Where I Fight Through It

Richard II by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Whew. I struggled with this one.

It was interesting, and I liked lots of it, but it was more difficult than the last several Shakespeare plays I've read. The politics, the history, and (of course) the language add up to almost too many stumbling blocks, even with notes in the back and an introduction in the front. Besides, this isn't the kind of story that you sort of know from pop culture, so it's all starting from scratch. For me, this was more like study than reading.

Of course, it also feels more substantial than the comedies that I've been enjoying, which is why I still liked it. The action here matters more than what happens in the forest of Arden or the like. This deals with genuine historical figures in the middle of real life-and-death, history-changing events. The language feels similarly elevated and significant (to my brain, that is) except for the weird bit toward the end (5.3) where the duchess and others start all speaking in rhymed verse for a few pages. (According to the intro, that bit may or may not have been Shakespeare's language. Lots of conjecture about it.)

Anyway, though I liked it, I'm glad to finish it and move on to others. I'm trying to read through the histories in order and I have more interest in the ones that follow.

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