[lith] Shakespeare, Histories: Henry IV and Henry V - Einzelansicht

Erste Sitzung: 24. Oktober 2023

Die Anmeldung findet im Rahmen des allgemeinen Verfahrens der Fachrichtung statt. Bitte beachten Sie die Mitteilungen auf der Website der Fachrichtung und die Aushänge.

In this seminar, we will focus on three of Shakespeare’s history plays (which are also simply called histories): the first part of Henry IV, the second part of Henry IV and Henry V. These three plays belong to a group of four plays (including Richard II) that is called Shakespeare’s second tetralogy or the Lancaster tetralogy or the Henriad, and we will discuss what those terms mean at the beginning of the seminar. The plays offer fascinating insights into the potential of early modern theatre, political strategies, the idea of the early modern nation, gender constructs, the everyday experience and criticism of war as well as some of Shakespeare’s most subtle studies of human relationships and power. They are also the playground of one of Shakespeare’s most popular stage characters, the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, whose presence in the three plays we will read and analyse in detail.

Henry V, the climax of the second tetralogy, is Shakespeare’s most triumphalist and English nationalist history play, celebrating King Henry V as the archetypal English hero. We will also discuss Orson Welles’s film Chimes at Midnight (1965), two film versions of Henry V, one by Laurence Olivier (1944) and one Kenneth Branagh (1987), and we will study some scenes from the first series of the BBC Two-production The Hollow Crown (2012).

You must have read the first part of Henry IV by the second meeting.

Texts: You must own and read the following editions:

William Shakespeare. The First Part of King Henry IV. Ed. Herbert Weil and Judith Weil. 2nd ed. (The New Cambridge Shakespeare.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.   ISBN 978-0-521-68743-0 [paperback]

William Shakespeare. Henry V. Ed. Andrew Gurr. 2nd ed. (New Cambridge Shakespeare.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.   ISBN  978-0-521-61264-7 [paperback]

The text of the second part of Henry IV will be made available.

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