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    King John
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    King John
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    King John
    Audiobook2 hours

    King John

    Written by William Shakespeare

    Narrated by The Marlowe Society

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    King John by William Shakespeare is a richly dramatic account of the reign of King John who ruled England from 1199–1216. It is a fascinating narrative of Court politics as well as the complex relationship between England and France. The play was unpublished until it appeared in the First Folio in 1623.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Copyright Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781783940516
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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    Reviews for King John

    3.5/5

    192 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      [King John (Arden Shakespeare)]- William ShakespeareThe life and death of King John - BBC FilmThe Arden Shakespeare edited by Jesse M. Lander and J. J. M. Tobin have chosen to call the play King John instead of the usual title The Life and Death of King John. It is unusual in the Shakespeare cannon as it appears to be a rewrite of an earlier play: The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England which was published in 1591, some four years earlier than the probable date of Shakespeare's play. In my opinion Shakespeare could have called his play The Troublesome play of King John, because although he improved the dramatic effect of the earlier play, he lost some continuity in his version. It was a play depicting an historical event and the telling of the story, however accurate or inaccurate it might be, should be intelligible for the punters paying their money at the theatre gate. It is a play that has not enjoyed many revivals in the late 20th and early 21st century and although the poetry is typically Shakespearean the drama suffers from being tied to the earlier Troublesome Reign.The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England has been accredited to George Peele and it is noted for its coherent story and sustained and developed characterisation. It starts in the court of King John when a messenger from king Philip of France informs John that his brother Geoffrey's son Arthur is entitled to the crown of England and that John has usurped the throne. John tells the messenger that he will take an army to France to enforce his crown. Shortly after the messenger leaves two sons of Lord Faulconbridge arrive disputing a claim to their father's property. John with the aid of Queen Eleanor sorts the dispute by knighting the bastard Philip as Sir Richard and agreeing that his brother Robert be entitled to Sir Robert's property. The newly knighted Sir Richard will join King John in his expedition to France. The armies of England and France face each other outside the town of Angiers, whose citizens will not decide who is the rightful ruler of their town. A compromise is reached when the citizen of Angiers suggests a marriage between the Dauphin and Blanche a ward of John. After the wedding the Pope's legate Cardinal Pandulph arrives to excommunicate King John and orders King Philip to restart his war with John. After the battle we learn that John has captured Arthur and returned to England and instructed Sir Richard to rob the monasteries. The Dauphin and his army land in England to rescue Arthur. King John arranges for Hubert to murder Arthur, but this is too much for his followers who side with the French. Sir Richard remains loyal and leads King John's army against the French; the English Lords who have changed sides learn that the Dauphin is planning to kill them change sides again. Cardinal Pandulph arrives to welcome John back into the christian fold and the Dauphin's invasion is thwarted but King John while residing at an Abbey is poisoned and his son Henry is proclaimed king.It is a complex story and the plot in (TR) is reeled out in fairly pedestrian fashion. Shakespeare takes the plot by the scruff of the neck in his King John and in the very first scene the french ambassador has arrived and is squaring up to the usurper King John. In the Troublesome Reign (TR) Queen Eleanor starts by explaining the history of King Richard's brother Geoffrey and Arthurs claim to the crown. This is an early example as to how Shakespeare dramatises the action and he continues to do this as he follows and changes the story line to the plays advantage. His characters are more sharply drawn and have better poetry to speak: there is no prose in Shakespeares play. Shakespeare further enhances the drama by introducing more action; for instance he has the two Kings clutching hands while the Pope's legate is excommunicating John and King Philip must decide to let John's hand fall.I read the two plays side by side and had the impression that Shakespeare grew into the story. The first act with the disputed land rights of the Faulconbridge brothers is confusing and goes on too long, making the play appear top heavy at the start. There follows the dispute in front of the town of Angiers and it feels like the scene has been shaped to allow processions and parades, rather than battles and action. In the second half of the play Shakespeare is able to cut out scenes that hamper the central storyline. for example in TR there is an account largely in prose of Sir Richard's sacking of a monastery: there is a semi humorous conversation between Sir Richard and Friar Lawrence. This scene has disappeared from King John. Shakespeare's play is built around the politics of the relationship between the two kings and the women who support them. Queen Eleanor mother of John and Constance mother of Arthur are fanatical in support of their progeny and emerge as strong characters exerting some control over the men. Shakespeare emphasises the oath breaking: the changing of sides which all the men are guilty of, while the women stay firm. The action moves forward at a good pace in the second half and while it does not enjoy a particular climax the death scene of King John provides a sombre conclusion to a play where few characters are shown at their best. Commodity rules much of the action as Sir Richard reminds us in one of his soliloquies. TR is very anti catholic and while this is present to some extent in King John Shakespeare has toned it down.I also watched the 1984 BBC production with Leonard Rossiter as King John, who gave his character a particularly Machiavellian bent; perhaps a bit too much like a pantomime character in some places. The production made excellent sense of the story and moved it along at a pace. Shakespeare indulges in much word play throughout and some of it, not even the best actors are able to deliver meaningfully, for example part of Pandulph's speech in act 3:It is religion that doth make vows kept,
But thou hast sworn against religion
By what thou swear’st against the thing thou swear’st,
And mak’st an oath the surety for thy truth
Against an oath. The truth thou art unsure
To swear, swears only not to be forsworn,
Else what a mockery should it be to swear?
But thou dost swear only to be forsworn,
And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear.
Therefore thy latter vows against thy first
Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;Of course there is much good poetry, including this much misquoted speech by Lord Salisbury: Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.All in all I spent an enjoyable few days with King John, but this early play of Shakespeare's is not my favourite. 4.5 stars.
    • 3/5
      Having finished the last of a trilogy of novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine last night, I was prompted to read this, one of Shakespeare's less well known and now rarely performed plays. It prevents a telescoped version of the events early in John's reign in 1202-3, where he fought, triumphed over and probably murdered his nephew Arthur of Brittany, who had an arguably superior claim to the throne of England, being the son of one of John's older brothers, Geoffrey. It also presents a fictitious version of John's death and succession by his son, Prince Henry, who was not in reality born until a few years after Arthur's death. (Magna Carta does not exist in this fictionalised version of events). The events are dramatic, but it mostly lacks the memorable and pithy dialogue and quotations of many of the plays, and is one of only two Shakespeare plays written entirely in (mostly blank) verse.
    • 2/5
      I think I would like a modern English version of this historical (fiction?) play as there was plenty of action. However I struggled with Shakespeare's writing too much to enjoy it.
    • 3/5
      Certainly not among Shakespeare's greatest plays, "King John" isn't among his worst either. I found it pretty middle of the road overall -- a decent plot and good pacing, but lacking in those memorable lines of dialog that have filtered into modern times.The plot, like most of the bard's historical plays, focuses on the struggle over the throne as a vacillating and somewhat weak-willed King John fights with the French. All this is viewed through his brother's illegitimate son's eyes.I'm not sure why this is ranked with Shakespeare's least popular plays -- it's not half bad.
    • 4/5
      WS sees John as a lesser man coming to the throne in the wake of the Glorious Richard Lionheart. He's not that good, and drags the country down, gets it interdicted by the Papacy and invaded by the French. He's also the murderer of his older brother's son, a child with a good claim to the throne. WS creates., a point of view character "Bastard Fauconbridge" who represents the playwright's vision of what the English thought of John. there's no mention of the Magna Carta, because in Elizabeth I's England, it wasn't thought of as an important document. I've recorded it as read 4 times.
    • 3/5
      The Bastard Faulconbridge, illegitimate son of Richard the Lion-Hearted, is welcomed at the beginning of the play into the retinue of his uncle John. He spends most of the rest of the play being shocked at the inability of the medieval powers that be to keep their word or maintain their honor or stay the course or even show decent familial feelings when "commodity" enters the picture. This dour play, almost a satire, puts King John in Richard III's position, i.e., having a young boy as a dangerous political rival, but John behaves more like Richard II than III, giving the death order rashly, then whining over its consequences.
    • 4/5
      I don' t know why Shakespeare's King John is so little known. It has an involving story line and some quirky characters that I imagine could be played very effectively, though I have never had the opportunity to see it on stage. King John is as bad as he is legendarily supposed to be, though not without redeeming qualities. The famous Eleanor of Aquitaine of Lion in Winter fame plays a substantial part. There is, however, no comic character to compare with Falstaff of the Henry IV plays, though Richard the Bastard, the supposed illegitimate son of King Richard the Lion Heart, has a fair number of snarky lines, and is, in his role of outside observer, a satiric commentator on the political insincerities of the other characters, until his assumption of a redemptive role in the final act.

