Maybe I'm cheating with all the half stars, but it's how I feel!
I didn't get through the whole audiobook not because I didn't try, but because I was in so many meetings these past few weeks that I didn't have enough lab time to listen to it. But I could tell it was difficult and dense. It's a LOT of political context that I didn't have and I didn't figure out till I watched the play that Richard was using the royal we and so I had an incorrect understanding of what was happening for whatever I did hear.
The lectures did give me some understanding about religion and English royalty that I didn't understand. Namely that the king is king because God made him so. So there's a lot of guilt about overthrowing a king (unless you're a heathen, I guess) but then...would he have been overthrown if God didn't want a different king? The chicken and egg argument about fate and free will.
It took me FOREVER to watch this play because of life, but also I got a free version and it used to play 6 ads in a row at every commercial break.
3.5 because the boring parts were boring but the good parts were really good. Ben Whishaw was excellent as Richard II. I think Richard II was boring to everyone, not just me. If he could say it in one sentence, he said it in ten because he had so many FEELINGS. I sympathize. I'd use five but still.
The most brilliant part was when he actually gave up his crown. He took forever to do it. He came in dressed like this:
And THEN called himself Jesus but worse off. "So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve, / Found truth in all but one: I, in twelve thousand, none."
He really pushed the Jesus metaphor which given the whole God appointed the king thing was probably his best strategy. I couldn't tell if he really believed it or it was his defense strategy.
At some point he did this:
Then this:
Henry was looking down at him like this:
I laugh every time I see this picture. When I tell you I was enjoying myself immensely...
At some point Northumberland whose eyes have nearly rolled out of his head from all the drama says that procedurally Richard has to read his own crimes out loud.
Richard clutches his eyes and sobs, "I can't, my tears are blinding me."
Then he can't help himself, gives everybody a withering look and says, "But not so blinding that I can't see y'all MF'ing traitors."
Northumberland: Oh then maybe you could read the list of crimes.
Richard: *clutches eyes* *sobs*
Northumberland looks dead into the camera like you have got to be kidding me:
You know, he actually never read his crimes out loud. It was fantastic.
I like having a good guy and a bad guy and understanding everyone's motives very clearly. Shakespeare doesn't. I don't think he even believes in such a thing. I expected to dislike Richard but he was so out of touch and raised to be so that I couldn't totally blame him. I expected to be fully on Henry's side but he was so unsure of his cause that I couldn't throw myself behind him.
In the end, it was a family feud and one cousin was mean to another (but in a way that took away his whole existence and livelihood) so then that cousin did it back and then a third cousin decided to kill one or the other of them and really, why don't you just keep everyone else who is trying to survive, out of it? Says the democratic and troubled American as she looks down her nose at aristocrats.
Missy and I had huge conversations about this era because my impression was that England was "squalid and squabbling." Also "dark and damp." All this alliteration is actually not from me. I'm pretty sure I've read the words "marshy backwater of England" somewhere. Our discussions have led me to conclude that it's a gradual build up of impressions from American literature. I read a lot of historical fiction as a kid and England IS the bad guy to a lot of people so it probably added up.
But Missy who very much enjoys the culture of the Middle Ages pointed out things like whitewashed walls which I'm very taken with, the music and arts, the clothes, and dance. And that a lot of the lack of technology that other civilizations had such as clean drinking water, internal plumbing, and modern medicine were due to a decline in infrastructure and population in England right after the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm still thinking about it all.
Ok, next. Midsummer Night's Dream. Our friend, Donnie will be joining us with this one. The choices are:
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