Rumored History in Shakespeare s 2 Henry IV. By Loren M. Blinde Dharani Nicole Sim Yi Jun Venetta Octavia Marie Ng Mak Kar Yee

Transcription

1 Rumored History in Shakespeare s 2 Henry IV By Loren M. Blinde Dharani Nicole Sim Yi Jun Venetta Octavia Marie Ng Mak Kar Yee

2 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Thesis 3. Rumour & Its Contradictions 4. Rumour & Anatomy 5. Perpetual Presence - Paradox of Rumour 6. Our Response 7. Critical Questions

3 Introduction [Induction] Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues Open your ears, for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?

4 Thesis Blinde compares history to rumour by employing the use of anatomy and the personification of Rumour to question the authenticity of history. In doing so, it leads to more complications as to whether Rumour s claims of being the sole authority for stories told can be trusted.

5 Rumour & Its Contradictions

6 Rumour s Role By presenting Rumour as our historian, Shakespeare encourages the audience members to include a fundamental sense of unreliability in their thinking about history (Blinde 35)

7 Rumour = History? To expose the similarities between rumour and history: foundations of both are indeterminate and resist a final conclusion

8 Alternate Histories And that the King before the Douglas rage Stooped his anointed head as low as death (Ind )

9 Alternate Histories 1 Henry IV (Act 5 Scene 3)

10 Rumour as Historian Rumour uses events that have taken place as fodder for his stories (Blinde 38) In doing so, he takes on the role of the historian, to determine the start and end points of these events, destabilizing history

11 Rumour s Contradictions Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues Cloak suggests multiplicity and multivocality... (instead of) narrative coherence (Blinde 38)

12 Rumour s Contradictions Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wav ring multitude, Can play upon it (Ind )

13 Rumour as a Vehicle? The pipe is only rumour when the multitude (is) blowing on the pipe because rumour is constituted by its circulation (Blinde 41) History is not a monolithic entity but instead can be manipulated and deployed by all kinds of people for myriad purposes (Blinde 41)

14 Rumour & Anatomy

15 Rumour and the tongue Rumor is a pipe (Ind. 15) The use of the tongue is evident in playing a pipe and spreading rumours Rumour is passed down to us through the use of tongue, the way history is passed down to us through other mediums Rumour = History

16 The belly Falstaff is identified through his belly identity he created through the modes of Rumours I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me (Act 4 Scene 3 ll. 16-7) Belly and pregnancy Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,/ Is thought with child by the stern tyrant, war.. (Ind. 3)

17 Falstaff s rumours as a form of salvation In early modern England the well-tempered body equaled the well-ordered state, and gentlemanliness necessitated discipline of one s own body (Blinde 45)

18 Mis-signifying of the belly Falstaff s desire to be rid of the identity that people recognise him with: his belly I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me (Act 4, scene 3, ll ) Due to the play's perpetual present, Falstaff remains with a belly throughout the play The author states that this is Shakespeare s way of arguing that one must acknowledge history as always potentially imbued with imaginative fact (Blinde 49)

19 Perpetual Presence - Paradox of Rumour

20 Role of Rumour and how it complicates the text Rumours by definition are creatures of the moment (Blinde 36) Rumour s creative potential allows the dramatist to transcent both class and historicity in order to emphasize the indeterminacy inherent not just in rumour, but in history itself (Blinde 36)

21 Perpetual Presence Shakespeare explores the paradox inherent in rumour s perpetual presence, and perpetual present-ness (37)

22 Paradox of history and creative narrative Rumour s body and his complex construction of narrative and display over the course of the play unlocks Shakespeare s argument that the essence of history is not found in the past, but in the present, and further that drama can uniquely embody historical narrative (Blinde 36)

23 Paradox of history and creative narrative Through Rumour, Shakespeare emphasizes that the Shakesperean history play is history as play (43) The claim that essence of history is not found in the past, but in the present, is contradicted in Northumberland s reaction to Morton in Act 1 Scene 1

24 Paradox of history and creative narrative In text:

25 Paradox of history and creative narrative Blinde: Northumberland s anatomy of Morton attempts to infer and invent Morton s narrative before Morton himself articulates it (44) The character of Northumberland draws on his own history to make his own assumptions about the present

26 Paradox of history and creative narrative Likewise, Blinde reiterates that history still has an implicit effect on the present as the character of Falstaff was actually based on a historical figure named Oldcastle, still possessing his character traits

