Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T09:51:12.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Skepticism and Political Constancy: Richard II and the Garden Scene as a “Model of State”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2016

Conal Condren
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many readers have taken the garden scene in Richard II and the voice of its Gardener to constitute a relatively straightforward statement of Shakespeare's notions of good government and constancy in political conduct, in stark contrast to the political disorder depicted in the play. I argue, however, that read in the context of the political and moral issues Shakespeare explored, its value or even relevance to his political world is questionable. The choric voice of the Gardener was not necessarily Shakespeare's. The dramatic point may have been to present, without resolving, the dissonance between the Gardener's vision and the imponderables of political conduct lying beyond his tiny realm.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 78 , Special Issue 4: Shakespeare's Politics in Honor of the 400th Anniversary of his Birth , Fall 2016 , pp. 625 - 643
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For a general survey of garden references in Jacobean drama see Ichikawa, Mariko, “‘Enter Brutus in His Orchard’: Garden Scenes in Early Modern English Plays,” in The Shakespearean International Yearbook, no. 9, ed. Bradshaw, G., Bishop, T., and Wright, Laurence (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 214–47Google Scholar.

2 In As You Like It, 1.1, the forest of Arden functions much as a symbolic garden.

3 I have principally used Shakespeare, William, Richard II, ed. Forker, Charles R., The Arden Shakespeare (London: Bloomsbury, 2002)Google Scholar, with act, scene, and line numbers in text.

4 See also, for example, “ripens” (2.3.l48); England's “ground” (2.3.91); “caterpillars” (2.3.165); “bay trees” (2.4.l 8); see also Richard's speech on returning from Ireland (3.2.l 6–26).

5 Gentleman, Francis, cited in William Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, ed. Vickers, Brian (Boston: Routledge, 1974)Google Scholar, 6:30; Spurgeon, Caroline, Shakespeare's Imagery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 222–24Google Scholar; see also Muir, Kenneth, Shakespeare's Tragic Sequences (London: Hutcheson, 1972), 30–34 Google Scholar; Knights, L. C., Shakespeare: The Histories (London: The British Council, 1962), 32–33 Google Scholar; Ichikawa, “Garden Scenes,” 215, uses it only to illustrate that gardens were enclosed. A valuable exception is Doty, Jeffrey, “Shakespeare's Richard II: ‘Popularity’ and the Early Modern Public Sphere,” Shakespeare Quarterly 61, no. 2 (2010): 183–84Google Scholar.

6 Forker, introduction to Richard II, 85, 90.

7 Ibid., 85, 49–50; note 276.

8 Lipsius, Justus, Two Books of Constancie, trans. Stradling, John (London, 1595)Google Scholar, bk. 2.

9 On “new humanism,” see Tuck, Richard, Philosophy and government, 1572–1651 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Dzelzainis, Martin, “Shakespeare and Political Thought,” in A Companion to Shakespeare, ed. Kastan, David S. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 101–4Google Scholar.

10 Popkin, Richard H., “Theories of Knowledge,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Schmitt, Charles B. and Skinner, Quentin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 678–84Google Scholar.

11 Pierce, Robert B., “Shakespeare and the Ten Modes of Scepticism,” in Shakespeare Survey 46 (1994): 145–58Google Scholar; Empiricus, Sextus, Pyrrhoniarum Hypotypseon, libri III, trans. Stephanus, Henricus (Geneva, 1562)Google Scholar; republished in Adversus Mathematicos (Paris, 1569).

12 Pierce, “Shakespeare and the Ten Modes”; Kinney, Arthur, “Conjectures on the Composition of King Lear ,” Shakespeare Survey 33 (1980): 13–25 Google Scholar; Cousins, A. D., Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Narrative Poems (Longmans: London, 2000)Google Scholar.

