It Ain't Over 'til the BardBlogger Sings

Fa la la la la!
Hey - who called me fat?!?

Summer is officially over. This may come as news to you; you look at the calendar and note the autumnal equinox does not occur until September 23rd. You also see that Labor Day, the holiday that used to celebrate the hard work, unity and integrity of blue-collar working people but has been somehow co-opted by The Man into simply representing the final day of summer and its affiliated Big Box Sales Events, does not occur for five more days yet. You glance at the thermometer and, if you live somewhere climatically similar to Washington, DC, you observe the pseudo-mercury nuzzling up to the 83 degrees Fahrenheit mark. If, like me, you actually live in Washington, DC (poor soul) you know summer can't be over yet because the politicians are still on something called "Summer Recess" and surely the politicians wouldn't engage in any sort of lie, obfuscation or misleading behavior, right? So I am wrong, you think. Summer's still on, kids!

And yet, no. Summer is officially over, and I can prove it to you. In one particular fantasy I have, I download this nifty software from Google, and the BardBlogger controls the seasons. The Spouse is deeply impressed with my prowess over Mother Nature and information technology, and the forecast is decidedly steamy...[Insert your own obnoxious whistles and catcalls]

But sadly, this is not the reason why summer is over. (However, I've sent an email to Google about developing some Excellent Dumb Weather Algorithems for me, and I'm sure they'll get back to me soon. They are always so responsive.) Rather than living the BardBlogger Climate Code fantasy, I am instead facing the reality that all my summer vacations, trips and influx of guests are over. And thus it is time to resume my regular bardblog publishing schedule. And thus Summer is ended. QED. Bring on the foliage, the cider, and Henry VI, Part II!

As I wrap up the summer, I of course feel the need to share my final thoughts on Henry VI, Part I. Is it worthy of hoopla? Does it have a Point? And is it any fun to read/see for modern twenty-first century folk such as your chic, bardblog-reading selves?

If you dimly recall what I have written on HVIPI up to this point, you realize that I consider it to be a pretty flawed piece of drama. The characters are completely static. Take Uncle Winchester - Currently portrayed as a haughty, over-ambitious cleric with greedy eyes on the crown, from his scheming aside to the audience in Act I, next to the corpse of Henry V, to his pompous, corrupt promotion to Cardinal in Act V. Anybody out there think he's going to turn it around and become the great defender and humble servant of our Young King in the next two plays? Me neither.

The verse is frequently cheap and undermines the dramatic quality of the scenes. This is particularly true when Sir Talbot and Young Talbot are preparing to face the enemy and die together. This should be touching. It makes me want to roll my eyes instead. The simple, rhyming couplets are ridiculous to my ear, distracting from and diffusing all the dramatic tension. I don't think Will would have done this later in his career. But I don't blame him that much; he was only an apprentice playwright at this point, and almost certainly working with a group of other, more experienced and less brilliant writers.

But genius tends to be difficult to stifle, and I feel it certainly puts in an appearance for poor Henry VI. To little old me, the enduring greatness of Henry VI, Part I, is that in this play Will Boldly Goes where Very Few had Gone Before.


"Boldly going where Very Few had Gone Before." Cheap dialogue. Thin characters. An innovative idea. Never underestimate the power of an idea. (And sequels - that's where the real money is.) 

Henry VI is a chronicle play, laying out history for the masses. This had definitely been done plenty of times before, from the Greeks through to the Elizabethans. But Shakespeare does it differently. If you think about all those Greek and Renaissance plays you had to read in high school, you will recall a lot of guff throughout about the Fates, the Goddess Fortune, the will of the God(s) and the like. Things happen as foreseen by Oracles, or because it is God's will. Usually, the individuals have some sort of romance or melodrama or moral quandary while we all wait for the playwright to tell us whether or not the good old Goddess Fortune is ever going to turn that frown upside down.

Not so with this chronicle. Our boy the bard steps up and makes some big time changes to how these plays are written, and the message they convey. Henry VI Part I lays the individual right out there and points to his/her role in the making of history and the fortunes of the country. Nobody wins or loses because the Fortuna smiles. They win and lose because Talbot is the ideal chivalrous badass, because Joan is in League with the Devil, because Henry VI lacks the age, gravitas and force of character to whip his subjects into shape, because the eternal order of things is all balled up, ever since Henry IV dethroned the York king, mucking up the line to the throne (respecting the line to the throne is also know as respecting 'degree,' and the Elizabethans were obsessed with preserving it the way Americans talk about preserving the Constitution). And because in this vacuum of leadership (Henry VI is a wet noodle) and order (Yorks, Lancasters, and the degree stuff) all the sniveling servants who should put King and Country first feel free to be corrupt, ambitious and self-aggrandizing.

