Page 89 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Shakespeare: Rebel with a cause?

Titus Taming Of King The
Andronicus The Shrew Lear Winter’s Tale
Synopsis: Written between 1588 and Synopsis: Written between 1590 Synopsis: The tragedy is set in the Synopsis: Suspicious that his
1593, the play is set in the latter days and 1592, the courtship of Petruchio court of an ageing monarch. He childhood friend is his pregnant wife’s
of the Roman Empire. Bloody in the is at the heart of the play. It shows his wants to pass the monarchy to his lover, Leontes accuses his wife of
extreme, the play explores the life attempts to tame the wild Katherina, three daughters and asks them to infidelity and having an illegitimate
of a fictional Roman general, Titus, a girl he loves but is rebuffed by until prove they love him the best but one child. Having ordered the newborn
caught in a vicious circle of revenge he manages to win her over. cannot so he splits it between two baby to be abandoned, he is later
with the queen of the Goths, Tamora. Rebel? Displaying evidence of the before falling into madness. reunited with her, much to his delight.
Rebel? Shakespeare appears ‘high-low’ opposition language Rebel? Lear’s actions caused a Rebel? With the play believed
to be pleading for calm among that Shakespeare used to refer to tumbling effect as various people to have been written in 1611, this
England’s dissidents, having written Catholics and Protestants, Katherina were banished, reunited, imprisoned was one of Shakespeare’s later
a play that highlights suffering and is “brown in hue.” Her sister is called and heartbroken. Asquith claims this plays and it appears to contain a
repression while arguing the case Bianca, meaning ‘white’ and she is is an “unvarnished dramatisation strong message: “After all the post-
against a violent rebellion. The the respectable one of the two. This of the state of James’ England, a reformation trauma, the spirituality
message, claims Asquith, is very paints Katherina to be like a reformer final attempt to awaken the King that was lost turns out to have been
much about biding time, waiting and in need of being brought into to the intolerable humiliations and secretly preserved”, says Asquith.
for help in the guise of a promised line. Asquith says the “oddly political sufferings of his Catholic subjects.” As with The Tempest, Pericles and
invasion and, as such, it mirrored language” used by the chastened She tells us the message within is Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale started
the rhetoric of Catholic leaders who shrew is “meant to alert us to the clear: “If you exile true Christian with suffering and ended with
stressed England would be saved play’s secondary level.” For those spirituality – and both puritans and happiness. It showed a transition
via diplomacy or invasion rather accustomed to finding deeper Catholics were exiled – the country that could put past remorse to bed,
than an internal uprising. “It is a meanings, the message would have descends into amoral anarchy.” highlighting the possibility that evils
gory portrayal of just the kind of been obvious, according to her. She She adds: “It is worth noticing can be defeated and overcome and
state atrocities conducted in the says: “The play shows England as a that though he discourages mob- that a true home can be found for
mid-1590s, and in the previous reign warring family, the monarch helpless led rebellion, he includes nine spiritualism if it is wanted. It would
as well. Yet it discourages equally to stop vengeful puritans baiting invasions in his work, and they are all have encouraged the audience to
bloody revenge”, says Asquith. afflicted Catholics.” portrayed as positive events.” keep the faith and not give up hope.

colleges, monasteries and hospitals to the rich greater support than Elizabeth, given that his mother
iconography of churches to local roadside shrines was a staunch Catholic. But that was not to be
and holy wells?” and Shakespeare must have been well aware of a
It can be argued that the Bard personified growing political and religious resentment against
England itself so that he could explore just why the monarchy, with a feeling of rebellion growing.
the ideas behind the Reformation had taken hold, His plays in this period became more cynical, which
presenting it as gullible and deluded, willing to some have speculated was a consequence of the
turn its back on spiritual heritage, with the play world he was living in.
Two Gentlemen Of Verona cited as evidence Matters came to a head with an explosive event
of this. The more elaborate plays retained in 1605. Five conspirators, Guy Fawkes, Thomas
the puns, wordplay and double meanings Wintour, Everard Digby and Thomas Percy hired
so beloved of audiences in Elizabethan a cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament for a
times, but Asquith notes that some of few weeks, spending time gathering gunpowder
Shakespeare’s characters came to be and storing it in their newly acquired space. Their
increasingly dramatic and allegorical; plan was to blow the building sky high, taking
they had a hidden spiritual parliamentarians and King James I with it. But their
meaning that transcended the cover was blown and Guy Fawkes was taken away
literal sense of the text. to be tortured into confession, the deadly rack being
When King James the instrument said to have broken him. He was
assumed the throne in sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
1603, Catholics had At around the same time, Shakespeare wrote
assumed that he King Lear, Othello and Macbeth, all plays warning A depiction of Macbeth from William Shakespeare’s
play of the same name
would lend them against unjust and persecuting rule, which many
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