This month I read one Jacobean play, one Elizabethan play, one urban fantasy and a children’s story from the early 20th century. I also have a podcast to recommend today.
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is the first Elizabethan / Jacobean play I have read that is not Shakespeare. I read it as a context for Shakespeare but now I think it’s definitely strong enough to stand under the spotlight on its own two feet. John Webster was born about 15 years after Shakespeare. The Duchess of Malfi was written and performed around 1613. Shakespeare’s last three plays: The Tempest, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen were written about the same time.
The Duchess of Malfi is usually described as a revenge tragedy. There are a few interesting things to notice. It’s a tragedy because almost everybody dies by the end. There’s a bit in ‘Shakespeare in Love’, when someone asked John Webster which was his favourite Shakespeare play. He said, ‘Titus Andronicus’. I don’t know if it’s historically true. But I can see the director or screenwriter winking at me.
The Duchess is the main character but the revenge bit is actually not about her. The revenge is carried out by another key character called Bosola. Bosola is a complicated character who’s worth studying. He is a murderer who turns into an avenger after a change of heart halfway through the play. The Duchess is a strong character, but her love and hate is straightforward. In contrast, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster emotionally and morally for Bosola. It’ll be an interesting study to think about the reasons he becomes a murderer in the first place, the reasons he changes his mind, the reasons for his revenge and in the end, the price he pays.
Richard II
I started the year with Twelfth Night and this is my second Shakespeare’s play. Richard II is probably the first play that I watched performed on stage before I read a word on the page. I watched ‘The Hollow Crown’ tv series with Ben Whishaw playing Richard II. It’s really hard to separate the image of Richard II from Ben Whishaw because he did such an impressive job.
Richard II is about the downfall of the king. It goes downhill so fast – the high point of his career as a king happens in Act 1. And it goes lower and lower until his grave.
The language is beautiful, especially Act 4 Scene 1. I feel like everything is just building up to Act 4 Scene 1. I was impatient to get there. His speeches when he gives his crown away are breathtaking. He might have lost his crown but he does not lose to anyone in speaking. Everyone including Henry Bullingbroke is almost speechless in that scene. He really should have been a poet.
The Rest is History
I tried to learn a bit more about the historical Richard II before I read the play and I ended up listening to a podcast called The Rest is History. It’s not a new podcast – they started in November 2020 and it’s not a small podcast either – it’s the highest-ranked UK history podcast on Spotify and Apple, and it’s in the top ten in the US too.
So for Richard II, they have a four-part series on that bit of the history, part one and two is on the Peasants’ Revolt which happened when Richard II was the King aged 14, then Richard II himself, and very interestingly, the series concludes with Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales.
Then I went down the rabbit hole and looked through their entire 400-plus episode backlog. So far I have listened to episodes on Hogwarts and the history of public school in England, Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, the trials of Oscar Wilde, Hitler and the Mitford Sisters, Cleopatra and all sorts of interesting topics that are related to literature but discussed from a history point of view.
It’s hosted by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. I haven’t studied them but my impression is, Tom Holland is a historian on really old stuff, like ancient Rome, Mediaeval Europe and Britain. Dominic Sandbrook is more of an expert on modern British history. He wrote a series of chunky books on Britain in the 60s and 70s. I have White Heat on Britain in the 60s. I didn’t realise the host of the podcast was the author of this book. I bought this ages ago and really enjoyed reading it. But it’s so big I lost steam so didn’t finish it. If you love history and knowledgeable, intelligent and often funny discussions, I highly recommend this podcast.
Rivers of London 6: The Hanging Tree
I talked about ‘Rivers of London’ so much last year that I feel like I don’t need to introduce it anymore. Just briefly, ‘Rivers of London’ is an urban fantasy series about police constable wizard apprentice Peter Grant, from a department of London Metropolitan Police that deals with unusual and supernatural crimes, called the Folly, in Russel Square. The storyline is about solving mysteries and catching baddies. The Hanging Tree is the sixth novel in the series. It starts with a group of teenagers who broke undetected into a high security super posh apartment for a wild party, and one of them dropped dead after a drug overdose. But it turned out she wasn’t killed by a drug overdose but by a magic overdose. So in this world, anyone can perform magic if you read some books or if someone teaches you, but if you’re not trained properly and end up using magic wrongly, it can turn your brain into cauliflower and kill you.
Before I tell you one thing I love about it, here’s a complaint. I really struggle with the number of characters and how fast the plot moves. I can’t keep up. You also need to remember the characters from previous books in the series. It’s one of those you have to read from the beginning. I need a Wikipedia page explaining their relationships and previous involvement in the cases please.
But the characters are superb in each scene. I talked a lot about what I love about these stories. For this one, I love how the author makes use of real historical figures as well as makes up fictional ones, and he mixes them up so to give credit to the story. Some of these guys’ back stories and some of the cases that they investigate go way back in history. Therefore you get this sense that these characters must exist in real life just like those historical figures did, and if I go to London and weird stuff happens, Peter Grant might turn up to the scene. I love it.
For example, one of the fictional characters had photos taken by David Bailey in 1964. David Bailey you might know, was one of the most famous fashion photographers in London during the Swinging 60s. Another guy called Jonathan Wild is mentioned as part of a case. Jonathan Wild, says on his own Wikipedia page, who lived from
“1682/83 to 1725, was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited ‘Thief-Taker General’. He simultaneously ran a significant criminal empire, and used his crimefighting role to remove rivals and launder the proceeds of his own crimes.”
The Wind in the Willow
It’s an adventure story of four animals, the Mole, the Rat, the Badger and the Toad. It starts with the Mole, after abandoning his spring cleaning to chase after the call of spring, he met the Water Rat. They went on a pleasant little boating trip, where the Badger and the Toad made a quick appearance. The Toad had this habit of getting over-enthusiastic about one mode of transport and then getting over it shortly in pursuit of the next trendy thing. But when he set his heart on motor cars this time, he got himself into deep deep trouble. I love the writing, especially the author’s way of describing actions, or a scene. I’ve been reading through them and highlighting all the sentences I love.
What have you been reading?
A Day of Small Things 