The Bard is taking a stand, and putting the focus on the people and their role in their own destiny. Try to imagine a society in which we had no concept of the individual's ability to make a impact on the larger world. I'm not saying that Shakespeare actually came up with the idea, of course, but in choosing to focus Henry VI, Part I the way he did, and since he continued this idea throughout this chronicles, more or less, he popularized this way of thinking to an entire nation; once his work became popular, all classes had access to these concepts, and by weaving these themes into what was thought of as an account of history, Shakespeare's point of view is all the more readily accepted and inculcated into our psyche. How many of us would know diddly squat about Henry V, for example, if not for the "Band of Brothers" St. Crispin's Day speech that Shakespeare popularized? The general public knows a lot of British history through the lens of Shakespeare's words. Absorbing his ideas is implicit in learning the history

Of course, as previously mentioned, we're stuck in Henry VI, Part I with unchanging, static characters of so-so eloquence. So the only way Will can get his point across is a rather heavy-handed one; through formal plot structure. England's descent - through the failure of individuals - to the corrupt anarchy similar to the one suffered in France is demonstrated through rather monotonous parrallelism. For example, we have essentially the same battle refought three time, and each time one of the three Good Chivalrous Knights (Salisbury, Bedford, and Talbot) fall. Each time their death is precipitated more and more directly by the shortcomings of the British. Each time the failure of the English in France and at home becomes more inescapable.

The parallels extend further, of course. To name just a few: we have the 3 British ideal knights. We have the 3 inappropriately ambitious dudes, Uncle Winchester, the Duke of Somerset and Plantagenant/York. We have three French females out to doom the English. The Countess of Auvergne, is bested by the virtuous and masculine Talbot and then treated with honor. Joan's demons abandon her, and York burns her at the stake. Then Margaret of Anjou rises out of Joan's ashes (in the very same scene, no less) and is taken on by the sleazeball Suffolk, who sets her on course to wreak le havoc francais on England and her males .

The French will never be the bold British ideal of chivalry, masculinity and respect for order (that degree thing again). But as the French become progressively more unified, the English foibles and dissention weaken the British camp. Thus we have in one scene the Duke of Burgundy coming over to unite the French, and Charles hearing that the Parisians are calling for him to be king. In the next, Henry is a weak nonentity being crowned in Paris. His coronation ceremony is rapidly followed by 1) the de-knighting of Sir John Fastolfe (he who runs away in battle) by Talbot 2) news of Burgundy's defection 3) the demand that the king allow the York/Somerset battle to fight itself out. Hey! Is that three things hammering home a theme (disunity/lack of order and degree) again? Anyone sensing a pattern?

So, while Henry VI, Part I doesn't exactly sparkle with brilliant lines and other signs of luminous genius, it does give some hint that Apprentice Will might someday blossom into The Bard. As for whether or not the casual twenty-first century playgoer should spend hard-earned lucre to see the Bard's maiden effort in drama, I would hesitatingly suggest the play doesn't really pass the test. If you are more than a casual student of plays, history or Shakespeare, then it offers quite a bit of interest. But as a stand alone production, Will's focus on the individual in history is of a bit less interest in a society such as ours that has so thoroughly absorbed this message that we take it for granted. Such is the fate of many great innovations - the electric typewriter, the audio cassette, and Max Headroom to name just a few. And while the play does have merit as a historical chronicle, Shakespeare distorts the accurate course of events tremendously in order to set up all his parallelism and other plot constructions that allow him to make his broader point. If one pays attention, one comes away from this 'history' believing in a great many factual errors.

So from that perspective I guess it's about the same as watching Fox News or CNN.

And with that parting cheap shot at an even cheaper Big Media (basis of economic valuation: they have a price; I don't), I bring my thoughts on Henry VI, Part I to a close. Hope everyone had a great summer! Time to get back to school, work and obsessively checking your humble servant's web log.

La la la la!

(Okay, maybe I could lose a little weight...)