/lit/ - Literature

>>22003473
Hamlet is fucked up by his own internal conflicts but tries to effect his will despite them, Richard is just delusional and self-important. Anyone who's ever been pissed at their boss can identify with the Dane, Richard is straightforwardly unsympathetic.

Richard II is my favourite Shakespeare

>>22003571
I think Richard is such a strong character because he is as you describe for much of the play but the has these burning moments of clarity that elicit sympathy, such as Act 5 scene 5 in the tower.

Also, The Queen has some fantastic lines and real complexity, underrated part

>>22003571
>Richard is just delusional and self-important
For Heauens sake let vs sit vpon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:
[...]
For within the hollow Crowne
That rounds the mortall Temples of a King,
Keepes Death his Court, and there the Antique sits
Scoffing his State, and grinning at his Pompe,
Allowing him a breath, a little Scene,
To Monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with lookes,
Infusing him with selfe and vaine conceit,
As if this Flesh, which walls about our Life,
Were Brasse impregnable: and humor'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little Pinne
Bores through his Castle Walls, and farwell King.
Couer your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemne Reuerence: throw away Respect,
Tradition, Forme, and Ceremonious dutie,
For you haue but mistooke me all this while:
I liue with Bread like you, feele Want,
Taste Griefe, need Friends: subiected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a King?

No in the same passage he realizes that he is just like any other mortal except more deluded due to his station in life

>>22003630
>Richard II is my favourite Shakespeare
Mine as well

Bump

>>22003473
>tfw you realize the entire Richard II play is a coronation in reverse, an anti-coronation
>it functions as a quasi-exculpation by explaining the Tudor ascension as more willed and less legitimate
It always struck me as strange how readily Richard acquiesces to his overthrow, well before Bolingbroke has even made his intentions explicit Richard is surrendering to and naming him the new king. Which is hilarious because Bolingbroke purports to have returned to England in pursuit of maintaining his legitimate rights and property, but he does so before the death of old Gaunt. It's intentionally left vague what the audience is meant to believe that we might then resolve our beliefs less so on what happens and instead based on how it happens. With Richard crying and quitting, and with Henry restoring England to greatness, thus justifying and consecrating the whole affair while leaving us with very interesting interpretations of the human elements involved.

>>22003571
>>22003661
Richard isn't delusional, on the contrary he's trying to convince himself. Moments before the OP's lines he exhorts himself "High be my thoughts" and then, well, he sinks. He's more of a sheltered retard trying to psyche himself up to fight for his rights and then quickly retreating back into his room, or when that's taken from him, his mind.

>>22003473
Best Shakespearean TV/Film adaptation I've ever seen. I really like this actor; perfect casting for a effeminate, noble aristocrat of that age.

>>22003661
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmR74FSfZjg

I cry everytime.

>>22004557
>>22004569
raised
https://youtu.be/VEk1thwejzQ

>>22004581
man, fuck the last one for trying to be funny. Jacobi's will always hit me the hardest but the first one wasn't too bad. bit flat though well-articulated.

>>22004557
I agree
>>22004581
This guy lacks the deliberate intonation and stresses made by the OP actor.

>>22004795
Eggs Benedict Cucumber Snatch?

>>22004864
i wasn't talking about the adaptation with negro d'anjou
I was talking about the character in the OP pic

I'm about to drop a vocaroo that BTFOs all of these britbongs

Richard is a histrionic homosexual who rips off the warrior nobility that his family depended on for power, he throws a tantrum when people get sick of his shit and we really only feel sorry because of his wife. Hamlet is a man who has reason to be disillusioned with people in general, his dad got murdered by his own brother and his mom shacked up with the guy shortly thereafter and now Hamlet is ordered to step in and make a bloody mess to appease his dad’s ghost: he feels his life is bleak and this bleakness is not his own deserts and incompetence but a situation he has no control over and nothing makes sense and everything seems pointless

>>22005184
>we really only feel sorry because of his wife.
why do you say that?

>>22005166
https://voca.ro/18oKewTAsNVR
1v1 me

>>22004557
He was great as Brutus in JC, an ineffectual intellectual unleashing forces he thought he was smart enough to control.

>>22005520
The drapes of a king fit him more than the castrating suits of modern intellectuals. Love him, simple as.

>>22005412
If you were trying to imitate Ben Whishaw, it is quite good, anon.

>love cheekbones
>love twinks
>love Shakespeare
Simple as

>>22005189
It depends how it is played but generally Richard doesn’t strike me as sympathetic because his selfishness. He lacks any redeeming qualities at all except that his wife loves him deeply and he her in his own way. But his lashing out at the betrayal by everyone he knows is meaningless because he betrayed his kin in preference to lovers and flatterers, and not for something important but just to fund his Irish escapades

I love Richard II and also that performance
I was thinking about John of Gaunt's speech during the coronation and it made me cry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY25JoCieAc
Feels bad, I like this scene a lot because I had issues with my dad
I am working on memorising this scene
OH
Thou wilt be a wilderness again, peopled by wolves thy old inhabitants

>>22004557
Ben Whishaw is fantastic - Mark Rylance's performance live at the Globe was truly incredible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rAYmmIYCGQ