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... 29 Huberts Encounters with the Succession in Shakespeares King John Marcia Eppich-Harris, Marian University I n the 2016 novel Gunpowder Percy, author and Shakespeare scholar Grace Tiffany imagines the history-making death scene of Elizabeth I in which James VI of Scotland is declared to be the successor to the English throne. In the scene, Elizabeth is unable to speak as she lies in bed. Robert Cecil, the Queen's chief advisor, kneels close to the Queen's bedside, telling her that he would list names of possible candidates to succeed her. She did not need to speak, he tells her, but only to touch her forehead when he comes to the person on the list that she would like to choose. Cecil names Isabella, Archduchess of Flanders; the Duke of Parma; Henry of France; and then finally James Stuart, King of Scotland. Slowly, the Queen's hand comes to rest on her forehead when James is named. The other members of the Privy Council show a mixed reaction, one flying off to curry favor with James, others moving forward to lean over the dying queen, but all accept the Queens decision. Yet in Tiffany's version, the Queen, herself, never moves instead, while kneeling by Elizabeth, Cecil places his own hand under Elizabeth's mattress to move the Queens arm when he comes to James. It works. In fooling his powerful colleagues, Cecil, not the Queen, assures that James will be the next monarch of the realm (86-9). Tiffanys story is a fictionalization of Elizabeths death scene, but it uses elements of the oft-cited account reported in Robert Cary, Early of Monmouths, Memoirs, in which Elizabeth was said to have touched her forehead to indicate James should succeed her.1 Robert Cecils influence in the latter part of Elizabeths reign is also well-documented, as is his father's influence earlier in Elizabeths reign. Robert Cecil corresponded with James for two years before Elizabeth died, both directly and through intermediaries, and this correspondence is believed to have had a direct impact upon Jamess accession.2 Tiffanys scene takes Cecils influence a step further, supporting the idea that, at least in imaginative literature, See Memoirs of Robert Cary, Earl of Monmouth, Edited by G.H. Powell. See Alexander Courtneys The Scottish King and the English Court: The Secret Correspondence of James IV, 1601-3. 1 2 29 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 one person can make the difference in the succession of a monarch. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Shakespeare uses a historical figure, Hubert de Burgh, as a character who makes a difference in monarchical succession. In King John, Hubert is put into a position to impact the succession of England twice: first, at Angiers after King Philips appeal for the elective voice of one citizen, and second, in the prison scene with Arthur. Unlike Tiffanys Cecil, Huberts influence is not quite so direct, but I do think it is intentional and deserves scholarly attention. In several of Shakespeares early-career plays, he spills a great deal of ink contemplating the idea of monarchy and questions of succession, legitimacy, and rivalries, which many scholars claim shows Shakespeare's interest in and deliberation about the future of the British monarchy in the latter part of the 16th century. In the Wars of the Roses plays, Warwick throws his support alternately behind the Yorks and the Lancasters, earning the nickname, King maker. In Titus Andronicus, Titus elects Saturninus to be Emperor when his brother, Bassianus, openly campaigns against him. In Richard II, York's decision to declare himself neutral all but hands the throne to Bolingbroke. All these individuals make a strong impact on not only the events in the plays, but also the idea that individuals can make choices that have an impact on the succession. In King John scholarship, however, the role of Hubert has been neglected in this train of individuals who, even implicitly, hand power to Kings. Perhaps one reason for Huberts failure to be dubbed a King maker is because of the dispute over whether or not the roles of the Citizen of Angiers and Hubert are one and the same. In 1936, J.D. Wilson argued that these characters Citizen and Hubert were meant to be combined.3 Theatrical productions, like the Stratford Festival of Canadas 2014 King John, often combine the characters Citizen and Hubert, and the Folger archives document the combination in King John as far back as 1857.4 A scholarly debate sprang out of Wilsons claims, and for several decades, the question of whether Hubert and the Citizen are one and the See J.D. Wilson, King John. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1936, xlv-xlvii. Cast listings for more than a decade worth of performances documented on Internet Shakespeare Editions do not list a separate Citizen in the dramatis personae. But even more compelling than this omission is the fact that precedent for doubling Hubert as the Citizen can also be found in the Folger's archive of Promptbooks for King John in PROMPT John 1, starring J.B. Booth as John, from the year 1857. In this rehearsal copy, the speech prefix "Cit." is crossed out, and "H," for Hubert, is written in the margin. 3 4 30 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN same character was one of the principle preoccupations in King John studies. Such scholars as E.A.J. Honigmann (1954), William Matchett (1966), and R.L. Smallwood (1974) argued for combining the characters and did so in their editions of the play.5 Then, in the opposing camp, A.R. Braunmuller (1986, 1989) argued that combining the Citizen and Hubert cannot be justified, regardless of potential errors in the Folio text. 6 Yet, the debate has never been unequivocally resolved. I rehearse the 81-year-old discussion here only to make the point that in current King John scholarship, writers mostly decide for themselves whether Hubert is or is not the Citizen and usually make a simple footnote out of the controversy. This King John, as-you-like-it attitude subtly undermines the power that a combined-character Hubert can wield in the play. Like Tiffany's version of Robert Cecil, Shakespeare's Hubert (if combined with the Citizen of Angiers) has a misunderstood impact on the succession controversy in the play. In current scholarship attention paid to specific characters falls mostly on the Bastard or John, who together make up about 36% of the plays lines, and who are certainly more colorful characters than Hubert. We should pay attention to Hubert, however, because he makes practical attempts to resolve the royal claim dispute in terms beneficial to John, although at first glance, it may not always appear that John profits from Hubert's actions. Hubert's encounters with John and Arthur and the question of the succession mirror the political preoccupation with the English succession in the 1580s-1590s, as Elizabeths lack of heir continued to ramp up anxiety in the nation. In 1596, around the time that John was written, Robert Parson's book, A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of England, discusses the Elizabethan succession crisis and the prospects of elective monarchy, arguing that no King could be legitimate without the consent of the people: ...except the Admission of the Common-wealth be joyned to Succession, it [succession] is not sufficient to make a lawful King.7 The implication is that no King can be fully legitimate if the Kings subjects, common and noble alike, do not recognize him as such, or, as in the case of Richard II, revoke that I will be using E.A.J. Honigsmann, King John, Arden Series (1954; repr., London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007) for citations. 6 See A.R. Braunmuller "Who Is Hubert? Speech-headings in King John, Act II" 7 Robert Parsons, A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England. (original emphasis) 5 31 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 recognition through deposition. Many examples in the English monarchy alone, Parson argues, show that bloodline hereditary monarchy is a human, rather than divine, construct. In fact, some of the most successful Kings of England, he notes, were those who were not in the direct monarchical blood line. He mentions Henry IV as a good King, despite Bolingbrokes usurpation and the resulting rebellion and seditious attempts to remove the first two Lancastrian Kings from the throne. However, Parson states that the hereditary succession failed to produce a good heir in Henry VI. Other examples of bad Kings are outlined in the cases of Edward II and Richard II, both hereditary monarchs; whereas Henry VII, a conqueror with essentially no bloodline ties, was not only an effective King, but also was the founder of the great Tudor dynasty. Parson takes aim at the historic King John many times, calling his government evil and the King himself odious (Parsons 45). Yet, he goes on to say that the succession crisis between John and Arthur was an example of God's support of the people's right to election: And albeit this Arthur did seek to remedy the matter by War, yet it seemed that God did more defend this Election of the Commonwealth than the right Title of Arthur by Succession for that Arthur was overcome, and taken by King John (Parsons 155). The issue should not have been so easily solved with Arthur's death, Parson notes, because Arthur had two sisters who, by English law, should have succeeded before John. However, the will of the people, despite John's despicable character, was that he remain King and as Parson writes, ...of this [matter of the sisters] small account seemed to be made at that day (155). Robert Lane connects Parson's argument to Shakespeare's King John with the observation that in 2.1: Not only is the citizens' opinion as to the rightful prince treated as within their competence, at least initially it is portrayed as integral to the royal title (475). At 2.1.201 of King John, Hubert is warndto the walls8 to give his opinion, speaking for the town. When King Philip of France asks Hubert to determine who is the rightful King, Lane states, ... the consent of the public becomes the foundation for legitimate rule (478) Seeking this consent of the public surprises those familiar with Machiavellis claim that a princes power depends more on fear than love, The OED cites this line from King John in its use of warnd meaning to summons, but the connotation of warn, meaning, to be on ones guard, or beware, implies the threat within the summons. 8 32 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN and above all else, that he should avoid hatred (130-133). In King John, Shakespeare serves us a King poorly skilled in Machiavellian manipulation and creates a drama elucidating the inherent frustration of attempted republican consensus. Citizen Hubert has the task of responding to the summons of Frances King, but he does not resolve the issue here. Instead, Hubert plays out the power struggle with equivocating maneuvers. Huberts ambivalence illustrates Frank Barlows claim about the historical choice between John and Arthur in the late 12th-century that there could be no enthusiasm for either claimant, since [Arthur] was counted a foreigner by the Anglo-Norman baronage, while John was generally despised (305). Despite his reluctance to directly name the King of England, Hubert makes a shallow and temporary peace between the English and French with the proposal to marry Johns niece, Blanche, to Lewis, the Dolphin. This attempt at peace fundamentally benefits John in that Hubert implicitly acknowledges John as King. However, that title comes with a major price, as David Evett points out, the proposal to end the conflict will have rescued John from the uncertainties of war with France and extended (if not insured) his reign albeit at the cost of most of the English territory in France (48). Nonetheless, the marital resolution establishes John as Hubert's choice for King of England, and Arthur and his mother Constance are left out of the negotiations entirely. By eschewing Arthur and negotiating solely with the French and John, Hubert implies that there is no other rightful heir to the English throne. The proposed peace does not hold, however, as Pandulph's papal interference means that the French and English will fight again. Yet John retains the throne: the French are defeated, Arthur is captured, and almost instantly, Hubert becomes more intimately connected to the security of Johns throne, as John enlists Hubert's help to keep Arthur prisoner. Once Arthur is prisoner, the question of what must be done with him becomes John's newest problem. Many scholars point out that the imprisonment of Arthur mirrors the events of the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots.9 While David Womersley writes, Shakespeare seems less concerned to have his play read as an analysis of specific contemporary events than to feed off the topicality inherent in his subject and thereby See Lane, The Sequence of Posterity; David Womersley, The Politics of Shakespeares King John; and Lily Campbell, The Troublesome Reign of King John. 9 33 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 engender nothing more definite than an atmosphere of contemporary pertinence, (499) it may also be true that recusant and secret Catholics anxious for a sympathetic successor to the throne had the executed Mary in their thoughts when viewing the scene of Arthurs intended blinding. Peter Lake compares Arthur and Mary, saying that the case of Arthur and John was the precedent for Mary's barred claim both Arthur and Mary were foreign-born claimants who were rejected for their foreignness (Lake 184). That said, Lake also argues at the time no one had regarded Arthur as the heir apparent [...] King John had been acknowledged as the legitimate king, chosen by his brother, elected and acclaimed by his subjects and initially accepted even by the kings of Scotland and of France (185). Here, Lake makes Johns succession seem like a non-issue, compared to Shakespeare's version. Controversial or not, historically, Henry VIII used Johns succession, bequeathed by Richard I, as a guide for making his own succession line clear in his will and The Third Act of Succession (1543), creating a parallel between the Tudors and the Angevin Kings. The Third Succession Act (1543) re-established Mary Tudor and Elizabeths places in the succession after their half-brother Edward VI. Nonetheless, Edward attempted to bypass his half-sisters and selected Lady Jane Grey to succeed him (Cannon). Yet, Edwards council chose to ignore him, giving preference to Henry VIIIs wishes to pass the throne to Mary Tudor. At the end of Mary Is reign, she reluctantly acknowledged Elizabeth as her heir, having hoped both to produce an heir herself and to keep the country Catholic. Meanwhile, Catholic northerners belief that Mary Stuart was the legitimate heir to the English crown did not abate, and as with Arthur, plots were laid to place Mary on the throne through conspiracies against Elizabeth. Imprisoned by Elizabeth, Mary, like Arthur, had a single guardian in charge of her captivity, George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. She was kept prisoner for about twenty years, and may have been so indefinitely, yet her execution was demanded by the Privy Council and Parliament after the Babington Plot of 1586 to murder Elizabeth was discovered.10 In the case of Arthur, Coggeshalls Chronicle reports that Some of Johns counsellors [...] told the King that so long as Arthur remained unharmed in Falaise, John would not be safe, and that the only way to remove the danger would be to blind and emasculate the boy (qtd. Ellis 15).. 10 See G.R. Bathos The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. 