What did Shakespeare say about war in Iraq?

[surfermaw]

What did Shakespeare say about war in Iraq?

Davidson professor notes how much Bush resembles `Henry V'

TIM FUNK


Some Democrats in Congress have begun comparing Iraq to Vietnam, but the parlor game elsewhere in Washington last week was to size up President Bush II by looking at Henry V.

Like Bush, the 15th-century English monarch took a while to grow up (as Prince Hal), then followed in his father's royal footsteps, took over the throne, and invaded a country.

So, last week, eight big-name panelists gathered at Washington's Shakespeare Theatre to debate whether Henry's invasion of France in 1413 -- and by extension, George's invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- was the right thing to do.

The back-and-forth -- featuring political pundits Arianna Huffington, Chris Matthews, David Brooks, Christopher Buckley and others -- grew out of an idea by Davidson College professor Cynthia Lewis, a Shakespeare scholar who also participated. She was listed in the program as an "expert witness."


http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/8742921.htm

[ishbadiddle]

1. Henry V and Howard Dean

This reminds me of a satire piece I wrote on Howard Dean and Henry V. Old news, I know...

"Crispin Shriek" may spell political end for Henry V

According to experts, Henry V's pre-battle "Crispin Shriek" may be his political undoing. "There he was, going on about how the soldiers were his 'brothers' and how they'd be showing off their scars, years from now," said University of Texas Prof. Jurgen Streeck, a linguist and president of the International Society for Gesture Study. "I was stunned by the inappropriateness of it. These soldiers aren't his brothers at all. I'm sure they saw right through that false machismo."

Other experts agreed. Anthropologist David B. Givens, director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, Wash., said "It was the least kingly body language I think I've seen in any of the campaigns against the French so far. His constant references to St. Crispin -- hardly a well-known saint among the masses he's trying to influence -- came across as nearly hysterical."

Henry's speech, which rose to a yelling volume as he shouted "we happy few," could spell the end of his reign. "There weren't a 'few' soldiers -- there were hundreds," said University of Pennsylvania communications Prof. Kathleen Hall Jamieson. "Who wants a king who clearly can't count? And the overconfidence in his speech, when he was clearly outnumbered by the French -- this is a man who's about to lose. It's no time to be screaming. I would say it's nowhere on the continuum of kingly public behavior." While many pundits had previously spoken of Henry's common touch, his poll numbers immediately plunged after the "Crispin Shriek" was broadcast. Several composers have even sampled it in madrigals, as all Britain wonders: does Henry have an anger management problem?

Montjoy, spokesman for the French, could not be reached for comment.

[newyawker99]

3. Hi ishbadiddle!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[ishbadiddle]

4. Thanks, a pleasure to be here!

[jacksonian]

2. from the epliogue

"...In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England. Fortune made his sword,
By which the world's best garden he achiev'd,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
Of France and England, did this King succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed,
Which oft our stage has shown..."

The link did not work for me. For those who don't know Shakepeare, Henry V was a party boy who cast off his ways to become King of England and led a divided county to one of it's greatest victories at Agincourt. Conservatives love this part - "a little Harry in the night."

But Shakepeare was a liberal. The play ends reminding us that great as the victory was, the ungreatness of men prevails. Consequences will lead England to for all time controlling much less of France than they did before Henry V was King, everyone seeing the play in Shakespeare's time knew this already. And they knew how much England had to bleed before the false dream of ruling France came to a end.

Conservatives always ignore this part. England lost the Hundred Year's War because they could not rule the French without brutality.