tomorrow's post won't be about Richard II, I promise
Day #2: Your favorite character
Yesterday's post, I trust, makes my answer to this question fairly obvious, doesn't it? I suppose it doesn't have to, since there are texts I like in which I don't like any of the characters, and Richard II is one of those plays where nobody who has a significant amount to say is tremendously admirable, but I dunno, I love them anyway, except for Northumberland, who is awful, and anyway, you guys know me by now, you obviously have guessed I'm going to talk about my dead bisexual Plantagenet boyfriend.
Yesterday I said that "when I have tried to explain that I identify with Richard's self-destructive tendencies and absolute inability to shut up and the fact that he ends up completely alone in his own head, people look at me like I am crazy," and in many ways they are right to do so, because, I mean, those are the things I identify with about Richard -- he always does exactly the wrong thing for the situation, and it is genuinely impossible to shut him up without killing him (and the things he says are invariably gorgeous, which I love but do not really identify with exactly, because I just babble).
And then, too -- I always get twitchy about trying to universalize Shakespeare especially when he is talking about kingship/succession/politics, and obviously he is and you can't separate that from what happens in the play, but we all do it anyway in our own heads. And Richard II is so much about wrestling with the idea that after all you're really not special, so I guess -- since this is something I worry about way too often -- there is something cathartic about it? I don't know. I felt very inhibited writing this post, because my great squishy love for Richard II is intimately connected to ALL MY RAMPANT INSECURITIES even as I talk about identifying with someone who thinks not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash his bum. ;)
(And besides it turns out he kind of is special, because, I mean, listen to him! I have arguments with people all the time about how we are not supposed to take his super-shiny awesome poetry as necessarily him being a super-shiny awesome poet, it's just the way the play is, which, yes, but then we get to the Pomfret speech and I go over all wibbly. That's the one I kept reciting to myself during my first real depressive episode, and it made me cry a lot but it also helped a bit.)
...you know, I was going to talk about how he is also canonically snarky and pretty and bisexual and I am surprised he doesn't get more love in the tiny Shakespeare fandom such-as-it-is, but he does now, in the corner of it I frequent, and anyway I had an opportunity for mopey navel-gazing, so I did that instead.
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line
Yesterday's post, I trust, makes my answer to this question fairly obvious, doesn't it? I suppose it doesn't have to, since there are texts I like in which I don't like any of the characters, and Richard II is one of those plays where nobody who has a significant amount to say is tremendously admirable, but I dunno, I love them anyway, except for Northumberland, who is awful, and anyway, you guys know me by now, you obviously have guessed I'm going to talk about my dead bisexual Plantagenet boyfriend.
Yesterday I said that "when I have tried to explain that I identify with Richard's self-destructive tendencies and absolute inability to shut up and the fact that he ends up completely alone in his own head, people look at me like I am crazy," and in many ways they are right to do so, because, I mean, those are the things I identify with about Richard -- he always does exactly the wrong thing for the situation, and it is genuinely impossible to shut him up without killing him (and the things he says are invariably gorgeous, which I love but do not really identify with exactly, because I just babble).
And then, too -- I always get twitchy about trying to universalize Shakespeare especially when he is talking about kingship/succession/politics, and obviously he is and you can't separate that from what happens in the play, but we all do it anyway in our own heads. And Richard II is so much about wrestling with the idea that after all you're really not special, so I guess -- since this is something I worry about way too often -- there is something cathartic about it? I don't know. I felt very inhibited writing this post, because my great squishy love for Richard II is intimately connected to ALL MY RAMPANT INSECURITIES even as I talk about identifying with someone who thinks not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash his bum. ;)
(And besides it turns out he kind of is special, because, I mean, listen to him! I have arguments with people all the time about how we are not supposed to take his super-shiny awesome poetry as necessarily him being a super-shiny awesome poet, it's just the way the play is, which, yes, but then we get to the Pomfret speech and I go over all wibbly. That's the one I kept reciting to myself during my first real depressive episode, and it made me cry a lot but it also helped a bit.)
...you know, I was going to talk about how he is also canonically snarky and pretty and bisexual and I am surprised he doesn't get more love in the tiny Shakespeare fandom such-as-it-is, but he does now, in the corner of it I frequent, and anyway I had an opportunity for mopey navel-gazing, so I did that instead.
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line