34 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN In Shakespeares play, Johns desire to eliminate Arthur as a threat comes from John alone and is conveyed solely to Hubert. The only other potential conspirator would be Eleanor, who takes Arthur aside, while John enlists Huberts help. Yet, Arthurs demise is predicted both by Constance and by Pandulph, who induce Lewis to seek the throne of England for himself through his wifes lineage. In Act 3, scene 3, Pandulph stirs Lewiss ambition to seek the crown of England, citing Arthur's assumed fate: when [John] shall hear of your approach, / If that young Arthur be not gone already, / Even at that news he dies (3.3.1624). Clearly, no one trusts John to keep Arthur alive not Constance, not Pandulph, not even the nobles, who, after John's second coronation, beg for the enfranchisement of Arthur even though they suspect he's already dead. What is so surprising, in fact, is that Hubert, as Johns proxy, does not kill Arthur, despite popular belief that he will, not to mention the echoes of Mary Stuarts execution for early modern Catholics. If we are the take Hubert at his word, even the audience is convinced that he will act in accordance with John's desire to neutralize Arthur as a threat. Unlike in Richard III, when Buckingham hesitates at the Kings order to execute his nearest rivals the princes in the tower Hubert, in Act 3, responds almost immediately that he will enact Johns will. John says, Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye / On yon young boy; I'll tell thee what, my friend, / He is a very serpent in my way (3.2.69-71). Hubert asserts that he will keep Arthur close so that he shall not offend your majesty (3.2.75). But Hubert's reassurance is insufficient for John. His single-word response Death (3.2.76) signals a confirmation of the seriousness of Hubert's role in the succession crisis. Hubert responds, My lord? (3.2.76) and John says, A grave (3.2.76). Johns clipped commands leave no room for interpretation, and caught in the discomfort of a direct order from the King he has implicitly supported, Hubert replies, He (Arthur) shall not live" (3.2.76). John delights at Huberts response, proclaiming, I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee (3.2.77). Later, in Act 4, scene 1, Hubert is to put out Arthur's eyes with hot irons a slightly different plan from John's desire to put Arthur in the grave, but one that would make it impossible for Arthur to be King. Yet, Hubert cannot bring himself to do it. He can no more burn out Arthur's eyes than he can kill him. Hubert isn't that sort of character hes an equivocator, not a murderer and try as he might, he 35 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 cannot escape Arthurs innocent prate (4.1.25) nor his argument against Huberts intentions. Hubert realizes that he must be sudden and dispatch, (4.1.27) but before he can act, Hubert admits in an aside, His words do take possession of my bosom (4.1.32), igniting Huberts conscience against the foul act. He shows Arthur the written order to burn out his eyes, but even with this act, it starts to become clear that Hubert cannot follow through. Similarly, though in captivity, Mary Stuart enjoyed the compassion of her prison guard, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. According to Anka Muhlstein, Talbot was loath to be strict with a woman who might some day be his queen. [...] To the Council, therefore, Shrewsbury too often seemed to be championing the Scottish queen's interests, and he was regularly criticized on that account (246). Mary was kept alive so long because Elizabeth did not want to set a precedent for executing monarchs. In a speech to Parliament, Elizabeth stated, I am not so void of judgment as not to see mine own peril; nor yet so ignorant as not to know it were in nature a foolish course to cherish a sword to cut mine own throat; not so careless as not to weigh that my life daily is in hazard (qtd. Muhlstein 268). Only Marys letter to Anthony Babington, approving of Elizabeths murder and her own ascension to the throne, could move Elizabeth to finally relent to the long-anticipated execution, but even after Mary was convicted, Elizabeth was still reluctant to sign the death warrant (Muhlstein 268). Mulhstein states that Elizabeth attributed her reluctance to concern for her reputation. What will they not now say when it shall be spread that, for the safety of her life, a maiden queen could be content to spill the blood even of her own kinswoman? (268). It took three months of Elizabeths deliberation before she finally signed Marys death warrant on February 1, 1587, under pressure from both Parliament and her subjects. On February 8, Mary was executed. Muhlstein reports that Elizabeth collapsed in hysterics. She had always intended to review her fatal decision, she sobbed. She wept unceasingly, would not eat, lay awake all night and refused to see her ministers for several days. It was her way of demonstrating her absolute refusal to take responsibility for having beheaded her dear sister (277-8). In the case of King John, Huberts leniency with Arthur is comparable to Talbots with Mary, and his reluctance to sternly confine 36 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN her. Hubert's emotions plague him, as well, and his fondness for Arthur makes him unable to perform his grisly duty. Huberts reluctance also mirrors Elizabeth's doubts and her notorious indecisiveness. With his intended victim weeping before his eyes, Hubert says in an aside that Arthur's tears [turn] dispiteous torture out of door! (4.1.34). He tries to rally himself to the task, (aside) I must be brief, lest resolution drop / Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears (4.1.35-6). Hubert asserts that he will do what John commands, as if saying it aloud can bolster him to the task. But when Arthur asks, Have you the heart? (4.1.41), that question, and Hubert's eventual, unspoken answer no, he does not is the crux of this scene. Few henchmen display the brazen lack of conscience that, for instance, the murderer of Macduffs family does in Macbeth. In Richard III, even hardened characters like James Tyrrel and his subordinates, Dighton and Forrest, discover they have consciences after coordinating the killing of the little princes in Richard III.11 Hubert, being more humane, finds his conscience acting upon him before he is to assault Arthur. Hubert attempts to relieve himself of sole responsibility by calling forth the executioners, but Arthur knows his best chance to save his life is to appeal to Hubert's pity alone. He asks not to be bound and promises he will sit as quiet as a lamb; / I will not sit, nor winch, nor speak a word (4.1.79-80). Hubert dismisses the co-conspirators and Tyrrel's description in Act 4, scene 3, shows both his regret, and the killers: The tyrannous and bloody deed is done The most arch of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of. Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn To do this ruthless piece of butchery, Although they were fleshed villains, bloody dogs, Melted with tenderness and mild compassion Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story. 'O thus,' quoth Dighton, 'lay those tender babes'; 'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, 'girdling one another Within their alabaster innocent arms: Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other. A book of prayers on their pillow lay; 'Which once', quoth Forrest, 'almost changed my mind. But O, the devil' there the villain stopped, When Dighton thus told on, 'We smotherd The most replenishd sweet work of nature, That from the prime creation e'er she framed.' Hence both are gone, with conscience and remorse. They could not speak, and so I left them both, To bring this tidings to the bloody king. (4.3.1-22) Richard III, The Norton Shakespeare, 2nd Edition (New York: Norton, 2008), 603-4. 11 37 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 naturally, Arthur breaks his promise almost immediately, continuing to sue for his life. While Arthur is not successful at winning the crown at the wall of Angiers with the support of a King, he has no problem wearing down Hubert when he's speaking for himself and the object is his life. In this private encounter with Arthur, Hubert makes another implicit choice between John and his young rival. What's interesting, though, is that in choosing to spare Arthur's life, and his eyes, Hubert actually supports John once again, although it may not seem so at first glance. However, Coggeshall's Chronicle tells us that in sparing Arthur's life, Hubert is actually looking out for John: But Hubert, the King's chamberlain, wishing to preserve the honour and reputation of the King, and anticipating the royal forgiveness, preserved the young prince unharmed, thinking that the lord King would forthwith repent of having issued such an order and would always afterwards hate the man who had dared to comply with so savage a command. For he [Hubert] believed that the order had been given more out of sudden rage than from considerations of equity and justice. (qtd. Ellis 15-6) In the play, Hubert does not outwardly anticipate this forgiveness until the next scene in which he reports the sight of five moons and that the people are stirred up with rumors of Arthur's death: Old men and beldams in the streets Do prophesy upon it dangerously: Young Arthurs death is common in their mouths: And when they talk of him, they shake their heads And whisper one another in the ear; And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist, Whilst he that hears makes fearful action, With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes. (4.2.185-92) When Hubert tells John of the unnatural moon imagery and the people talking about Arthur in the streets, it works John into a frenzy and starts to work upon him in such a way that fear begins to form in his heart: Why seekst thou to possess me with these fears? Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death? Thy hand hath murdred him: I had a mighty cause To wish him dead, but thou had none to kill him. (4.2.203-6) 38 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN Through Huberts conjuration of unnatural imagery and behavior in the streets, he guides John toward facing his conscience and encourages the formation of regret. Johns fear of the people, including the barons, and their response to Arthurs death, combines with Huberts rhetoric to complete Johns distress. The fear John shows illustrates the concept that the people must continually affirm the monarch if he is to remain in power. Should John believe that his absolute monarchy would deter the people from seizing his power, like Macbeth, he might feel that he lived a charmed life and could not be touched. However, Johns panic shows that the people certainly do have power, and that power is symbolically illustrated by Hubert in the play. John becomes hysterical when Hubert reports that Arthur is dead, although at the time, Arthur still lives. His reaction mirrors Elizabeth's after the execution of Mary. John blames Hubert for Arthurs death, just as Elizabeth blamed her Council for Marys execution. John deflects responsibility, by accusing Hubert of being an inferior servant: It is the curse of kings to be attended By slaves that take their humours for a warrant To break within the bloody house of life, And on the winking of authority To understand a law, to know the meaning Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns More upon humour than advisd respect. (4.2.208-14) Shakespeare uses the effect of Coggeshalls observation, that John would regret ordering Hubert to murder Arthur, to great effect in this speech. Yet John mischaracterizes his command as closer to his father, Henry IIs famous line, Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? rather than what it is a direct order. After John's censorious rebuke, having teased out the reaction that he was looking for, Hubert admits that Arthur is actually still alive, and states that, Within this bosom never ent'red yet / The dreadful motion of a murderous thought (4.2.254-5). Hubert's assurance that he actually reprieved Arthur, as Coggeshall predicts, leads to Johns relief that Arthur is still alive. Without anticipating forgiveness, as Coggeshalls Chronicle claims, Hubert would not have risked confessing that Arthur still lived. And John does ask his forgiveness: Forgive the comment that my passion made Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind, 39 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 And foul imaginary eyes of blood Presented thee more hideous than thou art. (4.2.263-6) He asks Hubert not to answer, but to make haste to the angry lords and reveal that Arthur is alive. Yet in the next scene, Arthur ends the succession question once and for all, jumping off the castle walls, in an apparent escape attempt.12 The barons find Arthur and immediately blame John and Hubert. Hubert enters expecting to share good news, that Arthur lives, but is instead confronted with his corpse. Huberts role greatly diminishes once the succession controversy is ended with Arthurs death. Huberts diminished role verifies that Shakespeare developed his character around resolving the claim dispute between John and Arthur. Once that dispute is settled, Hubert has little else to do in the play. We see Hubert only in two other scenes after he carries Arthurs body off stage first, briefly when Johns forces are battling Lewis, and then again when Hubert reports to the Bastard that John has been poisoned by a monk. Hubert is not at Johns side when he dies, just as he is not at Arthur's side when he attempts to escape and perishes. Hubert says he will weep for Arthur, but for John, there is no mention of weeping. Hubert says his news is Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible, but compared to Huberts weeping when he must burn out Arthurs eyes and when he learns of Arthurs death, there is a notable lack of tears with John. At the end of the play, as Prince Henry ascends the throne without any disputes, Hubert is nowhere to be found, despite the fact that Hubert de Burgh, the real-life namesake of the character, becomes one of the most powerful men in England during the reign of Henry III (Ellis 170-182). However, the function that Shakespeare gives According to Ellis, it's more likely that the historical John quietly had Arthur murdered some time later. See Ellis, Hubert de Burgh, 16. Internet Shakespeare Editions also discusses Arthur's death: The exact circumstances of Arthur's death are still unknown. He was certainly kept prisoner at Falaise under Hubert de Burgh, but how he died is uncertain. Many theories of his death were documented, most of which claimed that John either murdered his nephew himself or ordered him to be killed. Ralph of Coggeshall supplied the story taken up by Shakespeare that Hubert de Burgh was ordered to blind and castrate Arthur, but instead chose to announce that he was dead. An equally colorful story was described in a poem by William the Breton, who claimed that John ran his nephew through with a sword during a solitary boat ride on the Seine. Perhaps the most convincing story is recorded in the annals of the Cistercian Abbey of Margam. This detailed account claims that John had kept Arthur in the castle of Rouen and murdered him in a drunken rage one evening, tying a heavy stone to his body and throwing it into the Seine. See Historical Notes on King John, http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Jn_HistoricalNotes/section/Prince%20Arthur/#tln-30 12 40 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN Hubert in King John, his role as judge between the two potential Kings, is finally, unequivocally, over. While Arthurs death results in the end of the succession dispute, Huberts participation in the crisis shows Shakespeares musings on the power of a single individuals influence on monarchical politics and how encounters with power can reveal sources of influence that might otherwise be ignored. Despite his equivocation, Hubert is forced to make choices that shape the outcomes of the play, even in subtle ways. King John shows up late in Grace Tiffanys novel, Gunpowder Percy, too. The main character, Thomas Percy, goes to the Globe Theatre regularly to watch Shakespeare's plays, and he is especially fond of the histories. On one such day, just as he and his co-conspirators have laid the foundation for the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate Members of Parliament, King James, and his entire family, Thomas watches King John. Tiffany makes particular note of Thomas's reaction to Hubert and Arthur's prison scene, because Thomas would like to save two-year-old Prince Charles from the attack on his father in order to raise Charles in the Catholic faith and install him as their new King. Regarding the scene in which Hubert nearly harms Arthur, Tiffany writes, Thomas saw all this, rapt on the bench in Southwark. [...] He thought long on what the play meant about present-day England, as though it were not a history play but an allegory (Tiffany 191). It may very well be that Shakespeares history plays were allegories of their time. While the succession crisis of Elizabeths reign would not be resolved for several years, Shakespeare shows with King John that the actions of one person, and the affirmation of the subjects, do make a difference in terms of succession. Like Parson's Conference suggests, the succession crisis of Elizabeth's age felt democratic underpinnings, and as Shakespeare mulls the succession in his histories, the voices of the people symbolically become more than just a whisper. Works Cited Barlow, Frank. The Feudal Kingdom of England: 1042-1216. Routledge, 1999. 