Laughing at Gilded Butterflies: Shakespeare and the Court


"We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage…/ …so we'll live,/ And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh/ At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues/ Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,/ Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;/ And take upon 's the mystery of things,/ As if we were God's spies…" --King Lear, Act V, Scene 3
There are many interpretations of Shakespeare’s view of the court; on one hand, looking at the history plays, it appears obvious that Shakespeare favored the court and catered to its interests. The same could be said of some of the court flattery that appears sporadically throughout the comedies and romances. But, overall, was Shakespeare really a fan of the court?

Certainly looking at Shakespeare’s plays next to those of, say, Ben Jonson’s brings a resounding “No!” At least, not at the level that other playwrights of the time were. Jonson was the most famous court-flatterer, a peasant who rose up through the ranks of fame and fortune by perfecting the outlandish masque plays that the court so loved and the Queen commanded. Jonson was so concerned with the court and the snobbish upper class that he changed his name, which by birth was spelled Johnson, in order to keep himself separate from the slew of “commoners” named Johnson. But even Marlowe and Webster flattered the court far more than Shakespeare did. But does that mean that Shakespeare didn’t like the court?

For that answer, I don’t compare him to the other Renaissance playwrights. For that answer, I look to his own writing. Did he, as a wiser Lear does, laugh at the gilded butterflies of the upper class?

In Shakespeare’s comedies, the world of the court is often contrasted with that of a “green world,” or rural area. In these comedies, among them As You Like It, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Merchant of Venice, the pretense of the urban upper class prevents lovers from being together. In order to drop their facades and fall in love, they are required to leave that world for the simple, greener rural world. Here, they are able to fall for each other without the court getting in the way. Perhaps a bit of Shakespearean skepticism is coming through; in these comedies, he makes it clear that love cannot work in the political, scheming, false world of the court.

But his green world comedies are not the only plays in which Shakespeare attacks the court. The courts of his tragedies are vicious circles fed by murderous ambition. Of the “big four” of his tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear, MacBeth, and Othello), Othello alone does not exist in the world of the court, and it alone does not address the lengths to which people will go in order to secure a place on the throne. In the court of the tragedies, the message is simple: get to the throne, and kill anyone in your way.

The copyright of the article Laughing at Gilded Butterflies: Shakespeare and the Court in Interpreting Shakespeare is owned by Natalie Boyd. Permission to republish Laughing at Gilded Butterflies: Shakespeare and the Court in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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