Is violence generated by imperialism ever _not_ vicious, uncaring &c?
("Healthy and progressive culture" gives me a mental picture of naked
vegetarian men cavorting in rivers, one of the stranger aspects of
Nazism.) As for Shakespeare - well, there are many Shakespeares. As
I said, read Jan Kott, who talks about these political aspects in a
most insightful and unreductive way: and most refreshingly, talks of
his work in terms of theatre and not of literature.
The concept of "human rights" as we understand it didn't exist in
those times; I wonder how useful it is to talk about it that way.
The whole business of the long bow men btw is fascinating. The
French didn't have the culture of archery to train such weapons (they
were the contemporary equivalent of nuclear weapons) - in England
they started at five years old, and so developed the extraordinary
physique needed to draw back the bow. Armour was no protection
against the arrows.
But to return to some kind of point: is a writer required to be moral
and political? Or is she required merely to be acutely conscious of
morality and politics, as problems rather than fixed positions?
Best
A
At 9:19 PM +0000 12/9/02, paul murphy wrote:
>well, we know, for instance, that S's depiction of Richard III is
>mostly propaganda. Henry V is full of jingoism which seems
>acceptable until you realise the context of English Imperialism at
>that time, and that, in fact, the violence generated by that
>Imperialism was often vicious, uncaring of human rights of any kind,
>futile, cowardly and so on. At Agincourt the English bowmen were
>helped by the stupidity of the French Knights, although they had a
>plan to dismount - had they dismounted they would have had a chance
>- which wasn't ultimately implemented. For the French, infantrymen
>were scum, cannonfodder, but the English longbowmen were Free Men,
>reflecting a healthier and more progressive English culture than the
>French were capable of that time. For all that, English or Norman
>Imperialism in the Celtic fringes went on unabated and was mostly
>utterly wasteful of life and indifferent to history, tradition or
>rights. Can you suggest some othe! r examples? PM
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
