The Brothers Karamazov: characters and characterisation

Spoiler alert: Again, if you haven’t read the book, you probably shouldn’t read this blog post, in which I will discuss significant plot points. Whilst The Brothers Karamazov is not only a murder mystery and not only read for the plot, I do think the mystery is part of the enjoyment of the first reading. 

1/ I think Ivan is the most interesting of the Karamazov brothers. Both Dmitry and Ivan are more interesting than Alyosha because they are souls in torment. But between the two elder brothers, Ivan fascinates me more because Dmitry is hot-headed and often driven by animal passion whereas Ivan is the thinking man—“in the Hamlet mould”, as Ignat Avsey puts it—he thinks, he tortures himself, and he sees the devil.

The two most thought-provoking sections in the novel both involve Ivan: his discussion with Alyosha about God (“Rebellion” and “The Grand Inquisitor”), and his talk with the devil. I am not religious, but the characters of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy ask serious questions and think deeply, and they get me to care about the things that torment them. 

I also find Ivan’s torment after old Fyodor’s murder more interesting than Dmitry’s, probably because he asks himself and raises questions for us about the nature of guilt and complicity. 

Why does Smerdyakov say that among the brothers, Ivan is most like his father? 

2/ Smerdyakov is another striking, vivid character. He’s full of contradictions—arrogant but servile, weak and seemingly cowardly but extremely sly, cunning, and manipulative—but he feels utterly real, at least within the world of the book.

Almost everyone in the novel, including old Fyodor and Dmitry, is deceived about his character, but the defence lawyer Fetyukovich seems to get right his arrogance, spite, and envy. The only thing he gets wrong is about the money—there is no indication that Smerdyakov has any interest in the money. 

The confrontations between Ivan and Smerdyakov are so good because Smerdyakov is Ivan’s alter-ego, his Hyde, and at the same time, Smerdyakov is like the devil himself—I don’t think it’s random that Dostoyevsky describes the room as unbearably hot—it’s hell. 

My friend Michael thinks:

“Smerdyakov’s obsession with Ivan is not overtly homosexual (there’s a similar relationship in the Devils that is far more overt), but I always felt that there was something in his obsession, his fawning desire for Ivan’s approval — and ultimately his killing for him, and his suicide at Ivan’s rejection — that seemed explicable as a kind of hidden or sublimated homosexual infatuation.”

As for the suicide, he thinks:

“There are multiple reasons, practical and existential. He committed the crime as a gift to Ivan, but Ivan rejects the gift and is going to turn him in. He also commits suicide because his nihilism is the ultimate dead end.

But there’s a heartbreak there too.

That’s what I think.”

Do I think it’s a kind of homosexual infatuation? I’m not sure. But I do think Smerdyakov has an obsession with Ivan, and there’s something in their final exchange—Smerdyakov provokes Ivan to kill him but he doesn’t, then: 

“‘Till tomorrow!’ shouted Ivan, and moved to go. 

 ‘Wait… show it to me once more.’ 

Ivan pulled out the banknotes and showed them to him. Smerdyakov looked at them for about ten seconds.

‘Well, off you go,’ he said waving him away. ‘Ivan Fyodorovich!’ he shouted after him suddenly. 

‘What do you want?’ Ivan, already on his way out, turned around.

‘Goodbye, sir!’ 

‘See you tomorrow!’ Ivan shouted again, and walked out of the house.” (P.4, B.11, ch.8) 

(translated by Ignat Avsey)

Smerdyakov clearly has made this decision then. 

3/ Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) thinks Alyosha is bland. In a way, he is, compared to the rest of the Karamazovs (including the one not officially named Karamazov). But I think Alyosha lightens up the book—which is filled with filth, sickness, and depravity—and the final chapter, the final speech from Alyosha makes me emotional. 

4/ Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is also a striking character—I’ve written about him before. This speech from Starets Zosima is especially interesting: 

“‘… A man may be perfectly well aware that no one has offended him, that he has imagined it all and put about a lie just for the sake of it, blown it out of proportion so as to attract attention, deliberately picked on a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he may very well realize all this, and yet be the very first to take offence, to the point of deriving enjoyment and pleasure from it, and so fall into a state of real animosity…’” (P.1, B.2, ch.2)

I’ve seen a lot of this online.  

5/ What about the female characters in The Brothers Karamazov? They’re all bonkers, as the male characters are.

I find it hard to write about Dostoyevsky’s characters as they are all insane, bizarre, unpredictable, and full of contradictions and tortured logic, and yet they’re so vivid, so utterly real within the distorted world of the book.

Among the female characters, I think I understand Katerina Ivanovna and Grushenka—up to a point—but generally I understand them, understand their spite and jealousy, understand why Katerina Ivanovna clings to Dmitry despite her love for Ivan and hatred for Dmitry, understand why Grushenka mocks and refuses to kiss Katerina’s hand, understand why Katerina testifies the way she does at the trial then completely changes her mind a moment later, understand why Grushenka wants to seduce Alyosha for the fun of it but stops at once and changes her behaviour the moment she hears of Zosima’s death, and so on.  

The one I completely fail to understand is Lise, Mrs Khokhlakova’s fourteen-year-old daughter. 

“‘… And then suddenly Lise woke up this morning, flew into a rage at Yulia and, can you imagine, slapped her face. […] Then, barely an hour later, she was hugging Yulia and kissing her feet. And she sent me a message saying that she wasn’t going to come to my room and that she never wanted to see me again, and then, when I dragged myself over to her room, she threw her arms round me, kissing me and crying, and then just pushed me away without a word, so I was none the wiser…’” (P.4, B.11, ch.2) 

The final scene between Alyosha and Lise is even more bizarre and dramatic. Dostoyevsky’s characterisation is always exaggerated and dramatic—his characters are all insane and always on edge—there’s always lots of shouting, shrieking, laughing, crying, wailing, teeth clenching, fist thumping, eye flashing, face contorting—but there’s a lot of it in that scene between Lise and Alyosha. Too much. 

This is a character I don’t understand. Why does she tell Alyosha she loves him, then later calls him an errand boy not suited to be a husband? Why does she offer herself to Ivan? Why does she deliberately hurt her finger? 

I don’t get any of it.

But more importantly, why does Alyosha love her? What does he see in her? 

6/ I do think Dostoyevsky is a great writer—Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky focus on different aspects and reveal different truths about human nature. 

And yet I don’t think of Dostoyevsky when I think of male writers great at writing women. Is it because his female characters are all deranged? But his characters, male and female, all are. Do I think Katerina Ivanovna, Grushenka, and other female characters are less successful than Dmitry, Ivan, Smerdyakov…? Not necessarily. Is it that they’re all driven by spite and there’s nothing particularly feminine about them? 

Is it because I have different criteria when I think of female characters, favouring the ones who are realistic, complex, and life-like? Or is it because, when I talk about male writers great at writing women, I’m not just talking about good female characters, but also talking about a deep understanding of women and feminine sensibilities? 

