Ate some lunch.
Ate some lunch. Turned on TV. For some reason, Olivier's Henry V was on, so caught the end bit. Which reminded me that Henry must have spoken French (technically probably langue d'oil). So what is up with the scenes with Katherine? Just a technique to inject a little distraction and humor? They're some of the best scenes, but this one point kind of bothers me, especially as it seems traditional to have Katherine and her maid speak with somewhat exaggerated (outrageous!) French accents, while none of the other French characters do so (Burgundy, Charles VI, Dauphin, etc.). I wonder, at least, where that tradition of the accent came from.
Just as a passing thought, I imagine that those scenes were written for the amusement of the commoners in the English audiences, who would not have know langue d'oil and were meant to be relatively farcical in that respect, so I imagine the exaggerated accents could be part of that.
ReplyDeleteHer learning English could be contrived as a point of willingness to connect with him beyond political ties, which she would not have necessarily done as a matter of her education if the assumption was for her to marry into another European family, and thus the reason why other members of the French court have a less pronounced accent that she and her maid, since they had been forced to perfect their accent for the sake of diplomacy years prior.
Or it was either directorial choice or oversight that would not have necessarily been overly considered in the theater of it's time.
Hm. My thought was that, if all the other characters are speaking English, even though they probably all would have been speaking French, you'd think at least when Henry and Katherine were together, they'd both speak English. I guess it was just to throw in a few good groundling scenes, which they are. I guess I was just looking for there to be something more there. That, and the obviousness of the accents probably aren't funny to me, but I can see how they could be to a period audience. Now, it's probably just traditional.
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