The Many-Headed Monster in Henry VI, Part 2
The spectacle of the severed head is so common a feature of Eliza bethan and Jacobean history plays that it invites identification as the emblem (or perhaps fetish) that most prominently characterizes the genre. Visual representations of severed heads occur in a broad range of history plays, including Thomas Lodge's The Wounds of Civil War, George Peele's Edward I, William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3, Richard III, and Macbeth, George Chapman's Caesar and Pompey, Thomas Dekker's Sir Thomas Wyatt, and John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's Sir John van Olden BarnaveltThe reasons for the preval ence of the severed head in the history play are not difficult to deter mine. The display of the head serves as a striking, unmistakable image signifying not only the defeat and demise of the victim, but, more crucially, the loss or transfer of political power which is consoli dated through this act of violence.2 The political symbolism of the image is clearly evident in the closing scene of Marlowe's Edward II in which the newly crowned Edward III orders that Mortimer's head be placed on top of the murdered king's hearse. The resulting cere monial tableau not only symbolizes the avengement of murder but also encapsulates the transit of power through the course of the play, from Edward II to Mortimer and finally back to Edward's dynastic line.
Other Englands: Regionalism in Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy
This dissertation examines the representation of England in the plays of the first tetralogy. Arguing that a large number of stud1es of Shakespearian drama have tended to gloss over the inherent drlferences wrthrn the Enghsh nation. I suggest that reg;onalism and regional identity play a p•votal role in ShakesP£!are's dramatisation of English history from the accession of Henry VI to the death of Richard Ill. In this thesis I propose that the first tetralogy is not only a representafjon of the past. but an expression of the politrcal, cultural and geographtcal drvisions within England during the period of the plays· first production. Wh!le Shakespeare's first te!ralogy forms part of an interconnecting discourse of nationhood --contributing to what has been termed the discovery of England-I explore how the plays also serve to highlight the extent to which regionalism and regional di"'f'ersity remained powerful factors within English society. By drawing anention to the proliferation of geographical references in the tetralogy. I discuss how the localisation of scenes and the identification of characters with SpP,cific places represents an encounter with the kingdom beyond the confines of the theatre. In a series of plays that appear to be principally concerned with the struggle between rival dynasties for control of the realm, the various regional references can be read as the site of competing voices and sectional interests: an acknowledgment of not one England. but various other
PLEASURE, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOVIET YOUTH AND STATE-SPONSORED POPULAR CULTURE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR, 1945-1968
art, with certain students accused of “showing political immaturity, failing to understand the Party’s positions on art.” This episode constituted part of a broader crackdown on abstract art by the Khrushchev administration from late 1962, precipitated the the Soviet leader’s derision of such art forms in December 1962 at the Manege exhibit. Such instances demonstrate the limitations of the top-level promotion of youth grassroots initiative, as the Khrushchev leadership reigned in youth autonomy when it threatened to go beyond the boundaries of the permissible. The dates cited above have particular resonance, since both 1957-58 and 1962-63 represent two periods when those at the top of the Party hierarchy moved away from pursuing a more pluralistic, tolerant policy course, due to anxiety inspired by both sharpening Cold War hostilities and domestic developments. In these periods, official rhetoric censured what it labeled as 639 TsAOPIM, f. 635, op. 13, d. 546, ll. 56-57. This is likely related to criticism of the Party associated with the fallout from the Secret Speech and the Hungary invasion. For more, see Polly Jones, “From the Secret Speech to the Burial of Stalin: Real and Ideal Responses to De-Stalinization,” in Jones ed., The Dilemmas, 41-63. 640 TsAOPIM, f. 6083, op. 1, d. 52, ll. 166-67. 641 Susan E. Reid, “In the Name of the People: The Manege Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6.4 (Fall 2005): 673716. 642 On these anxieties, see Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer, 156-88.