41 SELECTED PAPERS of the OVSC Vol. IX, 2016 Batho, G. R. The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 39, 127, part 1, 1960, pp. 35-42. Braunmuller, A. R. Shakespeare's Speech Headings: Speaking the Speech in Shakespeare's Plays. Clarendon Press, 1989. Campbell, Lily. The Troublesome Reign of King John. Shakespeare's Histories: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy, Routledge, 1947, pp. 126-167. Cannon, John. Succession, Acts of, 1534, 1536, 1543. A Dictionary of British History, Oxford University Press, 2015. http://www.oxfordreference.com.forward.marian.edu/view/10.10 93/acref/9780199550371.001.0001/acref-9780199550371-e-3305 Courtney, Alexander. The Scottish King and the English Court: The Secret Correspondence of James IV, 1601-3. Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England, edited by Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes, Manchester University Press, 2014, pp. 134-151. Ellis, Clarence. Hubert de Burgh: A Study in Constancy. Phoenix House, 1952. Evett, David. We Owe Thee Much: Service in King John. The Shakespearean International Yearbook 5 Special section, Shakespeare and the Bonds of Service, edited by Graham Bradshaw and Tom Bishop, Ashgate, 2005. Lake, Peter. Elizabethan Resonances of the Reign of King John. How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage: Power and the Succession in the History Plays, Yale University, p. 184. Lane, Robert. The Sequence of Posterity: Shakespeares King John and the Succession Controversy. Studies in Philology, vol. 92, no. 4, 1995, pp. 460-481. Machiavelli, Niccol. The Prince. The Portable Machiavelli, Penguin, 1979, pp. 130-33. Memoirs of Robert Cary, Earl of Monmouth, edited by G.H. Powell, Alexander Moring Ltd, 1905. Muhlstein, Anka. Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart: The Perils of Marriage. Haus Publishing, 2007. Parsons, Robert. A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England. 1596 EEBO: 42 HUBERTS ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SUCCESSION IN KING JOHN http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A56468.0001.001?rgn=main;v iew=fulltext Shakespeare, William. King John, edited by E. A. J Honigsmann, Arden Series, Bloomsbury, 2007. Tiffany, Grace. Gunpowder Percy. Bagwyn Books, 2016. Wilson, J. D. King John. Cambridge UP, 1936. Womersley, David. The Politics of Shakespeares King John, The Review of English Studies, New Series, vol. 40.160, 1989, p. 499. 43  ...

... Eppich-Harris 1 Humoring the Body Politic: Kings and Humors In 1607, Susanna Shakespeare married a local physician named, John Hall. But William Shakespeares interest in health and wellness predates his eldest daughters marriage by many years. The display that we have at Marian right now, The World of Shakespeares Humors, explores the way Shakespeare uses particular medical practices and Renaissance beliefs about the workings of the human body, including the humors, to bring his characters to life. Kaara Peterson writes that in Renaissance medicine there was a push to try to understand the natural state of the human body in seeking to dissect it and analyze its intricate inner workings. 1 The inner workings found in this display are the humors which Dr. Prenatt discussed, and while the examples of Ophelia (Hamlet), Shylock (Merchant), and Kate (Shrew) in the display have strong resonance with the emotional and psychological state of individual characters and their own domestic and personal lives, Id like to talk tonight about how a characters health and humors can have a broader impact beyond the personal realm. For instance, how would the humors of a king and his health affect how he governs? Marjorie Garber argues that Disease in Shakespeare's plays is almost always a metaphor, a sign of some moral failing in the society, the state, or the individual. 2 If Garber is right, and I think she is, then the most interesting question in my mind regarding medical Shakespeare studies is this: What are the implications for a nation if it is led by a sick, diseased, or mentally ill king? I would argue that the relationship between the king and his nation is not just symbolic, but for Shakespeare is also symbiotic. The king and the nation are so intimately connected with one another that the health of one affects the health of the other, whether to their mutual advantage or not. Eppich-Harris 2 In Shakespeares political plays, a kings illnesses, which in the Renaissance would be believed to be caused by an imbalance of humors, leads to a variety of national implications, among them, rebellion and war. In the British history plays concerning the Lancaster family and York family, written in the last decade or so of the 16th century, we see chaos ebb and flow as different men (and women) do their Machiavellian best to increase or maintain their power and authority. Like medicinal treatment of ones humors, which seeks to restore balance to the body, Shakespeares political narratives drive toward a restoration of balance in the civic realm. Reestablishing order and keeping chaos at bay is supposed to be a goal for good kings. But Shakespeare shows us that some kings thrive on disorder and use it to fulfill their own selfinterests, often at the cost of the nations health and wellness. The plays I would like to discuss cover the historic years 1399-1485 and were written in tetralogies groups of four with the final king in each tetralogy (Henry V and Henry VII) creating a restoration of order. Some summary will be necessary for those of you who havent read medieval British history for a while. In the tetralogy covering the years 1399-1422, also known as The Henriad, Henry IV usurps the throne from his first cousin, Richard II, (in a play titled Richard II) and is ultimately responsible for Richards murder (at least, in Shakespeares version of events). After Richard II is deposed, he is imprisoned and one of Henrys loyal knights, Sir Piers Exton, murders him in order to, rid [Henry] of this living fear (Richard II 5.4.2) that Richard represents. Yet Richards death, instead of solving problems, creates new ones. First Richard IIs death overwhelms Henry with melancholy and anxiety. He says, I protest my soul is full of woe / That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow (Richard II 5.6.45-6). During his reign, (shown in Shakespeares Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2) Henrys excess of the melancholy humor ends up having a strong negative impact from which he never recovers. Henry complains that he is wan with care (1 Henry IV 1.1.1), and his attempt to be an absolute Eppich-Harris 3 monarch ends up alienating the people that help him become king, namely the Percy family. Rebellions break out, and even though they are defeated by Henrys sons, the fighting affects Henrys health. He becomes more anxious. He stops sleeping. (Insomnia afflicts most kings in Shakespeares works.) By the second full play about his reign, Falstaff reports that the King is in a state of lethargy... a kind of sleeping in the blood... It hath it original [that is, its origin] from much grief, from study, and perturbation of the brain (2 Henry IV, 1.2.101, 102, 105). Falstaffs description of Henrys illness also reflects the condition of the nation, which is fraught with upheaval. During a rebellion in 2 Henry IV, one of the ringleaders, the Archbishop of York, offers the following explanation for the uprising: Wherefore do I this? So the question stands. Briefly, to this end: we are all diseased And with our surfeiting and wanton hours Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, And we must bleed for it; of which disease Our late King, Richard, being infected, died. (4.1.53-58) The Archbishop argues that Henrys indulgent and unjust behavior since taking the throne has put the nation out of balance and infected it. Not just the king, but all are diseased. The only remedy is to bleed that is, to go to war, but also bleeding metaphorically connects to medical treatments of the time that sought to remove excess blood from the body, which was believed to cause illnesses like fevers. Thus in the Archbishops brief description, we can see that the kings humoral imbalance figuratively infects the nation like a contagious disease and makes the body politic ripe for bloodletting. Continuous rebellion is not Henrys goal when he usurps the throne. In Henrys mind, and the minds of his allies at the time, his usurpation was meant to be curative, almost a surgical Eppich-Harris restoration of order. But like any surgery, there can be complications, and contrary to expectations, under Henry IV, the nation becomes not balanced and healthy, but rather, even more sick and divided against itself. In parallel with the nation, Henry becomes increasingly sick, anxious, melancholy, and sleepless. Nothing improves his condition. Upon hearing of his sons final victory over the rebels, Henry says: And wherefore should these good news make me sick? Will fortune never come with both hands full, But write her fair words still in foulest letters? She either gives a stomach and no food; Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast And takes away the stomach; such are the rich, That have abundance and enjoy it not. I should rejoice now at this happy news; And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy: O me! come near me; now I am much ill. (2 Henry IV 4.3.102-111) Henry observes profound ironies in this speech that good news does not relieve his guilty conscience, that his luck (fortune) makes him feel that it is impossible to be balanced and selfassured, and that no one, rich or poor, can ever have what they need, nor can they appreciate what they have. It is quite depressing. Even as all starts to seem well, Henry falls into his final illness. His careworn, melancholy body gives out on him at an early age he is forty-six years old when he dies. The national sickness caused by Henrys usurpation and murder of Richard II goes, essentially, into remission for nine years, during the reign of Henrys heir, his son, Henry V, about which Shakespeare writes the play Henry V. Indeed, Henry Vs reign provides the 4 Eppich-Harris 5 restoration of political order that England seeks for a long time. Its a very complicated moment of stability, however, in many ways, and unfortunately I dont have time tonight to dig in to why that is. (But Im writing a book about all this, so stay tuned!) For now, Ill just say that Henry V makes war with France in order to engage the disparate parts of the British Isles and unify them against a common, foreign enemy. Henry Vs invasion of France is his attempt both to gain more power for England (and himself), and to cure the nation of its previous, divisive sickness. Cutting a sharp contrast to his father, Henry V is increasingly dissociated from [his fathers] moral causation of disease; as Robert L. Reid notes, and repeatedly he promotes the cure of England's greedy surfeit through bleeding. 3 Yet no cure lasts long in these plays. Despite his many victories and success in the unification of the nobility, Henry V dies of dysentery at the age of 32, leaving his infant son, Henry VI, as King. Shakespeare wrote another tetralogy about Henry VIs unfortunate reign and the aftermath of his death in a group of plays that present-day Shakespeareans call the Wars of the Roses plays. They consist of Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3, and the final play of the series Richard III. The character, Richard III, is my primary interest in these plays; he appears in three of the four in this set. Shakespeare collapses at about 60 years into the three-part Henry VI plays. When Henry V dies and leaves the kingdom to his infant son, the nation suffers under the mismanagement of the child-kings uncles. Eventually, Richard of York (Richard IIIs father) learns of his superior claim to the throne and demands that Henry VI (now a young adult) surrender his authority. Henry VI, a Lancaster, and Richard of York, a York obviously, split into two factions, symbolized by a red rose (the Lancasters) and a white rose (the Yorks). The fighting between these two families for the crown is where we get the term Wars of the Roses, and the plays Shakespeare writes about this period cover the historic years 1422-1485, from the Eppich-Harris 6 death of Henry V to the defeat of Richard III, and the ascension of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. But lets focus on Richard III. Richard III is famous for many reasons, but if you know only one fact about him, it might be that he had physical abnormalities. Shakespeare describes him as a crookback, whose legs were not the same length, and who had a withered left arm. Richard says of himself that he is deformed, unfinished ... and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me as I halt by them (Richard III 1.1.20, 22-3, emphasis added). Very recently, scholars have been able to uncover just how accurate Shakespeares physical descriptions were. The site of the historic Richard IIIs burial was discovered only five years ago, in 2012 (527 years after his death), and after excavating the remains, scientists learned that Shakespeares portrayal of Richard was somewhat exaggerated. 4 (Its historic fiction what do we expect?) The historic Richard had scoliosis, which would likely have made his right shoulder higher than his left. Mary Ann Lund writes that Richards likely treatment for his scoliosis would have been to use axial traction in which the patients spine should be stretched with ropes attached to levers or wooden rollers at the patients head and feet, while any protrusion was pushed down. 5 (This technique is actually very similar to the medieval torture known as racking.) Richard likely would have worn a metal back support on a regular basis. In day-to-day life, Lund suggests that tailored clothing probably kept the signs of his scoliosis hidden to spectators outside the royal household of attendants, servants and medical staff who dressed, bathed and tended to the monarchs body. 6 When Richard died in the Battle of Bosworth Field against Henry Tudor, however, whatever secrets his body held were revealed. A history source called The Great Chronicle described the handling of Richards body: Eppich-Harris 7 The last Plantagenet monarch was despoiled to the skin and naught being left about him, so much as would cover his privy member; he was trussed behind a pursuivant called Norrey as a hog or another vile beast, and so all too besprung (sprinkled) with mire and filth was brought to a church in Leicester for all men to wonder upon and there lastly irreverently buried. 