ANOTHER essay or two from times past. The first was written in class and I don’t have the specific “topic”, but it was probably something like: “What is the role of the Royal Actor in two plays by Shakespeare? Compare and contrast.” So, there you go.
Enjoy, Jake.
In Class Essay:
THE ROLE OF THE "ROYAL ACTOR" IS A COMPLEX ONE in the plays, Richard II and Henry IV
(Part 1) because Shakespeare must portray the king in each play as both an
individual (developing an understandable psychology for his character) and as a
politician. The changing structure of the British monarch, seen to develop from
a quasi-religious one at the beginning of Richard’s reign to an increasingly
secular one by the end of Henry IV’s, adds to the complexity of portraying the
king as an “actor”. The doctrine of the two ‘bodies’ of the king, that is, the “body natural” (the individual, Richard) and the “body politic” (the historical form and function of a monarch) are, for Richard, increasingly incompatible. For example, Shakespeare portrays Richard as making arbitrary decisions on taxation, the Irish wars, and the banishment of Mowbray and Bullingbrook, without considering the consequences of such actions. That the political climate in England has changed, that he must allow for power to be shared and alliances to be formed, that he must appease the nobility are things Richard fails to see are necessary to preserve his crown.
But by the end
of the play, Richard has divested himself of his kingly role; he has become an
individual man. He cannot accept the new role of “royal actor” that
Bullingbrook will adopt. In the end, we see him
in prison, isolated and alone, his mind broken and lost in visions of an
idealized world that no longer exists.
BY CONTRAST, in Henry IV Part 2, Shakespeare portrays a monarch accepting his political role as a king who is increasingly aware of his appearance and how he is perceived by both the populace and nobility. Shakespeare portrays Bullingbrook as “courting” his subjects. Bullingbrook states to his son and heir Hal that he deliberately reserves his public appearances (i.e., he stays aloof from public view), presenting himself only when it is maximally beneficial for him to do so. In other words, he is, as in Act III, seen to be conscious of how he appears to others in a way Richard never was. This revelation directs the audience to reflect upon the decision-making process of Bullingbrook and how he can rule over and control the nobility. For example, his decision to go on a crusade to Jerusalem in Act 1 is seen as a way to occupy the energies and forces of the nobles in a foreign conflict, all to his domestic advantage.
Here, we are given a portrait of a king who is aware of the role of kingship and who is also aware that this role has changed. A king must manipulate and present a certain ‘face’ to the public to gain advantage. In contrast, Richard was unaware of this necessity and thus the obligations his kingly role as “actor” placed upon him ultimately destroyed him.
In Henry IV Part 2, Bullingbook’s language is straight forward, there is less ritual at his court. We witness him making quick decisions (to go to war after less than a year of rule), as well as his consistency and balanced approach to his nobles at court: he praises and respects Northumberland, for example, one of his bitterest foes, as well as Hotspur, who is victorious over Henry’s own forces. Clearly, his public image as impartial, generous, and open is one he has deliberately created; he plays a role, something Richard never considered necessary. Henry, by contrast, will rule his kingdom as a “royal actor”, not as a “divine monarch.”
PROF COMMENTS: A/ 88 An excellent treatment of the topic.
I think an essay or prose piece should stand the test of time and be relevant and accessible even if they were written long ago (and with a quill pen and ink!)
The Mechanicals and the Duchess of York: The Role of Secondary Characters in the Plays of William Shakespeare
“And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to aery nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. V.i.14-15)
In Duke Theseus’s speech to Hippolyta, we see the shifting balance that exists between the rational and the imaginative with his dismissal of the fantastic experiences of the four lovers as merely “tricks” (V.i.18) of the imagination. Ironically, in his argument against such illogical perceptions and sensibilities, we see Theseus himself waxing poetic at times (in near-rhymed couplets), much like the lovers of Act 1, or the “actors” in Act 5, or like the fairies “that do run / By the triple Hecats team.” (V.i.383-84). The “Duke’s Oak” (I.ii.110) is a moonlight forest that belongs as much to the logical Theseus, as Athens belongs to Oberon and his magical world of fairy. How these two worlds interpenetrate, and function together forms the basis for Shakespeare’s play.
