,

the above speech seems ludicrous and native.

In his saintly way Henry would also be a peacemaker:

I prithee, peace, good queen,

And whet not on these furicus peers;

For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.

But as a peacemaker he proves ineffectual too. As usual he insists on talking, yet

refuses to take any decisive action to maintain peace and order, because he is

afraid of committing evil. When Warwick demands justice for Humphrey's death,

Henry prays:

O Thou that judgest all thi.ngs, stay my thoughts,

My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul

Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!

If my suspect be false, forgive me, God....

Since Henry is God's viceroy on earth, he is expected to enforce justice in the

realm. Instead of praying to God for forgiveness in case his suspicions are wrong,

he should have investigated the crime.

Henry is willing to uphold justice only when the responsibility is not his. Thus he

believes in ordeal by battle: God decides who is right and who is wrong. When the

armorer is defeated by Peter, the apprentice, Henry says:

Go, take hence that traitor fron our sight:

For by his death we do perceive his guilt:

And Cod in justice hath reveal'd to us

The truth and innocence of this poor fellow ...

Convinced by the outcome of the trial-by- combat that Peter is innocent and Horner

is guilty, Henry pays no attention to the nature of the crime. The armorer had

committed treason by saying that York is the rightful king. Taus the question of

Henry's right to the throne has diffused through the realm until even the common

people are involved. Yet after this fact has been brought to Henry's attention, he

does nothing to remove York from power.

1.3. The content of this play

As a play, Henry VI shows no advance over its predecessor. The issues presented

and explored in Henry VI now come to a head, but Shakespeare cannot resolve

them until he writes the last play of the tetralogy, Richard III, because according to

the Tudor theory of history these questions were not resolved until Henry Tudor,

Earl of Richmond, ascended the throne as Henry VII and united the houses of

York and Lancaster. The dynastic problem and the power problem in Henry VI

intensify into a chaotis, apparentiy meaningless situation. By the end of the play, a

fragile order exists with Henry VI dead and Edward IV securely on the throne.

The House of York has won the crown, and the direct male line of the House of

Lancaster is exterminated; but Richard, Duke of Gloucester Richard Crookback is

waiting to smash such order as exists snd seize the crown. Nevertheless, owing to

Shakespeare's inept handling of this theme, such as it is, the play seems almost

meaningless, although when performed it can be enjoyable because enough

colorful action takes place in the battle scenes to make it exciting.

Sir Barry Jackson expresses the opinion that Part II and Part III of Henry VI made

two of the strongest impressions of all the history plays when he saw them

produced in 1906. He admits that this is probably due to the frame of mind he was

in at the time. He further states that when they were revived by his Birmingham

Repertory Theatre in 1952 and 1953 they were considered quite successful. Henry

VI was even taken to the Old Vic. He feels “that the work is ill-shaped, lacking the

cohesion brought of practice, a spate of events viewed from a wide angle may be

added cause for neglect, but there is little doubt in my mind that the basic reason

for their neglest is the omission of one or two star roles and the inclusion of a

number of interesting ones.” ("On Producing Henry VI," Shakespaure Survey. VI,

(1953).

About what issues Shakespeare was trying to explore in this play, there is no

consensus among the critics. E. M. W. Tillyard suggests chaos as the theme and

believes that for this reason Shakespeare did not want to cast the play into a

pattern, feeling that "formlessness of a sort was as necessary to his purposes here

as the wide scattered geograpły of Antony and Cleopatra was to the imperial

setting of that play." Tillyard feels that Shakespeare "had a great mass of chronicle

matter to deal with and he failed to control it; or rather in paring it to manageable

length he fails to make it signiﬁcant.

The material Shakespeare is working with is certainly episodic by nature, and he

is able to develop each scene so that it has dramatic unity, but the play as a whole

lacks unity because he is not able to integrate the scenes. He failed to control his

material, not because he was too inexperienced as when he wrote Henry VI but

because he was experimenting with a different type of structure in Henry VI. He

no longer seems interested in simple plot development. As in his later plays, he

includes scenes which do not further the plot but that comment upon pertinent

issues. Henry's famous shepherd speech is an example. On a plot level it contributes

little or nothing, but on a thematic level it is essential because it summarizes

Henry's attitude toward the politica1 situation and toward the ordered life whd.ch

he is unable to live.

