Inspired both by Harold Bloom and by a couple of excellent local productions I’ve seen recently, I have decided to get serious about Shakespeare. In the past year, I’ve read Lear (for the first time!) and re-visited Hamlet and Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve been reluctant to blog about these for obvious reasons: who can say anything new about Shakespeare?
Bloom is hopelessly enamored with the character of John Falstaff, so out of curiosity, I decided to tackle “The Henriad” (Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Henry V). I was not only curious about Falstaff (who actually appears only in the Henry IV plays), but also about Shakespeare’s histories in general, which seem somewhat neglected compared to the tragedies and comedies.
Richard II, the first play of the group, is a strange one. It is a very formal play, written entirely in verse. It recounts the deposition of Richard II by Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV). I find the play extraordinarily beautiful from a purely aesthetic point of view, but I can understand why it is not a modern favorite. Much of the moral interest in the play concerns the nature of kingship and in particular the idea of divine right. These issues are unlikely to weigh heavily on the modern mind. Richard is the legitimate hereditary king, but is portrayed as an ineffective ruler. Bolingbroke has no real claim to kingship, but enjoys widespread popular support.
Richard himself is the star of the play. His ineffectiveness as a king is demonstrated in the first act, in which he sits in judgment over two nobles mutually accusing each other of murder (ironically, a murder orchestrated by Richard himself). A duel is proposed, but before this takes place, Richard makes the inexplicable decision to banish both of the nobles, one of whom is Bolingbroke. Richard never seems to consider his efficacy as a king: his hereditary right is itself adequate. At one point he imagines that the very soil of England will protect him and “the stones prove armèd soldiers” to protect his kingship.
There are two things that serve to make this weak, ineffectual king interesting: his poetry and his self-destructive nature. Bloom observes that Richard is “a bad king and an interesting metaphysical poet” and that “his kingship diminishes as his poetry improves.” Certainly Richard becomes more interesting as the play progresses. His musings on the nature of captivity following his deposition seem hardly to come from the callous and perverse character we see in Act I.
The great puzzle of the play is Richard’s participation in his own downfall. He rails endlessly against the injustice of his fate in being deposed, and yet essentially hands over the crown to Bolingbroke without a fight. This contradiction even confuses Bolingbroke. In Act IV, after a characteristically melodramatic passage by Richard (“full of tears am I, / Drinking my griefs”), the puzzled usurper responds, “I thought you had been willing to resign.”
This confrontation between Bolingbroke and Richard highlights their many differences. Richard is full of poetry and melodrama, while Bolingbroke embodies Machiavellian realism. I was reminded of Pilate and Jesus. Bolingbroke poses simple questions (“Are you contented to resign the crown?”) while Richard, who should be arguing for his life, merely frustrates his interrogator with incomprehensible answers (“Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be.”)
Morally speaking, there aren’t a lot of bright spots in this play. Richard is short-sighted, cruel, petty, and self-obsessed. Bolingbroke is manipulative, duplicitous, and grasping. Gaunt seems virtuous enough, but dies early in the play. We are left with the Duke of York as the only major character who seems motivated by anything other than self interest. Like Richard, York is a “true believer” in the divine nature of kingship, and many of his actions stem from this belief. Curiously, though, he seems to find the essence of kingship to be transferable by conquest, as he evidences perhaps more loyalty to Henry IV (once crowned) as he did to the former, legitimate king. He is even willing to sacrifice his son for the sake of protecting Henry from the threat of assassination.
Bloom describes this play as essentially lyrical and likens it to Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Indeed, much of the appeal of this play comes from the extraordinary beauty of the language rather than from the overall sweep of the plot. The tragedy of Richard’s downfall takes a back seat to his apotheosis through poetry.