The Paradoxes of ‘Popularity’ in Shakespeare’s History Plays

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lake
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
History Plays ◽  
English History ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
The Public ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter surveys the development of sixteenth-century popularity politics, noting Burghley, Essex, and Bancroft all to have been practitioners of that ‘dark art’. It shows that popularity was a term of opprobrium and distaste to the elite, yet was taken up with equal enthusiasm by Puritanism and Roman Catholic enemies of the Elizabethan regime, contributing to a fitful emergence of the public sphere. Deploying English history in support of their claims, religious partisanship focused certain late medieval reigns: those of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, and Richard III—the very reigns that Shakespeare then addressed in his history plays. Shakespeare’s dramas are shown to present the complexities and risks attendant upon popularity politics; and to demonstrate, further, the resistance of popular attitudes to conscription by elites, given the independent intelligence of commoners and their capability for large-scale news gathering.

Telling the Story: Shakespeare's Histories in Performance

1990 ◽  
Vol 6 (23) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Andrew Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
History Plays ◽  
English History ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Henry Vi

The English Shakespeare Company was founded in 1986 by Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington with a commitment to take large-scale productions to regional venues. Henry IV, Parts One and Two and Henry V opened at the Plymouth Theatre Royal in November 1986 under the title The Henrys: they were then staged at the Old Vic and toured extensively. In December 1987 Richard II, with a two-part adaptation of the three parts of Henry VI (House of Lancaster and House of York) and Richard III, were added to the previous trilogy to create a complete cycle of history plays – The Wars of the Roses. The cycle was toured in England and abroad before playing at the Old Vic in the spring of 1989. It has since been filmed for television by Portman Productions. The only comparable treatment of the histories in the theatre took place at Stratford in 1964. when Peter Hall and John Barton staged seven plays as a sequence spanning English history from the reign of Richard II to the downfall of Richard III. Andrew Jarvis has been with the English Shakespeare Company since 1986 when he played Gadshill, Douglas, Harcourt, and the Dauphin. He has since played Exton, Hotspur, and Richard III. In 1988 he won the Manchester Evening News Award for Best Actor in a Visiting Production for his portrayal of Richard III. Prior to joining the ESC he had played many roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Here, he is interviewed by Stephen Phillips, lecturer in drama at the College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth, who is currently preparing a study of Shakespeare's history cycles in performance in the twentieth century.

4. Plays of the 1590s

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Wells
Keyword(s):  
National Unity ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
English History ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Titus Andronicus ◽  
The People ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
National Welfare

During the first decade of Shakespeare’s career he wrote a series of closely inter-related plays based on English history drawing heavily on Holinshed’s Chronicles and other accounts. These plays show a serious concern with political problems, with the responsibilities of a king, his relationship with the people, the need for national unity, and the relationship between national welfare and self-interest. ‘Plays of the 1590s’ introduces each of these plays, sketching its origins, stories, and themes. It also touches on aspects of Shakespeare’s techniques and artistry. The plays considered are Henry VI (Parts One to Three), Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Edward III, and King John.

Shakespeare and the Play Scripts of Private Prayer

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceri Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Change Model ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
Agent Of Change ◽  
Private Prayer

Early modern private prayer shows skill in narration and drama. In manuals and sermons on how to pray, collections of model prayers, scholarly treatises about biblical petitions, and popular tracts about life crises prompting calls to God, prayer is valued as a powerful agent of change. Model prayers create stories about people in distinct ranks and jobs, with concrete details about real-life situations. These characters may act in play-lets, or appear in the middle of difficulties, or voice a suite of petitions from all sides of a conflict. Thinking of early modern private prayers as dramatic dialogues rather than as lyric monologues raises the question of whether play-going and praying were mutually reinforcing practices. Could dramatists deploying prayer on stage rely on having audience members who were already expert at making up roles for themselves in prayer, and who expected their petitions to have the power to intervene in major events? Does prayer’s focus on cause and effect structure the historiography of Shakespeare’s history plays: 2 and 3 Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, Henry V, and Henry VIII?

Hark what discord follows

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 111
Author(s):  
Ian Linklater
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Wars Of The Roses ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second Tetralogy

"Richard II" is the first play in the second Tetralogy or group of plays broadly about the history of England from 1399 to 1415. It is followed by the two parts of Henry IV and climaxes in the so-called English Epic play Henry V. The first Tetralogy, obviously written before, comprises the three parts of Henry VI and culminates in "Richard III" and deals with the period of the Wars of the Roses from 1420 to the accession of Henry Tudor in 1485, which final date marks the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty.

