When the Friar’s plan to have Barnardine beheaded instead of Claudio fails in Act 4 Scene 3 of Measure for Measure, bringing the play’s regime of substitution to a halt, the dead body of ‘One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate’ (4.3.70) opportunely supplies the much-needed head. On this occasion, the play moves away from the earlier barter trade typified by the bed trick to engage in (counterfeit) money economy. A combination of piracy, coining and debasement inaugurates a new regime of economic exchange as an extensive network of metaphors turns the head of the dead pirate into an instance of counterfeit currency, clipped, shaved and coloured according to the debasement practices of the early modern period.
The English language lesson scene in Shakespeare’sHenry Vhas attracted more critical attention for its sexual innuendoes than for its political significance even though King Henry was historically instrumental in the demise of French in medieval England. Closely modeled on early modern primers, the language lesson is a stage metaphor of the king’s language policy, and settles old ideological scores by canceling the effects of the Norman Conquest. Traces of insular French in Kate’s morphosyntactic idiosyncrasies serve the political agenda of a play chronicling the process that took the French tongue from authority to disempowerment. Keywords: Shakespeare;Henry V; language primers; French; Anglo-French
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