You recognize Henry VIII and Elizabeth I when you see them in portraits, I'm sure. Of all the other English kings and queens, I imagine you have slightly more of a sense of Henry V than of the rest--assuming, that is, that you have seen one or the other of the two highly successful twentieth-century film adaptations of Shakespeare's Henry V, starring Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh respectively--and you will surely know more about him than you do about his father, Henry IV. If so, and if you haven't encountered 1 Henry IV before, then you should know that it is also a play about Henry V, charting a stage of his development from irresponsible youth to heroic national leader. ...
This Third Edition of the Norton Critical Edition of 1 Henry IV (edited by Gordon McMullan; text edited bv lames L. Sanderson) is based on the First Quarto (1598), with a few departures as noted. The play is accompanied by fully revised explanatory annotations and by an abbreviated genealogy of the Mortimers and the House of Lancaster.
"Contexts and Sources" includes a facsimile excerpt from the First Quarto along with paired essays that debate 1 Henry IV's central issues. Harold Jenkins and Paul Yachnin offer differing approaches to the play's structural problems. Gary. Taylor and David Scott Kastan take up opposing points of view on the naming of Oldcastle/Falstaff. 1 Henry lV's origins are traced through Peter Saccio's historical overview of Shakespeare and the period and through the accounts of Edward Hall, Raphael Holinshed, and Samuel Daniel, among others.
"Criticism" has been thoroughly revised and expanded. Twentyfour interpretations are included, nineteen of them new to the Third Edition. Seminal essays by Samuel Johnson, Maurice Morgann, John Dover Wilson, Arthur C. Sprague, and E. M. W. Tillyard have been retained. New assessments are provided by Graham Holderness, Stephen Greenblatt, Scott McMillin, David Scott Kastan, Patricia Parker, Coppe1ia Kahn, and Barbara Hodgdon, among others.. There are also extracts from the screenplay of Gus Van Sant's My Own Private ldaho,which draws on 1 Henry, IV, and from an interview with the director.
A revised Selected Bibliography is included.
Preface
A Note on the Text by James L. Sanderson
Abbreviated Genealogy of the Mortimers and the
House of Lancaster
The Text of 1 Henry IV
Contexts and Sources
COMPOSITION AND PUBLICATION
Excerpt from the 1598 Quarto
ONE PLAY OR TWO?
Harold Jenkins · The Structural Problem in
Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth
Paul Yachnin · History, Theatricality, and the
"Structural Problem" in the Henry IV Plays
FALSTAFF OR OLDCASTLE?
Gary Taylor · The Fortunes of Oldcastle
David Scott Kastan · [Reforming Falstaff]
ORIGINS
Peter Saccio · [Shakespearean History and the Reign
of Henry IV]
Edward Hall · Henry, Prince of Wales
Raphael Holinshed · Elizabeth and the Uniting of the
Two Houses
Anonymous · An Homilee agaynst disobedience and
wylful rebellion
Raphael Holinshed · The Chronicles of England
Samuel Daniel · The Ciuile Wars
Anonymous · The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth
Criticism
John Dryden · The Composition of a Character
Samuel Johnson · [Falstaff]
Elizabeth Montagu · [Hal, Falstaff, and Taste]
Maurice Morgann · [The Courage of Falstaff]
John Dover Wilson · The Falstaff Myth
Arthur C. Sprague · Gadshill Revisited
E. M. W. Tillyard · The Second Tetralogy
Henry Ansagar Kelly · [Providence and Propaganda]
Graham Holderness · [Tillyard, History, and Ideology]
Sigurd Burckhardt · [Symmetry and Disorder]
John Wilders · [Knowledge and Misjudgement]
Stephen Greenblatt · [Theater and Power]
Scott McMillin · [Performing 1 Henry IV]
David Scott Kastan · "The King Hath Many Marching
in His Coats," or, What Did You Do in the War,
Daddy?
C. L. Barber · [Mingling Kings and Clowns]
Michael D. Bristol · [The Battle of Carnival and Lent]
Samuel Crowl · [Welles and Falstaff]
Patricia Parker · [Falstaff]
Coppelia Kahn · [Masculine Identities]
Gus Van Sant · [My Own Private Idaho]
Susan Wiseman · [Shakespeare in Idaho]
Jean E. Howard and Phyllis Rackin · [Gender and
Nation]
Christopher Highley · [Defining the Nation]
Barbara Hodgdon · [Endings]
Selected Bibliography