Secondary characters vary largely in the degree to which they affect the plot. A dramatic chorus, for example, or some of the clowns in Shakespeare’s play do not enter the plot at all, but act as narrators, providing information and giving interpretations to the audience. For example, the minor characters of the rustic gardeners of Richard II, in their overheard conversation, provide the audience with information about the plot’s advance (Richard has returned from Flint Castle). They also act to further the plot’s complications by motivating the Queen to seek out Richard in London where we witness Richard’s crumbling authority in both the public and private spheres. Here, the secondary characters’ effect on the plot is specific and limited, whereas a major secondary character such as the Duke of York has a greater effect upon the plot. Through his interactions with several characters, he provides us with plot complications (his acquiescence to Bullingbrook) as well as allowing the audience to interpret Richard’s character in their several scenes together. York acta as a foil to Richard. He also narrates plot advancement in his scene with the Duchess of York by telling us about Richard’s arrival in London. His character allows for a much broader appreciation of the play’s thematic content because of his extensive involvement in the play’s complications. However, it should be noted that, while protagonists generally allow for the greatest development of plot complications, secondary characters also cause, experience, and illuminate such complications.
The Duke of Gloucester is not a character, as such, in Richard II, yet he serves as an example of the sometimes-critical role a secondary character (however minor) can play. It is his murder, before the start of the play’s action, that sets in motion most of the various complications of the play. But we note that, while his death is crucial, it is the protagonists’ continuing responses to his death that most develop the plot and reveal character and motivation, as well as illustrate the play’s various themes.
Bottom’s comic awakening from his transformative experience (IV.i.) is quickly followed by the scene of his reunion with the acting troupe and his announcement that Theseus will view their play. The plot advances to Theseus’s palace.
The impact of the “mechanicals” on the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is minimal. Even Bottom, having undergone a transformation in the Fairy World, advances the plot only so far as he fulfills Oberon’s need for “some vile thing” (II.ii.33) as Titania’s lover. As well, their usefulness in creating dramatic suspense is limited: the audience’s perspective includes being aware of the power of Oberon for good as well as evil, and the plights of Helena and Hermia and their lovers are therefore seen as less problematic. In other words, Oberon can intervene to resolve the conflict one way or another.
The physical structure of the play: where characters are introduced and how scenes are ordered is significant for our understanding and interpretation of character, motivation, and plot. As well, the plays thematic presentation is affected by where and how its elements are placed within the plot structure (using such devices as allusion, symbol, or metaphor as a narrative complication). It is interesting to note that after each scene with the “mechanicals”, the fairy world is introduced. Such juxtaposition tends to form a link between the two worlds in the mind of the audience. In the play’s structure, the “mechanicals” appear to act as a bridge between Theseus’s Athens and Oberon’s magical forest world. However, in terms of the actual plot, the “mechanicals” have only a limited connection with the Fairy World, through Bottom. In Act Three, the other troupe members are frightened away from the woods by Puck, and in their final scene in Act 5, the “mechanicals” leave the palace before the arrival of Oberon and his fairy entourage. But it is important to note that, thematically, they link the rational and the imaginative.
As well, the
actors are linked to the Fairy World thematically. For example, Shakespeare’s
use of alternative meter lengths (trimeter, dimeter) for the actors’ speeches
in the play-within-the-play (V.i.), as well as his use of alternative rhyming
patters, complement the poetic meter and rhyme structures used for the Fairy
World. In contrast, only blank verse and rhyming couplet schemes are
used in the Athenian world, and iambic pentameter is the standard meter length
found there. (The rhyming couplets are used exclusively by the lovers to
express Petrarchan love conventions.) As well, Bottom’s humorous misuse of
language, his ‘verbal disorder’ is more in keeping with a world where illogic
and disorder reign. Through his use of language, Shakespeare provides a
stylistic distancing of the actors from the world of Athens. This, in turn,
also acts to connect the actors with the imaginative world of Fairy.
The actors themselves portray this distance from Athens when they are compelled to rehearse in the woods because they would “be dogg’d with company, and our devices known” (I.i.104) otherwise. In addition, Quince was compelled to write an explanatory prologue and additional narrative to ensure the audience was not unduly shocked or concerned by their performance. They fear their audience may rise up against them and “[t]hat they would hang us, every mother’s son.” (I.ii.78) They fear also their performance will prove too convincing (or perhaps too imaginative). The actors are at a distance, thematically, from the Athenian world of logic and reason, where Athens is portrayed as being less than hospitable to the imaginative world of the theatre. Bottom’s comments upon returning to his troupe after his magical, transformative night in the woods is interesting. He prefaces his explanation of the events with “but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am [no] true / Athenian.” (V.i.30). Bottom, more than any other human in the play, is privy to the inner realities of the Fairy world, yet he will remain mute on the subject. We sense that that he is unable to understand the significance of his own transformation (into a human with a mule’s head). He seems to say that to bring such knowledge back to Athens is a betrayal of his citizenship and a dangerous and unacceptable thing to do. Shakespeare portrays the two worlds as being at odd with each other. But they are not incompatible.
