Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers

By far the best line of the play.

So I enjoyed 2 Henry VI. At first I wasn't liking it quite as much as its first part. While it seemed to be more tightly constructed, I just wasn't quite as gripped by the story. However, things really picked up at the end, especially with Cade's Rebellion, and a lot of the power plays from the middle of the play to the end, culminating in York's open treachery, were very interesting.

However, I keep getting the feeling that this story doesn't need to be three parts long. This might be the fact that this is one of the earliest (if not THE earliest) plays that Shakespeare wrote, and he hadn't gotten as good at self-editing yet, but none of his later histories were in three parts, even when he was covering arguably more interesting kings.

Cade's rebellion was interesting not just because it was a nice bit of humor in an otherwise serious play (note the line which I named the post for), but also because it led me to wonder whether that part of the play is viewed in the same way by modern audiences as by those of Shakespeare's own time. While he is obviously both wacko and dangerous, Cade makes what appear to be some legitimate complaints about Henry's government. I wonder whether those complaints would have been historically seen as legitimate, though, and therefore giving Cade and by extension York some degree of justification for their treachery, or whether this is projecting our values as a democratic and populist-leaning society anachronistically.

As for Henry himself, he is simply incompetent. His heart seems to be in the right place, though he has a bit of a Messiah complex (he actually said "they know not what they do"!), but he always defers to his lords, which leads to squabbling and infighting and in the end makes York's rebellion possible. But Henry doesn't realize any of this. When York proclaims himself king in Henry's presence, Henry says nothing, presumably so shocked and horrified by this treachery that he can't respond adequately. Was this simply more of his naivety? Or does this go back to his basic incompetence as King, namely, that he CAN'T think of a good plan in light of this new information? Recall that he doesn't come to the sensible conclusion of fleeing in light of failure on the battlefield until Margaret tells him to.

Up next, 3 Henry VI, and more of this period of English history with Richard III.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Q: How many lawyers does it take to roof a house?
A: It depends on how thin you slice them.
Ok, lawyer jokes out of the way, this Henry business is long. 3 parts? Trilogy? That puts it in the same class with...well, other trilogies. Abrupt end of comment.