Editorial

Shakespeare's Folly

“…Consider Jack Cade's nonsensical manifesto to the rebelling artisans in 2 Henry VI: CADE: There shall be seven half-penny loaves, sold for a penny. (64)(65)(66) Cade's Land of Cokaygne is clearly stuck in Southwark, where the grip of commodity capitalism is evident from the fact that the notion of cheaper bread can be posited only within the framework of finance, despite Cade's decree to abolish money. All the realm shall be held in common […] there shall be no money.…”

“…They become vagabonds, who are, like Poor Tom, 'whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished, and imprisoned' (King Lear,, as a direct result of the aristocracy's profiteering (U, Book I, [64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73]. They become vagabonds, who are, like Poor Tom, 'whipped from tithing to tithing, and stock-punished, and imprisoned' (King Lear,, as a direct result of the aristocracy's profiteering (U, Book I, [64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73].…”

“…Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Lag of a brother? 64 But Othello's sinister personification of custom as a tyrant develops the metaphor to suggest more strongly several things that the play as a whole shows: it implies that custom is a 'tyrant' because it is all-controlling, and dangerously irrational, given to pursuing whims as if they were absolutes. Wherefore base?…”

“…(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66) Although Richard's 'blank charters' turn out to be not so much writing that conquers as writing that deposes, his legal discourse, which seeks to order reality, illustrates the darker side of reason's desire to categorise the world. That England that was wont to conquer others Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.…”

“…54-55), but is not 'foresworn', 'for he never had any [honour]' (64) to lose in the first place, from which Kiernan Ryan concludes: 'Truth-claims are only as secure as the assumptions on which they rest. Early on in the play, this mercurial jester extemporises on a knight, who, contrary to what he avows to be the truth, claims that certain pancakes 'were good pancakes, and swore "by his honour" the mustard was naught' (I.…”