On a strictly plot level, neither the garden scene in Richard II nor the bedroom

scene in Hamlet contribute anything to the plot. In a stage production either scene

could be left out of its respective play without hindering the andiense from

following the action. But both scenes are essential to thematic development.

This scene takes on additional importance when it is compared to the long

soliloquy of Richard Crockback in III, in which Richard expresses his political

ambitions, his cynical view of 1ife, and his Machiavellian attitude toward politics,

which is the direct antithesis of Henry' s. One might argue then that Henry VI is

organized, in general, upon the contrast between the values of Henry and Richard.

These two soliloquies form the structural piliars of the play.

In the shepherd speech, Henry shows a surprising amount of insight into the

political situation:

This battle fares like to the morning's war,

When dying clouds contend with grewing light,

What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,

Can neither call it perfect day no night.

Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea

Forced by the tide to combat with the wind….

Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;

Now one the better, then another best:

Both tugging to be vitors, breast to breast,

Yet neither conqueror nor conquered:

So is the equal peise cf this fell war.

Here on this molehill will I sit me down.

By comparing one faction to the wind and the other to the sea,both unstable

elements, Henry points out how neither the Lancastrian nor the Yorkist forces has

a steady foandation on which to rest its case. Not only the battle but also the

question of who should rule has been in sway from the beginning of the play, The

wind and the tide metaphor also shows the futility of the recurring battles that

have been taking place. Henry, sitting on a molehill, brings to mind the tragic end

of the Duke of York, who was murdered on a melehill in I. Henry alone recognizes

that "to whom God will, there be the victory". He has been driven from the

battleﬁeld,

For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,

Have chid me from the battle; swearing both

They prosper best of all when I am thence.

At ﬁrst this speech makes Henry seem a weakling, but when the characters of

Margaret and Clifford are examined, he is seen to hold a better attitude than theirs.

Both Clifford and Margaret are after total revenge. Neither God's will, tolerance,

nor patience ever enters into the mind of either. Clifford is so concerned with

avenging his father's death that he even kills Rutland, the twelve-year-old son of

Richard, Duke of York. Margaret's thirst for vengeance is just as violent. When the

Duke of York is captured, she delays his murder until after she has taunted him by

handing him a handkerchief, soaked in Rutiand's blood, with which to wipe his

eyes.

Henry's plight is described by William Baldwin in the title of his tragedy, "How

king Henry the syxt a vertuous prince, was after many other miseries cruelly

murdred in the Tower of London," in The Mirror for Magistrates (1559):

Such doltish heades as dreame that all thinges

drive by haps,

Count lack of former care for cause of after

claps.

Attributing to man a power fro God bereft,

Abusing vs, and robbing him, through their

most wicked theft.

But god doth gide the world, and every hap

by skyll.

Our wit and villing power are paysed by his

will:

What wyt most wisely wardes, and wil most

deadly vrkes,

Though al cur power wouid presse it downe,

doth dash our warest wurkes.

Than destiny, our sinne, Gods wil, or els

his wreake,

Do wurke our wretched woes, for humours to

be weake:

Except we take them so, as they provoke to

sinne,

For through our lust by hunours fed, al

vicious dedes beginne.

Here Henry recognizes the futility of ﬁghting because God will work things out at

his own convenience. Henry sees lust for power initiating an endless cycle of

vicious deeds all around him. The "rightness of his passive attitude towards the

battle is emphasized in 3 Henry VI in the scene in which he watches a father kill

his son and a son kill his father- a scene that symbolizes the ultimate evil in civil

war.

To return to the shepherd scene: Herry sees the hopelossness of England's

political situation and wishes he were a shepherd:

O God! methinks it were a happy life,

To be no beter than a honely swain!

