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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
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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 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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67 Nuttall, Shakespeare, 151.

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

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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.