num_pages: 254
description: The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of The First Part of King Henry IV offers a theatrical perspective on the origins of Shakespeare's play and the history of its interpretation. In their introduction the editors, Herbert and Judith Weil, clarify the play's de-centred dramatic structure and call attention to the effects of civil war on a broad range of relationships. Falstaff's unpredictable vitality is also explored, together with such important contemporaneous values as honour, friendship, festivity and reformation. Lexical glosses make the rich wordplay accessible, while the notes provide a thorough commentary on Shakespeare's transformation of his sources. A supplementary section by Katharine Craik focuses on important modern interpretations.
language: English
title: The First Part of King Henry IV
titlecomplete: The First Part of King Henry IV
characters: 2nd Traveller, 1st Traveller, Servant to Hotspur, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, Ostler, Elizabeth Mortimer, Baroness Camoys, Sir Richard Vernon, 8th Baron of Shipbrook, Bardolph, Gilliams, messenger to Hotspur, Vintner, Henry Percy "Hotspur", Henry IV of England, Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, Thomas Percy, 1st Earl of Worcester, Sir Michael, Sheriff, Catrin ferch Owain Glyndŵr, Richard le Scrope, Bishop of Lichfield and Archbishop of York, Sir John Falstaff, Mistress Nell Quickly, Edward "Ned" Poins, Sir Edmund Mortimer IV, Peto, Francis the drawer, Robin Ostler, Mugs (carrier), Sir Walter Blount, Chamberlain, Owain Glyndŵr, Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas, Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, Henry V of England, Tom (carrier)
genres: Fiction, Plays, Theatre, Historical, Poetry, Drama, School, Literature, Classics, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 29554
series: Wars of the Roses, Henry IV
publisher: Cambridge University Press