Shakespeare’s Tragedy and English History

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hadfield
Keyword(s):  
History Plays ◽  
English History ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The People ◽  
King John

In the history plays of the 1590s Shakespeare covers most of late medieval English history, representing the struggle between the rival claimants to the crown and the people as a tragedy. Shakespeare was influenced by the verse tragedies in A Mirror for Magistrates—as well as by Holinshed’s Chronicles—which presented history as a series of stories from which relevant morals could be drawn. In following A Mirror Shakespeare had one eye on the present, articulating the fear that history might repeat itself and produce yet another tragedy. In his plays Shakespeare represents a series of kings with varying personalities and abilities struggling to rule in trying circumstances, each living out his own tragedy, leaving the audience to work out the relevance and significance of the plays. In this chapter I provide specific readings of Richard II, Richard III and King John.

scholarly journals War Games: Staging the Histories in an American Presidential Year

Linguaculture ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Kath Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Political Concern ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Political Statement ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
Artistic Director ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This paper examines the ways in which the seldom performed collaborative play, Edward III, was re-contextualised by Barbara Gaines, Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theater of Chicago, in order to create a specifically presentist piece of theatre making a forceful political statement during the 2016 US presidential election. Edward III formed the opening section of a trilogy entitled Tug of War: Foreign Fire, which continued with Henry V, and Henry VI Part I. The second trilogy, Tug of War: Civil Strife, comprised the remaining two parts of Henry VI and Richard III. The paper will address the rationale behind the selection of these specific plays, and why it was felt unnecessary to fill the historical lacuna created by the exclusion of Richard II and Henry IV Parts I and II. In addition, it will also examine the limitations inherent in the available archival material when researching an ephemeral theatrical event, particularly one which has been edited and directed in order to address issues of immediate political concern. Selected extracts from my own review of the first of these two trilogies will seek to offer a more detailed response than is possible for journalistic reviewers and to provide sufficient background to prove of benefit for future researchers.

scholarly journals Shakespeare's Historiography

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robert Leslie Ewens
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Verse Drama ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
History Play ◽  
Historical Truth

<p>This study explores, in a sixteenth century context, the historical thought and consciousness of a selection of Shakespeare's English history plays. Looked at in relation to contemporary historiographical works, it is concluded that the plays in question qualify as a form of dramatic historiography both transitional and progressive in nature. The study, after considering some aspects of Tudor historiography relevant to Shakespeare and his drama in the introductory chapter, goes on in Chapter One to explore Shakespeare's Henry VI sequence. My discussion finds that the interaction of the roles and requirements of both dramatist and historian has two important results: firstly an emerging awareness of the impossibility of presenting the historical "truth"; and secondly an appreciation that the (re)construction of a linear historical narrative (dramatisation), especially when developed from diverse Chronicle accounts, requires the dramatist/historian's critical and historical judgement concerning probability. Also observed in this chapter is the drama's capacity for making character as much a part of history as event. In Chapter Two Shakespeare's Richard III is juxtaposed with its main source, Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III. These texts provide a springboard for discussion of the tradition of oral history and the problems associated with its use as a source for authoritative historiography, and the apparent resemblance between the historian's and lawyer's pursuit of the "truth". The methods and principles of the courtroom are intimately related to those used by the dramatist/historian. The final chapter couples the anonymous history play Edward III with Shakespeare's most sophisticated history, Henry V. In this chapter I first discuss the growing sixteenth century distinction between poetry (the medium of the history play) and historiography. The history presented in Edward III is interrupted and disrupted by the "poetic" interlude of King Edward's residence at the Countess of Salisbury's castle; I argue that the play (ironically, given its own status as verse drama) privileges "history" at the expense of "poetry". In Henry V, in contrast, there is evidence of a conceptual shift in the use and perception of history. Here, also, is found the full realisation of the ineluctable evasiveness of historical "truth" through the contradictory accounts of the Chorus and the stage action, and the opacity of King Henry.</p>

Shakespeare's Body Parts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huw Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Henry V ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Political Writing ◽  
Human Flesh

This book provides a sustained, formalist and theoretically-informed reading of the multiple body parts that litter the dialogue and action of Shakespeare’s history plays, including Henry V, Richard II, Richard III, King John, and the Henry IV plays. Starting with a literary critical analysis of these dislocated bodies, the book follows Shakespeare’s own relentless pursuit of a specific political question: how does human flesh, blood, and bone relate to sovereignty? Shakespeare’s treatment of the body is also read against two other bodies of work: early modern political writing, and twentieth- and twenty first-century critical theory. Like Shakespeare’s histories, these develop understandings of sovereign power through considerations of the body: from Jean Bodin’s inalienable sovereignty, located in the body of the monarch, through Hobbes’ mechanistic Leviathan, to Kantorowicz’s “two bodies” and Derrida’s “prosthstatics” in which forms of sovereign power are imagined as machine- or animal-like. Along the way, particular body parts – knees, hands, heads, and throats – come to the fore as particular objects of interest.

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