27 Paradox of history and creative narrative - Oldcastle Ultimately, both of Shakespeare s fat knight sources have histories that were constructed by rumours translating themselves into history (52) Even as the speaker of the Epilogue denies Oldcastle s resemblance to the fat knight character, he repeats the name Oldcastle, which continues to connect Oldcastle with Henry Part 2 (52-53)

28 Paradox of history and creative narrative That the line between history and creative narrative is blurred, could also be seen as a simulation of each other, cannot exist without the other

29 Paradox of history and creative narrative History Creative Narrative

30 Paradox of history and creative narrative History + Creative Narrative

31 Rumour Personified: Falstaff as an agent of Rumour

32 Rumour and Falstaff s Role as the play s Chief Slanderer RUMOUR: Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues. Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. (Induction 6-8) FALSTAFF: I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name. ( )

33 Role of chief slanderer: Rumour Falstaff FALSTAFF: I hear his Majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fall n into this same whoreson apoplexy ( ) A good shallow young fellow, [the Prince] would have made a good pantler, a would ha chipped bread well. ( ) [Poins] a good wit? Hang him, baboon. His wit s as thick as Tewksbury mustard. There s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet. ( )

34 Similarities in their Strategies: Confident demeanour. Both treat their audience with contempt; speaking to the audience in a condescending tone. CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration. ( ) RUMOUR And who but Rumor, who but only I, Make fearful musters and prepared defense, Whiles the big year, swoll'n with some other grief, Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, And no such matter? (Induction 11-15)

35 Soundscape: Loud Rumour [Induction] RUMOUR: Open your ears, for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks? (1-2)

36 CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. FALSTAFF My good lord. God give your Lordship good time of the day. I am glad to see your Lordship abroad. I heard say your Lordship was sick: I hope your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of an ague in you, some relish of the saltness of time in you, and I most humbly beseech your Lordship to have a reverent care of your health. RUMOUR Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. (Induction 8) ( )

37 Shortcomings of Rumour (and thus, Falstaff) Rumour is possessed, he does not know why he is speaking the truth. For all of his claims of power, Rumour does not have control over the information he spreads. (Blinde 53)

38 Rejection of Falstaff = Expulsion of Rumour? CHIEF JUSTICE Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet. Take all his company along with him. FALSTAFF My lord, my lord vs CHIEF JUSTICE I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon. Take them away. ( ) FALSTAFF My good lord. God give your Lordship good time of the day. I am glad to see your Lordship abroad. I heard say your Lordship was sick: I hope your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of an ague in you, some relish of the saltness of time in you, and I most humbly beseech your Lordship to have a reverent care of your health. ( )

39 NO UNIVERSAL TRUTH, NO UNIVERSAL RUMOUR OR IS THERE?

40 Response 2 A single narrative is privileged above all others and this in turn becomes the overarching Rumour.

41 Response 2 Blinde: they cease to value one history and transfer worth to the history that incorporates the new information (42) King Henry V: Til their conversations appear more wise and modest to the world. (Act 5, Scene 5)

42 Response 2 Warwick: Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo, the numbers of the feared... I have received a certain instance that Glendower is dead (Act 3 Scene 1 l ) King Henry V: I will take your counsel (l. 107)

43 Response 2 King Henry: Are these things then necessities? Then let us meet them like necessities (Act 3 Scene 1)

44 Response 2 PRINCE: Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town. There s for your silence. BARD: I have no tongue, sir. PAGE: And for mine, sir, I will govern it. (Act 2, Scene 2)

45 Response 2 Blinde: Shakespeare is not just using history but generating it in his history plays. 2 Henry IV is full of characters who are not in the histories of Henry IV s reign: Falstaff, for example is a historically unnecessary figure and, as Oldcastle, an unnecessarily historical figure [...] Shakespeare emphasizes that the Shakespearean history play is history at play (43)

46 Q&A

47 Critical Questions 1. Through the acknowledgement of alternate histories, can Falstaff s lies be deemed as truth? Will Falstaff s claims be any less authentic? 2. There seems to be stilted female presentation in the text in terms of the only 2 female characters, Doll Tearface and Mistress Quickly, and other minor characters like Lady Northumberland and Lady Percy. How does this complement or complicate the text, and why?

48 References Blinde, Loren M. Rumored History in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV. pp , renaissanceliterature.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/rumored-history.pdf. Accessed 16 Sept Shakespeare, William. History of Henry IV, Part 1. Henry IV, Part I : : Open Source Shakespeare, Accessed 16 Sept Shakespeare, William. Henry IV, Part Two. Signet Classics, 2002.