7 Richard lay naked at the church for two days before he was buried. The treatment of Richards body shows the medieval appetite for barbaric spectacle, but the exhibition of Richards body likely was a public shock, since, as Lund writes, The stripping of Richards corpse at Bosworth made his physical shape noticeable to many hundreds of witnesses, perhaps for the first time. 8 The significant curvature of Richards spine would certainly have been evident to all who could bear to look at the defiled monarch. These historic discoveries add to the imaginative picture Shakespeare paints of Richard a little over a hundred years later. Shakespeares source material, primarily Sir Thomas Mores 1513 biography The History of Richard III, exaggerates Richards physical abnormalities, in order to enhance the kings already dark reputation. That reputation comes, in part, from superstitions surrounding deformities in the Renaissance. A representative view comes from the Italian physiognomer Bartolomeo della Rocca (14671504), who believed that crookbacks were rather traitorous, and very wicked in their actions. 9 Sir Francis Bacons short essay titled Of Deformity (originally published in1612) agrees with Roccas opinion: Deformed persons, he writes, are commonly even with nature, for as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature; being for the most part ... void of natural affection. 10 Having no love in their beings, Bacon states, the character of a deformed individual is choleric and fixed on the quest for revenge. In their efforts to advance their agendas, however, Bacon states, the deformed have a Eppich-Harris 8 surprising advantage over their physically typical peers that is, people like Richard are always underestimated. Shakespeares version of Richard has all of the qualities Rocca and Bacon mention he is traitorous, wicked, void of affection, and underestimated. Richards family and enemies alike underestimate his military prowess and ambition. Richard seeks fulfillment in power, since because of his deformity, he feels that the typical pleasures of other young men, including love, are unavailable to him even the love of his family. Instead, Richard is a textbook narcissist. He cares only for himself and his own desires. We see his extreme egoistic individualism in the many soliloquys that he addresses to the audience throughout 3 Henry VI and Richard III. He reveals his desire to be king, but in order to fulfill that goal, he must turn covertly against his family and he has no qualms about doing just that. He says: I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word love, which graybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another And not in me: I am myself alone. (3 Henry VI 5.6.80-83, emphasis added) The significance of Richards lack of loyalty and love for his family is that it reveals the wicked soul of the wars between the Yorks and the Lancasters, telling us something about the health of the nation in which the conflict broils. After decades of civil war, the nation is so contaminated, so unbalanced, and so twisted that brothers will kill brothers in the quest for power with as little remorse as a surgeon might feel removing a mole. An example of the depravity in the war is shown in the Battle of Towton, act 2, scene 5, of 3 Henry VI. In this scene a father kills his son and a son kills his father. These tragic deaths expose how deeply diseased the nation has become from chronic civil war. It stands to reason that Richards dissociation with love, and even remorse, comes not only from Shakespeares use of Renaissance superstitions Eppich-Harris 9 about physical abnormalities, but also, as a result of living his entire life in an infectious national environment in which families are already killing each other. The nations multigenerational wars have corrupted Richards psyche. Shakespeare reveals the complexity of Richards humors throughout the three plays in which he has a role, and unlike Henry IV, he cannot easily be described as merely choleric or simply melancholic. As a psychological subject, Richard is difficult to pin down in terms of humors. We do know from the cold-blooded killing of Henry VI that Richard is a paradigmatic sociopath. As he stabs Henry, he says, If any spark of life be yet remaining, / Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither, / I that have neither pity, love, nor fear (3 Henry VI 5.6.66-8). But to say that Richards humoral imbalance is solely responsible for his murderous plans neglects the possibility that perhaps Shakespeare harnesses Richards pathology to illustrate the effects of war on the people in this society. Richard symbolizes how devastatingly cruel, immoral, and debased monarchical society can be when self-interest outweighs the good of the people. While Henry IV was certainly self-interested, he contrasts with Richard in that he continuously sought to restore order to the kingdom. Henry wanted peace and his failure to achieve it caused him to weaken and succumb to melancholy. Richard, on the other hand, is driven to seize the crown like Henry did, but he does not have a plan that imagines beyond its attainment. Richard does not view the crown as a means by which to create balance or restore order. With his entire life sculpted by war, the crown means something different to Richard than it does to Henry IV. For Richard, the crown is not an instrument of order, but an instrument of chaos, and Richard thrives in chaos. So its no wonder that Richard is brooding at the beginning of the play Richard III chaos is on hold, and Richard is not exactly thrilled about it. He says, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Eppich-Harris 10 Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determind to prove a villain. (1.1.24-7) Villainy is fairly useful in medieval wartime, if you use that choler toward your enemies, but in peace, we prefer people to be more civilized. Richard will not have it. And yet it was Richard himself who ended the war decisively, having killed both Henry VI and his son, removing all direct Lancastrian claimants to the throne. After Henry dies, Edward (Richards brother) becomes king of England, and it seems as though order has been restored. But not so fast. Richard promises the audience in soliloquy to be a Judas to his brother and any offspring he might have, so its clear that more chaos is to come. Richard is aided by the fact that his brother, Edward IV, is not a particularly popular king. Edward starts alienating his nobles as soon as he becomes king. He marries a woman outside his class, a widowed commoner named Elizabeth Woodville. He makes favorites of her family members, raising them beyond their desert. All the while, Richard pretends to be loyal, but from the start of the play, he has a murderous plan to take over. Richard tricks his brothers by spreading a ruse prophecy that someone whose name starts with the letter G is plotting to murder the king. Edward, stupidly, has his brother George arrested, when really its Richard, also known as the Duke of Gloucester, who wants him dead. Richard makes sure George is executed, and Edward dies soon after from the melancholy Georges death inspires. Richard orchestrates his ursurpation with the assistance of his nobleman goons Buckingham and Catesby. The deaths of Richards brothers are just the beginning. In all, Richard is responsible for about ten murders in the play that bears his name. Eppich-Harris 11 Few people understand the depths to which Richard will go to obtain power, until it is too late. However, the previous queen Margaret knows Richard is evil, and curses him in front of the entire court in act 1, scene 3, but since she was the wife and mother of men Richard killed in war, its easy for the York-loyalists to write her off as an unbalanced victim of melancholy. But Margaret correctly diagnoses the entire Yorkist assembly when speaking to Elizabeth, the queen: Why strewst thou sugar on that bottled spider / Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about? / Fool, fool, thou whetst a knife to kill thyself (1.3.240-42). In a sense, Margaret parallels Cassandra from the Trojan War. Like Cassandra, Margaret prophesies, but no one believes her. She foresees the downfall of the assembly at the hands of Richard, and yet Lord Hastings stands up to her, saying, False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse, / Lest to thy harm thou move our patience (Richard III 1.3.243-244). Richard uses Margarets outburst to his advantage, putting on a mask of remorse and acting as though he empathizes with the destroyed former queen. He says, I cannot blame her. By Gods holy mother, / She hath had too much wrong, and I repent / My part thereof that I have done (1.3.302-4). Like a good sociopath, Richard is a brilliant actor, and the dramatic irony is ripe in his repentance, as Richard tells the audience near the end of that same scene that he can seem a saint when most [he] play[s] the devil (1.3.334). Richard becomes king through manipulating the nobles into electing him their ruler, but he worries that he will not be able to stay king for long if he allows his nephews to live. He makes his way to the throne by having Edwards heirs declared bastards. Then he pretends not to want to be king when the nobles approach him, saying, Alas, why would you heap these cares on me? I am unfit for state and dignity. I do beseech you, take it not amiss: I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you. (3.7.182-5) Eppich-Harris 12 But all this is an act that Buckingham helps him coordinate. He, of course, relents and takes the crown. Once Richard is king, he asks Buckingham, shall we wear these honors for a day, / Or shall they last and we rejoice in them? (4.2.4-5). He means that he wants his nephews dead. They are the rightful heirs to the throne, after all. Whats to stop them from rebelling, just as many rebelled against Henry IV in the past? The boys are being held in the Tower of London and there, they will be killed. Buckingham breaks with Richard as a result of this ghastly plot. When Richard plots the death of these children, it becomes clear what a terrible ruler he will be. Shakespeare does not show Richard trying to govern or do anything for the people. In real history, Richard sensed that he was fairly unpopular, and according to John Julius Norwich, Richard felt so uneasy about having killed Henry VI, Prince Edward, and his own nephews that he paid Yorkshire priests vast sums of money to say masses for the dead. In 1484, Norwich reports that Richard did everything possible to improve his image making progresses through the country, performing ostentatious acts of generosity, publishing high-minded and sanctimonious declarations of intent, bestowing privileges, distributing offices and estates with a lavish hand... 11 But Richards tour of the country and his promises to make England great again were useless. In Shakespeares play, his obsession with power cannot be slacked by the fact that he is king. What Richard experiences here is a shift in his humors. Like Henry IV when he became king, Richard becomes melancholic, and riddled with anxiety, thinking about his safety and power above everything else. In addition to killing his nephews, he has his wife killed and plans to marry his niece, the next heir to the throne, in order to solidify his rights. Yet with the killing of the two princes in the Tower, he makes a mistake. Their deaths open a vein that will not stop bleeding. Richards narcissistic pursuit of power shows he has no interest in the health of the nation. With Eppich-Harris 13 his own body mangled and his life lived in chaos, Richards critical insight into himself is that he is not normal, but since he knows no other way to live, he carries on. The cure for Richards monarchical malpractice comes in the form of a prodigal son returning from a 14-year exile in the British territories of France. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, did not grow up in the chaos of the Wars of the Roses and does not suffer from the blight that Richard has endured. Henry returns to England, healthy and sanguine, marching to meet Richard in battle. When he addresses his men, Henry says that English subjects have been bruised underneath the yoke of tyranny; that they must march to the bowels of the land and find the wretched, bloody, usurping boar (Richard, he means), who swills your warm blood like wash [pig fodder], and makes his trough in your emboweld bosoms (5.2.2, 3, 7, 910). Henrys vivid imagery rhetorically positions the upcoming battle as a metaphoric medical procedural that will allow the surgical extraction of the cancer that Richard has become within the English body politic. Barbara Howard Traister writes that doctors in Shakespeares plays are characters whom the audience can trust as observers and reporters, and thus they serve as disinterested professionals who can authenticate illness or dishonorable behavior. 12 While Henry is not a doctor, his diagnosis of Englands troubles is certainly just as perceptive, and people flock to him as if he were a divinely inspired healer. Putting them side by side, Richard III and Henry Tudor strike a contrast between the king who murders his subjects and the king who heals his subjects, at least potentially. 13 With Henrys famous triumph over Richard at Bosworth Field, England turns away from the hostile past of war and rebellion and sets about healing the nation. Many gifted people have written about Shakespeares interest in and use of medical information in his plays. To me, what Shakespeare teaches us about medicine goes beyond the individual plays and well beyond the individual characters. In looking at the two historical Eppich-Harris 14 tetralogies tonight and the characters Henry IV and Richard III, what we see is that a king (or a leaders) health and wellness, perhaps especially mental health and wellness, will impact all of us and will impact the health, wellness, and even the reputation of the nation. The problem I see with these two characters isnt just that Henry IV was well-meaning but melancholy, or that Richard III was choleric and self-interested. To me, theres a larger problem with the people responsible for making them kings. These noblemen were so focused on their own gain from the ascension of these two usurpers that they lost sight of how fragile their nation was without an ethical monarch at the helm. So distracted were they by their own interests, the nobles let the nation down. In Hamlet, Shakespeare says that theatre holds the mirror up to nature. What that means is that theatre, and I would argue all the arts, show us who we are, warts and all. What the Humanities has in common with medicine is that professionals in both fields care very deeply not just about who we are, but also how we are. It would be nice if we could pay more attention to how we are, how were doing individually, how were doing as a nation not just economically, not just in terms of material goods, but in terms of our health, our wellness, our ethics, our sense of balance. How do we do this? Im not sure. But for me, a healthy dose of Shakespeare always helps. Notes: 1 Peterson, Kaara L., and Stephanie Moss. 2004. Introduction in Disease, Diagnosis and Cure on the Early Modern Stage, edited by Kaara L. Peterson and Stephanie Moss (New York: Routledge), xi. 2 Garber, Marjorie B. 1980. The Healer in Shakespeare in Medicine and Literature (New York: Watson, 1980), 103. 3 Reid, Humoral, 486. 4 See Bryony Jones, Five things we've learned about Richard III since he was found http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/22/europe/richard-iii-burial-5-things/index.html Eppich-Harris 15 5 Lund, Mary Ann. 2015. Richards Back: Death, Scoliosis and Myth Making. Medical Humanities 41 (2): 92. doi:10.1136/medhum-2014-010647. 6 Ibid., 91 7 Ibid. 89. 8 Ibid. 89. 9 Ibid., 91. 10 Sir Francis Bacon, XLIV. Of Deformity, The Essays of Sir Francis Bacon, ed. Mary Augusta Scott (New York: Scribner, 1908 ), 200. Emphasis added. 11 John Julius Norwich, Shakespeares Kings: The Great plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages 1337-1485 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), 344. 12 Barbara Howard Traister. 2004. Note Her a Little Farther : Doctors and Healers in the Drama of Shakespeare. In Disease, Diagnosis and Cure on the Early Modern Stage, edited by Kaara L. Peterson and Stephanie Moss, 2nd ed., 4253. New York: Routledge, 48. 13 Traister uses this phrasing to compare and contrast Macbeth and Malcolm. I borrow it here because it is equally applicable to Richard and Henry Tudor.  ...