In fact, in many respects, they mirror each other. Both have hierarchies of authority and power, and similar laws governing behaviour. And both have a need for order. Oberon’s desire to rectify the imbalance in the human world caused by Puck’s mistake, suggests there is a link between the two worlds. While they are as separate to each other as night is to day, they are also as necessary to each other as night and day.
However, if we examine how the two worlds ‘understand’ each other, we see marked differences. The fairies travel at will among the humans: they take them for lovers, they change them, and they even change the very atmosphere of the human world. The Fairy World accepts and acknowledges the human, but from the human world, there is no reciprocal acceptance and acknowledgement of the Fairy World. In the past, Theseus and Hippolyta were lovers to Titania and Oberon, yet they neither acknowledge this fact nor do they even seem aware of it. The young lovers in the play are transformed by fairy magic, but they cite “dreams” as the cause of the changes they experience or else they remain puzzled.
In contrast, we see the “vot’ress” (II.i.23) of Titania’s shrine sitting with Titania “on Neptune’s yellow sands” (II.i.126).
IF ATHENS CAN BE EQUATED WITH THE RATIONAL, and the Fairy World with the Imagination, we can understand the “vot’ress” as being someone who is actively in communion with her imagination; who worships it; who even trusts her child—her future, in essence—to it. Also, we can understand Theseus, a statesman, a man of the people, a modern man who is different from the young lovers only by the degree to which he accepts his imagination, an imagination that remains held in check by his preoccupation with his logical and ordered world.
And the “mechanicals”, what are we to make of them, this comic group of amateur actors? What do they represent in A Midsummer’s Night Dream? Shakespeare presents the “mechanicals” as unchanged: they do not transform themselves on stage. Even Bottom, transformed in the world of the Imagination, remains Bottom. Shakespeare is telling us that it is the active search for the imagination (as with the “vot’ress”), and belief in the imagination (as with the audience) that results in the magical transformation from one world to another. Change can occur randomly, by chance (Puck’s mistake, for instance), or it can occur consistently, regularly and permanently.
In A Midsummer’s Night Dream, the “mechanicals” are little involved with plot, but act instead to present one of Shakespeare’s major themes, namely that the transformative power of the imagination lies in the mind of the audience. The “mechanicals” are a symbol of the theatrical experience: the rising curtain, the waking dream of theatre. They themselves are not transformed, nor do they transform the audience; they are but a device with a “weak and idle theme” (V.i.428). But it is a glorious one.
IN SHAKESPEARE'S RICHARD II, WE ARE PRESENTED WITH A SECONDARY CHARACTER who will also have little impact on the plot or its complications, but nevertheless adds considerably to our appreciation of the play’s main theme. Near the end of the play in Act Five (V.ii.), we are introduced to the Dutchess of York. We first meet her in a scene directly following one with the dethroned Richard and his Queen. Her second scene immediately follows in the next scene (V.iii.), which opens with a domestic discussion with the now-King Henry IV questioning his nobles at court as to the whereabouts of his wayward son Hal. The Duchess then enters on stage, begging the king to pardon her wayward son.
As we have seen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the placement of scenes and characters is important for our understanding of the play. The majority of complications in Richard II have concluded by the end of Act Four: Richard has lost his crown and we have only the play’s crisis, namely Richard’s murder, to follow in the second-to-last scene in Act 5. Throughout the play, we have witnessed Richard’s dissipation of his kingly authority through his wanton self-centeredness and blind idealism. We have witnessed the growing power of the nobility and the chaos resulting from unchecked forces no longer marshalled under the authority of a monarch who rules by divine right of kings. We have seen the effect such a shift in power has on the state, through civil war and bloodshed, and in the scene with Richard and his Queen, we begin to see the personal effects such a disruption has on the lives of individuals. The Duchess’s two scenes in Act Five provide us with an intimate portrayal of the growing chaos of the state as its disorder impinges upon the lives of its citizens. Her second scene provides a portrayal of the new relationship that now exist between the monarch and his subjects.
AGAIN, THE PRIMARY DRAMATIC FUNCTION OF THE DUTCHESS is to present thematic elements.
