Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage

by Dominique Goy-Blanquet

Overview

Like many of his fellow playwrights, Shakespeare turned to national history for inspiration. In this study, Dominique Goy-Blanquet provides a close comparison of the Henry VI plays and Richard III with their sources, demonstrating how Shakespeare was able to meet not only the ideological but also the technical problems of turning history into drama, how by cutting, carving, shaping, and casting his unwieldy material into performable plays, he matured into the most influential dramatist and historian of his time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198119876
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/06/2003
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dominique Goy-Blanquet is Professor of Elizabethan Theatre at the University of Picardie. She is a leading French Shakespearean scholar and a regular contributor to the TLS and various French magazines.

Table of Contents

I. The Mysteries of Henry VI1. Critical waves2. Classical shades3. Cyclical storms4. From page to stageII. National Unity and Military Honour5. The matter of ^1 Henry VI6. Borrowing material7. The theme of union8. Space and timeIII. Plotters and Plot9. Refashioning history10. Playing with time11. Piecing out factsIV. Grammatical Laws12. From narrative to dramatic syntax13. The appeal to the sources14. Court masks, street masquesV. Unhappy Families15. The narrative material of 3 Henry VI16. Dramatic techniques17. Critical rewriting18. The literary traditionVI. The Dawn of Tragedy19. A turn for the worst20. The new ethics21. The actors of the drama22. The tragic structure of history23. To be continuedVII. Unnatural Born Killer24. The text of Richard III25. Plotting history26. Hall's histories of Richard27. Hall or Holinshed?VIII. Certain Dregs of Conscience28. Vergil's tragic hell29. More's dramatic History30. Poetic licence31. Designing charactersConclusion: A world to bustle inBibliography

Editorial Reviews

"In a sea of "Shakespeare" studies, this one offers a more unique perspective, and digs for rarer evidence than most have attempted. Thus, it belongs within at least Interlibrary loan-reach of most casual and academic students of "Shakespeare" — Anna Faktorovich, Pensylvania Literary Journal

"Dominique Goy-Blanquet has remarkable knowledge of Shakespeare's early chronicle plays, the history of their production in print and on stage, and, above all, their sources. He provides information indispensable to teachers and critics of younger scholars."—Renaissance Quarterly

From the Publisher