1	“The Breath of Kings” October 24, 2002
2	“I am Richard II” … quoth Elizabeth I. -- As if, indeed, the Royal Person were immortal and had survived the years from 1400 to 1600 intact, and bearing the same grudges.
3	Two bodies Blackstone: “the king never dies” The king’s natural body The king’s “body politic” -- in what does this second body consist? Can every ruler say “I am Richard II”?
4	“What is thy sentence then… RICHARD. “Therefore we banish you” BULLINGBROOK. “Your will be done” RICHARD. “The hopeless word of never to return / Breathe I against thee” MOWBRAY. “A heavy sentence… And now my tongue’s use is to me no more…” (I. 3. 139-162)
5	… but speechless death?” RICHARD. “Six frozen winters spent, / Return with welcome home from banishment.” BULLINGBROOK. “How long a time lies in one little word. / Four lagging winters and four wanton springs / End in a word, such is the breath of kings.” (I. 3. 210-214)
6	No virtue like necessity GAUNT. “Think not the king did banish thee, / But thou the king. … Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honor, / And not the king exiled thee… Suppose… thy steps no more / Than a delightful measure or a dance…” BULLINGBROOK. “Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand / By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? / Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite / By bare imagination of a feast?” (I. 3. 277-94)
7	Words are utterly real John Austin, How to Do Things With Words (1962) “Speech acts” or “performative utterances” Not exactly true or false, but valid and invalid Conditions Chains of performatives
8	Examples and limitations Promising, commanding, declaring (e.g., war), enfeoffing, sentencing, naming, crowning… Staged “performances” and imitations of speech acts Language and “power”: not either/or, but mutual entanglement and imbrication 2 languages, one “constative,” one “performative”? 2 bodies inherent in all of us? The Elizabethan sensitivity to language
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10	Fair sequence and careless patients “Blank charters” “Inky blots and rotten parchment bonds” “Thy state of law is bondslave to the law” “Take Herford’s rights away and take from time / His charters and his customary rights. / Let not tomorrow then ensue today. / Be not thyself. For how art thou a king / But by fair sequence and succession?” (II. 1. 195-9)
11	“The king is not himself” The king’s “body politic” is made up of speech acts Felicitous or infelicitous? Who decides? BULLINGBROOK. “All my treasury / Is yet but unfelt thanks” (II. 3. 60)
12	What is a “body”? Criteria: Agency Autonomy Relationships (to other bodies, to space, etc.) Consequentialness Richard II anatomizes the king’s multiple body