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#RevThread #152
This Other Eden, Demi Paradise

1/ In Shakespeare’s Richard II, John of Gaunt, an aging, frail power-broker, approaches his death while considering the rule of his wretched nephew Richard.
2/ Richard, poor kid, was made king at age 10 and, though essentially a fop, has to struggle with two great problems: his own inability to focus on affairs of state,...
3/.. and his growing awareness that all around him know that he is utterly inept--an entitled party-boy who constantly sees himself as a victim.
4/ His fallback, even as he careens towards his destruction, is his belief that he has been anointed and therefore he cannot be questioned. Occasionally he wants to be compared to Christ.
5/ John of Gaunt has the appalled response of a patriot. He describes Richard as “Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, consuming means, soon preys upon itself”. A cormorant is a diving bird who moves with great speed under water and pierces its victims with its beak...
6/.. To be underwater is to be in the subconscious, propelled by forces none can see from the land. Gaunt watches Richard’s reckless extravagance and realizes that this mismatched king is consuming himself.
7/ And then John is lifted, in the freedom of the dying, to say what is most true to himself, most valued. He bursts into a kind of spontaneous hymn of love of his country:
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