I don’t think of Dickens as one of the male writers great at writing women either, even though I do like some of his female characters. 

Or perhaps I’m just overthinking, and there’s a difference between being able to write women (Dostoyevsky and Dickens are) and being exceptional at it (like Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Chekhov).  

The Brothers Karamazov: guilt

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t read the book, you probably shouldn’t read this blog post, in which I will discuss significant plot points. Whilst The Brothers Karamazov is not only a murder mystery and not only read for the plot, I do think the mystery is part of the enjoyment of the first reading. 

1/ There are different levels to the concept of guilt in The Brothers Karamazov. On the most basic level is the trial of Dmitry.

The chapters about the investigation and the trial are magnificent, especially the trial. There are many twists and turns. After all the witnesses are examined and cross-examined, we hear a speech from the prosecutor, who uses psychology to explain the case and convince the jury that Dmitry must be guilty. 

Then the defence attorney speaks: 

 “‘… Gentlemen of the jury, I am deliberately resorting to psychology myself in order to demonstrate that one can make of it anything one wants. It all depends on who is using it. Psychology lures even the most serious people into realms of fantasy, and quite without their realizing it. I am talking about an excess of psychology, gentlemen of the jury, in effect, a kind of abuse of psychology.’” (P.4, B.12, ch.10) 

(translated by Ignat Avsey) 

That is what Fetyukovich does. 

“‘… You see, gentlemen of the jury, since psychology is a two-edged sword, let me actually apply the other side of the blade and see whether I get the same results…’” (P.4, B.12, ch.11) 

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky demonstrates that even when evidence seems overwhelming and everything seems to point at one man, things may not be as they seem; he demonstrates, through the prosecutor Ippolit Kyrillovich, how someone may completely misinterpret everything and come to the wrong conclusion through “abuse of psychology”; and through Fetyukovich, he shows how someone may also use psychology to look at the same people and the same evidence from a different perspective.

Throughout the whole novel but especially in these chapters, Dostoyevsky shows that he has the same quality I admire so much in Tolstoy and Shakespeare: presenting opposite points of view and arguing for different sides. 

2/ Dostoyevsky raises another interesting question about guilt: is Ivan guilty?

The confrontations between Ivan and Smerdyakov are some of the best chapters in the book—partly because Smerdyakov is so well-depicted, so vivid as a malicious, spiteful, and extremely cunning man, who knows how to manipulate everyone and hit their weakest spots; and partly because the struggle, the torment within Ivan is so interesting and thought-provoking.

See the conversation between Alyosha and Ivan before the trial:

“‘All I know is,’ Alyosha continued, still almost whispering, ‘it was not you who killed father.’

‘Not me! What do you mean “not me”?’ Ivan was thunderstruck. 

‘It was not you who killed father, not you!’ repeated Alyosha firmly. 

There was a long pause. 

‘I know perfectly well it wasn’t me! Are you raving mad?’” (P.4, B.11, ch.5) 

Why does Alyosha say that? It’s an electrifying moment. As it turns out, Ivan later doesn’t “know perfectly well” it wasn’t him.

Can Ivan say he’s not guilty if he chose to leave, knowing that some disaster would happen? Can he clearly claim he knew nothing? 

Is he guilty if he wants his father to die? 

3/ Fetyukovich, the defence lawyer, also raises interesting questions about the concept of parents and parents’ duties—parricide is seen as morally wrong, shocking, and more outrageous than most other murders, but should one look at it that way when Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov has never acted as a father? Do his children owe him anything if he has never done anything for them? 

I’m not condoning the murder, I’m talking about the case being seen as baser, more shocking because it’s patricide.

Three of old Fyodor’s sons want him dead. 

 

4/ Another level of guilt in The Brothers Karamazov is to do with religion, and this is where I fail. 

Starets Zosima says his brother believes “truly, each one of us is guilty of the sins of all other men” (P.2, B.6, ch.2)

The belief comes back to him before the duel: “each of us is truly guilty of the other’s sin, only people don’t want to acknowledge it, but if they were to acknowledge it—there’d be paradise on earth immediately.” (ibid.) 

And he thinks to himself: 

“‘surely that can’t be untrue? Truly, I am perhaps the guiltiest of the guilty, and the worst of men upon this earth!’” (ibid.) 

This is before his conversion—it is significant. 

In a section called “Can we sit in judgement over one’s fellow men? On keeping the faith to the end”, Zosima says: 

“If you are able to take upon yourself the crimes of the criminal standing before you, whom you are condemning in your heart, then do so immediately and endure the suffering for him, allowing the man himself to go free and unrebuked.” (P.2, B.6, ch.3) 

I guess “you” is the monks and other people in the monastery rather than everyone (is it?), but even then, it sounds nonsensical to me. 

“If men’s evil should arouse your indignation and cause you unbearable distress, even to the point of making you feel vindictive towards malefactors, fear this feeling more than anything; go at once and seek torments for yourself such as you ought to suffer were you yourself guilty of the crime. Take these torments upon yourself and endure them, and your heart will be appeased and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you could have been the one without sin and the guiding light unto the malefactors, and you were not…” (ibid.) 

This is the kind of teaching I cannot get behind. I refuse to accept it.

Oddly, Dmitry, knowing that he committed no murder and no robbery, says to Grushenka “It’s on account of the bairn that I must go to Siberia” (P.4, B.11, ch.1). Is that about shared guilt, or something else? 

The Brothers Karamazov: children, innocence, and cruelty

I am, in many ways, not an ideal reader of Dostoyevsky. Firstly, I’m non-religious, indifferent to religion, and ignorant of theology. Secondly, I’m not much of a fan of novels of ideas. 

I started my blog post this way because I’m about to write about one of the things that puzzle me about The Brothers Karamazov.

Children, I’ve been told, are central to the meaning of The Brothers Karamazov. In “Rebellion”, one of the most important chapters of the novel, Ivan explains to Alyosha his struggle with God: 

“ ‘… Listen, if everyone has to suffer in order to bring about eternal harmony through that suffering, tell me, please, what have children to do with this? It’s quite incomprehensible that they too should have to suffer, that they too should have to pay for harmony by their suffering. […] And if the suffering of children is required to make up the total suffering necessary to attain the truth, then I say here and now that no truth is worth such a price. […] And that’s why I hasten to return my entry ticket. If I ever want to call myself an honest man, I have to hand it back as soon as possible. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I’m just, with the utmost respect, handing Him back my ticket.’” (P.2, B.5, ch.4) 

(translated by Ignat Avsey)

He could talk about all suffering, but limits it to children because they “have eaten nothing and are still completely innocent”. 

It is a powerful chapter, and has a stronger emotional impact on me than “The Grand Inquisitor” does.

Later, during the interrogation, Dmitry falls asleep out of exhaustion and has a dream about a crying bairn. He wakes up saying he had a good dream, and it clearly has a significant effect on him, as he later says many times to Grushenka “It’s on account of the bairn that I must go to Siberia” (P.4, B.11, ch.1).