To sit upon a hill, as I de now,

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,

Thereby to see the minutes how they run ,

How many make the hour full complete;

How many hours bring about the day;

How many days will ﬁnish up the year;

How mary years a mortal man may live.

When this is kmown, then to divide the times:

So many hours must I tend ay flock;

So many hours must I take my rest;

So many hours must I contemplate;

So many hours must I sport myself:

So many days my ewes have been with young:

So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean;

So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:

The Mirror fo Magistrates, ed, from the original texts by Lily B. Campbell

(Cambridge, 1938). Those who wish to pursue the subjest of Shakespeare's

acquaintance with The Mirror for Magistrates should consult Tillyard's

Stakespeare's Histery Flays.

So minutes, hours, days, mornths, and yoars,

Pass'd over to the end they were created;

Would bring wha te hairs unto a quiet grave.

Ah, what a life were thist how sweeti how lovely

What Henry is longing for is an ordered life, but he cannot enjoy one because he

failed to drive away the courtly wolves before they banded together and formed a

pack too large for the royal forces to handle. Because he has spent too many hours

in contemplation, he now spends most of his time mourning. But he has

developed a great deal of insight into both the political situation and his own

character. Henry is a virtuous man, but at the same time, he is, by temperament,

unﬁt for the crown. He now begins to realize this weakness more fully and by the

end of the play resigns the rule to Warwick ard Clarence because he feels their

leadership will be better for the realm.

In contrast to Henry's benevolent attitude towards the realm, Richard Crookback

wants to be king at any cost and is in torment until he can get the crown. He states

this desire in a soliloquy which shows a Machiavellian push for power that

depends upon controlled violencs, (Richard III opens with a modiﬁed version of

this speech.) Richard has just been witnessing Edward IV's courtship of Lady

Grey, and the pangs of jealousy it arouses suggests how he has ﬁnally become the

personiﬁcation of evil. He opens the soliloquy with a wish that Edward

…. were wasted, marrow, bones and all,

That from his loins no hopeful branch may

spring,

To cross me from the golden time I look for!

He then bemoans the dynastie fact that

....betweer my soul's desire and me—

The lustful Edward's title buried-

Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,

And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,

To take their rooms, ere I can place myself.

Richard wants the throne badly enough to decide to "cut the causes that separate

him from the throne. His is premeditate evil. He wants the crown

.... since tnis earth affords no jey to me,

But to command, to check, to o'erbear such

As are of better person than myself,

I'11 make my heaven te dream upon the crown,

And, whiles I Live, to account this world but hell,

Until my mis-shaped trunk thet bears this head

Be round impaled with a glorious crown.

His desire for the crem has eclipsed everything else in his mind.

Because of his "mis-shaped body," he feels he aan never be a lover: it, would be

easier “to accomplish twenty golden crowns” than win the heart of a lady:

Why, love forswore me in ry mother's womb

And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,

She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,

To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;

To make an envious mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body;

To shape my legs of an unequal size:

To disproportion me in every part,

Like to a chaos….

And am I then a man to be beloved?

O monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought:

Thus Richard's deformed body and diseased mind help to warp each ether. In

fact, his physical deformity symbolizes his moral deformity.

His monomania becomes so strong that he is willing to do anything to achieve the

crown:

Chapter 2. First successfully play

2.1. Uniﬁed play

Richard III is Shakespeare's ﬁrst successfuly uniﬁed play. While the Henry VI plays

are held together primarily by external interest, Richard III is uniﬁed by the

characterization of Richard and by the theme of divine vengeance. It is the ﬁrst

play in which Shakespeare develops the importance of inner action to a point

where it begins to determine outward action. Events and characters have, at the

same time, become more speciﬁc and cencrete and also more meaningful and

signiﬁcant.

