Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 1, often referred to as 1 Henry VI, is a history play by William Shakespeare—possibly in collaboration with Thomas Nashe and others—believed to have been written in 1591. It is set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England.
"Joan la Pucelle" redirects here. For the historical figure, the patron saint of France, see Jehanne la Pucelle. For the manuscript illuminator, see Jean Pucelle.
Henry VI, Part 1 deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, as the English political system is torn apart by personal squabbles and petty jealousy. Henry VI, Part 2 deals with the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles and the inevitability of armed conflict and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict.
Although the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright.
Some regard Henry VI, Part 1 as the weakest of Shakespeare's plays.[1] Along with Titus Andronicus, it is generally considered one of the strongest candidates for evidence that Shakespeare collaborated with other dramatists early in his career.
Date and text[edit]
Date[edit]
The most important evidence for dating 1 Henry VI is the Diary of Philip Henslowe, which records a performance of a play by Lord Strange's Men called Harey Vj (i.e. Henry VI) on 3 March 1592 at the Rose Theatre in Southwark. Henslowe refers to the play as "ne" (which most critics take to mean "new", although it could be an abbreviation for the Newington Butts theatre, which Henslow may have owned[13]) and mentions that it had fifteen performances and earned £3.16s.8d, meaning it was extremely successful.[a] Harey Vj is usually accepted as being 1 Henry VI for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is unlikely to have been either 2 Henry VI or 3 Henry VI, as they were published in 1594 and 1595, respectively, with the titles under which they would have originally been performed, so as to ensure higher sales. As neither of them appear under the title Harey Vj, the play seen by Henslowe is unlikely to be either of them. Additionally, as Gary Taylor points out, Henslowe tended to identify sequels, but not first parts, to which he referred by the general title. As such, "Harey Vj could not be a Part Two or Part Three but could easily be a Part One."[14] The only other option is that Harey Vj is a now lost play.
That Harey Vj is not a lost play, however, seems to be confirmed by a reference in Thomas Nashe's Piers Penniless his Supplication to the Devil (entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 August 1592), which supports the theory that Harey Vj is 1 Henry VI. Nashe praises a play that features Lord Talbot: "How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French), to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators (at least), who in the tragedian that represents his person imagine they behold him fresh bleeding." It is thought that Nashe is here referring to Harey Vj, i.e. 1 Henry VI, as there is no other candidate for a play featuring Talbot from this time period (although again, there is the slight possibility that both Henslowe and Nashe are referring to a now lost play).
If Nashe's comment is accepted as evidence that the play seen by Henslowe was 1 Henry VI, to have been on stage as a new play in March 1592, it must have been written in 1591.
There is a separate question concerning the date of composition, however. Due to the publication in March 1594 of a quarto version of 2 Henry VI (under the title The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade: and the Duke of Yorke's first claim unto the crowne)[15] and an octavo version of 3 Henry VI in 1595 (under the title The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses, Lancaster and Yorke),[16] neither of which refer to 1 Henry VI, some critics have argued that 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI were written prior to 1 Henry VI. This theory was first suggested by E.K. Chambers in 1923 and revised by John Dover Wilson in 1952. The theory is that The Contention and True Tragedy were originally conceived as a two-part play, and due to their success, a prequel was created. Obviously, the title of The Contention, where it is referred to as The First Part is a large part of this theory, but various critics have offered further pieces of evidence to suggest 1 Henry VI was not the first play written in the trilogy. R.B. McKerrow, for example, argues that "if 2 Henry VI was originally written to continue the first part, it seems utterly incomprehensible that it should contain no allusion to the prowess of Talbot."