doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?
Day #10: Your favorite history
The way this meme is set up kind of asks for repeat answers here, since odds are your favorite play is also going to be a comedy, tragedy, or history, unless, I suppose, it is one of the late romances or problem plays, which all get counted as comedies anyway.
So, as you know, Bob,* my favorite history play is the same as my favorite play, viz., Richard II, for reasons I have elaborated here and also here. Now, it's not as though I couldn't talk more about Richard II, since it's not like I ever actually stop talking about it, but that might bore you, and I also thought about posting a bit from my diss about Richard II-as-history-play, but I thought that might be even more boring.
Instead I will take the opportunity to express my love for my second favorite pair of history plays (and probably second-favorite Shakespeare plays period, come to that), because really, it is always a good time to squee about the Henry IVs. Even if I'm also going to talk about them on Days 22 and 25. I feel about them like Samuel Johnson felt about London.
1 Henry IV was the first of the history plays I read, in my high school Shakespeare class, and I think I was the only person who liked it. What really hooked me is that someone who had signed up to read that day was absent, and the teacher said "Lea, you're a good reader, why don't you read Hotspur?" AND I TOTALLY FELL IN LOVE. Even if I didn't really get Hotspur in those days (thanks to my teenage tendency to take things way too seriously -- it wasn't until I saw a production a few years later that I figured out that he is hilarious, while still being tragic).
It is sort of a cliche in Shakespeareland to talk about the Henry IVs as a striking achievement because they aim to depict an entire society -- occasionally you'll see the comment that doing so is unprecedented in Shakespeare's day, but this isn't the case; in its sprawl and its generic multivalence the two plays are in some ways closest to other Elizabethan history plays (the one we don't read as much are on utter crack). It's just that Shakespeare did it better than anyone else -- I'm not actually going to argue with the standard line here, because it is amazing how big these plays are, and yet everything in them feels real (SUCK ON THAT JOHN DRYDEN, WRONG END OF A TELESCOPE MY ASS).
I also chose both of the plays together because I think they really go together, even if Shakespeare didn't initially set out to write a two-part thing -- the relationship between the two is a subject of much debate; I read a paper on it for SAA which was sort of a defense of a standalone Part Two, even. But what's really neat about the two together is their sort of mirror-image quality: the question is often phrased (or at least, it has been in Shakespeare classes I've been in, including the ones I've taught) as whether 2 is a continuation of 1 or a reimagining of it, since the plays are structurally very similar and 2's plot is very end-loaded. But I think that really 2 is the converse of 1: the themes are the same, but the focus is switched around. They complement each other beautifully (and painfully) -- probably I will talk more about this in 22 (you have probably heard me say that I think 2 Henry IV is Shakespeare's most underrated play, so I don't think saying so here will spoil any surprises!)
So, um. Henry IVs yay! I am still sort of bitter that 1H4 got dumped from the Norton Anthology.
(Also, the level of squee bestowed on my second-favorite plays probably illustrates pretty well just how much I love Richard II. ;) )
*I assume "Bob" is a collective entity composed of my friends list and anyone else who has read my journal for thirty seconds.
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
The way this meme is set up kind of asks for repeat answers here, since odds are your favorite play is also going to be a comedy, tragedy, or history, unless, I suppose, it is one of the late romances or problem plays, which all get counted as comedies anyway.
So, as you know, Bob,* my favorite history play is the same as my favorite play, viz., Richard II, for reasons I have elaborated here and also here. Now, it's not as though I couldn't talk more about Richard II, since it's not like I ever actually stop talking about it, but that might bore you, and I also thought about posting a bit from my diss about Richard II-as-history-play, but I thought that might be even more boring.
Instead I will take the opportunity to express my love for my second favorite pair of history plays (and probably second-favorite Shakespeare plays period, come to that), because really, it is always a good time to squee about the Henry IVs. Even if I'm also going to talk about them on Days 22 and 25. I feel about them like Samuel Johnson felt about London.
1 Henry IV was the first of the history plays I read, in my high school Shakespeare class, and I think I was the only person who liked it. What really hooked me is that someone who had signed up to read that day was absent, and the teacher said "Lea, you're a good reader, why don't you read Hotspur?" AND I TOTALLY FELL IN LOVE. Even if I didn't really get Hotspur in those days (thanks to my teenage tendency to take things way too seriously -- it wasn't until I saw a production a few years later that I figured out that he is hilarious, while still being tragic).
It is sort of a cliche in Shakespeareland to talk about the Henry IVs as a striking achievement because they aim to depict an entire society -- occasionally you'll see the comment that doing so is unprecedented in Shakespeare's day, but this isn't the case; in its sprawl and its generic multivalence the two plays are in some ways closest to other Elizabethan history plays (the one we don't read as much are on utter crack). It's just that Shakespeare did it better than anyone else -- I'm not actually going to argue with the standard line here, because it is amazing how big these plays are, and yet everything in them feels real (SUCK ON THAT JOHN DRYDEN, WRONG END OF A TELESCOPE MY ASS).
I also chose both of the plays together because I think they really go together, even if Shakespeare didn't initially set out to write a two-part thing -- the relationship between the two is a subject of much debate; I read a paper on it for SAA which was sort of a defense of a standalone Part Two, even. But what's really neat about the two together is their sort of mirror-image quality: the question is often phrased (or at least, it has been in Shakespeare classes I've been in, including the ones I've taught) as whether 2 is a continuation of 1 or a reimagining of it, since the plays are structurally very similar and 2's plot is very end-loaded. But I think that really 2 is the converse of 1: the themes are the same, but the focus is switched around. They complement each other beautifully (and painfully) -- probably I will talk more about this in 22 (you have probably heard me say that I think 2 Henry IV is Shakespeare's most underrated play, so I don't think saying so here will spoil any surprises!)
So, um. Henry IVs yay! I am still sort of bitter that 1H4 got dumped from the Norton Anthology.
(Also, the level of squee bestowed on my second-favorite plays probably illustrates pretty well just how much I love Richard II. ;) )
*I assume "Bob" is a collective entity composed of my friends list and anyone else who has read my journal for thirty seconds.
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