The theme of childhood innocence and children’s suffering is clearly important in The Brothers Karamazov.

And yet, when I look at the children Dostoyevsky depicts, I see not innocence but something else.

There are two children on whom Dostoyevsky focuses in the novel: Ilyusha and Kolya. 

The first time we see children in the novel, it’s a group of schoolboys throwing rocks at each other and at Alyosha. One of the boys is Ilyusha, the 9-year-old son of the Staff Captain who’s humiliated by Dmitry in public. Like most of the adults in the book, he’s full of anger and hatred, and takes it out on Alyosha by throwing rocks at him and biting his finger to the bone. I get it, but it remains nevertheless disturbing that Ilyusha physical hurts someone who has never done anything to him, and stabs in the thigh with a penknife someone who, as we later learn, has been protective of him. 

Not only so, it turns out that once Ilyusha learns from Smerdyakov and hides a pin in some food and lures a dog to eat it, just to see what happens.

Is that innocence? 

Having heard the dog cry in pain, he tortures himself with remorse afterwards, but do the adults not also feel bad after hurting others? 

The other child who features in the novel is 13-year-old Kolya, the one who gets stabbed in the thigh. He’s a precocious child, calling himself a socialist, rejecting God and medicine, and having opinions about all sorts of subjects, but he’s also known in the neighbourhood as a “desperado” because of his reckless pranks and dangerous games.

Note the story he tells at Ilyusha’s house: 

“‘… So I turned to this idiot and I reply, “I was wondering what a goose thinks about.” He stares at me like a real idiot, “What a goose thinks about?” “Well,” I say, “you see that cart full of oats standing over there. There’s a bag with oats spilling out of it, and a goose is sticking its neck right under the wheel to peck at the grain—do you see?” “Yes, so what,” he says. “Well now,” I say, “if one was to push the cart forward just a smidgen, would the wheel decapitate the goose or not?” “Certainly,” he says, “certainly”, and he grins a wide toothy grin, fairly beaming. “Come on then, old chap,” I say, “let’s do it.” […] I gave the lad a wink, he jerked the reins, and—crack, the wheel chopped the goose’s neck in half!...” (P.4, B.10, ch.5) 

There is a cruel streak in Kolya. 

The two children we see in close-up in The Brothers Karamazov both have something cruel in them. The other children aren’t much lovelier either: the schoolboys bully and humiliate Ilyusha mercilessly (though they do come, thanks to Alyosha, to make up with Ilyusha during his illness).

The only children who do seem nice and innocent in the book are Kolya’s little neighbours Nastya and Kostya, but they’re in a short scene.

I probably miss the point entirely. What do you think?  

The Brothers Karamazov: Katerina Ivanovna and Grushenka

It’s probably unwise to write about the characters whilst still reading the book, but I’m going to jot down some thoughts anyway. 

There are two women in the centre of The Brothers Karamazov, and in the centre of the conflicts of the Karamazov family: Katerina Ivanovna is engaged to Dmitry but loved by Ivan; and Agrafena Aleksandrovna, better known as Grushenka, is chased by both the father and Dmitry (she also wants to seduce Alyosha, but let’s ignore that for now).

The two women are different, though both are bonkers. How would you describe them? I think Katerina Ivanovna is more theatrical, and more like a masochist.

“‘… To put it simply, in a couple of words, I’ve already made up my mind, even if he does marry that… creature, whom I shall never be able to forgive, I shall never leave him! From now on I shall never, never leave him!’ she said, her voice quivering in barely concealed anguish. ‘What I mean to say is that I’m not going to chase after him, or irritate him constantly by my presence, or be a burden to him—oh no, I shall go and live in another town, no matter where, but all my life long I shall keep track of him whatever happens. And when he becomes unhappy with her, which he is bound to, then let him come to me, and he will find a friend, a sister… […] And let him see, as long as he lives, that I shall remain faithful to him till I die, and shall remain true to my word in spite of his infidelity and betrayal…’” (P.2, B.4, ch.5)

(translated by Ignat Avsey) 

Even Alyosha calls that theatre. 

Grushenka, in contrast, is a sadist and dominatrix. She has the men twisted around her fingers, and drives them all crazy.  

“People recounted with laughter how Mitya has got the local bumpkins drunk on champagne and had plied the village girls and women with sweets and Strasburg pies. They also laughed, especially in the tavern, at Mitya’s own candid and unsolicited admission (no one laughed in his face of course, for that would have been too dangerous) that, in return for the entire escapade, all that Grushenka had granted him was permission to kiss her foot, and that she had not allowed him to go any further.” (P.3, B.8, ch.5)

Dmitry feels nothing for Katerina Ivanovna despite her devotion and money, but he’s mad about Grushenka. 

But now I’ve realised, they aren’t so different after all.

This is what Grushenka says to Dmitry about the Polish officer who abandoned her: 

“‘Mitya, Mitya, I loved him, do you realize that!’ she began in whispers. ‘I loved him so much, all these five years, all that time! Was it him I loved, or merely my own spite?...’” (P.3, B.8, ch.8) 

Having met the officer again after 5 years, she realises she loves Dmitry: 

“’Will you forgive me for torturing you? I made you all suffer out of spite. I even drove that pathetic old man out of his mind through sheer spite… […] Don’t just stand there! Kiss me… harder, that’s better. Love me, love me more! From now on I’m your slave, torture me, do something to me… Oh, I really deserve to be tortured…’” (ibid.) 

About Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha thinks: 

“And now, when Alyosha considered Mrs Khokhlakova’s direct and insistent assertion that Katerina Ivanovna, loved Ivan but that, as a result of a deep emotional crisis and a peculiar sense of gratitude, she continued in some kind of bizarre game perversely to delude and torture herself with a fanciful love for Dmitry, he was completely taken aback. […] Alyosha instinctively felt that a woman such as Katerina Ivanovna had an overwhelming need to dominate, but that she could only dominate someone like Dmitry and never someone like Ivan.” (P.2, B.4, ch.5)

In front of her, Ivan says to Alyosha that she “was constantly taking revenge on me for all the insults she suffered at the hands of Dmitry”, then leaves. But later on, when alone with Alyosha, he says: 

“‘… what you have to understand is that it will take her perhaps fifteen or twenty years to realize that she doesn’t love Dmitry at all, that she loves only me, whom she torments…’” (P.2, B.5, ch.3) 

The two women are similar after all: both are driven by spite, both deceive themselves and cling to someone who has treated them callously and cruelly, and both torment someone who loves them (that they themselves also love). 

