Henry VI, Part 1

The three plays that make up the Henry VI cycle are believed to be some of Shakespeare's very first plays. They certainly read as apprentice works, and are often neglected in favour of the more comical and dramatically assured plays Henry IV and Henry V. However, the Henry VI plays dramatise the inauspicious history of Henry V's son, Henry VI, who is only nine months old when his father dies. The play deals with the factions at court who quarrel for political control, led by the Duke of Gloucester and the Cardinal of Winchester. As political intrigue divides the English court, its army continues to fight in France in a desperate attempt to hold on to the gains made by Henry V, whose tradition is upheld by the ferocious figure of Lord Talbot, pitched against La Pucelle, better known as Joan of Arc. An uneasy peace is finally established following the execution of Joan and marriage of Henry VI to the French princess Margaret of Anjou. However, Margaret is revealed to be having an affair with the Earl of Suffolk, and it becomes clear that Henry's troubles are far from over. Criticised for their somewhat crude characterisation (especially in its portrayal of women), all three of the Henry VI plays remain fascinating as early examples of Shakespeare's dramatisation of English history. --Jerry Brotton

Not one of my favorites and somewhat dull and flat but still worth reading if you feel the urge to read it. ( )

FFYAA

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1081694.html

The first play is really much more about Talbot, the English commander in France, and Joan La Pucelle, who inspires the French to treacherously resist their English rulers, than about King Henry, who doesn't even appear until the third act. The story is of increasingly united and successful French prevailing against the divided English, who come to identify their factions with red or white roses. King Henry is rather innocently being manipulated by the factions (including into a rather bizarre arranged marriage in the last act, organised by Suffolk who is deeply in love with the future queen himself).

Talbot gets the best two scenes, at the end of the fourth act, in rhyming couplets with his son as they go to their doom in combat. It's not surprising that the most explicit contemporary record of Henry VI Part 1 being performed is Nashe's note about a play about Talbot. The moral lesson of the play is that thanks to the power-hungry squabbles of the English leadership, Talbot's courage and leadership are lost disastrously (there is also a very peculiar scene with the Countess of Auvergne who attempts to capture him, but apparently ends up being seduced herself). The play runs out of steam and direction after his death.

The other fascinating character is Joan La Pucelle. The English (and some of the French) accuse her of being a whore and a witch, but there is nothing in the script of the first four acts to support this; I must say I was expecting her to be a misguided idealist à la Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. So it actually came as rather a shock in the last act when she did, in fact, turn out to be consorting with demons and pleaded to be spared execution on the grounds of pregnancy, though she couldn't remember who the father was (the implication is surely that she is just making it up). Of course, there is a large element of simple anti-French propaganda operating here; but I was surprised that her transformation into panic-stricken witch in the last act seemed so sudden.

Anyway, it is generally a good read; the battles would require careful and diligent staging, to keep the different factions distinct and give clear outcomes to the various sieges and other engagements, and that's one thing that just doesn't come across on audio. ( )