... Henry VI, Part 2 Directed by Brian Isaac Phillips Cincinnati Shakespeare Company; Cincinnati, Ohio Performance Date: February 4, 2017 Reviewed by MARCIA EPPICH-HARRIS W hen the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company decided to stage the entire history cycle, starting in the 2012-2013 season with Richard II and ending in the 2016-2017 season with Richard III, the company never could have predicted the impact the November 2016 U.S. election would have on its productions of the Wars of the Roses plays. Yet, in their recent staging of Henry VI, Part 2, which is a combination of the original Henry VI, Part 2 and Part 3, the company produced a true mirror up to nature, reflecting the political moment of our time. Opening on President Trumps Inauguration Day, the clearly partisan production depicted the rise of populism, the downfall of integrity, and the forecast of terror and murder both within and beyond the bounds of this play. The production proved to be a successful political argument that the world needs Shakespeare now more than ever. Cincy Shakess production of Part 2 began with a video that explained the story so far, detailing the usurpation of Richard IIs throne, the rebellions in Henry IVs reign, the rise of Henry V, and the problems caused by his untimely death and the crowning of his infant son, Henry VI. The video was a smart, engaging introduction to bring audience members who might be unfamiliar with the previous plays up to speed, especially due to Cincy Shakes starting their Part 2 in the middle of 2 Henry VI with the last speech of act 3, scene 1, by the Duke of York, played by Giles Davies. At the opening, as with the previous productions in Cincy Shakess five-year project, the stage was set with portraits of all the kings in the serial history plays, with the titular king, Henry VI, on the center-stage easel. A curtain behind the paintings displayed a family tree of Edward III. King Henry VI, magnificently played by Darnell Pierre Benjamin, knelt near his portrait as if in prayer throughout Yorks speech, in which York reveals that he has seduced a headstrong Kentishman, / John Cade of Ashford, / To make commotion, as full well he can, / Under the title of John Mortimer. The illustration of the populist rebellion led by Jack Cade in the first act made Shakespeare's work a prescient commentary on Americas recent political upheaval. In fact, the Cade rebellion was the most memorable portion of the play, for me, as the political parallels between Cades rebellion and the Trump regime quickly became evidentsimultaneously entertaining and terrifying in their similarities. Matthew Lewis Johnson's performance as Cade included Trumps signature hand gestures, New York accent, and reality-star swagger. Even without these nuanced additions, the thrust of Cades populist rhetoric so fully Early Modern Culture 12 (2017): 140-144 Clemson University / Clemson University Press Reviews complimented Trump's election campaign that Cincy Shakes didnt have to work hard to represent the political moment of 2017, dressed up in Elizabethan clothing. Cade's statements about his false claim to the throne, such as, Ay, theres the question; but I say tis true, provided an uncomfortable analog to Kelly-Anne Conways coinage of alternative facts following Trump's inauguration. When a character says, Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this, Cade's response in an aside, He lies, for I invented it myself, rang with insinuation. The brood of rebels chanting Lock him up! Lock him up! mimicked the jeers of Trumps followers in his pre-election rallies, and when Cade remarked upon his puissance, he pronounced it pussy-ance, a clear nod to Trumps comments in his Access Hollywood video scandal. While these instances, and these are just a few of many, might sound over the top, Johnson's portrayal of a Trumplike Cade was mostly subtle, with the exception of imitating Trump's degradation of a disabled journalist. The parallels between the past and the present allowed the Cade rebellion to go on longer than most productions would dare. It felt important to let claims like, I am the besom that must sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art compare with the president's contemporary pledge to drain the swamp, and see the hypocrisy in both. Also memorable was Cades statement that then are we in order when we are / Most out of order, reflected convincingly the desire of Stephen Bannon to deconstruct the administrative state. The Elizabethan sentiments cut to the 2017 bone. While the Cade rebellion outshone the rest of act one, it wasn't long before the primary conflict between the Yorks and the Lancasters came into focus. Traditional costuming by Amanda McGee showed understated changes as the play progressed, with the Yorks initially wearing black and grey smocks and white rose breast plates, later adding a layer of white on the shoulders and torso to display their white-rose loyalty. The Lancasters wore red from the beginning of the play. Once the curtain with the Plantagenet family tree came down, the simple set, designed by Andrew J. Hungerford, was revealed: a throne center stage with stairs on either side. The stage was framed with trellises adorned with red and white roses and vines, combining to enhance the contrast between the two sides of the Plantagenet family. A standout performance came from Benjamin's portrayal of Henry, which suggested the king's impotence came not from weakness, but from both anti-Machiavellian integrity, and an implied self-awareness that Henry could not bring himself to compromise that integrity, regardless of the cost. Many productions, including the recent Hollow Crown, series two, portray Henry VI as nave and foolish, but Benjamin's characterization, as well as his appearance, mirrored the intellectualism, wisdom, and poise of former president Barack Obama. Benjamin's Henry seemed always to know what he should do, according to a Machiavellian playbook, but he found himself unable to condescend to the level of baseness required to ensure his reign. Margaret, for the most part skillfully played by Kelly Mengelkoch, bullied Henry, at one point slapping him, before taking over the fight against the Yorks entirely. Battles throughout the more than three-hour experience, choreographed by Bruce Cromer, usually included four to six actors at a time. The Battle of Towton, in which a father kills his son and a son Early Modern Culture 12 141 Reviews kills his father, was a bit of a letdown, in that none of these men wore obfuscating facial coverings, so the surprise that Henry witnessed in each of the killers felt illogical, although Benjamin couldn't have played it any better. There was much fighting in the play overall, and it felt tedious after a couple of clashes. Yet, even the monotony of the combat seemed symbolic of the political fatigue some contemporary citizens in today's climate already face. The capture and killing of the Duke of York showed the depth and breadth of Giles Davies's acting ability. At first stoic and defiant against Margaret and Clifford (Brandon Joseph Burton), York said his ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth / A bird that will revenge upon you all, yet he eventually broke down from Margaret's taunting. Davies made the sign of the cross at numerous points in the play, and the religious symbolism in his death scene was remarkably effective. Davies wore his hair long and straight, and coupled with his slim stature, he looked Christ-like. Director Philips innovated in this scene by putting a crown of thorns, not paper, on York's head, tying together the Roses with a Christ-like martyrdom of York. His face bloodied from battle, York knelt center stage, and wiped his tear-stained and bloody face with the handkerchief soaked with his son, Rutland's blood. The effect was both moving and heavily symbolic, alluding to the cleansing of Christ's face before crucifixion, or in York's case, before being stabbed several times. With York martyred, his sons Edward (Josh Katawick), George (Kyle Brumley), and Richard (Billy Chace) were allowed to come to the forefront. Chace's Richard, historically the youngest of the Yorks once Rutland has died, but appearing to be the oldest of these three actors, wore a chin-length wig, resembling the style shown in the famous portrait of Richard III. While Katawick and Brumley admirably portrayed their roles as York's sons, and eventually king and prince, Chace's Richard was disappointing in his role, which was played both savagely and with a touch too much melodrama. For instance, in a fight with Sommerset, Richard appears to bite off his ear. When young Clarence is killed, Richard gouges out an eye and appears to eat it, then spits it out. Some of Chace's lines were played for laughs, which squares with the evil wit we see in Richard, and yet, Chace's portrayal, for me, lacked the underlying intellect and charisma of the future king and instead relied on barbarism for his characterization. At the second intermission, an audience member a few rows behind where I sat complained that, despite a few scattered snickers at Richard's outrageous behavior, this sort of violence is never funny. I actually disagree. Violence can have a humorous rhetorical point in its outrageousness, but making it work on stage is extremely difficult, and is a matter of finding a truly perfect actor for the role. Chace's Richard did not work for me, nor did he work well in the follow-up production of Richard III, in my opinion. The scope of this production, with multiple battles and back and forth over who was king, showed the exhaustion and frustration that politics can inspire. Even an emotional exhaustion is felt in this play when after the death of Prince Edward, Margaret, his mother, pleaded to be killed as well. Here, Mengelkoch's acting felt over the top because at that point in the play the air had been sucked out of the room so many times that the overwhelming grief she displayed might Early Modern Culture 12 142 Reviews have been more effective if it were less blatant. With so many dead, their severed heads adorning the stage throughout the night, and with the memory of Margaret's taunting of York with Rutland's blood, it became difficult to sympathize with Margaret's outpouring of emotion, no matter how heartrending a mother's grief can be. With such a long production, it might have been wise to show the emotional exhaustion of the entire event through a more restrained grieving that allowed Shakespeare's vitriolic words to do the emotional heavy lifting of the moment. The trouble with this set of plays is that you don't know whose side you want to be on, let alone whose side you should be on, so when it comes to finding sympathy for these figures, the production has the burden of choosing sides, and it does so on a case-by-case basis. Between York and Margaret, Davies's York trumped Mengelkoch's Margaret in emotional effectiveness; however, in Richard's murder of Henry, there was one final, strong evocation of pity. The stage was lit with a projection of gothic-style stained glass when Richard came to kill Henry. At this and other points in the play, Richard removed his wig to reveal a scarred and diseased-looking scalp. Henry, wearing in a white dressing gown, looked pure and holy by contrast. When Henry died, red and white rose petals rained from the sky as blood stained his white garments, uniting the colors of the war in one last image of death. The colors of King Edward IV's court became black and gold in this productionno more white and red roses, for now. But the scandal of his marriage and the ambition of his youngest brother ensured that his reign would not be quiet. As the play came to a close, the tension did not relent with King Edward's proclamation, For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. Instead, while Edward and the court struck self-satisfied poses, Richard looked to the audience and spoke the first word of his own playan exhilarated Now! Overall, the Cincinnati Shakespeare production of the combined Henry VI, parts 2 and 3, into a singular Henry VI, Part 2, was most memorable for its direct illustration of Shakespeare's political relevance in our contemporary era. The casting of Yorks sons, however, felt like an error the production could easily have avoided by casting any one of the other talented actors as Richard. The follow-up production of Richard III, starring Chace in the title role, did not work for me nearly as well as Henry VI, Part 2, and I believe that the overall problems with the Richard III production were rooted in the less-than-satisfactory casting of Chace as Richard in both plays. That said, the truly remarkable portions of Henry VI, Part 2, were a refreshing reminder that theater, in general, and Shakespeare, in particular, have the power to inspire people to persist, despite exhaustion, with our most important democratic duty: speaking truth to power, which, like Shakespeare, we need more now than ever. Early Modern Culture 12 143 Reviews ____ Marcia Eppich-Harris is Assistant Professor of English at Marian University in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she teaches Shakespeare and dramatic literature. Her published scholarship includes work on Shakespeare, as well as contemporary playwright, Nina Raine; and Marcia is also an active creative writer. She is currently working on a book project about Shakespeares history plays and the political implications of prodigality narratives titled, Prodigality, Debt, and Power in Shakespeares History Plays. Early Modern Culture 12 144  ...

