Shakespeare's Tudor history
Subtitle: a study of Henry IV, parts 1 and 2
By: Tom McAlindon.
Publisher: Burlington, VT; Ashgate
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Aldershot, Hampshire, England
Language: eng
Number of pages: 225
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- In literature.; Tudor, House of -- In literature.; Literature and history -- Great Britain.; Kings and rulers in literature.; Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Historiography.
Description: "In this study, McAlindon re-reads the two Henry plays - Shakespeare's highest achievment in the historical-political mode - in the light of the political and cultural history of the Tudor period. The book's format and methodology are designed for an overall comprehensiveness of approach appropriate to an essentially historicist study." "Shakespeare's Tudor History begins with an account of the play's critical history from 1700 to the 1980s, asserting the importance of critical commentary before the postmodern criticism that has dominated the last two decades of the twentieth century. Given the close connection of Henry IV with the other histories, this chapter ranges fairly widely, and is to some extent, and of necessity, a critical history of all Shakespeare's English histories." "The study then moves to an account of aspects of Tudor history that the author deems especially relevant to an understanding of Henry IV. Special emphasis is placed on the linked rebellions of 1536, 1547 and 1569, which haunted the government and its propagandists in the unstable last decades of the century when the state was threatened by a Catholic alliance of internal and external forces. Echoes of these rebellions are present in Henry IV, which seems to endorse the prevailing Tudor conception of history as repetitive and cyclical." "In the second edition of the book, McAlindon provides close readings of the text, structured individually around what he puts forward as the plays' three dominant concepts: Time, Truth and Grace. Rather than considering each in distinct outline, McAlindon shows the major concepts to overlap; he deals with each in relation to associated concepts of an arguably subordinate order."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-220) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Chapter 1 A Critical History; title: A masterpiece; title: Comic history; title: Structures; title: Nineteenth-century interpretations; title: Twentieth-century interpretations:; title: conservative Shakespeare; title: Twentieth-century interpretations:; title: ambivalent Shakespeare; title: Conclusion; title: Chapter 2 A Tudor History; title: Present and past; title: Rebellion; title: The colours of rebellion and the problem of truth; title: Rumour's tongues; title: What is a man but his promise'; title: Treachery and distrust; title: Grace and favour; title: Chapter 3 Time; title: Tudor time; title: Henry IV: image and design; title: The King; title: 'Esperance ma comforte': the rebels; title: 'Continual laughter': Falstaff; title: 'Sunlike majesty': the heir apparent; title: 'Veritasfilia temporis'; title: The presence of the past; title: Chapter 4 Truth; title: Oaths, perjury, language; title: Royal duplicity: Henry and Prince John; title: The rebels: dividing and divided; title: The word of the noble': Sir John Falstaff (and friends); title: True prince or princely hypocrite?; title: Chapter 5 Grace; title: Grace and honour; title: 'A god on earth': Henry and Prince John; title: The 'king of honour': Sir Harry Percy; title: Sir John: the reforming knight; title: The 'ungracious boy'; title: Pilgrims of grace.