watch for the alliterative genius at the end
When I was in St. Louis over break we went to the St. Louis Art Musuem and they had this exihibit of medieval armour and weaponry. I was struck by how beautiful the engravings were on the sword handles (sometimes the swords themselves) and the guns. The shields, the armous, helmets, maces, swords, guns, everything was covered with intricate engravings and some (armour) was painted. These works of art were once used to kill people, to behead them, bash in their faces, crush their bones, rip off skin, and spill blood, to cause pain and death and horror. Yet they were beautiful.Tonight I was reading Henry V and trying to memorize one of the speeches for my Shakespeare class. The one we have to memorize is a very noble speech in act IV where Henry V is trying to motivate the English troops before they go to battle with the French (they're outnumbered like 10:1) and its a nice speech. It's so...romanticized and noble, getting the men to fight for honor and glory, for the chance to be remembered for their heroic efforts.
When you're reading it's so easy to forget that he's saying this to convince his men to go kill other people and risk their lives, incite waves of terror in French villages, rape, pillage and plunder the French people. He's giving this almost chivalric speech and it's such a beautifully written speech, one of Shakespeare's best, yet it exists for the purpose of creating anger, terror, fear, death.
It's so easy to forget that the only reason the people in the play are at war is because Henry has a shady and illegitimate claim to the French throne and wants it just because he is the King and thinks he deserves it. Vietnam and Iraq have been compared to the situation in this play. It's an unjustified war (technically, all war is unjustified, but you know what I mean).
The armies in the play measure the successes and losses of the battle in terms of how many nobles are killed (our losses have been great, we lost 2 dukes and an earl!) and are completely oblivious to the thousands, literally thousands of corpses sprawled out on the battlefield. I mean...its nonsensical. How can things so beautiful and artistic and good can be used for such horrible mean?
A Shakespearean speech, with perfect meter, flowery, romantic, SO beautiful, used to incite the motive the kill.
An gorgeous engraving of art on a weapon.
I don't get it. It's paradoxical in the most sickening way. Art is so beautiful and naturaland somehow just seems right. Art does not go with war. Murder and war are unnatural and wrong. Yet when you read about war in Shakespeare, it becomes beautiful. But it's not. That's not war. War is not beautiful. War is cruel. War is horrible. War is degrading and destructive, desecrating the countryside and demolishing all that is pure and innocent and good.
Yet this destruction was at one time carried out with works of art. Beauty was part of something that caused pain. I don't get it.
posted by kellyisdelightful @ 10:56 PM
2 Comments:
Life is all about crazy paradoxes.
In a less horrible, rather sweet and naive comparison that my friend Jen told me, autumn makes death seem beautiful.
It does, doesn't it?
Oh, crazy paradoxes. How we wouldn't be complete without you.
but death can be beautiful. murder however is not.
I love autumn. it's my favorite season.
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