3:38 King John

Day 3 of 38:38
King John

How great is it that on the third day of this challenge we get to read King John? This means, even if you peter out after a week, you'll still have read one of the more obscure plays. And to confess, I have not read King John all the way through. Sections, yes. A couple Constance scenes, and of course I know the Commodity speech. But never the whole play. And the Histories happen to be my favorite subset of Shakespeare plays. So here we go! (PS. My Yale collection of these plays is proving to be most convenient for this reading challenge. Though I'm missing about seven of them, so at some point I'll probably have to break out my Pelican complete works.)

And since we are delving into those History Plays, let me take this time to recommend Shakespeare's Genealogies by Vanessa James. Not only does this book contain thorough family trees for all of Shakespeare's works, it's also really, really cool. The only issue is that James doesn't always list the family in chronological order, for spacing reasons I imagine. So from her tree you can't confirm which son is the oldest and which is the youngest. Which matters since the whole dispute in King John is that Arthur is the son of John's elder brother, giving him a claim to the throne.

Since it is a history play, we can find many connections to the other history plays. France vs. England, who is the rightful heir, God fights on our side, etc. But something else that shows up in the history plays is young royals being manipulated by adults, not for the good of the child, but because the adults want as much power as they can get. There is something so touching about Arthur's frustration in II.i: "Good my mother, peace! / I would that I were low laid in my grace; / I am not worth this coil that's made for me." Actually, I think the beginning of that whole scene is pretty great. All the bickering, and antithesis and accusations and interruptions. I'd imagine that in performance there is a lot of comic potential, along the lines of the second gage scene in Richard II.

And then the scene ends with the Commodity speech. Okay, all of 2.i is pretty much brilliant. How come this play doesn't get done?

There are lots of verbal echoes, especially with Caesar. Most obviously, the "Cry Havoc" line, but Constance also says "O lawful let it be / That I have room with Rome to curse awhile." These two words sounding the same is a joke Shakespeare used again with Cassius: "Now is it Rome indeed and room enough."

But let's also talk about how this play is different than all the other history plays -- The French characters are not comical. In the Henry plays, it's very clear that we are meant to laugh at the ineffectual and often effeminate (or at least vain) French. But here in King John they are characters just like the English characters. In fact, I think we find ourselves sometimes on their side in this play, which doesn't happen in the other history plays.

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Favorite Female Character:
Constance, because boy does she get to freak out and rail a lot.
Favorite Male Character:
Philip, the Bastard, obviously.

Laugh out loud:
Philip the Bastard And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.
Austria Thou darst not say so, villain, for thy life.
Philip the Bastard And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs.

It's nice to know that some jokes really have been around forever.

Oh, misogyny:
I was surprised with how little there was, considering how outspoken Eleanor and Constance are. But we still have the typical characterization of feminine weakness with Hubert's:
I must be brief, lest resolution drop
Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.

and the Bastard's:
Show me the very wound of this ill news:
I am no woman; I'll not swoon at it.

Down with the Patriarchy:

Kings are people too:
Prince Henry What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?

Edward II has hot pokers for the butt:
King John has hot pokers for the eyes.

Favorite Moment/Line:
Philip, the Bastard
And why rail I on this Commodity?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet.
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
When his fair angels would salute my palm;
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.

I love that Shakespeare's "bad guys" are often the most honest characters.

But then, let me take a moment to talk about the bad guy in this play. Philip the Bastard kind of seems to be two characters. He's obviously an early prototype for Edmund, the better-known bastard, and he seems delightfully wicked in the first half of the play, encouraging war and battles, but then in the second half of the play he is all loyalty and nobility. He doesn't actually do anything bad or mischievous or wicked. All his actions are rather on the side of England and the existing King. And he is the character who gets the final lines of the play, which are entirely patriotic. While generally bad guys and bastards serve but their own self-interests, Philip seems to go an entirely different route. The play ends with him:

This England never did, not never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself to rest but true.

I mean, that's really quite beautiful.