Even so, Richard III is not a completely successful play. In writing it,

Shakespeare sacriﬁced content for technical mastery. Perhaps because of an

underlying influence derived from the early mystery plays, he wrote on the level

of grand guignol. As a result, Richard fails to be a tragic character. He is only a

pasteboard ﬁgure of evil, or more exactly an evil schemer. A murderer by nature,

Richard is too much of a monster and not enough of a human to evoke either

sympathy or empathy. He is fascinating chiefly because of his ability to

manipulate others. Richard III fails further because the play is repetitious. Because

Richard's actions are almost always the same, his character develops no

undercurrents until Act IV, and by then it is too late to begin developing a rounded

character. As a result, Shakespeare says very 1ittle in a positive way about the

nature of kingship in Richard III. In fact, he actually says more in the Henry VI

plays.

Richard III inevitably suffers as a detached unit because it summarizes and

completes past events. As A. P. Rossiter indicates:

We need to know who Margaret is; how

Lencaster has been utterly defeated, and

King Henry and his son murdered; how

Clarence betrayed his king and returned to

the Yorkists; how Richard, his younger

brother, has already marked him as his

imediate obstruction on his întended way

to the crown. We need to know too that

the duchess of York is mother to the un

rewarding trio, Edward IV, Clarence,

Gloucaster; that Edward IV has married an

aspiring commoner, Elizabeth Grey (nee

Woodville)"; and that she has, jacked up

her relations into nobility.

But even more important than a knowledge of the Henry VI plays is an

understanding of

the overriding principle derivod from the

Tudor Historians: that England rests under

a chronic curse-the curse of faction, civil

dissension and fundamental anarchy, resulting

from the deposition and murder of the Lord's

Anointed (Richard II) and the usurpation of

the House of Lancaster. The savageries of

the Wars of the Roses follow logically (almost

theologically) from that....It is a worid of

absolute and hereditary moral ill, in which

everyone (till the appearance of Richmond Tudor

in Act V) is tainted with treacheries, the

blood and barbarities of ci vil strife, and

internally blasted with the curse of moral

anarchy which leaves but three human genera:

the strong in evil, the feebly wicked, and

the helplessly guilt- tainted.

When the Tudor theory of history is under stood, it becomes apparent that the

greatest bond uniting the plays of the ﬁrst tetralogy is the political theme and its

moral implications. This theme involves retribution for crime through God's slow

moving justice and the belief that history works itself out according to God's

preconceived plans. Ironically, in this devine scheme of events, Richard has the

dominant role. As E. M. W. Tillyard explains:

...it is through his dominance that he is able

to be the instrument of God's ends. Whereas

the sins of other men had merely bred more

sins, Richard's are so vast that they are

absorptive, not contagious. He is the great

ulcer of the body politic into which all

its impurity is drained and against which

all the members of the body politic are

united. It is no longer a case of limb

ﬁghting limb but of the war of the

whole organi sm againat an ill which has now

ceased to be organic.

Furthermore, in Richard III Shakespeare laaves no loose ends in structure as he

does in the Henry VI plays. Each motive, each character, and each detail is

connected with a major issue. In particular, Richard III gains deeper signiﬁcance

by the centrality achieved through focusing on Richard as a bad king who,

ironically, serves as God's agent. Because of Richard's intellectual superiority to

the other characters, his diabolical will, and his simple Machiavellian politics, all

the action eventually stems from his plans and actions. As Clemen shows:

It is Richard whe secretly and cunningly

watches the movements and actions of his

enemies to weave them into his spider's web

before they are aware of it and then te wait

for the advantageous monent before he can

overcome them. Thus the movements and indeed

even the words and thoughts of Richard's

victims are made use of by him for his

diabolical interests, are intagrated into

his plans.

Richard III opens with a soliloquy by Richard remarkably similar to the one he

delivers in Henry VI. In the earlier play, he states his desire to be king by means of

a Machiavellian push for power that depends upon controlled violence. Watching

Edward's courtship of Lady Elizabeth Grey arouses in Richard pangs of jealousy

that suggest how he will ﬁnally become the personiﬁcation of evil. He opens the

soliloquy with a wish that Edward

…were wasted, marrow, bones and all

That from his loins no hepeful branch may spring,

To cross me fren the golden time I look for!

He then bemoans the dynastic fact that

…between my soul's desire and me

The lustful Edward's title buried

Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,

And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,

To take their rooms, ere I can place myself.