But that’s not all. I’ve realised that almost all the characters in The Brothers Karamazov, except for Alyosha, are driven by spite: old Fyodor plays the buffoon and mocks everything out of spite; Dmitry and Ivan are both full of spite; the old Captain crumples up the money out of spite and out of shame, having shown too much pleasure upon seeing it; Rakitin takes Alyosha to Grushenka for money but also because of spite, and wants to see his downfall; Smerdyakov is full of spite and hatred for both his adoptive father, the old servant Grigory, and his biological father, old Fyodor; the townspeople flock to Zosima’s funeral out of curiosity and spite, and feel triumphant over his putrefaction and degradation; even the saintly Zosima’s spiteful when he’s young…  

I think it’s fair to say that Tolstoy and Chekhov have a wider range of characters and broader view of humanity than Dostoyevsky does. But spite is Dostoyevsky’s specialty—he is probably unsurpassed in his examination and understanding of spite, shame, humiliation, and irrationality. 

The Brothers Karamazov: Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky

I’m about halfway through The Brothers Karamazov—or The Karamazov Brothers in this edition—in Ignat Avsey’s translation. 

Perhaps the greatness of The Brothers Karamazov is undeniable, perhaps I picked the right translation, or perhaps I, a Tolstoy fan, have found the way to read Dostoyevsky. I’m very much enjoying the book.

People often say that we are either a Tolstoy person or a Dostoyevsky person, and I think it’s largely true that each reader would be more inclined towards one than the other. But as I read The Brothers Karamazov, I’ve realised that they have different visions, different styles, and different strengths, focus on different aspects and reveal different truths about human nature. Dostoyevsky fans like to say he’s the greater psychologist, his novels have more depth or reveal something deeper about human psyche, but I don’t think it’s true. I think they do different things: Dostoyevsky prefers to focus on the extreme and the abnormal, and he’s especially great at depicting spite, degradation, and humiliation. Through them, he reveals human beings’ irrationality. 

In The Brothers Karamazov for example, why does Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov keep playing the buffoon and debasing himself? Why does Alyosha visiting the grave of his mother, i.e. old Karamazov’s second wife, make the old man donate money in remembrance of his first wife, who beat him? Why does Katerina Ivanovna chase after Dmitry then take out her hatred on Ivan, who loves her? Why does the boy bite Alyosha’s finger to the bone when his father was humiliated by Dmitry, not Alyosha? Why does the old Captain crumple up the money and throw it on the floor, knowing how much it would help his family? 

Human beings are irrational. We sometimes, out of pride or spite or mere perversity, do things against our own interests. Dostoyevsky is extremely good at examining and depicting this. 

But something even more interesting I’ve discovered, reading The Brothers Karamazov, is that in some other ways, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are quite similar whereas Chekhov is apart. They’re both religious, placing religion at the heart of their works, whilst Chekhov is a humanist, sceptical of big ideas.

Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy have different views also when it comes to religion, but in the chapter about Zosima’s life history, the young Zosima has a duel with another man and the experiences forces him to rethink everything and changes his life—does that not remind you of Pierre in War and Peace? He then meets a murderer, who for 14 years has been living with the terrible secret and with great guilt—does that not sound like it could be one of Tolstoy’s fables? 

They’re more similar than people think.

In a blog post about The Brothers Karamazov, Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) writes about a mother’s grief, and writes: 

“…  I doubt too many other writers would have depicted so overpowering an emotion with such disconcerting directness.

But Tolstoy, I think, would. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are often held to be extreme opposites, and, in many ways, they are, but at points such as this, they seem to touch. For Tolstoy, too, depicted human emotions with a disconcerting directness.” 

I agree. Chekhov, in contrast, prefers subtlety and restraint, and tends to go out of his way to avoid overt drama.

The Two Noble Kinsmen, the last Shakespeare play

The play is attributed jointly to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. It’s believed to be Shakespeare’s last play. 

1/ The first scene after the Prologue is clearly written by Shakespeare. 

“1 QUEEN We are three queens whose sovereigns fell before 

The wrath of cruel Creon, who endure 

The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites

And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes. 

He will not suffer us to burn their bones, 

To urn their ashes, nor to take th’ offense 

Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest eye 

Of holy Phoebes, but infects the winds

With stench of our slain lords…” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

The three queens are kneeling and begging Theseus and his new wife Hippolyta to help them against Creon. 

That is so good. 

“2 QUEEN […] dear glass of ladies: 

Bid him that we, whom flaming war doth scorch, 

Under the shadow of his sword may cool us…”

(ibid.)

The play begins with more excitement than Henry VIII. 

“3 QUEEN Oh, my petition was

Set down in ice, which by hot grief uncandied 

Melts into drops; so sorrow, wanting form, 

Is pressed with deeper matter. 

[…] 

There, through my tears, 

Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream, 

You may behold ’em. Lady, lady, alack, 

He that will all the treasure know o’th’earth 

Must know the centre too; he that will fish

For my least minnow, let him lead his line

To catch one at my heart. Oh, pardon me; 

Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits, 

Makes me a fool.” 

(ibid.) 

Metaphor piles upon metaphor. 

In the scene, the three queens interrupt the wedding and beg Theseus to wage war against Creon now, when he’s chilling and unprepared, because they’re afraid that after the wedding, Theseus would be too busy enjoying sex to “think of rotten kings and blubbered queens”. Makes sense. 

2/ I like Palamon’s speech about us being masters of ourselves: 

“PALAMON ’Tis in our power, 

Unless we fear that apes can tutor’s, to 

Be masters of our manners. What need I 

After another’s gait, which is not catching 

Where there is faith, or to be fond upon 

Another’s way of speech when by mine own 

I may be reasonably conceived, saved too, 

Speaking it truly? Why am I bound 

By any generous bond to follow him 

Follows his tailor; haply so long until 

The followed make pursuit? Or let me know 

Why mine own barber is unblessed, with him 

My poor chin too, for ’tis not scissored just

To such a favourite’s glass? What canon is there

That does command my rapier from my hip

To dangle’t in my hand, or to go tiptoe 

Before the street be foul? Either I am 

The fore-horse in the team or I am none

That draw i’th’sequent trace…” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

Are these arguments for free will? 

In the late plays, Shakespeare’s language can often be knotty, as if he doesn’t care if the audience can understand him. 

Palamon and his cousin Arcite are talking about the tyrannical government of their uncle Creon. 

“PALAMON […] I think the echoes of his shames have deafed 

The ears of heavenly Justice. Widows’ cries

Descend again into their throats and have not 

Due audience of the gods.” 

(ibid.) 

The idea of people’s grief not being heard by the gods often recurs in Shakespeare’s plays. 

3/ In Act 2 scene 1, the Jailer’s Daughter speaks like Palamon and Arcite have been confined together for some time in prison, then in the following scene, it appears that they’ve met for the first time since imprisoned.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when the play is written by two different people.

Their speeches about rotting away in prison are so good, especially Arcite’s. I don’t want to type the entire speech even though it’s so good, but here’s the final bit: 

“ARCITE […] This is all our world. 

We shall know nothing here but one another, 

Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes. 

The vine shall grow but we shall never see it; 

Summer shall come and with her all delights, 

But dead-cold winter must inherit here still.” 

