"The Court, The Nobility and the Monarch’s Responsibilities in Shakespeare’s Elizabethan History Plays." (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Problem of Kingship in Shakespeare’S History Plays
Romanian Journal of English Studies, 2014
Elizabethan England was a state of repression and Shakespeare could not write his plays freely and he could not oppose Elizabeth and her government openly. So he had to use allegory and every one of his plays is an act of rebellion. This paper deals with Shakespeare’s history plays which are symbols of resistance to the rule of force and war politics, and that message is implicit in the way of presenting kings.
Elizabethan Construction of Kingship
Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 2014
This paper is about how the image of Elizabethan monarch was constructed as a sacred figure and how this was conducted by purely ideological means that extended to employ art and literature and how state ideological institutions were the source of power for the monarch. It attempts to examine how art and literature were very much ideological and political whereby they were channelled to serve the intended purpose. It also sheds some light on a possible echoing of this image in a few contemporary Shakespearean and Marlovian plays.
“My Reformation, Glittering O’er My Fault”: The Evolution Toward Shakespeare’s Ideal Prince
Indiana University South Bend Graduate Research Journal, 2014
Modern interpretations of Shakespeare's Lancastrian Tetralogy are shaded by modern morality and understanding of kingship or leadership. This article places the tetralogy within the historical context of Shakespeare's audience and considers the analogies Shakespeare's kings represent as deviations from their historical counterparts. Contrary to modern opinion, Henry V (Prince Hal) embodies the ideal morals and executions of the duties of kingship contemporary to the writing of the plays and seeks to present the author's ideal concept of kingship.
Blackfriars Conference at American Shakespeare Center, 2013
The Kingship Cycle was an extended project produced by the Adirondack Shakespeare Company and comprised the creative basis of my dissertation work. In March and April of 2013, we produced 1, 2, 3 Henry VI and Richard III. In the summer of 2013, the Cycle concluded with Richard II, 1 & 2 Henry IV, and Henry V, performed in rep by a cast of 12 actors. The ultimate question of the Kingship Cycle is what makes an authentically performed kingship? In this paper, I examine the two quite varied kingships of Richard II and Henry V, focusing specifically on setting Richard up as a foil to Hal, especially in terms of the multilingual and more externalized nature of Hal’s performance vs. the inwardness and self-immersion of Richard’s.
“Authority and Subversion in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.”
Critical Theory, Textual Application. Ed. Shormistha Panja. [ISBN 81-86423-76-1.], 2002
Shakespeare criticism has come a long way from flogging the Tillyardian construct of the history plays although the bogey is yet to be comprehensively exorcised. 1 Although Riggs sees the "Tudor myth" operating "throughout the cycle" of Shakespeare"s history plays, he does situate Shakespeare"s chronicle plays within a veritable industry of similar productions that remain generic interlopers between the more fully developed dramatic forms of "the moral interlude, de casibus tragedy, chivalric romance, and the Senecan revenge play." 2 Apart from establishing the essentially impure and pluralistic format of the history plays Riggs dwells briefly on Tudor ideology"s politically expedient course of making the popular heroical drama more rigorously "historical." 3 Tennenhouse, equipped with a vastly sophisticated critical armoury,
Iconicizing Kingship in Elizabethan England: Strategic Acting by Queen Elizabeth I
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 47 (2-3): 147-160, 2012
Renaissance England is often discussed in the context of theatre and theatrical acting. The fact is that Renaissance monarchs, too, viewed kingship in terms of theatrical display and public performance. Such is the nature of royalty presented by King James I in Basilicon Doron. Queen Elizabeth I was playing all her life. Faced with the problem of her femininity in the world of men, as well as her ambivalent hereditary rights as a member of the Tudor dynasty, she focused on legitimizing her reign through playing different roles - she played the fearful king, the loving queen, she even played Virgin Mary. But Elizabeth emerges as the most stunning actress when she plays herself. On her summer visit to Wanstead in 1578 she took an active part in the pageant “The lady of May”, playing herself, “Good Queen Bess”, which Sir Philip Sidney depicted in his pastoral romance The lady of May. In this way, Elizabeth became her own icon. This paper provides instances of the Queen’s political role play in a historical and socio-cultural context of the time.
Theatron, 2022
This book review discusses Judit Mudriczki’s monograph, Shakespeare’s Art of Poesy in King Lear. An Emblematic Mirror of Governance on the Jacobean Stage (Budapest, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2020) in the light of Shakespeare studies. Mudriczki’s book analyses dramaturgical devices, rhetorical and political-philosophical concepts, appearing in Shakespeare’s King Lear and other 16th and 17th century texts of different status, from an early Tudor interlude, John Skelton’s Magnyfycence, to rhetorical and political treatises and emblems. The review emphasizes how the inspiring, but often insufficiently elaborated analyses in the monograph could have been made more precise and informative by considering achievements of recent scholarship in the field.
To Spill the King’s Blood: Shakespeare’s Tragedies of the Aristocracy
Charles Nicolas Independent, 2021
In my research paper, I tackled two defining features of William Shakespeare's tragedies: dark imagery, found in Macbeth, and the complexity of his characters, as found in Julius Caesar, particularly that of Marcus Brutus. I provided sources from Aristotle to the English playwright himself. I also include a brief comparison between Brutus and Macbeth, and how their tragedies seem similar but are very distinct as a result of their characterization. I talked about the deeper meaning of the dark imagery found in Macbeth, such as the phantom of the dead child. I go onto Julius Caesar and the character of Brutus, and why his morality might not be as cut and dry as some might hope it to be. In all analysis, I attempt as best I can to adhere to a presented objective standard. I use the definition of a tragic hero per the great Greek philosopher and scholar, Aristotle, who states that "There remains, then, the character between these two extremes-that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty,"(Aristotle's Poetics. Part XIII). The tragic hero has a prominent character flaw which creates a struggle within the hero. This leads to him making poor choices, ones that eventually lead to his downfall.