num_pages: 279
description: King Henry VIII has one of the fullest theatrical histories of any play in the Shakespeare canon, yet has been consistently misrepresented, both in performance and in criticism. This edition offers a new perspective on this ironic, multi-layered, collaborative play, revealing it as a complex meditation on the progress of Reformation which sees English life since Henry VIII's day as a series of bewildering changes in national and personal allegiance and represents 'history' as the product of varied and contradictory testimony. McMullan makes a powerful claim for the rehabilitation of Henry VIII, providing the fullest performance history of any edition to date and reading the work not as a marginal 'late' Shakespeare play but as a play which is paradigmatic of the achievement of Renaissance drama as a whole.
language: English
title: King Henry VIII
titlecomplete: King Henry VIII
characters: Patience (Lady in waiting to Katherine of Aragon), Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden, Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden, Elizabeth I of England, Anthony Denny, Henry VIII of England, Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, Stephen Gardiner, Thomas Wolsey, Gilbert Park, William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, Anne Boleyn, William Warham, Thomas Cranmer, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, Stephen Peacock, Lord Mayor of London, Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, Catherine of Aragon, Eustace Chapuys, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, 2nd Earl of Surrey, Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, Nicholas Hopkins, John de la Court, Charles Knevet, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Henry Guildford, Thomas More, George Nevill, 5th Baron Bergavenny, Griffith, attendant to Katherine of Aragon, Sir Henry Marney, Dr. William Butts, Old Lady (Attendant to Anne Boleyn), Lorenzo Campeggio, Thomas Lovell, Thomas Cromwell
genres: Historical, Literature, Classics, Drama, Plays, 17th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Theatre
ratings_count: 9038
publisher: Arden Shakespeare