13 See Forker, introduction, 16–50, esp. 47–50, for the mechanisms of balance; see also Rackin, Phyllis, “The Role of the Audience in Shakespeare's Richard II ,” Shakespeare Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1985): 262–81Google Scholar; Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 192.

14 Baldwin, William (?), The Mirror for Magistrates (1559), ed. Campbell, Lily B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), 63–65 Google Scholar; for application to Shakespeare and Richard II's sacred office see Edwards, Philip, “Person and Office in Shakespeare's Plays,” Proceedings of the British Academy 56 (1970): 94–103 Google Scholar; Cowan, Louise, “God Will Save the King: Shakespeare’s Richard II ,” in Shakespeare as Political Thinker, ed. Alvis, John and West, Thomas G. (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1981), 63–81 Google Scholar; Nuttall, A. D., Shakespeare, the Thinker (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 133–49Google Scholar, for more recent comments drawing on Kantorowicz, Ernst, The King's Two Bodies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; see also C. Condren, “Understanding Shakespeare's Perfect Prince: Henry V, the Ethics of Office and the French Prisoners,” in Shakespearean International Yearbook, no. 9, 195–98; and at length, Argument and Authority in Early Modern England: The Presupposition of Oaths and Offices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

15 Forker, introduction, 74–75 follows a substantial body of literature in confusing this issue.

16 Hunter, Ian, Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Kittsteiner, H. D., “Kant and Casuistry,” in Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe, ed. Lietes, Edmund (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 185–213 Google Scholar.

17 Lipsius, Constancie, 1.4; for the importance of contemporary instability see 1.1; pace Sir Thomas Elyot, The Booked named The Governor (1531), 3, 19, for the simple equation of constancy with rigidity.

18 For the problem of Hobbes and redescription see Skinner, Quentin, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 279–84, 339–43Google Scholar.

19 Ichikawa, “Garden Scenes,” 216.

20 Lipsius, Constancie, 2.1–3.

21 Ibid., 2.5.

22 See Ichikawa, “Garden Scenes,” for a valuable catalogue.

23 Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind (1677); Lipsius, Constancie, 2.2.

24 Mirror for Magistrates, on Richard II, 11–13; Holinshed, Raphael, The first [laste] volume of the chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1587), 2.415–509Google Scholar; Samuel Daniel, The First Fowre Bookes of the Civile Wars Between The Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke (1595), bk. 1, stanzas 58–60, p. 11, stanzas 68–69, p. 13, specifically on tyranny; stanzas 58–60 are also quoted in King Richard II, ed. Gurr, Andrew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), appendix 2, 193Google Scholar; see appendix 1, “Shakespeare's Use of Holinshed,” 184–91 for a succinct account of Shakespeare's selective use; Forker, introduction, 124–33.

25 Plato, Republic, trans. Paul Shorey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), books 1–2; on pleonexia, see Vlastos, Gregory, “Justice and Happiness in the Republic ,” in Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Vlastos, Gregory (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 1:75–95Google Scholar.

26 William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, lines 652–660.

27 Cousins, Sonnets, on tyranny in The Rape of Lucrece, 58–65.

28 His murder of Woodstock is first intimated by Mowbray; for discussion of the significance of this, see Champion, Lucy S., “The Function of Mowbray: Shakespeare's Artistry in Richard II ,” Shakespeare Quarterly 26 (1975): 3–7 Google Scholar; Nuttall, Shakespeare, 134–35. Richard does not admit to the murder, hence in the context of the play, my qualification. Shakespeare's negative portrayal omits all reference to Richard's uncles plotting against him, so that his actions cannot be casuistically justified as self-defense. In contrast, see Daniel, First Fowre Bookes, bk. 1, stanzas 38–43, p. 8 for the plots of mighty minions Woodstock and Gaunt.

29 Hexter, J. H., “Property, Monopoly and Shakespeare's Richard II ,” in Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Enlightenment, ed. Zagorin, Perez (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 20 Google Scholar; Hamilton, Donna B., “The State of Law in Richard II ,” Shakespeare Quarterly 34 (1983): 5–17 Google Scholar.

