Juggling things

It seems that the last few days have been occupied with all things PhD, and then before that I was rather unwell, so amongst this my MA dissertation has taken rather a back seat. My doctorate is going to be a study of taverns in Renaissance drama (more on that another time), and it's something I get really excited about, but it is my dissertation - entitled 'Rewriting the city in the history play' - that needs some attention at the moment! I do feel excited about this topic, but not quite in the same way, and I chose it as more of a stepping stone to later research rather than as a piece of work of its own end.

But any time I feel my attention wonder, I remind myself that I get to read Shakespeare's history plays over and again, and immerse myself in London of the 1590s, trying to discover connections the playwright made to his own time through the reflection of history. It's totally fascinating -of course Shakesp. was writing history, and using historical chronicles like Holinshed's as source material, but he did it in such a way that engaged with what was happening right outside the theatre.

When Falstaff moans “Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking” in Henry IV pt 2 (II.i.113) we hear an early Fifteenth Century souse's reaction to the late Sixteenth Century introduction of glass drinking-vessels instead of metal ones. It's a moment where the audience is suddenly rooted in a real tavern, where a community of drinkers rolls their eyes at the resident character complaining about the introduction of new tankards.

And yet this refraction of contemporary (to Shakespeare) life through an historical lens is more profound than that. I think it plays a crucial part in the social and urban politics of the plays. The scene that made me really think about what he was doing with his sources, how he was moving things around and why, is -again- from Henry IV pt 2. We see Mistress Quickly and Doll, with their hysterical words to the Beadle, defending the Tavern from an incursion by the civic authority:
DOLL: Come, you rogue, come, bring me to a justice.
HOSTESS: Ay, come, you starved bloodhound.
DOLL: Goodman death, goodman bones!
HOSTESS: Thou atomy, thou!
DOLL: Come you thin thing, come, you rascal!
FIRST BEADLE: Very well. (V.iv.22-7)
The Beadle’s short response seems to confirm their readings of what he represents in the scene, a figure of walking death. Is Shakespeare reflecting some view that the 'pure' urbanity of the Tavern - of 1590s place of leisure - should not be regulated by the increasingly powerful City of London, or indeed any civic authority? Hal’s invitation to the Lord Chief Justice only two scenes earlier will be ringing in our ears. The Justice is no two dimensional emblem of Morality (as E.M. Tillyard would have us believe) but a figure of civic order, and supported by the King: London and the Court come together in one man’s authority. His inclusion by Hal – and the incursion by the Beadle into the once unbreachable Boar’s Head – suggests the need for balance between instability and order both in the Tavern and City, but also a resistance to it, using the attractiveness of Falstaff's company as an example of 'the time before'. Once Hal has offered his hand in friendship, he emphasises the need for ceremony in the practice of this new civic order:
Our coronation done, we will accite,
As I before remembered, all our state (2HIV V.iii.140-1)
Hal’s decision to put ceremony before state affairs does not reduce it to procedure, but rather elevates it in the way exemplified by Stow in his Survey of London when he writes about the “triumphant shows made by the citizens of London”.

Gah, I'm such a nerd! I love these plays, I love writing about them and I love even more the feeling that one can 'get' just a bit of what Shakespeare is doing. Having said that, my mind is hardly ever full, or even half full of attempting-to-be-intellectual thoughts, Heaven forbid! Mostly I just about tread water amongst the daily stuff that one has to manage: today I was de-lousing the hen house (YUK), picking H up from school (with 3 bags of dirty washing from school camping trip), trying to find an outfit for a wedding tomorrow (yes I know, always last minute), burying ancient hen (with flowers & prayer) who had succumbed to the lice, feeling guilty about the lice, and a thousand other things.

And now off to cook supper for the boys ---