Mojo, The Bard, & Me

His insolence is more intolerable

Than all the princes in the land beside:

-Duke of Somerset

King Henry VI Part II       Act I, scene i       Line 176

A lot of King Henrys in the past week, eh? Other than Macbeth’s phony toast to Banquo a few days ago it’s been all Henrys. So I’ve gotta talk about the Henry’s for a minute. Please try to bear with me; this might get a little tedious (right now you’re saying “going to get?”)

So Will covered eight British monarchs in his history plays, and five of them were successive (historically successive, not successive in order of the plays being written); Edward III, Richard II, and Henrys IV, V, and VI. And we can take Edward III off this list since it’s not in The First Folio and not in my compilation, so we won’t be covering it. Edward III is on some lists but not universally accepted as being written by Will. Pretty confusing, isn’t it? And the other three (not part of the successive ones) he did, King John, Richard III, and Henry VIII, were all one-offs. But of this successive group Will started with Henry VI, the last one, and he needed three separate plays to get through this one Henry. Also, these three Henry VI plays are arguably the first plays that Will wrote. I say arguably because we don’t really know for sure and it depends on whose list you look at. In any event, they were most assuredly written quite early in his career. But the main point here (if you’re still with me) is that Richard II through Henry VI Part III, a total of seven plays, is one long successive story. Now I’ve read Richard II through Henry V (though not recently), and I’ve even seen some of Richard II performed, but I’ve not read nor seen any of Henry VI. Anyway, since it’s all one long story, and basically historically accurate, it’s easier to follow if you’ve read/seen all seven of these plays, or alternatively you know some of the details of that seventy year period, roughly 1400 to 1470, give or take. Unfortunately I can’t lay claim to either of those and so I keep going back to play summaries and/or historical references. But since these seven plays take up almost 16% of the pages that I’m randomly sampling, you’d think that it might be in my best interest to cover them. Well, maybes I will. Eventually, not today.

So, if you’re still awake, today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare (I’ve been thinking of using the acronym TRDS, but that can come out sounding like turds, so maybe not) is His insolence is more intolerable than all the princes in the land beside. It doesn’t say much for all the princes in the land, does it? On the other hand, we don’t really need to go into much context if we don’t want to. And considering I just bored you to tears with the previous paragraph, I think I’ll stay away from context today. And besides, this context gets into the whole politics and who’s who of the play/period, which I’ve just confessed I don’t know enough about. But on a completely non-contextual note, this can still be a good line and perfect for a young male. I can see using it in reference to a particular thirteen year old I know who can certainly, at times, be insolent. And by using it then I guess I would be calling him a prince and not in a complimentary fashion. So it’s a good line today. Good, and usable. Totally Random Daily Shakespeare strikes again.