"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell"
-St. Matthew 5:30
The assignment this week was to share Shakespeare in person and online, which I tried my best to do. The in-person experience was fairly interesting because I did it-wait for it, group-during my home teaching visit. I couldn't really run through the whole plot of my assigned play, and I also had to have a spiritual element to the message. So I ended up talking about the relationship between Falstaff and Hal.
Falstaff is the devil's advocate of this play. He's around to eat, drink, and be merry, and provide humor for everyone. But he doesn't do anything other than that. Hal, meanwhile, is going to become Henry V in a few short years, and while he is enjoying running around with Falstaff and his other friends, he has a royal destiny and has to accomplish it.
So I told the girls that I visit that they needed to be like Henry V and cast off anything that might be holding them back from their royal destinies as God's children. God has a plan for us, and wants us to accomplish it, but there are a lot of things in this world that can distract us and keep us from living up to our potential. So we need to do our best to minimize those influences in our lives, just like Henry V began to leave behind his old life to embrace his true character. (I did not, however, tell them about the part where Henry kills some people close to the end. I felt like it would defeat the purpose of the visit. Just a little).
As for sharing online, I did two things. I posted a comment on the blog by the all-female company I mentioned last week who put on a production of Henry IV, part 1, hoping to initiate a conversation and find out about their perspectives. However, this did not happen and I found out that my comment was apparently deleted (Who knows?) Fortunately for my Internet presence, I also posted a Goodreads review of my play. Here's the link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13020.King_Henry_IV_Part_1
I'm hoping to get some comments soon. Thanks for reading!
Showing posts with label Falstaff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Falstaff. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Just Can't Wait To Be King
My assigned play is Henry IV, part 1. I had to admit, when I saw it on the assignment list, my first reaction was "What? I've never read that play in my life!" I'm going to assume that I was assigned a history play because I'm a history major (Just a guess), although truth be told, I was hoping for Henry V if I was going to get a history-come on, the St. Crispin's Day speech is awesome, and Agincourt was a legendary battle both in Shakespeare and in real life-but I think I like this play too. It'll be very interesting to learn the facts behind the events narrated in Henry IV, part 1.
I've been looking around that font of all knowledge, the Internet, for information on my topic, and I think I want to examine the characters of Hotspur (Henry Percy) and Hal (the future Henry V), the main antagonist and protagonist respectively. This interests me as a historian because these were the two historical characters who were fictionalized the most in the play. Hotspur, in real life, was an older noble, a contemporary of Henry IV who led the rebellion, rather than a hothead youth who is pressured into fighting Henry by his noble relatives. Hal, the Prince of Wales, is a semi-serious youth who runs around with a group of lowlife friends, most notably a fat old man named Falstaff. He apparently has other motives for doing this, though, as he wants to "imitate the sun, who doth permit the base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at" (1.1.300-05). In other words, he's using his friends to look bad so he can look better as king. Shakespeare deliberately altered the identities of these two historical characters when he didn't have to. I want to know why that is.
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| Falstaff and Hal-Friends don't let friends use them to become King of England. |
Here are some links to look up summaries and background on Henry IV, part 1 in case you're interested. (I won't be upset if you aren't).
General Information/Summaries/Analysis:
Battle of Shrewsbury/Rebel Motives/Historical Analysis:
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