30 Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 196 for Bolingbroke's evocations of England and his countrymen.

31 Hamilton, “The State of Law,” 5–10.

32 Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 195.

33 Bradshaw, Graham, Misrepresentations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 113 Google Scholar; Baines, Barbara J., “Kingship of the Silent King: A Study of Shakespeare’s Bolingbroke,” English Studies 61 (1980): 24–36 Google Scholar; Manheim, Michael, The Weak King Dilemma in the Shakespearean History Play (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1973), 62 Google Scholar; Mahood, M. M., Shakespeare's Wordplay (London: Methuen, 1957), 85 Google Scholar.

34 Triumphus, Augustinus, Summa de potestate ecclesiastica, 1326 (Rome, 1584)Google Scholar; cited by Wilks, M. J., The Problem of Sovereignty in the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 501–2Google Scholar.

35 Ranald, Margaret L., “The Degradation of Richard II: An Inquiry into the Ritual Background,” English Literary Renaissance 7 (1977): 170–96Google Scholar.

36 The best study is Kerrigan, John, Shakespeare's Binding Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

37 Forker, introduction, 29.

38 Forker, introduction, 129.

39 See, for example, Hexter, “Property,” 20; Knights, Shakespeare: The Histories, 32; Rackin, “The Role of the Audience,” 264; Cowan, “God Will Save the King,” 68; as the Jesuit Juan de Mariana would shortly summarize, disrespect for society's customs is the mark of the tyrant, De rege et regis institutione (Mainz, 1605), 72; see Höpfl, Harro, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 1540–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 246 Google Scholar.

40 Kerrigan, Shakespeare's Binding Language, 6, 11–18.

41 Chernaik, Warren, The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's History Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 102 Google Scholar.

42 For discussions of Shakespeare's use of and departures from Holinshed in this play see Andrew Gurr, appendix 1 in Richard II, ed. Gurr, 184–89; Forker, introduction, 124–36.

43 Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 198, endorses the view that “commonwealth” was latently antimonarchical—a euphemism for admitting it was not, but would be one day.

44 Hartstock, Mildred, “Major Scenes in Minor Key,” Shakespeare Quarterly 21 (1970): 53–61 Google Scholar; Michael Manheim, The Weak King, 59–60; Holderness, G., Turner, J., and Potter, N., Shakespeare, the Play of History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987), 21–22, 38–39Google Scholar; albeit by stretching the meaning of pastoral and restricting the nature of chronicle, this also highlights the curiously distinct presence of the garden; Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 200.

45 Tillyard, E. M. W., Shakespeare's History Plays (London: Chatto and Windus, 1961), 249–50Google Scholar; Muir, Shakespeare's Tragic Sequence, 32–34; Howard, Jean, Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration: Stage Technique and Audience Response (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 24–26 Google Scholar; Chernaik, “The Death of Kings,” 111–12.

46 Allman, Eileen J., Player King and Adversary: Two Faces of Play in Shakespeare (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 40–41 Google Scholar; cf. Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 197; Forker, introduction, 135, on choric function; see also Gibson, William, Shakespeare's Game (New York: Atheneum, 1978), 75–76 Google Scholar.

47 Dawson, Anthony B., Indirections: Shakespeare and the Art of Illusion (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1978)Google Scholar, who sees the tensions mirroring a shift to a new society; similarly Tillyard, History Plays, 249–50; Sahel, Pierre, “Les Ambiguités politiques de Richard II ,” Etudes anglaises 33 (1980): 28–31 Google Scholar, who draws the opposite conclusion from a similar misunderstanding.

48 For a valuable account of pastoral, see Alpers, Paul, “What Is Pastoral?,” Critical Enquiry 8 (1982): 437–60Google Scholar.