Richerd wants the throne badly enough to decide to “cut the causes” that separate

him from the throne. This desire has eclipsed everything else in his mind. Because

of his “mis-shaped body,” he feels he can never be a lover: it would be easier "to

acomplish twenty golden crowns" than win the heart of a lady. His deformed body

and diseased mind help to warp each other; in fact, his physical deformity

symbolizes his moral depravity. To accomplish his desire, Richard decides to

become deliberately evil:

I'1l drown more sailors than the mermaid shall:

I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk….

I can add colours to the chameleon,

Change shape with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

For the remainder of Henry VI, he follows the plan laid down in this soliloquy.

Primarily through his machinations, both Henry and his son, Prince Edward, are

killed.

In Richard III Shakespeare presents the same character whose ambition for the

crowm has eclipsed everything else in his mind. Although the House of York has

completely defeated the House of Lancaster, Richard is, as he states in the opening

soliloquy, dejected because:

Now are our brows with victorious wreaths....

Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled

front....

He (war) capers nimbly in a Lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks....

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,

And descant on my own deformity.

Victory does not satisfy Richard because his greatest pleasure in life comes from

violense and disorder. He prefers battle armor to victory wreaths and combat to

merry meetings with friends. But most of all he hates to see warriors transplanted

from the battleﬁeld to ladies'chambers, where he feels himself at a disadvantage.

With his misshapen bedy he is not suited for games with the ladies, and so he

rejects close human relationships, especially with women. For Riohard, peace is a

"weak piping time" because all he can do is watch his own shadow and think about

his deformity. Because he is physically malformed, he rejects order, love, and

companionship and chooses instead chaos and evil:

…since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain,

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Having decided upon his course, he wastes no time:

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,

About a prophecy, which says that

Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

He rejects normal human values because they make no sense to him.

Throughout the play, Richard is called "devil" and "minister of Hell;" like Satan

he prefers disorder to order and is innately evil. From the beginning of the play, he

is the personiﬁcation of evil, and he appears more evil as the play progresses

because his veneer of hypocrisy bit by bit loses its power to hide his motives.

Ironically, he succeeds in his drive for the crown because he understands physical

power better than do those about him. The others Clarence, for example have used

force when they were able and have been merciless at times, turning to God to ask

for vengeance only when they feel they have no other alternative. Richard never

turns to God for help, almost as if he believes that God helps those ho help

themselves.

Living as he has during the Wars of the Roses, Richard has never experienced or

observed the effective use of moral power so that he does not understand it. He has

noticed that respect, honor, and privilege.

2.2. The nature of kingship

Richard II is ths ﬁrst history play in which Shakespeare explores character as well

as the nature of kingship. In the second tetralogy an evolution takes place, a shift

from the study of kingship as it focuses on the ofﬁce itself and only secondarily on

the character of the king, to the study of kingship as it focuses squarely on the

character of the king himself. In the ﬁrst tetralogy Henry VI is the embodiment of

Christian virtues, but his virtues as a men, which are sketched in only haphazardly,

paradoxically amount to his faults as a king. As a result of his blindness to the faults

of others, he becomes a pawn in the political game who is continually ruled by

those around him. In a manner similar to that of Henry VI, Richard II refuses to

accept a king's responsibilities, and consequently he also Ioses his authority. But

in Richard II there is exploration of character as well as exploration of the nature

of kingship.

By 1595-6 when he wrote Rignard II. Shakespeare was mature enough as a

playwright to exploit the ideas nascent in Henry VI. In Richard II Shakespeare

dramatizes the causality implicit in the theme of rebellion. Both the deposed king,

Richard, and the usurper, Boling broke, are explored both as kings and men; the

reasons for their success and failure are carefully examined.