... Hamlet, Art, and Apoptosis: The Shakespearean Artwork of Julie Newdoll marcia eppich-harris abstract Contemporary artist Julie Newdolls painted series Shakespeare: The Mirror up to Science explores the connection between Shakespeares Hamlet, suicide, and science. Using the thesis supported by the work of Burton R. Pollin that Hamlets revenge is fueled by his desire to commit suicide, Newdoll shows how the biological process of apoptosisthat is, programmed cell deathcan be used as a metaphor for Hamlets suicide narrative through her paintings. keywords: Hamlet, suicide, science, art, Shakespeare Works like Hamlet, which have been shown over centuries to have enough coherence and mystery to touch off major transformations in Western culture, are both challenges and standing invitations. kerrigan, xii Just over thirty-five minutes into the RSCs 2009 film version of Hamlet, the melancholy prince (David Tennant) looks into the camera with wildeyed determination and swears to remember his murdered father. Hamlet pulls out a switch blade and flicks it open, saying, Now to my word: / It is Adieu, adieu! Remember me. Hamlet stares at his left hand before finishing the speech with I have sworn it, then grasps the blade in his fist and deliberately slides the knife through his palm, mutilating and handicapping himself as he begins the journey to avenge his fathers murder. The effect interdisciplinary literary studies, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2015 Copyright 2015 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 541 is startling, both to the viewer and to Hamlet himself. He crumples to the floor in pain and horror. In watching this interpretation, one gets the feeling that if Hamlet is determined to follow through with his vengeance, then this early self-inflicted wound is only the first of many potential bloodlettings he will endure. A cut only inches below the palm would have been deemed a suicide attempt. Instead, mad-eyed and manic, Hamlet uses this cutting gesture as a blood oath to avenge his father. But just as he completes the pledge, his fall to the floor illustrates how overwhelmed he is. Yet, despite his surge of emotion, Hamlet must instantly revive in order to deal with Marcello and Horatio. David Tennants Hamlet reacts to every outside stimuli impulsively, with a kind of death-wish intensity that is at once unpredictable and frantic. This particular interpretation of the character shows Hamlet to be always on the verge of suicide, whether there is a knife in his hand or not. Tennants Hamlet supports a reading for which Burton R. Pollin, among others, has arguedthat Hamlets suicidal tendencies drive him to complete his revenge quest. The implication is that Hamlet plans to kill Claudius in order to ensure his own death as a result. In other words, the revenge tragedy is also a suicide narrative. Coupling Hamlets suicidal tendencies with his meta-awareness that revenge heroes almost always die1 as a result of seeking revenge, one may argue that Hamlets acceptance of his revenge quest is also an acceptance of his own imminent demise, which Hamlet describes in the To be speech as a consummation / Devoutly to be wishd (3.1.6263). Although Hamlet does not die by his own hands directly, his death may still be considered a suicide because it occurs as a result of what Jean Baechler calls indirect suicide; that is, any and all behavior that is bound to provoke a homicidal reaction in another. That is, provocation pure and simple.2 Baechlers view also supports the claim that revenge quests will result in reciprocal violence, which for the self-aware individual would be considered indirect suicide, or in current nomenclature, a kind of suicide-by-cop. The best person to seek vengeance is one who is ready to die because the consequence of revenge is most often the death of the revenger. Girolamo Cardanos Cardanus Comforte, translated into English in 1573 by Thomas Bedingfield, and famously considered to be the book Hamlet reads when Polonius happens upon him, discusses the danger of seeking revenge because of the dire consequences: For what can be more foolish than to seek revenge, when safely it cannot be performed.3 If, indeed, Hamlet were reading Cardanus Comforte in the fictional world of his play, he would be 542 marcia eppich-harris aware of the consequences of his actions, if his Wittenberg education had not already alerted him that the Everlasting has fixd / His canon gainst self-slaughter (1.2.13132).4 Hamlet understands the consequences of his actions if he pursues the murder of the king, even if that murder is justified. When Hamlet learns of his fathers murder and call to revenge, he says, O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. (1.5.9295; emphasis added) By contemplating a coupling with hell, we see intimations of Hamlets understanding of the consequences of seeking vengeance. He will put his soul in peril by murdering his uncle. In committing to the revenge quest regardless of the consequences, including his certain death as a result, Hamlet commits himself to both a revenge narrative and to a suicide narrative. While film or stage productions are the most obvious ways Shakespeares works are interpreted outside of the literary medium, they are not limited to dramatic, or even textual, interpretation. Characters and scenes from Shakespeare have also been the preoccupation of artists for centuries. Artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John William Waterhouse, and Eugene Delacroix used Shakespeare as a way to express the individualism and pathos of the Romantic period. They have also given us insight to the characters and the plays themselves, sometimes interpolating imagery in order to support a particular reading, just like Tennants suicidal knife-wielding Hamlet does. Contemporary artist, Julie Newdoll, follows this tradition of using literary subject matter in art, but adds a twist to the standard literary painting in that she uses literature and mythology in her artwork as a way to illustrate the sciences metaphorically. Newdoll is a professional artist who also has a degree in microbiology and a masters in medical illustration. For over twenty years, Newdolls work has been featured on the covers of scientific journals and magazines such as Cell, Nature Reviews Genetics, Nature Reviews, Molecular Cell Biology, Structure, PLOS, American Scientist, and others. Newdolls work merges life science and culture, myths and molecules, frequently using scenes or characters from literature, such as the Romantics mentioned above, as components in her paintings.5 In 2009, Newdoll started painting a series on Shakespeares Hamlet. Completed in 2012, the series, Shakespeare: The shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 543 Mirror Up to Science, illustrates Pollins reading of Hamlet that understands the play not only as a revenge tragedy but also as a suicide narrative.6 The link between Newdolls science-inspired art, Hamlets revenge quest, and the concept of suicide comes in the form of the biological process of apoptosis. Apoptosis is defined as programmed cell deathor cellular suicideand is part of the natural development of all multicellular organisms, animals and humans alike. According to Bruce Alberts, et al., humans experience cell death in a variety of waysin the womb through the creation of individual, instead of webbed, fingers; in the formation of vertebrae; and so on.7 The cells are described as committing suicide for the good of the body and the advancement of normal development.8 If cells did not die, there would be lasting implications for the larger organism. For instance, in a study that examined mutations in ringworms, Hillary Ellis and Robert Horvitz learned that mutated cell survival often led to abnormality and/or the death of the organism.9 In order to preserve the bodys normal development and functioning, some cells must die for the greater good. Newdolls work suggests that Hamlets indirect suicide acts as a restoration of order in the body politic, just as apoptosis saves the body from abnormality and disease. While Hamlets suicide narrative might not appear to be motivated by a desire to restore order in the rotten state of Denmark, it seems that a scourging must occur in order for Denmark to survive as an independent body. The problem in Denmark is not so much that there is tension within the statealthough that is trueinstead, the essential p roblem is that few, if any, people at court acknowledge that anything is wrong with the recent events that vex Hamlet so deeply. The death of King Hamlet and the subsequent marriage of Gertrude and Claudius are accepted as a matter of course to everyone in the play, except Hamlet, notwithstanding Marcelluss famous assertion. Horatio is sympathetic to Hamlet, but not openly critical of the heads of state. Claudius and Polonius ridiculously conspire to find a different cause for Hamlets distemper other than what Gertrude asserts is the main, / His fathers death and our oerhasty m arriage (2.2.5557). Before Hamlet knows the truth, he laments that he cannot kill himself because of religious reasons in act 1. But when the call to revenge his fathers murder comes, Hamlet is the perfect candidate not because he is his fathers son and has a filial obligation, but because Hamlet already wants to die. Hamlets zeal for revenge in the Ghost scene fades into the delays and stratagems of acts 2 and 3. Had Hamlets commitment to revenge been strong enough from the outset, the play would have been over before 544 marcia eppich-harris act 2 began. These tactics, however, mirror apoptosis. Alberts, et al., describe the five-step process of cellular suicide: (1) A message is sent to a cell; (2) proteins both inside the cell and outside the cell perform tests to see if destruction is necessary; (3) the cell commits either to suicide or to survival based on the results of the test, making the process irreversible; (4) cellular breakdown; and finally (5) the cell becomes surrounded by a phagocytic cell, is packaged, and neatly eliminated.10 Through this process, order is restored within the body and normal development and functioning can continue. The scenes Newdoll selects for her paintings demonstrate that the suicidal drive described in apoptosis is at the core of Hamlet. In the first stage of apoptosis, a message, or signal, is sent to the cell. This stage is portrayed in Newdolls The Arrival of the Death Message (Fig. 1). Here, we see Marcello and Horatio swearing upon Hamlets sword not to reveal what they know about the Ghost. Newdolls use of this scene signifies that Hamlet has received the death message and that the processes of revenge, and thus the heros death, have begun. The painting shows a wintery scene at Kronberg Castle, located in Helsinore, Denmark.11 The Ghost is visually reflected on the sword that the men gather around, as he commands them to swear upon Hamlets sword. Newdoll chose to represent the death message in apoptosis through the three men because: a message comes to the cell as a protein composed of three identical parts bound together in what would be called a trimer in biology. . . . The sword is a perfect metaphor for the science as well, since the next phase in the apoptotic process involves puncturing the internal energy-making organelle of the cell.12 An oval cell membrane frames the scene, creating a kind of mise en abymethe Hamlet metaphor contained within the cellular metaphor. Expanding the mise en abyme are the objects within the frame: weapons used at the end of the playpoisoned swords centered at the top, the poisoned cup to the right, a dram of poison to the left which has the alchemical symbol for arsenic on it. Linking the murders at the end of the play to this early moment shows the implications of the scene. Even the women in the play are represented, as four groups of three women are reaching into the primary picture from each grouping of three skulls on the outside of the membrane. Newdoll states that the four groups of woman may be thought of as the protein trimer that spans the membrane which receives the death signal and transmits it into the cell; the women in the play; the keres, from shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll fig. 1 545 The Arrival of the Death Message, Julie Newdoll, oil on canvas, 32 38, 2012. Greek mythology; and Hecate, triple goddess.13 At the bottom of the frame, we see skulls and warriors riding horses. The warriors indicate the usurpation of the thronefirst by Claudius, and again at the end of the play, by Fortinbras. The colors in this painting show a vibrancy that adds detail and luster to the moment. The swirling clouds in the background support the theme of great unrest in the kingdom. The mens hair, as well as a Danish flag in the background, show that the wind is blowing the clouds away to reveal a beautiful starry sky, featuring at the center Tychos Supernova, discovered by Tycho Brahe in 1572.14 Symbolically, the clearing of the air to restore the kingdoms order and beauty contrasts with the mortal imagery surrounding the primary picture. While there is movement, openness, and a sense of a grand landscape within the blue-hued center of the painting, the outer frame in oranges, reds, and yellows adds the feeling of claustrophobia, as if the frame could collapse on the men at any moment. The tension produced by the contrasting colors gives us a sense of urgency about the implications of the Ghosts cry for revenge. With all these elements in mind, The Arrival of Death Message shows the catalyst to Hamlets mission and creates the first link to apoptosis. 