49 This has been a discussed feature of Henry V; see for example, Shakespeare, , King Henry V, ed. Gurr, Andrew (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 7–10 Google Scholar; Crow, Ann, “Henry V Man and Myth,” English Review 13, no. 2 (2002): 31–2Google Scholar; Bradshaw, Misrepresentations, 47.

50 For comment, see Condren, “Understanding Shakespeare's Perfect Prince,” 198–99.

51 Cf. Tillyard, History Plays, 250, who suggests that the Queen confirms his status by the analogy with Adam, but rightly sees him as an image of kingship.

52 It may be that dramatically, the play requires that we keep in mind the voice of Gardener and Queen, one for sympathy, one for judgment. See Thompson, Karl F., Modesty and Cunning: Shakespeare's Use of Literary Tradition (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1971), 82–83 Google Scholar.

53 See Bate, Jonathan, Shakespeare and Ovid (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 173–81Google Scholar.

54 On the specific significance of the apricot, difficult to grow and associated with miscarriage, see Norris, Faith G., “Shakespeare’s Richard II ,” Explicator 35 (1976): 19–20 Google Scholar.

55 Bevington, David, Action Is Eloquence: Shakespeare's Language of Gesture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 164–67Google Scholar; Gurr, introduction, 41 on the insincerity of the gesture, noting that Mowbray presumably kneels, Bolingbroke initially does not; there is a lot of kneeling in the play.

56 See Gurr, Richard II, appendix 1, 190; Daniel, The First Fowre Bookes, bk. 2, stanzas 119–21 also gives an enhanced role to Parliament; for discussion, see Gurr, Richard II, appendix 2, 209; and esp. Clegg, Cyndia S., “‘By the Choise and Inuitation of Al the Realme’: Richard II and Elizabethan Press Censorship,” Shakespeare Quarterly 48, no. 4 (1997): 432–48Google Scholar; Mayer, Jean-Cristophe, “‘The Parliament Sceane’ in Shakespeare's King Richard II ,” Bulletin de la société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles 59 (2004): 27–42 Google Scholar.

57 Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 195–97.

58 Clegg, “‘By choise,’” 442–44.

59 Condren, Argument and Authority, 277–78, 254–68.

60 Doty, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 197.

61 Burgess, Glenn, Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 1–124 Google Scholar; Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 88–90.

62 The Essex rising of February 1601 was instigated by Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's disgraced favorite. He paid Shakespeare's company to perform a play about the deposition of Richard II, it was probably Richard II. The players were subsequently questioned but not punished, although Elizabeth took the play as providing a threatening precedent for her own removal from office; see Hammer, Paul, “Shakespeare's Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601, and the Essex Rising,” Shakespeare Quarterly 59, no. 1 (2008): 1–35 Google Scholar, who argues that the “Rebellion” was really a failed attempt to petition the Queen. Essex was bound to redescribe it in such terms.

63 Vermigli, Peter Martyr, “ De tyrannide perferenda a piis hominibus ,” in The Political Though of Peter Martyr Vermigli, ed. Kingdon, Robert (Geneva: Droz, 1980), 108 Google Scholar.

64 Robert Parsons (“Doleman”), A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland (1595).

65 Musculus, Wolfgang, The Commonplaces of Christian Religion (Loci communes), trans. Man, John (London, 1578), 1283–85Google Scholar.

66 Hammer, “Shakespeare's Richard II,” 8–9; cf. Mayer, “‘The Parliament Sceane.’”

67 Nuttall, Shakespeare, 151.

68 See Rackin, “The Role of the Audience,” at length.

69 Cowan, “God Will Save the King,” 69.

70 Rackin, “The Role of the Audience,” 279.

71 It would not have been self-evident that the ties of parenthood overrode those of allegiance to a higher power; Abraham demonstrated virtue by willingness to sacrifice his son (Gen. 22:2). A similar ethic of familial sacrifice was inherited from Rome.

72 Forker, introduction, 127.