In structure Richard II is quite different from the Henry VI plays which are

episodic by nature. By the time he wrote Richard II, Shakespeare had learned how

to sift cut extraneous material. The result is a play in which scenes are not only

solid units in themselves, as in Henry VI, but cohere into a uniﬁed whole. In all

these plays there are also scenes that contribute nothing on a plot level, but that

comment on or summarize pertinent issues. In plot Richard II is similar to Henry

VI. Both plays depict the rise of one king at the expense of another, but Henry VI

lacks dramatic unity. Shakespeare makes Richard II an integral whole because he

concentrates on Richard and provides an excellent contrast to Richard in

Bolingbroke. By presenting in Act I the seemingly best side of Richard so that he

appears to be a good king who conducts an orderly court, a king who seems

concerned with maintaining order and justice and the welfare of his kingdom,

Shakespeare evokes sympathy in the reader for Richard's plight. At the same time

Shakespeare provides depth of character through a cross-current which suggests

Richard's defíciencies as a king.

Richard II is actually a character who develops out of Kenry VI. Both are kings

born into roles for which they are not suited. Richard could have been a successful

minor poet, and Kenry could have been an excellent monk or recluse, but neither

is a good king. Both are too passive by nature. Henry is not willing to shoulder any

responsibility because he might commit a sin in the process. Justice is maintained

in his court only if he feels God is the judge, as when the apprentice armorer, Jack

Horner, proves his master guilty in a judicial duel. Richard is even more foolishly

passive in expecting God to help him directly by sending down angelic hosts.

In spite of his expectations of divine intervention, Richard lacks the religious

personality of Henry. Richard is par excellence a man play-acting the role of king.

Words and ceremony are the only things at which he is adept. Just as Henry’s

passive, religious natare makes him a virtuous man but a poor king, Richard's

passive, poetic nature makes him a good artist but a poor king. Richard becomes

so obsessed by words and sees the world so symbolically that to him form and

ceremory bacome ends in themselves.

Both Henry and Richard fail to distinguish between words and reality and both

are convinced by words without investigation. Both resort to prayers and requests,

but in different ways. Richard wants God to avenge him and help him keep his

kingdom; Henry wants God to help him rule better.

Neither Henry or Richard understands his situation, and as a result each acts

foolishly. Thus Henry does not recognize the danger of returning York's

patrimony, and Richard does not foresee the conaequence of conﬁscating

Bolingbroke's patrimony. In both cases they ignore indications of a rebellion.

Richard is warned that if he takes John of Gaunt's property he brings down a

thousand troubles upon his head. When Horner ia defeated by hís apprentice, the

master adraits he is guilty, but Henry does not examine or remember that Horner

is guilty of treason because he said Richard, Duke of York, was the rightful king.

Henry has the good sense most of the time to realize his limitations and let his

simplicity, honesty, moral bravery, and piety have what effect they may. He wants

to see justice done and is interested in the welfare of the reaIm. But because he

loves everyone and wants to harm no one, even to enforce justice, his attitude

proves ineffective. However, with the upheaval that exists in the kingdom during

his reign, nothing Henry can do will help. On the other hand, Richard fools

himself into thinking that since he was born king, he is infallible. Because he is

basically interested in himself and not the realm, he fails as a ruler.

For a modern audience, Richard II ﬁrst appears as a good king because he has a

gift for pageantry. He uses words well and acts very well the role of king in public.

Yet for Shakespeare's audience, Richard was a bad king whose deposition was

perhaps inevitable...but whose murder was avenged only by a half-century of civil

war. The title of the tragedy describing his actions in The Mirror for Magistrates

demonstrates the Elizabethan attitude towards him : Howe kyng Richarde the

seconde was for his euyll gouernaunce deposed from his seat, and miserably

murdred in prison.

Conclusion

Henry IV is the ﬁrst efﬁcient king in the tetralogy. Not only is he strong enough to

enforce justice, but he is politic enough to make himself popular with both the

commons and the nobles. But in yielding to the temptation of deposing his lawful

king, he commits an act of injustice which he cannot expiate. Throughout both

tetralogies Shakespeare demonstrates that Henry was wrong in deposing Richard,

even though Richard deserved it and Henry proved to be much the better ruler.

Shakespeare seems to have felt that, since all kings are mortal and only some are

poor rulers, subjects should endure the injustice of a legitimate ruler rather than

allow a usurper to take his place and bring confusion and rebellion to the realm. If

the precedent of rebellion is once established, potential usurpers can always ﬁnd

excuses for disloyalty.