546 marcia eppich-harris In the second painting, The Mousetrap: Checkpoint on the Path to Destruction (Fig. 2), Newdoll presents the play within the play in that Hamlet uses to catch the conscience of the king (2.2.540). This famous mise en abyme is set in the great hall of Kronberg with a temporary stage placed before a mirror flanked by tapestries. The tapestry on the left is based on an actual tapestry at Kronberg. It shows two menone a king, the other a knight. Beneath them, biological imagery shows the external stimulus that causes Hamlet to do the deed [seek revenge].15 The tapestry on the right shows Hecate; beneath her we see the internal stimulus of apoptosis.16 The apoptotic process is linked here to the Mousetrap because a series of tests must be done in the process of apoptosis in order to verify that cellular destruction must take place. Just as Hamlet is testing Claudiuss guilt with the play to verify that revenge is necessary, a cell will test itself to see if death is the appropriate course of action.17 In the foreground, we see (from left to right) Polonius, Ophelia, Hamlet, Claudius, and Gertrude. In the mirrors reflection, we can see Horatio on the far right watching Claudius. The reflection also shows the royal couples reactions: Gertrudes puzzled expression and Claudiuss crumpling face. We also see the hooded figure of the Ghost reflected in the mirror, watching the proceedings and symbolizing the catalyst for this test. In the foreground, Hamlet scrutinizes Claudius. Claudiuss features are sullied with guilt and rage as he prepares to rise. In the middle ground, the playor the testgoes on. Two figures the Player King and murderer, Lucianusare at center, staging a symbolic regicide. Lucianuss gaze rests on Hamlet, not his victim. But Hamlet, fig. 2 The Mousetrap: Checkpoint on the Path to Destruction, Julie Newdoll, oil on canvas, 32 38, 2012. shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 547 turned to Claudius, is in the process of describing the action, saying, [The murderer] poisons him i th garden for his estate. His names Gonzago. The story is extant and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzagos wife (3.2.25457). Both the king and queen react to Hamlets explanationthe king with rage, the queen with confusion. From the viewers perspective, Ophelia and Poloniuss reactions are hidden. However, Ophelias head inclines toward Hamlet in an intimate gesture. Her closeness to Hamlet appears to resist both Poloniuss orders to reject Hamlet and Hamlets own rebuffs in act 3, scene 1. Ophelias positioning shows her instability and that she is literally caught between Polonius and Hamlet, torn between her loyalty to her father and her loyalty to her lover. In this scene, she plays the role Hamlet assigns to hera puppet he toys withand the way she leans into him shows her willingness. The decorations of the backs of the chairs also illustrate cell death. The designs on the backs of Hamlet and Claudiuss chairs are simplified illustrations of the RNA/DNA material unraveling during the process of apoptosis. Poloniuss chair shows greater decay than Hamlets, signifying that Poloniuss death is imminent. Gertrudes chair design echoes the wall hanging beneath Hecate with the oblong cell going through the testing stage of apoptosis. The oblong cell beneath Hecate vaguely seems to spell out the word man, which to Hamlet, of course, is the quintessence of dust (2.2.302). The third painting in the series, The Commitment (Fig. 3), portrays Claudius praying after the play within the play. Though chronologically this painting comes after the ghost scene and the mousetrap, it was the first painting that Newdoll completed. Beginning the series in medias res, Newdoll shows that Hamlets commitment to revenge is the most important aspect of the series because that commitment to murder is also a commitment to Hamlets own inevitable destruction as a consequence. This commitment most strongly affiliates Hamlet with apoptosis in Newdolls view. In the painting, Claudius kneels in the foreground, his face gazing in profile upward and out to the heavens. We see in the window the silhouette of a crown, perhaps the chief object of his gaze, and a strange halo of a moon, which resembles a cell and its nucleus. Behind Claudius, Hamlet stands in the middle ground, framed in a doorway, sword drawn. It is at this moment in act 3, scene 3, that Hamlet could have consummated his revenge: Now might I do it. But now a is a-praying. And now Ill do it [Draws sword]and so a goes to heaven, And so I am revenged! (3.3.7375) 548 marcia eppich-harris fig. 3 The Commitment, oil on canvas, Julie Newdoll, 32 38, 2009. Hamlets hesitation at this moment, of course, comes when he registers that killing Claudius during the purgation of his soul would undermine the potential forin Hamlets mindtrue revenge: that which extends beyond mortal life. Before this moment in the play, Hamlet is not fully committed to the revenge plot because of his own doubtsboth about the Ghosts veracity and his own willingness to condemn himself, as demonstrated at the end of act 2: The spirit I have seen May be a devl, and the devl hath power T assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. (2.2.57883) But now, in act 3, scene 3, having witnessed Claudiuss reaction to the play and with his resolve firmly in place, we see Hamlet committing to true revengea revenge that will ensure Claudiuss damnation: Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent: When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, Or in th incestuous pleasure of his bed, shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 549 At game a-swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation int Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damnd and black As hell, whereto it goes. (3.3.8895) While Hamlet does not contemplate his own fate at this moment, it was clearly on his mind prior to the play within the play, during the To be speech. The fact that Hamlet has no lines between the end of act 2, when he decides to set up the Mouse Trap, and the To be soliloquy suggest that in his off-stage moments, Hamlet has been contemplating the consequences of action. I would argue that Hamlets contemplation of suicide comes in reaction to the idea that very soon he will have his answer regarding Claudiuss true guilt. Contemplating death follows naturally for this revenge hero when the possibility for revenge is in sight. Despite the anxiety Hamlet feels about the afterlife and his admission that he is stymied by conscience, this contemplation of death is necessary for Hamlet to fully commit to revenge. His acceptance of and resignation toward what he calls cowardice and inability eventually resolves in act 5, when he realizes that There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow (5.2.2023)18 Although Hamlet is burdened with the revenge quest, here in act 5, he is resigned: If it be now, tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will comethe readiness is all (5.2.2035). Not only is Hamlet ready to consummate his revenge, he is also ready to die: Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what ist to leave betimes, let be (5.2.2056). Thus, Hamlet, one may say, commits to suicide when he commits to revenge. The problem is that Hamlets commitment to vengeance, like a tornado, destroys everything in its path. Hamlet becomes the scourge of Denmark, as he admits to Gertrude after accidentally killing Polonius: For this same lord, I do repent; but heaven hath pleased it so To punish me with this, and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. (3.4.15659) As a scourge, Hamlet destroys not only the usurper king, but also all of the complicit actors around him, including Polonius and his family, and Gertrude. But also, as noted by Woffords edition of Hamlet, Scourge suggests a p ermissive cruelty (Tamburlaine was the scourge of God), but 550 marcia eppich-harris woe to him by whom the offense cometh; the scourge must suffer for the evil it performs.19 Hamlet, as a scourge, is all the more fated to die and he knows it. In the painting, The Commitment, we look at the scene through an ornate doorway with twisting emerald columns. The columns resemble the double helix design of DNA. The bottom of the columns are breaking apart, representing cellular destruction, as well as the corruption that threatens to destroy Denmark. Above the outer doorway, we see the naked figures of Hamlet on the left and Ophelia on the right. Their nakedness suggests a sexual relationship between the pair, and Ophelias belly protrudes slightly to indicate pregnancy. These figures represent an alternate reality for the couplewhat might have been had Hamlet not been called to revenge his father. Flowers support Ophelias legs, reminding us of the significance of flowers in her mad scenes and in the description of her death. Beneath each character, scrollwork separates Hamlet and Ophelia from cells that are popping and disintegratingapoptosis in actionwhich foreshadows the destruction that will take place after the cell has committed to suicide. Additionally, these cells could also signify the death of Hamlet and Ophelias relationship, which we see in act 3, scene 1, prior to the moment portrayed here and in the previous painting. Situated between Hamlet and Ophelia is Hecate, here portrayed as the goddess of the crossroads, as two paths diverge behind her. Hecates presence signifies multiple meanings. First, that Hamlet and Ophelias relationship has passed into a dimension that can no longer include the possibility of love, marriage, and progeny. But additionally, Hecates presence shows that the moment framed within the doorway is a crossroads for Hamlet in the revenge narrative. The question of political order in Denmark is also represented in the golden crown above the doorway, placed just above the image of Hecate. Crowns appear several times in the paintingabove the doorway, on Claudiuss head, in the distance outside the window, on Hecates heads, and on the heads of figures (a king and queen) that flank the fireplace. While crowns indicate the power struggle inherent in the play, the checkered floor20 in the room indicates high-stakes game play with the suggestion of chess pieces surrounding the fireplacethe queen and king on either side of the mantle, bishop-shaped andirons on the floor, and rook-like columns that frame the fireplace. Additionally, seen within the fireplace is the ghost of Hamlets father, walking among the flames. While the Ghost is not present in the play script at this moment, his order to seek revenge weighs h eavily on the scene and impacts the political strategies that Hamlet c onsiders. shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 551 Although he is the rightful king, the Ghost does not wear a crown, but is shown here and in the other paintings in a hooded robe, calling to mind images of the Grim Reaper, the personification of death. The crown is not the only political image within the painting, however. Above the doorway where Hamlet stands is another mise en abymea painting within the painting showing a warrior in a ship. This painting indicates the Norwegian prince, Fortinbras, who by default inherits the kingdom at the end of the play. Additionally, looking behind Hamlets doorway, we see that he is leaving a room that is bright with light and is entering into darkness. The light behind Hamlet indicates his loss of innocence regarding his parents relationship, which he describes in act 1 as being idyllic, as well as Hamlets entry into the sinister world of revenge and murder. Hamlet stands at the threshold of darkness, indicated by the shadowy quality of the chamber where Claudius prays. Silhouetted in the doorway, Hamlet has become completely dark at this point, instead of s imply wearing the black clothes of mourning. Representing the darker qualities of his inner self, Hamlets shadow stretches before him and merges with the royal purple robe of Claudius. The combination, significantly coming together over the chessboard flooring, indicates that Claudiuss corrupt and murderous politics has brought out the vengeful and suicidal qualities in Hamlet, and also, that the royal robes are debased with the shadow of usurpation that hangs over them. The fourth painting of the series, Apoptosis Phase 4; Apoptotic Bodies at Ophelias Funeral (Fig. 4), represents the fourth stage of apoptosis: cellular destruction. Newdoll links this stage of apoptosis to Hamlet by giving us a worms eye view of Ophelias grave. The soil surrounding the hole shows cells that are disintegrating and are in various stages of death. Similarly, the featured characters in the scene are also in various stages of deathLaertes perhaps is the strongest character indicated in the scene, despite initially throwing himself into the grave to be buried with his sister. In the p ainting, Laertes tries to strangle Hamlet, foreshadowing his upcoming association with Claudius and their conspiracy against Hamlet. Hamlet, while not meeting his death in this scene, is already resolved to die, and in fact, dares the assembly to bury him alive, along with Ophelia and Laertes (5.1.265). Finally, Ophelia serves as a contrast to the men, as her corpse lies to the left as the men grapple with each other. Each figure in the stages of eventual or actual death mirrors the apoptosis happening around them. Above the three figures, hands of the funeral attendees reach for the men in a chaotic attempt to stop the fighting. To the left, the white gloved and glowing hand of the queen reaches for the men in a feeble 552 marcia eppich-harris fig. 4 Apoptosis Phase 4; Apoptotic Bodies at Ophelias Funeral, Julie Newdoll, oil on canvas, 32 38, 2010. attempt to put off the inevitable destruction of Hamlet. The darker-hued hand of Claudius stays Gertrudes hand. The only hand that is not reaching for Laertes and Hamlet in the painting is Claudiuss, indicating Claudiuss desire to eliminate Hamlet. Newdolls depiction of Ophelia contrasts the Romantic visions of her from the nineteenth century, rejecting the total-victim mentality often associated with her suicide. Instead, Newdoll emphasizes the ambiguity of her role in the play. In the painting she appears to be doll-like in death, indicating the puppetry with which Polonius, Claudius, and even Hamlet used her, and she is dressed as if in a wedding gown. The virginal stark whiteness of the gown creates tension between the binaries of Ophelia as an innocent victim and Ophelia as a wide-eyed accomplice to the plot to bring down Hamlet. Ophelias madness is explained in the play as a result of her fathers murder by Hamlet. However, when the Gentleman describes her mad state in act 4, scene 5, we can see that there is potential for even darker ruminations: She speaks much of her father; says she hears / Theres tricks i the world; and hems, and beats her heart (4.5.45; emphasis added). Ophelia seems to understandmore clearly, ironically, in her madnessthat corruption has infiltrated every aspect of her life, including both her relationships with her father and Hamlet, and the political realm in which she lives. Ophelias ramblings confuse their audience, moving the hearers to collection (4.5.9) and forcing them to interpret her melancholy, much in the same way that the court tried to interpret Hamlets depression in acts 1 and 2. When Gertrude hears the report, her response, in an aside, could apply not only to her own guilt, but also to Ophelias: So full of artless jealousy is guilt, / It spills itself in fearing to be