(Act 2 scene 2)

I also like Arcite’s speech about consoling themselves and thinking of the prison as a sanctuary from the pain and corruption of the world. But isn’t it against the theme I see over and over again in Shakespeare that thinking cannot change reality, that words of consolation are just empty? 

The feeling of contentment doesn’t last long. The warmth of friendship, after “Is there record of any two that loved/ Better than we do, Arcite?”, doesn’t last long. Everything changes the moment they see and both fall in love with Emilia, Hippolyta’s sister. Palamon’s even ready to kill Arcite over a woman he’s just met—isn’t that a bit… extreme?

In his (apparently) last play, Shakespeare revisits the theme of two life-long friends falling in love with the same woman, from one of his earliest plays, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. I don’t really remember the other play however, except Launce and his dog Crab. 

4/ For long stretches (at least they feel long), the play’s clearly written by Fletcher. He’s not bad—the scenes mentioned in number 3 are most likely Fletcher’s. 

One thing I’ve noted is that the play has several friendships, and they sound kinda gay.

“EMILIA How his longing 

Follows his friend! Since his depart, his sports, 

Though craving seriousness and skill, passed slightly 

His careless execution, where nor gain 

Made him regard or loss consider, but, 

Playing one business in his hand, another 

Directing in his head, his mind nurse equal 

To these so-different twins. […] 

HIPPOLYTA […] Their knot of love, 

Tied, weaved, entangled, with so true, so long, 

And with a finger of so deep a cunning, 

May be outworn, never undone…” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

They’re talking about the friendship between Theseus (Hippolyta’s husband) and Pirithous, and Pirithous’s distraction since Theseus departed for war, then Emilia talks about “a time when I enjoyed a play-fellow” named Flavina:

“EMILIA […] The flower that I would pluck 

And put between my breasts (then but beginning 

To swell about the blossom), oh, she would long

Till she had such another, and commit it

To the like innocent cradle, where phoenix-like

They died in perfume…” 

(ibid.) 

Flavina died when they both were 11, but: 

“EMILIA […] That the true love ’tween maid and maid may be

More than in sex dividual.

HIPPOLYTA You’re out of breath! 

And this high-speeded pace is but to say 

That you shall never, like the maid Flavina, 

Love any that’s called man.

EMILIA I am sure I shall not.” 

(ibid.) 

Palamon and Arcite also talk like lovers, till they fall in love with Emilia and fall out with each other. 

Now look at the scene where Arcite, now disguised as a countryman, stands before Theseus and others after winning wrestling. 

“THESEUS You are perfect. 

PIRITHOUS [to Emilia] Upon my soul, a proper man.” 

(Act 2 scene 5) 

Do they not sound kinda gay? Both are much more enthusiastic than Emilia. 

Shakespeare plays a lot with gender (for example, Orsino and Olivia fall for Viola as Cesario), but in his plays, there are plenty of male friendships and female friendships that don’t sound gay. The friendships Fletcher writes in The Two Noble Kinsmen do. This is an observation, not a complaint.

The scene of Palamon and Arcite preparing for duel is hilarious—I’d love to see it performed. 

5/ The play’s split into 2 plots: about Palamon and Arcite and their fight over Emilia; and about the Jailer’s Daughter, who is unnamed.

The Jailer’s Daughter interests me as a character around the time she, out of love, helps Palamon escape, though not so much when she descends into madness. 

The Wooer’s description of her madness is reminiscent of Gertrude’s speech about Ophelia, but the “Willow, willow, willow” bit makes me think of Desdemona before her death. 

In Act 5, Shakespeare again takes over. The language is clearly different: better, but also knottier in long speeches.

In order to cure her insanity, the Doctor tells the Wooer to pretend to be Palamon. 

“DOCTOR […] If she entreat again, do anything. 

Lie with her if she ask you.

JAILER Whoa there, Doctor! 

DOCTOR Yes, in the way of cure. 

JAILER But first, by your leave, 

I’th’ way of honesty. 

DOCTOR That’s but a niceness. 

Ne’er cast your child away for honesty. 

Cure her first this way; then if she will be honest, 

She has the path before her.” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

That’s disturbing. 

Before the characters go off, Shakespeare also adds these lines: 

“DAUGHTER And then we’ll sleep together. 

DOCTOR Take her offer. 

WOOER [to Daughter] Yes, marry, will we.

DAUGHTER But you shall not hurt me. 

WOOER I will not, sweet. 

DAUGHTER If you do, love, I’ll cry.” 

(ibid.) 

How should we feel about this? 

At the end of the play, we hear the Jailer tell someone else that she’s now cured and about to get married—but is she? 

6/ The main plot about Palamon and Arcite’s fight for Emilia is even more disturbing: what does Emilia think? Neither of them knows her, and she doesn’t know them. She cannot choose, but I think it’s less because she likes them both than because she doesn’t want either one to die because of her choice.  

“EMILIA Would I might end first! 

What sins have I committed, chaste Diana, 

That my unspotted youth must now be soiled 

With blood of princes, and my chastity 

Be made the altar where the lives of lovers—

Two greater and two better never yet

Made mothers joy—must be the sacrifice 

To my unhappy beauty?”

(Act 4 scene 2)

Almost the entire play is about the rivalry, and when we get to the end, the resolution is frankly ridiculous. Nonsensical ending. 

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Having finished The Two Noble Kinsmen, I have now read all the Shakespeare plays!

Pericles, Prince of Tyre and the themes recycled in The Winter’s Tale

Pericles, Prince of Tyre is one of the late romances in the Shakespeare canon. However, unlike Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, it is a collaboration, possibly between Shakespeare and George Wilkins; it also wasn’t included in the First Folio. 

1/ My first impression was that it didn’t sound like Shakespeare. 

“PERICLES […] Who has a book of all that monarchs do,

He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown, 

For vice repeated is like the wand’ring wind

Blows dust in others’ eyes to spread itself;

And yet the end of all is bought thus dear: 

The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear

To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts

Copped hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is thronged 

By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’it. 

Kings are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will; 

And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?...” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

I can’t be the only one who read the first scene of Pericles and thought about The Merchant of Venice: Pericles wants to marry Antiochus’s (unnamed) daughter and, like other men, has to solve a riddle—if he gets it right, he can have her; if wrong, he has to die. 

However, the similarity ends there. The riddle is designed so that nobody can “win”: Pericles understands the meaning and realises that Antiochus and his daughter are having an incestuous relationship (I know, sick), so he flees.

I won’t recount the entire plot—there’s lots of plot—but not long after and in another kingdom, named Pentapolis, there’s another contest for a princess (Thaisa, daughter of Simonides) and Pericles also shows up. They’re nothing like the father and daughter in Antioch though.

