In Act One, Scene Two of Richard the Second, the Duchess of Gloucester, attempts to compel her late husband’s brother, John of Gaunt, to stand with Gaunt’s son Bolingbroke and denounce the king for the act. She tells him,
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The Balance of Power (or “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It”)
In Richard the Second, probably better than just about any play in the Canon, we see the slow rise of one character as another takes the slow ride down.
Vanna, show us that WHEEL… OF… FORTUNE!
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The Throne Ain’t No Popularity Contest (or “The Flip-Side of God”)
In Richard the Second (or at least at the beginning of it), the throne of England is God-given, a Divine Right. But barring natural disasters, how do we then break the line of succession? Does God drive the coup leaders to kill the current king?
and if that’s the case, what a wonderfully macabre view of God do we get in the Scottish play!
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Historical Inaccuracies
Unlike the Henry VI plays, Richard the Second is not littered with historical inaccuracies. Most are minor accelerations of events, but as the entirety of the play covers only a little over a year, even those are not big.
There is one inaccuracy, however, that needs to be discussed. It doesn’t play a big role in this play, but Shakespeare is setting up the dominoes for the next play, The First Part of Henry the Fourth.
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Historical Timeline
Podcast 57: Richard the Second: Intro and Plot Synopsis, Part Two
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This week’s podcast continues our month-long discussion of Richard the Second with the second half of our plot synopsis. Then, we’ll finish up with our usual recap of this week’s blog entries.
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Sources
As for many of the English histories, Shakespeare’s sources for Richard the Second look like the usual suspects:
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Gaunt Rhetoric
In Act Two, Scene Two of Richard the Second, the king visits the dying John of Gaunt and asks, “What comfort, man? how is’t with aged Gaunt?” (II.ii.72).
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Barbary
I had another Shakespeare professor back at UCLA (not the great Rodes, but someone else). I’d say that I will not cite his name out of kindness, but it’s really that my old mind just can’t reach that far back and snatch that nugget of info from the dusty crevasses at the base of my skull.
He gave the most ridiculous tests (or so I thought at the time).
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Tragical Historical Comical
Today, we move from the possibly inflammatory Act Four deposition/abdication scene of Richard the Second to the concluding six-scene fifth act, which has some interesting tonal changes for our tragical history/historical tragedy.
In Act Five, Scene One, we find the queen in London waiting for her husband Richard to pass before her on his way to the Tower. She refers to him as her “fair rose” (V.i.8), a subtle alignment of Richard to the White Rose of York (as opposed to the Red Rose of Lancaster, who had John of Gaunt as its root).
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