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4 - Sovereignty's Scribbled Form in King John

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2017

Thomas P. Anderson
Affiliation:
Mississippi State University
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Summary

What government has to do must be identical with what the state should be […] To govern according to the principle of raison d’État is to arrange things so that the state becomes sturdy and permanent, so that it becomes wealthy, and so that it becomes strong in the face of everything that may destroy it.

Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics

In a word, bureaucracy can itself function as the key locus of a radical movement.

Eric Santner, The Royal Remains

It seems to me that something akin to this alluring confusion also characterizes modern bureaucracies. Is it possible that maligned structures are also powerfully attractive to us, that bureaucratic entanglements are also sometimes occasions for enchantment? When enchanted, one is intensively engaged, and dealing with a bureaucracy might very well require high levels of attentiveness.

Jane Bennett, The Enchantment of Modern Life

In Chapter 3, we saw how touch in Henry V is an acknowledgement of sovereignty's fractured condition; the royal touch fails to suture the divisibility at the core of sovereign power in the play. Catherine's ‘sugar touch’ (5.2.255) can be read as a usurpation and inversion of the efficacy of royal touch – reducing the majesty of absolute power and exposing its tactical responses to agitating subjects that escape the forceful logic of the sovereign exception. Shakespeare's less popular and rarely performed play King John (1596) is also concerned with divided sovereignty, and, as if anticipating the diminutive tactility of a ‘little touch of Harry in the night’ (4.0.47), the play also expresses its concern about sovereign force through the metaphor of touch. John's legitimacy on the English throne is jeopardised because of the claims of the young Prince Arthur, John's oldest brother's son. In a response to the French king Philip's willingness to forego Arthur's rightful claim in order to ally with John, Constance, Arthur's mother and surrogate for her son's claim to power, says, ‘You have beguiled me with a counterfeit / Resembling majesty, which, being touched and tried, / Proves valueless’ (3.1.25–7). Calling the royal union a trick that only appears majestic, Constance's rejection of Philip and John's alliance evokes tactility – ‘being touched and tried’ – as one way to determine kingship's legitimacy.

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Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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