2/ In Act 2, the language is still clearly not Shakespeare, i.e. not great. But once in a while there’s an interesting bit, such as when Pericles looks at Simonides and thinks about his late father: 

“PERICLES [Aside] Yon king’s to me like to my father’s picture, 

Which tells me in that glory once he was; 

Had princes sit like stars about his throne, 

And he the sun for them to reverence; 

None that beheld him but, like lesser lights, 

Did vail their crown to his supremacy; 

Where now his son’s a glowworm in the night, 

The which hath fire in darkness, none in light. 

Whereby I see that Time’s the king of men; 

He’s both their parent and he is their grave, 

And gives them what he will, not what they crave.” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

There are also some jokes that sound like the kind of jokes Shakespeare makes (probably the kind of things that appeal to Jacobean audiences). For example: 

“THIRD FISHERMAN […] Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. 

FIRST FISHERMAN Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones. I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale: ’a plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful: Such whales have I heard on a’ th’ land, who never leave gaping till they have swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

Or this one: 

“SIMONIDES […] I will not have excuse with saying this: 

Loud music is too harsh for ladies’ heads, 

Since they love men in arms as well as beds.” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

3/ There are many words in this play I’ve never seen before. Some of them look strange.

Like y-slacked (meaning: reduced to inactivity). 

Or y-ravished (meaning: enraptured). 

4/ Act 3 (probably after Gower’s part) is where the play starts to sound more like Shakespeare:

“PERICLES The god of this great vast rebuke these surges, 

Which wash both heaven and hell, and thou that hast 

Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, 

Having called them from the deep! O, still

Thy deaf’ning dreadful thunders; gently quench

Thy nimble sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida, 

How does my queen? Thou stormiest venomously; 

Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman’s whistle

Is as a whisper in the ears of death, 

Unheard…” 

(Act 3 scene 1) 

That does sound more like Shakespeare. Compare it to the unimaginative description of the famine in Act 1, or the shipwreck in Act 2—very different. 

I don’t think Pericles particularly cares for Thaisa—she seems to love him a lot more than he loves her—but his speech after her death is moving: 

“PERICLES A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear; 

No light, on fire. Th’ unfriendly elements 

Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time

To give thee hallowed to thy grave, but straight 

Must cast thee, scarcely coffined, in the ooze; 

Where, for a monument upon thy bones, 

And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale

And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse, 

Lying with simple shells…” 

(ibid.) 

There’s a shipwreck in The Winter’s Tale, and a shipwreck in The Tempest, but two in Pericles. 

“CERIMON […] If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold, 

’Tis a good constraint of fortune 

It belches upon us.” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

What does that make me think of? 

“ARIEL You are three men of sin, whom destiny—

That hath to instrument this lower world 

And what is in’t—the never-surfeited sea

Hath caused to belch up you and on this island, 

Where man doth not inhabit…” 

(The Tempest, Act 3 scene 3) 

5/ In Pericles, Boult is a servant to a Pander and a Bawd, and for a couple of scenes, he’s no more than one of the people trying to get Marina to lose “her maidenhead”. Then comes the exchange between Boult and Marina: 

“BOULT What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? Where a man may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in the end to buy him a wooden one?” 

(Act 4 scene 6) 

Shakespeare is brilliant at getting you to see a character differently and care for them, with just a few strokes (the best is “I was adored once too” in Twelfth Night).  

6/ Tony Tanner’s essay, as usual, is very good. I like the King Lear comparison:

“So what brings about the miraculous denouement—has the harsh old Wheel of Fortune ameliorated into a benign Wheel of Providence, as some suggest? Do they gods finally intervene as they so conspicuously did not in King Lear?” (Introduction) 

I also like his idea about the reunion scene: 

“… there is possibly a shadow of the story not told, or avoided—the Oedipal story of a man who sets out on his travels to avoid incest, only to discover that that has been his destination.” (ibid.) 

Pericles may have fallen for his daughter Marina but Shakespeare avoids it, the same way he avoids it in The Winter’s Tale (whereas in the original Pandosto by Robert Greene, that is what happens). 

7/ The plot of Pericles is frankly very silly: there are 2 husband contests, 2 tempests and shipwrecks, 2 killing orders; there are a bad king and a bad queen; there are even pirates and bawds. Both are like fairytales, though it’s much sillier than Cymbeline, and less neat. 

But it’s a fun play and I do like it. I can’t help thinking that as Shakespeare was writing (part of) Pericles, he found a few things of interest that he recycled in later romance plays, especially in The Winter’s Tale: shipwreck, separation and reunion, and return from death.

In both plays, a man reunites with his wife and daughter after a long time, but if the scenes in Pericles are filled with rapture and happiness, the joy in The Winter’s Tale is more subdued—nothing can undo the pain, the separation, and the lost years.

As Shakespeare recycles ideas in the later play, he also improves on them. Firstly, in Pericles, nothing explains why Pericles doesn’t return to Tharsus to find Marina, nothing explains the separation of 14 years, and nothing explains why Pericles, after a brief marriage to Thaisa, doesn’t marry again; whereas in The Winter’s Tale, Leontes doesn’t know where Perdita is, and Shakespeare creates the character of Paulina to act as the voice of conscience and make sure that Leontes doesn’t remarry. 

Secondly, even though it should be extraordinary, the scene of Thaisa’s revival doesn’t quite have the magical quality of the scene in The Winter’s Tale, which, whether you read it in the fairytale way or the realistic way, is a vision of resurrection. And it is miraculous. 

The reunion scenes in Pericles are satisfying though. 

Macbeth revisited

Macbeth was the play that helped me rediscover Shakespeare in 2021, but I never blogged about the play itself, only about the four screen versions I saw—why not reread it now?—so here we go.  

1/ I note that Macbeth’s thoughts, very soon after the predictions from the weird sisters, turn to violence. The ambition is already in him.   

“MACBETH […] This supernatural soliciting 

Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, 

Why hath it given me earnest of success, 

Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair 

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 

Against the use of nature? Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings. 

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man that function 

Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is 

But what is not.” 

(Act 1 scene 3) 

I especially like the image “my seated heart knock at my ribs”. 

“MACBETH […] Stars, hide your fires; 

Let not light see my black and deep desires…” 

(Act 1 scene 4) 

Interestingly, Hamlet has many reasons to kill the king but (for a long time) can’t do so; Macbeth knows all the arguments not to kill the king but can’t help himself.  

Tony Tanner says: 

“What Macbeth is trying to do as he goes faster and faster, is perfectly summed up in one of his own phrases: he is trying to ‘outrun the pauser, reason’ (II, iii, 113) […] The ‘pauser’ as I have said before, is that within us which gives us ‘pause’; —conscience, reflection, reason, judgement. Hamlet is, effectively, one long pause, and it is very long. Macbeth is trying to get rid of that ‘pause’, trying to close the gap of conscience, to ‘outrun’ his own judgement—and his play is breathlessly short (almost exactly half the length of Hamlet).” (Introduction)

People usually say Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most intelligent character—and he is—but Macbeth is also intelligent. Macbeth knows exactly what he is doing, why he shouldn’t do it, what the consequences would be, what a murder would lead to, and so on and so forth, he just can’t help himself. He chooses to only act and not think. 