      I had to brush up on the history of the real King John after reading the play. It turns out that King John had a very convoluted and eventful life filled with sound and fury, and Shakespeare selected episodes from it to weave into a tragedy without much regard to the actual historical sequence of events. Yet every episode dramatizes something that is part of the historical record.
      I recommend King John if you have already read the major Shakespeare plays. Otherwise go read them first, i.e. Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Othello, etc. King John is not at the same level of excellence, but is still worth a read.
    • 5/5
      I love, love, love King John. I can see why it's hardly ever performed, though - there's several characters that only show up for a scene or two before leaving (the three women - Constance, Queen Elinore and Blanche disappear after act three), plus it would be hard to find a child actor that could memorize and speak Arthur's role. But, dear God, the characters! Constance and Philip the Bastard may be two of my favorite characters in all the histories. Constance is just so nuts - her catfight with Queen Elinor is hilarious - and the Bastard is so completely epic in every way. His constant haranguing of Austria is hilarious, and his utterly mad schemes of warfare (that always end up working!) are just...he's just awesome.
    • 3/5
      My memory is sketchy on the facts of John's reign, this may be colored by Shakespeare's need to please Queen Elizabeth and re-write history a bit, but then, who reads Shakespeare for history? There are certainly many pithy, witty and funny lines within this drama. Though it isn't my favorite, it was good to read. I really enjoyed the two women sending verbal barbs at each other, and even teared up a bit at Arthur's death.
    • 4/5
      This play has absolutely the best line in Shakespeare: Let that be thy message and go rot!
    • 4/5
      Has powerful moment when Prince Arthur is pleading with Hubert for his life.