[17] McKerrow also comments on the lack of reference to the symbolic use of roses in 2 Henry VI, whereas in 1 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, they are mentioned numerous times. McKerrow concludes that this suggests 1 Henry VI was written closer to 3 Henry VI, and as we know 3 Henry VI was definitely a sequel, it means that 1 Henry VI must have been written last, i.e., Shakespeare only conceived of the use of the roses while writing 3 Henry VI and then incorporated the idea into his prequel. Eliot Slater comes to the same conclusion in his statistical examination of the vocabulary of all three Henry VI plays, where he argues that 1 Henry VI was written either immediately before or immediately after 3 Henry VI, hence it must have been written last.[18] Likewise, Gary Taylor, in his analysis of the authorship of 1 Henry VI, argues that the many discrepancies between 1 Henry VI and 2 Henry VI (such as the lack of reference to Talbot) coupled with similarities in the vocabulary, phraseology, and tropes of 1 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI, suggest 1 Henry VI was probably written last.[19]
One argument against this theory is that 1 Henry VI is the weakest of the trilogy, and therefore, logic would suggest it was written first. This argument suggests that Shakespeare could only have created such a weak play if it was his first attempt to turn his chronicle sources into drama. In essence, he was unsure of his way, and as such, 1 Henry VI was a trial-run of sorts, making way for the more accomplished 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI. Emrys Jones is one notable critic who supports this view.[20] The standard rebuke to this theory, and the one used by Dover Wilson in 1952, is that 1 Henry VI is significantly weaker than the other two plays not because it was written first but because it was co-authored and may have been Shakespeare's first attempt to collaborate with other writers. As such, all of the play's problems can be attributed to its co-authors rather than Shakespeare himself, who may have had a relatively limited hand in its composition. In this sense, the fact that 1 Henry VI is the weakest of the trilogy has nothing to do with when it may have been written, but instead concerns only how it was written.[21]
As this implies, there is no critical consensus on this issue. Samuel Johnson, writing in his 1765 edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, pre-empted the debate and argued that the plays were written in sequence: "It is apparent that [2 Henry VI] begins where the former ends, and continues the series of transactions, of which it presupposes the first part already written. This is a sufficient proof that the second and third parts were not written without dependence on the first."[22] Numerous more recent scholars continue to uphold Johnson's argument. E. M. W. Tillyard, for example, writing in 1944, believes the plays were written in order, as does Andrew S. Cairncross in his editions of all three plays for the 2nd series of the Arden Shakespeare (1957, 1962 and 1964). E.A.J. Honigmann also agrees, in his "early start" theory of 1982 (which argues that Shakespeare's first play was Titus Andronicus, which Honigmann posits was written in 1586). Likewise, Michael Hattaway, in both his 1990 New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of 1 Henry VI and his 1991 edition of 2 Henry VI, argues that the evidence suggests 1 Henry VI was written first. In his 2001 introduction to Henry VI: Critical Essays, Thomas A. Pendleton makes a similar argument, as does Roger Warren in his 2003 edition of 2 Henry VI for the Oxford Shakespeare.
On the other hand, Edward Burns, in his 2000 Arden Shakespeare 3rd series edition of 1 Henry VI, and Ronald Knowles, in his 1999 Arden Shakespeare 3rd series edition of 2 Henry VI, make the case that 2 Henry VI probably preceded 1 Henry VI. Similarly, Randall Martin, in his 2001 Oxford Shakespeare edition of 3 Henry VI, argues that 1 Henry VI was almost certainly written last. In his 2003 Oxford edition of 1 Henry VI, Michael Taylor agrees with Martin. Additionally, it is worth noting that in the Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Works of 1986 and the 2nd edition of 2005, and in the Norton Shakespeare of 1997 and again in 2008, both 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI precede 1 Henry VI.
Ultimately, the question of the order of composition remains unanswered, and the only thing that critics can agree on is that all three plays (in whatever order) were written by early 1592 at the latest.
Text[edit]
The text of the play was not published until the 1623 First Folio, under the title The first part of Henry the Sixt.