“MACBETH […] Strange things I have in head that will to hand, 

Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.” 

(Act 3 scene 5) 

He chooses not to know himself. Whereas Lear’s journey is one towards self-knowledge, Macbeth’s is away from it. 

2/ When Macbeth wavers, Lady Macbeth taunts him. 

“MACBETH […] I dare do all that may become a man; 

Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH What beast was’t then 

That made you break this enterprise to me? 

When you durst do it, then you were a man; 

And to be more than what you were, you would 

Be so much more the man…” 

(Act 1 scene 7) 

The contrast here refers to man vs beast, but Lady Macbeth then moves on to imply the man vs woman contrast when saying “I have given suck, and know/ How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me…”. The idea also recurs throughout the play: Lady Macbeth, when she invokes the spirits, says “unsex me here” and “Come to my woman’s breasts/ And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers/ Wherever in your sightless substances/ You wait on nature’s mischief!” (Act 1 scene 5). 

When Macbeth has a breakdown and makes a fool of himself at court, his wife says “Are you a man?” and “What, quite unmanned in folly!” (Act 3 scene 4). 

Near the end of the play, when Macduff hears the painful news that his entire family has been killed: 

“MALCOLM Dispute it like a man.

MACDUFF I shall do so; 

But I must also feel it as a man….” 

(Act 4 scene 3) 

I love that exchange. Throughout the play, Shakespeare forces us to think about the idea of manliness. 

3/ I love the way Shakespeare paints a picture of chaos and fear and dark omens with words: 

“OLD MAN Threescore and ten I can remember well; 

Within the volume of which time I have seen 

Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night 

Hath trifled former knowings.

ROSS Ha, good father, 

Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act, 

Threatens his bloody stage. By th’ clock ’tis day, 

And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp: 

Is ’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame, 

That darkness does the face of earth entomb, 

When living light should kiss it?”

(Act 2 scene 4)

This reminds me of G. Wilson Knight’s argument in The Wheel of Fire that the atmospheres of Macbeth and King Lear reflect and support the mental universes of Macbeth and Lear, but that’s not the case with Hamlet. 

On a side note, the prettiest, most magnificent things I’ve created on DALL-E Mini are with Shakespeare’s words. Shakespeare creates magic on this app. 

4/ When does Lady Macbeth’s mind start to fall apart? 

“LADY MACBETH Nought’s had, all’s spent, 

Where our desire is got without content:

’Tis safer to be that which we destroy 

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

Is it when she realises that Macbeth’s mind is “full of scorpions” and keeps getting “these terrible dreams/ That shake us nightly”? Is it when she realises that he cannot stop, and must kill Banquo and Fleance? Is it when she sees him fall apart before her very eyes, and break down in front of others? 

Or does it start before?

I have always had the interpretation, strengthened by Judi Dench’s performance, that Lady Macbeth isn’t as strong as she thinks she is. That’s why she has to invoke the spirits “unsex me here/ And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direct cruelty! Make thick my blood/ Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse/ That no compunctious visitings of nature/ Shake my fell purpose…” (Act 1 scene 5). That’s why she cannot commit the murder herself, and tells herself the weak excuse “Had he not resembled/ My father as he slept, I had done’t.” (Act 2 scene 2) That’s why she descends into madness. 

She thinks of killing in the abstract, and collapses when she realises what she has done. 

And when she faints, it may be an act to distract others as they’re questioning Macbeth, or perhaps she actually faints upon seeing the corpses, and seeing what she and Macbeth have done. As Shakespeare doesn’t include many stage directions, I think there can be different ways of staging the scene. 

Lady Macbeth is not as evil as Goneril and Regan, and the character of Lady Asaji in Throne of Blood is much more like Lear’s bad daughters than Macbeth’s wife. 

5/ Macbeth is, shall we say, not a good king.  

“MACDUFF […] Each new morn 

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows 

Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds 

As it it felt with Scotland and yelled out 

Like syllable of dolor.” 

(Act 4 scene 3) 

“MALCOLM […] I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;

It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash 

Is added to her wounds…” 

(ibid.) 

Macbeth is I think often compared to Richard III, sometimes Brutus (at least G. Wilson Knight makes the comparison), but I can’t help thinking of the contrast with Claudius: both usurp the throne after murdering the king, but Claudius turns out to be a good king, or at least nobody seems unhappy about him except Hamlet. 

Claudius in a few ways is worse than Macbeth, because he kills his own brother then marries his wife, but isn’t tortured by guilt—not to the point of getting nightmares and losing his sanity. 

6/ Everyone knows about Macbeth’s famous “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech, but this is also an interesting speech:

“MACBETH […] I have lived long enough. My way of life 

Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf, 

And that which should accompany old age, 

As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, 

I must not look to have; but, in their stead, 

Curses not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, 

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not…” 

(Act 5 scene 3) 

Macbeth has chosen to only act and not think, but he still knows what he has lost. 

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See my blog posts about the Ian McKellen – Judi Dench production, Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, Orson Welles’s Macbeth, and Throne of Blood. 

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Consider the timeline: Shakespeare wrote Othello and Measure for Measure around 1604, King Lear around 1605-1606, Macbeth in 1606, then Antony and Cleopatra around 1606-1607. 

It is incredible.

King John

1/ Unlike Henry VIII, King John got my interest right away. It’s more dynamic, the characters have a stronger presence. 

I note the parallels when King John and his mother Queen Elinor looks at Philip the Bastard, and when they and the French king look at Arthur:  

“ELINOR He hath a trick of Cordelion’s face; 

The accent of his tongue affecteth him:

Do you not read some tokens of my son

In the large composition of this man? 

KING JOHN Mine eye hath well examinèd his parts, 

And finds them perfect Richard…” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

Now see: 

“KING PHILIP […] Look here upon thy brother Geoffrey’s face: 

These eyes, these brows, were molded out of his; 

This little abstract doth contain that large

Which died in Geoffrey, and the hand of time

Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume…

[…]

CONSTANCE My bed was ever to thy son as true 

As thine was to thy husband, and this boy 

Like in feature to his father Geoffrey

Than thou and John in manners, being as like 

As rain to water, or devil to his dam…” 

(Act 2 scene 1)

Ah life before DNA. 

As a note: Philip the Bastard is in paper son of Sir Robert Falconbridge, but actually an illegitimate son of Richard Plantagenet, often called Cordelion; Arthur is son of Geoffrey Plantagenet and nephew of King John, and King Philip of France wages war against England because he says Arthur should be king. Constance is Arthur’s mother. 

Compared to Henry VIII, King John feels more Shakespearean—it’s packed with metaphors and metaphors. 

“KING JOHN […] And now, instead of bullets wrapped in fire, 

To make a shaking fever in your walls, 

They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke, 

To make a faithless error in your ears…” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

This makes me think of the theatre of war motif in War and Peace: 

“BASTARD By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,

And stand securely on their battlements

As in a theater, whence they gape and point

At your industrious scenes and acts of death…” 

(ibid.) 

The battle scene lasts rather long, then ends with a humiliating peace, which leads to a great rant from Philip the Bastard (note that the word “commodity” here means “interest”, “self-interest”, or “expediency”): 

“BASTARD […] that same purpose-changer, that sly devil, 

That broker that still breaks the pate of faith, 

That daily break-vow, he that wins of all, 

Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,

Who, having no external thing to lose 

But the word “maid”, cheats the poor maid of that, 

That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling commodity, 

Commodity, the bias of the world, 

The world, who of itself is peisèd well, 

Made to run even upon even ground, 

Till this advantage, this vile drawing bias, 

This sway of motion, this commodity, 

Makes it take head from all indifferency, 

From all direction, purpose, course, intent. 

And this same bias, this commodity, 

This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word, 

Clapped on the outward eye of fickle France, 

Hath drawn him from his own determined aid, 

From a resolved and honorable war, 

To a most base and vile-concluded peace…” 

(ibid.) 

I like the way Shakespeare gets hold of a word and clings to it, repeating it multiple times, as he expands on the concept.

In some later scenes, Philip the Bastard clings to the word “calfskin” and keeps taunting Austria with it.  

2/ I know it is not news but Shakespeare is so good at writing women. Constance is a vivid character, I love her reaction upon hearing the news that Lewis the Dauphin (son of King Philip) is to marry Blanch, King John’s niece—for the price of peace and a few territories, and at the cost of Constance and her son Arthur. In her first speech, she repeats the word “fears” 4 times. 

I also love her final speech in the scene: 

“CONSTANCE […] I will instruct my sorrows to be proud, 

For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop. 

To me and to the state of my great grief 

Let kings assemble, for my grief’s so great 

That no supporter but the huge firm earth 

Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit; 

Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.” 

(Act 2 scene 2)

I especially love the scene of Constance grieving (Act 3 scene 3). Magnificent scene. 

It’s quite hard to explain, but in King John (which is all Shakespeare), there is conflict and there is drama—I can’t say the same about Henry VIII (which is a collaboration), which lacks tension despite the intrigue and the downfall of 3 characters. 

Act 3 scene 1 of King John is a fantastic scene: Shakespeare builds up the drama as Constance is shouting at King Philip for joining with King John and betraying her and Arthur, then Pandulph comes in and excommunicates King John, forcing King Philip to choose between England and Rome. In the middle of that conflict between England and France, we have the new marriage between Lewis and Blanch, and Constance in the background is also dependent on King Philip’s decision. 

“BLANCH The sun’s o’ercast with blood: fair day, adieu! 

Which is the side that I must go withal? 

I am with both: each army hath a hand, 

And in their rage, I having hold of both, 

They whirl asunder and dismember me…”

(Act 3 scene 1)

Most interesting in the scene is that long speech from Pandulph, when King Philip talks about the vows between Lewis and Blanch, thus between himself and King John, and Pandulph tries to persuade him to turn against England: 

“PANDULPH […] What since thou swor’st is sworn against thyself 

And may not be performèd by thyself, 

For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss 

Is not amiss when it is truly done; 

And being not done, where doing tends to ill, 

The truth is then most done not doing it, 

The better act of purposes mistook 

Is to mistake again; though indirect, 

Yet indirection thereby grows direct, 

And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire cools fire

Within the scorchèd veins of one new burned.

It is religion that doth make vows kept, 

But thou hast sworn against religion 

(By what thou swear’st against the thing thou swear’st)

And mak’st an oath the surety for thy truth 

(Against an oath the truth): thou art unsure 

To swear—swears only not to be forsworn,

Else what a mockery should it be to swear! 

But thou dost swear only to be forsworn,

And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear; 

Therefore thy later vows against thy first

Is in thyself rebellion to thyself…” 

(ibid.) 

What is this doublespeak? Shakespeare has always been fond of this technique (“Lesser than Macbeth, and greater”, “Not so happy, yet much happier”), but I think in this speech he pushes it further than anywhere else. 

3/ I must save this line for the next heatwave:  

“BASTARD Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot 

Some airy devil hovers in the sky

And pours down mischief…” 

(Act 3 scene 2) 

The play is full of interesting things. 

“KING JOHN […] the fat ribs of peace

Must by the hungry now be fed upon!...” 

(ibid.) 

4/ As I was reading King John, I kept thinking: why was the play neglected? why did nobody talk about it? 

But at about Act 4, I understood. King John is a weak character, both in the sense that he gives way under pressure (he twice chooses an inglorious peace over fighting, and orders Hubert to kill Arthur but later blames him for his “abhorred aspect” and for following order without objection), and in the sense that he lacks the power to hold our interest and hold the play together (compared to Macbeth, Lear, Othello and Iago, Richard III, Hal and Falstaff, and so on).

He is, as Tony Tanner says, treacherous, but I don’t think he’s particularly cruel, bloodthirsty, or vindictive, but at the same time he also doesn’t struggle with doubt or conscience, except the brief moment when he realises that the killing of Arthur has made him unpopular among his subjects. He comes across as weak and ineffectual and rather pale. 

I still think there’s great drama in Act 3, and there are lots of good things in the play. 

The death scene of King John however has some good lines: 

“KING JOHN Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room,

It would not out at windows, nor at doors; 

There is so hot a summer in my bosom

That all my bowels crumble up to dust! 

I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen

Upon a parchment, and against this fire

Do I shrink up.” 

(Act 5 scene 7) 

I should probably steal these lines for when I have a fever. 

5/ The most interesting character in the play is Philip the Bastard. 

Tony Tanner says: 

“… we have a de facto king who turns out not to have the qualities to make a good ruler, and we have a de jure ‘king’ who would clearly prove hopeless and disastrous were he to be installed on the throne. This leaves the way clear for the appearance of a character who, though having neither ‘right’ nor ‘possession’, manifests the desirable, requisite kingly characteristics. And this, indeed, is one of the Bastard’s roles. He develops and holds onto a true concept of ‘honour’; he renews the proper meaning of ‘loyalty’ and ‘duty’ by remaining unflaggingly steadfast in his support of king and country; he doesn’t turn his coat or change his side, and he never ‘plays fast and loose with faith’ or, indeed, anything else.” (Introduction) 

In a play full of treachery (people “changing sides, yielding to shifting solicitations and pressures, breaking oaths as soon as they have made them, abandoning sworn loyalties as the wind changes”), Philip the Bastard is the main one who is loyal and honourable. But as Tony Tanner says, he’s not a type, a simple embodiment of patriotism. Philip the Bastard is clear-eyed about everyone including himself; he sees through it all “Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!”; he does right as he can, and his loyalty comes from honour and integrity, not blind conformity. 

Brilliant, complex character. And he is Shakespeare’s creation. 

If you read King John, you must also read Tony Tanner’s essay.