The first scene with the Duchess (V. ii) opens with her in mid-conversation with the Duke of York, who has just returned from Flint Castle, where he describes Richard’s ignoble entry into London. The Duchess provides the Duke with the opportunity to express his private views. We note the Duke remains as sympathetic to Richard’s plight in private as he was in public, even “weeping” (V.ii.2) for Richard during their conversation. The Duke mourns the loss of Richard’s royalty and weeps in recounting Richard’s debasement at the hands of the crowds with their “desiring eyes” (V.ii.14), when he describes how “dust was thrown upon his sacred head.” (V.ii.30). Richard’s crown has now become the dirt and debris thrown by a hostile citizenry. [not so sure about this sentence: might be better to say "crown was defiled by the dirt and debris of a hostile citizenry”.] He tells the Duchess that Bullingbrook, as he rode Richard’s horse through London, waving and bowing to the crowds, was “[b]areheaded, lower than his proud steed’s neck” (V.ii.19), seeming to say that Bullingbrook cannot measure up to the divine role of king; he is ‘beneath’ it. He, however, ends with his resignation that “[t]o Bullingbrook are we sworn subjects now” (V.ii.39).
The Duchess, for her part, reflects upon the personal side of the tragedy, calling both Bullingbrook and Richard “our two cousins” (V.ii.3). She alludes to the inappropriateness of Bullingbook’s rule when she uses the word “misgoverned” (V.ii.5), referring to the unruly crowds that so poorly greeted Richard. She agrees with her husband, the Duke, on the wrongness of the events that have occurred.
With her son, Aumerles’s, entrance into the scene, Shakespeare portrays the full implications of this ‘new order’ as it affects the lives of the Duchess and her family. Aumerle is under sanction by the new King (Bullingbrook) for his support of Richard, and his father, the Duke, has been obliged to be responsible for his son’s actions by making “in parliament a pledge for his truth / And lasting fealty to the new-made king.” (V.ii.44-45). For the new political order in England, the implication of the Duke’s pledge would suggest loyalty based on hereditary authority, or the divine right of kings, no longer exists. His pledge, instead, is based on the ever-shifting ground of secular politics. The rest of the scene is fast paced, with the Duke uncovering Aumerles’s plot to kill the new king, and the Duchess galvanized into action. Thus, as York prepares to ride to court to denounce their son, the Duchess frantically attempts to dissuade him. She pleads for him to keep Aumerle at home, thus severing his ties with the conspirators. York ignores her pleas.
Thematically, the implication is that the public and private worlds have grown so entwined, that to restore order in the private world, order must first be restored in the public: no private solutions will work.
Interestingly, Shakespeare uses biblical references here when he has York thrice deny his son; calling him a “villain” (V.ii.72, 79, 86) on three occasions, as well as having York allude to the conspirators as the Apostles when he calls them “[a] dozen” (V.ii.97) and finally, that the conspirators have taken “the sacrament” (V.ii.97) in their pledge to kill the new king, Bullingbrook (Henry IV). The idea here is that York still believes in the divine right of Richard to be king yet feels compelled to betray him to the new order, by denouncing his son. His denunciation, along with the biblical references Shakespeare uses, help convey to the audience the deep sense of disorder and loss of a once-accepted belief system.
The Duchess continues her pleading, reminding the Duke that Aumerle is his true son, both physically as well as ideologically. She reaffirms his heredity and tells her husband that Aumerle is true to his (York’s) ideals, that “he is like thee as a man may be.” (V.ii.108).
The image of perverted heredity (“bastard” V.ii.106) is an interesting one. Aumerle is seen as a ‘true son’, loyal to the past order, born into the chaos of the new. Coupled with the juxtaposition of the dissolute Hal, who is portrayed as being reluctant to support the new order, we are given a strong foreshadowing of future conflicts and turmoil. [I don't know about this. It's been so long since I've read the play. Is Hal against the NEW order or the old one--he is the son of Bullingbrook, is he not? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to be against the OLD order and therefore against Aumerle? And it seems to skip too quickly with the "bastard" reference...this needs a transition sentence or two...]