When it came to be called Part 1 is unclear, although most critics tend to assume it was the invention of the First Folio editors, John Heminges and Henry Condell, as there are no references to the play under the title Part 1, or any derivative thereof, prior to 1623.[b]
Analysis and criticism[edit]
Critical history[edit]
Some critics argue that the Henry VI trilogy were the first plays based on recent English history, and, as such, they deserve an elevated position in the canon and a more central role in Shakespearean criticism. According to F. P. Wilson, for example, "There is no certain evidence that any dramatist before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 dared to put upon the public stage a play based upon English history [...] so far as we know, Shakespeare was the first."[23] However, not all critics agree with Wilson here. For example, Michael Taylor argues that there were at least thirty-nine history plays prior to 1592, including the two-part Christopher Marlowe play Tamburlaine (1587), Thomas Lodge's The Wounds of Civil War (1588), the anonymous The Troublesome Reign of King John (1588), Edmund Ironside (1590 – also anonymous), Robert Green's Selimus (1591) and another anonymous play, The True Tragedy of Richard III (1591). Paola Pugliatti however argues that the case may be somewhere between Wilson and Taylor's argument: "Shakespeare may not have been the first to bring English history before the audience of a public playhouse, but he was certainly the first to treat it in the manner of a mature historian rather than in the manner of a worshipper of historical, political and religious myth."[24]
Another issue often discussed amongst critics is the quality of the play. Along with 3 Henry VI, 1 Henry VI has traditionally been seen as one of Shakespeare's weakest works, with critics often citing the amount of violence as indicative of Shakespeare's artistic immaturity and inability to handle his chronicle sources, especially when compared to the more nuanced and far less violent second historical tetralogy (Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V). For example, critics such as E. M. W. Tillyard,[25] Irving Ribner[26] and A. P. Rossiter[27] have all claimed that the play violates neoclassical precepts of drama, which dictate that violence and battle should never be shown mimetically on stage, but should always be reported diegetically in dialogue. This view was based on traditional notions of the distinction between high and low art, a distinction based partly upon Philip Sidney's An Apology for Poetry (1579). Based on the work of Horace, Sidney criticised Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville's Gorboduc (1561) for showing too many battles and being too violent when it would have been more artistic to verbally represent such scenes. The belief was that any play that showed violence was crude, appealing only to the ignorant masses, and was therefore low art. On the other hand, any play that elevated itself above such direct representation of violence and instead relied on the writer's ability to verbalise and his skill for diegesis, was considered artistically superior and, therefore, high art. Writing in 1605, Ben Jonson commented in The Masque of Blackness that showing battles on stage was only "for the vulgar, who are better delighted with that which pleaseth the eye, than contenteth the ear."[28] Based upon these theories, 1 Henry VI, with its numerous on-stage skirmishes and multiple scenes of violence and murder, was considered a coarse play with little to recommend it to the intelligentsia.
On the other hand, however, writers like Thomas Heywood and Thomas Nashe praised battle scenes in general as often being intrinsic to the play and not simply vulgar distractions for the illiterate. In Piers Penniless (1592), Nashe praised the didactic element of drama that depicted battle and martial action, arguing that such plays were a good way of teaching both history and military tactics to the masses; in such plays "our forefather's valiant acts (that have lain long buried in rusty brass and worm-eaten books) are revived." Nashe also argued that plays that depict glorious national causes from the past rekindle a patriotic fervour that has been lost in "the puerility of an insipid present," and that such plays "provide a rare exercise of virtue in reproof to these degenerate effeminate days of ours."[29] Similarly, in An Apology for Actors (1612), Heywood writes, "So bewitching a thing is lively and well-spirited action, that it hath power to new mould the hearts of the spectators, and fashion them to the shape of any noble and notable attempt."[30] More recently, Michael Goldman has argued that battle scenes are vital to the overall movement and purpose of the play; "the sweep of athletic bodies across the stage is used not only to provide an exciting spectacle but to focus and clarify, to render dramatic, the entire unwieldy chronicle."[31]
Questions of originality and quality, however, are not the only critical disagreement 1 Henry VI has provoked. Numerous other issues divide critics, not the least of which concerns the authorship of the play.
Adaptations[edit]
Theatrical[edit]
Evidence for the first adaptation of 1 Henry VI is not found until 1817, when Edmund Kean appeared in J.H. Merivale's Richard Duke of York; or the Contention of York and Lancaster at Drury Lane, which used material from all three Henry VI plays, but removed everything not directly related to York; the play ended with his death, which occurs in Act 1, Scene 4 of 3 Henry VI. Material used from 1 Henry VI includes the Temple Garden scene, the Mortimer scene and the introduction of Margaret.
Following Merivale's example, Robert Atkins adapted all three plays into a single piece for a performance at The Old Vic in 1923 as part of the celebrations for the tercentenary of the First Folio. Guy Martineau played Henry, Esther Whitehouse played Margaret, Ernest Meads played Talbot and Jane Bacon played Joan.
