Shakespeare - English History Studies

[myoarin]

I was just listening to a radio discussion of a new opera about Richard
III, and suddenly wondered if historians would have given as much
thought about early English kings if William S. had not written his
plays. It seems that his fictional characterizations of them are what
most people think happened - and may take for fact. No, I have read
or seen few (to exagerate) of them.

Any thoughts? Better knowledge on the subject?

"Looking forward"

Myo

[Probonopublico]

Larry

Hollywood also does a marvellous job of fictionalising characters and
events and I doubt if any movie representation is realistic.

But I believe that the fictionalsed versions are much more entertaining
and are fully justified.

Exceptionally, I think Hollywood maybe went a step too far when one
character in a historical epic announced the start of The Hundred Years
War, even though his prediction was not inaccurate.

Bryan

[barneca]

the only pseudo-history i've learned from shakespeare is danish.
i've never read hamlet, or seen the play, or even the movie. but i
remember, as if it were yesterday, seeing the musical version "harold
hecuba's hamlet" on gilligan's island when i was a pup.
("hamlet, hamlet, you're such a lamblet..."; "neither a borrower nor a
lender be, do not forget, stay out of debt...")

-cab

[thaumaturge]

Hi Myo,

I think that Shakespeare, in his wondrous inimitable thieving way,
capitalised on something that was already happening and would continue
to happen, especially when the Romantics came along: think of the
immense popularity of, for example, the King Arthur legends in the
nineteenth century. The Bard took the bones of historical fact and
re-worked them to comment on contemporary issues; there are many
interesting books on this subject, none of which I have actually read.
[Credit: Jon Swift (http://www.jonswift.blogspot.com) -- see his Amazon
book reviews.] Some of these, I am given to understand, involve
theories that certain plays are veiled attacks, disguised as paeans, on
his monarchs. Of course, the conspiracy theorists go to town on
Shakespeare (Bacon? Earl Whatsit?) anyway.

The legendary life and times of King Albert, for example, go far back
beyond Old Shakey but many of the tales are unverifiable.

Richard "the Lionheart" (Richard I) is held up in legend as everything
an English king should be, yet apparently he hated England and only set
foot in it once or twice, and did not speak English. (Either that or I
mis-remember some history courses.)

The plethora of fictionalised versions of the lives of Eliz I and Mary,
Queen of Scots are part of this trend too.

The Three Musketeers series took sides on the question of Chas I and
II. (Royalty: good; Cromwell: bad. Have to concur with the second point
at least.)

But yes -- I do agree that many people take Shakespeare's fictitious
versions of history as gospel, and that his success with these
interpretations may well have led to future liberties with historical
fact. One of my lit profs was fond of saying, "and so-and-so in the
late nineteenth / early twentieth century was the first to blah blah --
except for Shakespeare, of course, who did it 400 years earlier" --
realism, absurdism, existentialism, etc.

(Speaking of Shakespeare and existentialism, if you haven't seen the
Peter Brook / Paul Scofield version of Lear, you *really ought to*!
It's outstanding.)

One last point: it's not just English history that Shakespeare had his
way with: Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony & Cleo....

Can't leave this without my favourite Shakespeare quotation (from Lear,
of course):

As flies are to wanton boys, are we to the gods:
They kill us for their sport.

- thaumaturge, wallowing rhinocerous-like in literature this evening
(tomorrow I may start posting on, say, Britney Spears)
(well, maybe not)

On Jan 24, 12:28 am, "myoarin" <lawre...@fogelberg.de> wrote:

[myoarin]

Thank you, Thaumaturge.
I quite agree. Perhaps I shouldn't have added my second sentence about
people's accepting WS's version as fact, since my main question is
whether all interest in the Henrys and Richards is because the plays
inspired research.
But maybe I am overestimating the amount of research that has been done
on them, which would leave WS as the source for most people.
And without his plays, would there have been the Romantics' interest?
I guess someone has written about the background of the Romantic
Movement.

Any thoughts - anyone? Pinkie was an English major.

Cheers, Myo

[pinkfreud]

I don't think Shakespeare can be credited with all the interest. Henry
VIII would undoubtedly have been a hot topic for history buffs even if
Shakespeare hadn't written about him, and the saga of the Plantagenets
and the Wars of the Roses is intrinsically fascinating in its own
right, IMHO. Shakespeare wrote about King John, and you don't see much
interest in John (with the exception of the highly fictionalized John
who appears in many Robin Hood stories).

Richard III probably wouldn't be quite as big a figure of debate
without Shakespeare, though.

When I was twelve years old, I became an avid devotee of the "Richard
III got a bad rap" theory. I was crazy about Olivier's scary
hunchbacked Richard when I was a child, and then I came across a
terrific little mystery novel called "The Daughter of Time," by
Josephine Tey. That book boggled my adolescent mind by presenting
Richard as a wronged underdog who had been mistakenly labeled a
monster. I went wild reading everything I could find on the subject of
Richard III. When I was fourteen I even visited the Library of Congress
and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. in my quest for
info about Dickie Three-Eyes. It was an obsession unlike any I've
experienced (unless my religious conversion counts as an obsession).

Ironically, I now think that Richard probably was responsible for the
deaths of his nephews. But, in those brutal times, such an act didn't
necessarily mean that a person was irredeemably evil. If Richard hadn't
done it, his successor, Henry VII, most certainly would have offed the
Little Princes. Politics was a cut-throat business, then as now. Only
then, the cutting of the throats was literal.

Oh dear, now I am starting to feel a bit of my old Richard III passion.
Gotta go find my husband and ask him to hunch over a little bit...

~Pink

[thaumaturge]

Erm, I think I meant hippo, not rhino.

The rhino's name shall be Émile.

Oh no, wait; that's Ionesco....

> > Myo- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

[myoarin]

Thank you, Pinkie,
my faith in you was not misplaced. Nice that you support my idea, at
least concerning "Dickie Three-Eyes".

Cheers, Myo