spilt (4.5.1920). Applied to Ophelia, this proverbial phrase could indicate that Ophelias madness and shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 553 subsequent suicide may in fact be due to her guilt associated with betraying Hamlet in favor of her fathers will. Back in the grave, Ophelias involvement in Hamlets manipulation by Polonius and Claudius is reified by the intertwining of her legs with Hamlets as he struggles against the sole remaining male of Poloniuss family. A funeral wreath falls into the grave, raining petals upon the scene, reminiscent of act 4, scene 5, when Ophelia distributes flowers among the members of the court. The skull beside her foregrounded leg, another indication of death and destruction, may well be Yoricks skull. Yorick, whom Hamlet remembers with fondness as a fellow of infinite jest (5.1.17172), has become yet another piece in the illustration of death and the long road toward destruction. Hamlet says to the skull in act 5, Not one now to mock your own grinningquite chop-falln. Now get you to my ladys c hamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to his favor she must come; make her laugh at that (5.1.17982). Ophelias face, literally and figuratively painted white, is trapped in a death gaze that has as much ability to laugh as Yoricks skull to attempt its inspiration. The actively dying cells around the grave allow for no mirth here, as well, and as the soil froths in destruction around the characters, it is only a matter of time before Hamlet finds himself encased in his own princely tomb. The tomb is exactly where Newdoll ends her painting series. The fifth painting, After the Dead March (Fig. 5), indicates the final stage of apoptosis, in which the dead cell is packaged and eliminated. The play ends with Fortinbrass order to bear Hamlet away, so Newdoll shows an imagined entombment for the prince and his parents. The scene of the painting is based on the interment room of Christian IV21 of Denmark in Roskilde Cathedral.22 Christians portrait is shown in this painting in the upper right hand side of the border around the main painting in the room. Opposite Christian is the astronomer, Tycho Brahe (15461601), who Newdoll refers to both here and in the first painting of her series, because of Brahes potential influence on Shakespeares composition of Hamlet.23 We see three coffins in the foreground. Each coffin has scientific imagery on it that links the coffins to apoptosis. From left to right, the coffins appear to encase King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet, and Queen Gertrude. Each coffin has an inscription. King Hamlets coffin says Eternal. Newdolls brushwork highlights RNA found within Eternal. Shakespeare uses the word eternal twice in Hamlet. The first time, the Ghost of Hamlets father uses it when he truncates the description of the woes of his afterlife: But this 554 marcia eppich-harris fig. 5 After the Dead March, oil and encaustic on board, Julie Newdoll, 33 44, 2012. eternal blazon must not be / To ears of flesh and blood (1.5.2122; emphasis added). The second time eternal is used is when Fortinbras enters the deadly scene of act 5, scene 2: This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot So bloodily hast struck? (5.2.34649; emphasis added) The death scene witnessed by Fortinbras has been tidily packaged and removed in the painting, signifying the final process of apoptosis. However, at the center of the stage, we see a painting within the painting, indicating the events that lead to this interment. Within that painting, Hamlet pours the poisoned liquor down Claudiuss gullet, as Gertrude lays nearby, having fallen backward over her throne to die. The kings crown has fallen carelessly aside. The entire court of Denmark stands by, watching as the king and queen die. Barely noticeable, unless seeing the painting in person, is the Ghost standing within the crowd, the ninth figure from the right, placed between two figures, one in yellow (left) and the other in blue (right). The dead body of Laertes shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 555 lays prostrate on the floor in front of him. Behind the crowd, three more paintings hang on the walls of the painting within the painting. The center painting, though abstract, suggests a reproduction of Romantic portrayals of Opheliaa young girl in the water, unaware of her doom. Hamlets coffin inscription says, Let all the battlements their ordnance fireDNA from ordnance is highlighted. This quote is from Claudiuss lines before the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes: If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire. (5.2.25052; emphasis added) Although the quote is spoken by Claudius, the coffin is indicated as Hamlets by three detailsfirst, the skull on the top of the coffin has no crown on it, but sits atop an open book, indicating the person inside had not been a king, but a scholar; second, the coffin is blackthe color most often associated with Prince Hamlet. Finally, when Fortinbras orders that Hamlets body be buried, he adds that the people should bear him like a soldier (5.2.378), and at the top of the face of the coffin are two cannons and two crossed battle flags. On the final coffin, Gertrudes, we see the phrase, To thine own peace. According to Newdoll, peace is a pun for the pieces of the cell that fall apart and must be packaged in order to be eliminated from the body (Newdoll, Painting Series on Hamlet). Claudius also is the source of this quote. When he and Laertes are conspiring against Hamlet, Claudius says in response to Laertess worry that Claudius will force Laertes into peace with Hamlet, To thine own peace. If he be now returnd, As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall: And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practise And call it accident. (4.7.6168; emphasis added) Mentioning Hamlets mother here, Claudius shows that he seeks to kill Hamlet without breaking the peace with Gertrude. 556 marcia eppich-harris To the left, Horatio sits with a quill pen and paper contemplating how to write the story of Hamlets life and death. Beside him stand two ghostly figures, Rosencrantz and Guildensternthe school chums who may also be walking the earth for a certain term for their sins. They overlook Horatios writing project. Horatio is also featured in the painting within the painting, the last person on the far left, reaching his right hand out toward Hamlet, as if to stop him. Now the sole remainder of the court, Horatio is left to make sense of all that has happened and what it all means. Surrounding him outside the painting within the painting are several notable symbols. The tragedy and comedy masks flank the inner painting, reminding us of the theatricality of the spectacle shown. A quote from the play outlines the tomb around the top of the rooms molding, Doubt thou the stars are fire: / Doubt that the sun doth move: / Doubt truth to be a liar; / But never doubt I love (2.2.11417). While this sentence is taken from Hamlets letter to Ophelia, it could also signify here Hamlets dedication to his father and his promise to avenge him. Nonetheless, Hamlets relationship to Ophelia is also evoked with the quote from the letter. The astronomical theme of this painting takes its inspiration from the quote as well. We see several astronomical symbols: the sky mural on the ceiling, the painting of Helios driving the chariot on the left, the sun and the planets centered above the painting within the painting, stars around the border area, and the inclusion of Tycho Brahes portrait. The mysteries of space and the uncertainty of precisely what happens in the afterlife comingle in this painting, combining the anxieties of Hamlets revenge quest and its inevitably suicidal result with the ambiguity of our place and purpose in the universe. This final painting is meant to signify the wrapping up of the process of apoptosis, but it also is so detailed that studying it leads to the dizzying realization that both the story of Hamlet and the process of apoptosis are more complicated and intricate than people fully realize. Michael Benton and Sally Butcher write that paintings that portray Shakespearean subjects are not to be viewed as mere stills, as it were, from an ongoing production, but as representations that have distilled influences and ideas far beyond the confines of the particular image and from outside the medium in which they are made.24 Never is this assertion truer than when considering the artwork of Julie Newdoll. Newdolls work is truly Renaissance in nature in that it allies the sciences, art, and literature in renewed and fascinating ways. The metaphoric link between apoptosis and Hamlets indirect suicide shows us one way in which narrative unintentionally imitates science and vice versa. If we consider the idea of shakespearean artwork of julie newdoll 557 apoptosis happening as a result of preserving and protecting the body, then we can also see more clearly that Hamlet restores order to the once-rotten Denmark through the scourging of the corrupt body politic. It is unfortunate that so many people have to die and that an outsiderFortinbras becomes the new head of state as a result. However, in Renaissance politics, the anxiety of just this sort of take overhostility from within and usurpation by defaultwas clearly in the mind of Elizabethan political players. marcia eppich-harris, PhD, is an assistant professor of English at Marian University, in Indianapolis, Indiana, where she teaches Shakespeare and other courses in dramatic literature. Her recent publications include Resurrect Your Darlings: Falstaff s Death(s), Resurrection(s), and Lasting Influence, in Shakespeare Newsletter (2014), and The Liminal Space between Feminism and Misogyny: Introducing Playwright Nina Raines Rabbit, in Studies in the Humanities (2015). notes 1. While it is true that revenge heroes almost always die, a noted exception in the Renaissance is Antonio from Antonios Revenge (15991602), by John Marston, which echoes some of the plot points of Hamlet. A classical example of a revenger who does not die would be Medea, who killed her children in order to wreak vengeance on her husband, Jason. Both Euripides and Seneca wrote plays about Medea. 2. Jean Baechler, Suicides, trans. Barry Cooper (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 17. 3. Girolamo Cardano, Cardanus Comfort, trans. Thomas Bedingfield, 1573. http:// books.google.com/books?pg=PT13&dq=cardanus+comforte&id=T2MgAQA AMAAJ. Book 3. I have modernized spelling for ease of reading. 4. Quotes from Hamlet refer to the Norton Shakespeare, 2008. 5. See Newdolls website: www.brushwithscience.com. 6. For more on Hamlets death as suicide see Burton R. Pollin, Hamlet, A Successful Suicide, Shakespeare Studies 1 (1965): 24060. Pollin also quotes Ernest Joness assertion that Hamlets actions from the very beginning of the play can lead to no other end than to his own ruin (qtd. in Polin, 251). Other scholars acknowledge Hamlets death is linked to his suicidal contemplation in addition to his revenge narrative: Insofar as [Hamlet] is still suicidal, heedlessly defying augury, the impulse to self-destruction has made a home for itself within the imperative to revenge (see William Kerrigan, Hamlets Perfection (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 143. 7. Bruce Alberts, et al., Essential Cell Biology (New York: Garland Science, 2010), 638. 8. Ibid. 558 marcia eppich-harris 9. Scott Freeman, Biological Science (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002), 404. 10. See Alberts, et al., 63943. 11. Newdoll used Kronberg Castle as her setting in all of her Hamlet paintings. Newdoll traveled to Kronberg in 2009 and toured the castle in order to add realistic touches to her series. The castle is used as a touchstone for contextualization of Renaissance Danish culture, as well as historical nuance. Newdolls paintings reflect the age of Shakespeare, not the thirteenth-century chronicle of Saxo Grammaticus from which the Hamlet narrative is derived. See Amanda Mabillard, Shakespeares Sources for Hamlet. Shakespeare Online. August 20, 2000. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://www.shakespeareonline.com/ sources/hamletsources.html. 12. Julie Newdoll, Shakespeare: The Mirror up to Science (unpublished manuscript, 2009), 6. 13. Newdoll States, e-mail correspondence, February 5, 2012. 14. Newdolls research into Hamlet, science, and the Elizabethan era brought her to tie-ins with astronomy, which are featured in the first and the last painting of the series. While the astronomy does not connect to apoptosis, so is beyond the scope of this study, to Newdoll it is significant because it symbolizes, new science versus [the] old inflexible religious hold on sciencea new world of scientific discovery versus old-world oppressed thinkers. . . . [Astronomy was] a threat to the old values, [with] unknown consequences but new possibilities (e-mail correspondence, June 22, 2013, Newdoll, Crants Is Crown). 15. Newdoll, Re: Tapestry, e-mail correspondence, December 29, 2012. 16. Newdoll, Pathway, e-mail correspondence, February 5, 2012. 17. What we do not see plainly at the outset is that Claudius is testing Hamlet in much the same way that Hamlet tests him. Claudius needs to know if Hamlet is a threat to his power and whether or not he suspects foul play in his fathers death. The Mousetrap confirms both Hamlet and Claudiuss worst suspicions. 18. This is a reference to the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus reassures the disciples to take courage against persecution, Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Fathers knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows (The New American Bible, 1994. St. Joseph Edition. New York: Catholic Book Publishing), Matthew 10:3031. 19. Susanne L. Wofford, ed. Hamlet: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, 1997), 107; original emphasis. 20. The checkered floor is a feature of Kronborg Castle as well. 21. Christian IV was the king of Denmark from 1588 to 1648contemporary with Shakespeare. 22. Roskilde Cathedral is approximately 70 km southwest of Kronborg Castle in Roskilde, Denmark. 23. For more on Brahes influence on Hamlet, see Donald W. Olson, Marilynn S. Olson, and Russell L. Doescher. The Stars of Hamlet: Shakespeares Astronomical Inspiration? Sky & Telescope 96, no. 5 (November 1998): 6873. 24. Michael Benton and Sally Butcher, Painting Shakespeare, Journal of Aesthetic Education 32, no. 3 (1998): 65.  ...

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