YORK ATTEMPTS TO DISMISS THE DUTCHESS AS "FOOLISH" (V.ii.80) or “mad” (V.ii.95). He concludes,
as he leaves for the royal court, that she is “unruly” (V.ii.110). He is right,
for the laws governing England no longer apply and, therefore, the laws between
a husband and wife are now equally problematic.In the next scene at Henry’s court, Aumerle arrives and begs the future king’s pardon. York then arrives to denounce his son. At this point, we should note, again, Shakespeare’s use of language. As in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, rhyme patterns play an important part in structuring of thematic elements. Ironically, we note Bullingbrook (now Henry IV) entering into a rhymed couplets scheme, first with Aumerle (V.ii.34-35) and them with the Duchess (V.iii.79-86). Much of the remaining scene is in rhymed couplets, alternating, almost exclusively, between the Duchess and York. It is interesting to contrast Henry’s use of rhymed couplets that occur during the Act 1 scenes at Richard’s court, where Richard’s preoccupation with ritual and form of his rule dominates the proceedings. [Again, I'm not sure of this: Does this mean that HENRY used rhymed couplets in Act 1? or are we simply to COMPARE his Act 5 use of rhymed couplets with those of Act1?...because, I can't remember a WORD of the play]
Interestingly (and ironically), Henry now seems obliged to be involved in a similar formality of ritual. In an almost comic parallel to the Act One duel scene, where the nobility, in seeming obedience to Richard’s waning power, plead their cases before Richard and demand satisfaction, so Henry, in Act Five, now seems to take on Richard’s previous role in his acquiescence to the wishes of the nobility. The scene is comic as all the supplicants, and notably the Duchess, are kneeling before Henry. The Duchess, in rhymed couplets, pleads with Henry for her son’s life. (The scene is also ironic in that Henry has already pardoned Aumerle before her arrival.) Three times Henry asks his aunt to rise, and three times she refuses until he has (twice, now) pardoned her son. At this point, we note the ritual of the requests. They are done, again, in rhymed couplets. And the point is that if passions were truly involved here, we would expect blank verse to be used to express them. The previous scene in the Duke of York’s palace was done in blank verse, except, interestingly enough, the Duke’s comment that: “To Bullingbrook are we sworn subjects now / Whose state and honor I for aye allow.” (V.ii.30-40).
The Duke’s public policy is at odds with his privately held beliefs. In the public court ritual, as reflected in the rhymed couplets, is the rule. The private belief in the king as divine ruler does not exist there. It has been replaced by the ritual of form, the ‘play’ of politics, where style does not equate with substance. The substance of the Duchess’s ritual obedience to Henry is the fact that Henry has no natural authority or right to rule. He rules through power, and power must be balanced. The Duchess has grasped this essential element as neither Aumerle nor her husband have. Henry cannot rule omnipotently; he must constantly weigh one set of nobles and their demands against another. He cannot afford to arbitrarily execute all the conspirators. He must play politics.
Henry rules through words, not by a divine investiture of power. He rules as he communicates to others, as he persuades or forces or, interestingly here in this scene, as he himself is persuaded. The Duchess’s words clearly outline the new world order Henry must now navigate. She says: “Nay, do not say ‘stand up’; / Say ‘pardon’ first” (V.iii.111-12) and “if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach[.]” (V.iii.113), and still later, significantly, “[s]peak ‘pardon’ as ‘tis current in our land” (V.iii,123). In other words, speak as we want you to speak. Henry rules precariously, at the sufferance of the power of the nobility. There are no more absolute rulers; in England there is only ‘relative’ rule.
The Duchess proclaims Henry “[a] god on earth’ (v.III.136) which is accurate, for gods are created by men. Perhaps she is saying that a god on earth is a god that is a long way from his heavenly throne and power. He is just an earthly god, a lesser god. Her final line in the play is to her son. She says: “Come, my old son, I pray God may make you / new” (V.iii.145-46), It is her wish that Aumerle will come to accept this new order in England.
________________________________________________________
*The mechanicals are six characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream who perform the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe. They are a group of amateur and mostly incompetent actors from around Athens, looking to make names for themselves…The servant-spirit Puck describes them as "rude mechanicals" in Act III, Scene 2 of the play, in reference to their occupations as skilled manual laborers. [Wikipedia]
**Theme: a general claim, or doctrine, whether implicit or asserted, which an imaginative work is designed to incorporated and make persuasive to the reader.”
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. G.B. Evans. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
---. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second. Ed. G.B. Evans. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
PROF COMMENTS: Your analyses of the two plays are excellent: subtle, detailed, imaginative, insightful. However, the connection between them is weak, since it is purely formal, and this weakness damages the structure of your essay. You have made the best of a very unpromising comparison, but your task would have been easier--and the results even better--if you had compared plays that had more in common* (N.C.) GRADE= A- /84
* like two comedies or two histories, etc.
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