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[angevin2]

Here, have some genfic from a play nobody ever writes fic about (except for commodorified and me! But nobody else). I started this ages ago, got stuck at the end, and then pulled it up while thinking about something else I'm working on. I apologize in advance for the wankiness of the author's note.

Title: Entre Deux Morts
Play: Richard II
Pairing/characters:

Comments

[lareinenoire]

I love the last line. Because kingship totally is. Why else would Lydgate have titled his Giant Book o'Dead People The Fall of Princes?

The equation of coronation with death works beautifully too -- especially considering that the two ceremonies weren't all that different when you think about it a certain way. It's a very Richard way of thinking about it too. In every ceremony, he sees his coronation and his death, since his kingship defines him completely and when he loses that he loses himself.

And this comment is almost as long as the ficlet. If not possibly longer.

[angevin2]

You win for referencing Lydgate! ;)

But, yeah. Shakespeare, and Kantorowicz talks about this a lot, has this whole inverted-rites thing when he talks about the deposition scene, and how it's very realistic but it's for a ceremony that doesn't actually exist, if that makes sense. And, yeah, Richard II is incredibly morbid and I think that's because if you think very hard about kingship it totally is.

Also, the other thing I was thinking of when I wrote this was this passage on the deposition from Daniel's Civil Wars:
And forth he's brought unto th'accomplishment,
Decked with the crown in princely robes that day,
Like as the dead, in other lands, are sent
Unto their graves in all their best array,
And even like good did him this ornament.
For what he brought he must not bear away,
But buries there his glory and his name,
Entombed in both his own and others' blame.

Not quite the same theoretically, but certainly of a piece with it.

[lareinenoire]

Oh, Samuel Daniel. Channeling de casibus much? It really is all about how the bodies of kings die but kingship has to go on and so forth -- unless, of course, you have no children and then there are Problems.

And very interesting point about there not being any set ceremony for deposition. Because it's unnatural, a perversion of what ought to be happening, so of course there's no ceremony for it. And, in contrast, you look at Edward II and there isn't even a ceremony at all.

[angevin2]

Daniel is constantly trying to squish Richard II into de casibus tropes -- in fact, he even has Richard soliloquize in prison about how he'll be an Example of How Not To Do It -- except that it doesn't work all that well, because Daniel's anxiety is transparent and it's quite clear that he's trying to fit a threatening narrative into a safe generic space. Which is actually a pretty good phrasing, if I do say so myself. *writes this down to put into the diss*

Edward II doesn't need ceremony because it's not concerned with the mystical dimension of kingship. The focus there is more centered on regulation of transgressive bodies -- that's obviously a big deal in Shakespeare's Richard II as well, but in Marlowe it doesn't have the mystical veneer to offset the dirty, dirty politics.

[speak_me_fair]

Mmmm. I like the last line, of course, it's so perfect - but even more, I love the idea of 'communion and consummation', it plays so nicely on the idea of 'ordained by God' and all the mythology surrounding the idea of how the true King will always be recognised, even in death.

I love that you referenced Lacan, too.

[angevin2]

Thank you! It's sort of like Kantorowicz in ficlet form. ;) The real problem with the deposition in the play is that there's no real way to undo kingship -- you're king until you die and there's no way around that. I mean, Richard calls on his royal power to uncrown himself, and that just underscores the impossibility of what he's doing (assuming you buy into divine-right kingship).

My dissertation director is a big Lacanian, so I have absorbed a lot.

[speak_me_fair]

Yes, the sheer contradiction of his using his divine right to undo the divine right makes your head spin. It's rather tempting to point out to him 'Actually, you know things that Just Don't Work Like That? Yes. What you're doing now is one of them.'

I envy you your director!

[angevin2]

But I think he would probably say "Don't you think I know that?" Because the deposition scene is all about taking that impossibility and shoving it into everyone's faces. After all, he hasn't got access to more traditional channels of resistance, so he fights back by Ruining It For Everyone Else.

[angevin2]

Thank you! :D

[angevin2]

Thanks very much! And yeah, Žižek rocks. He's rather important to my diss as well (all the theorists I mentioned in the author's note are).

R2 is full of that imagery of burial -- I mean, the most famous bit of it starts out "Let's talk of graves, and worms, and epitaphs..." So I decided to project it backwards, which is implicit in the text.

And I am, myself, rather proud of the opening paragraphs, so I am glad you like them!

[liadtbunny]

Oh yes very good:)