However, once Richard is murdered, the rule of Henry IV is better than any

alternative. Although Mortimer has a better claim to the throne, the meeting of the

rebels (Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower) at Bangor proves that

Henry's victory over them is beneﬁcial to England. The rebels have no interest in

the welfare of the kingdom. Their plan to carve England into three states

demonstrates that they seek only to further their own interests.

In characterizing Henry V as what a king can be, Shakespeare is careful not to

incorporate the worst flaws of the other rulers in the two tetralogies into Henry's

personality, although he is careful to give Henry traits similar to those of his

father-particularly a strong streak of prudentiality bordering on hypocrisy. Henry

V differs from his son because he is a strong ruler who punishes the guilty and

compels those who would be unjust to be just. But while he does not fail to behead

anyone in the name of justice, such as Bardolph for robbing a French church, he

often tempers justice with mercy. He does not become a tyrant like Richsrd III.

In contrast to Richard II, Henry V, 1ike his father, regards kingship as a serious

business. He is not interested in the showmanship of pomp and ceremonies of

court procedure except as they are necessary to maintain an orderly court. He

avoids poor counselors, as demonstrated by his rejection of Falstaff, and seeks

good counselors, as demonstrated by his reinstatement in ofﬁce of his father's

Lord Chief Justice. Apparently he is frugal because no mention is made of his

overtaxing of either the rich or the poor. In fact, he shows regard for the people

when he is in France by preventing his soldier a from stealing or pilfering from the

French households. Because of his strong rule and his sense of justice, Henry

maintains order and commands the loyalty of the commons.

Shakespeare realized that the qualities that make a good friend do not make a

good king. Henry is forced with respect to Falstaff to be brutal, politic, and

ruthless to maintain order. When forced to choose between a friend and the

welfare of his country, a king should alienate himself from his friend. Henry, once

he is king, is forced to require discipline in others, but he also maintains discipline

in himself. Above all, Henry has an overwhelming sense of his own responsibility.

He is always practical and efﬁcient in matters that concern England. Thus, for the

only time in the two tetralogies, a king maintains harmony between physical and

moral force-not in any ideal balance.

List of used literature

Altick, Richard D. "Symphonic Imagery in Richard II," PMLA, LXII, i, pt. 2 (1947),

339-365.

Baldwin, T. W. On the Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays. Urbana, Illinois. 1959.

Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dranatic Sourges of Shakespeare. III, London,

1962.

Shakespeare’s "Histories" Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy. San Mateo, California,

1947.

The Mirror for Magistrates. Cambridge, England, 1930.

Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare, A Study of Facts and Problems. Oxford,

1930.

Clemen, Wolfgang H. “Anticipation and Foreboding in Shakespeare's Early

Histories,” Shakespeare Survey, VI, Cambridge, England, 1953.

"Tradition and Originality in Shakespearets Richard III," Shakespeare Quarterly, v

(Summer 1954), 247-254.

Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare. Chicago, 1951.

Heninger, S, K., Jr. "The Sun King's Analogy in Richard II," Shakespeare

Quarterly, XII (Summer 1960), 319-327.

Jackson, Sir Barry. "On Producing Henr VI." Shakespeare Survey, VI, Cambridge,

England, 1953.

Lewis, Wyndham. The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of

Shakespeare. New York and London, 1927.

Milligan, Burton A., ed. Three Renaissance Classics. New York, 1953.

Praz, Mario. "Machiavelli and the Elizabethans," The Annuai Italian Lecture of the

Proceedings of the British Academy. XIII, London, 1928.

Quin, Michael. "Providence in Shakespeare's Yorkist Plays," Shakespeare Quarterly,

X (WEinter 1959), 45-52.

*Denotes works cited in the text of this tnesis.

Document Outline

THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIALIZED EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN KARSHI STATE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FILOLOGY FACULTY
COURSE PAPER

Yüklə 492,47 Kb.

Dostları ilə paylaş: