Monday, March 7, 2011

A Similar Soliloquy

While reading (and reading to make sure I understood correctly) I found a familiarity in Richard's soliloquy in Act III similar to that of Shylock from The Merchant of Venice; both characters articulate the concept that they are no different than anyone else. While Shylock is trying to defend his equality, Richard comes to the realization that he, nor any king for that matter, is divine, that they are the same as all other humans. Beginning on 3.2.140, King Richard states:

No matter where. Of comfort no man can speak. Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs, Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors and talk of wills - And yet not so, for what can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's; and nothing can we call our own but death, and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings - How some have been deposed, some slain in war, some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed, all murdered. For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps death his court; and there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a breath, a little scene, to monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit, as if this flesh which walls about our life were brass impregnable; and humoured thus, comes at the last, and with a little pin bores through his castle wall; and farewell, king. Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence. Throw away respect, tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, for you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread, like you; fell want, taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus, how can you say to me I am a king?

Although Shylock is pleading for acceptance and Richard is being knocked down a peg, they both focus on the points that they have the same needs to their superiors/inferiors. I think this is a true example of Shakespeare's ability to grasp readers or the audience into the play, by displaying the vulnerability and humanity of the characters.

3 comments:

Gianna said...

I am so in love with this speech. I think like shylock this speech makes a human character out of an otherwise straight up villain. Also I think the reason why shakespeare is so great is because of how he can put into elegant words like these the inevitability of death.

AlissaKraft said...

I really enjoy reading this speech because it addresses the fact that no matter how superior or inferior a person thinks that they are we are all the same in the end. Richard realizes that he is no longer superior to those "commoners" the he so willingly mocked in the beginning. This speech doesn't just show the humanity in Shakespeare's plays but it shows the overwhelming irony that Shakespeare has throughout all of his plays.

Zan Strumfeld said...

Wow. This is a really interesting connection. It's nice to see thematic elements intertwined between a number of his plays. I agree that I find similar traits, moreso with this speech, between Shylock and Richard II. They do both ask for acceptance or at least prove that they are human. I wonder how many other plays Shakespeare uses this idea in.