Henry VI Summary
William Shakespeare

Biography Essay"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer,... Read more

Considered by critics, scholars, and the theater-going public the most important dramatist in the history of English literature, William Shakespeare occupies a unique position in the pantheon of great... Read more

William Shakespeare's reputation is based primarily on his plays. With the partial exception of the Sonnets (1609), quarried since the early nineteenth century for autobiographical secrets allegedly ... Read more

In the essay below, Leech surveys the structure of the three parts of Henry VI and discusses the critical debate over Shakespeare's part in the authorship of these works. It is impossible to... Read more

In the essays below, Jones presents an overview of the three parts of Henry VI, particularly emphasizing Shakespeare's use of history in the plays. The first play of the first tetralogy begi... Read more

In the essay below, Blanpied considers Shakespeare's dramatization of history in Henry VI, perceiving in the work's three parts a series of disintegrations that shape each subsequent pla... Read more

In the essay below, Knowles reexamines the historical sources of Henry VI, contending that Shakespeare's reshaping of historical materials in the three plays demonstrates his departure from the... Read more

In the essay below, Pye focuses on Act I, scene 4 of 1 Henry VI in order to study the economic and historical dimensions of subjectivity presented in the play. Nothing has so consistently underwrit... Read more

In the essay below, Martin surveys Shakespeare's use of the emblems of Elizabethan civic pageantry to create his “reinterpretive presentation of history” in Henry VI. At the po... Read more

In the essay below, Owens probes the political dimension of Henry VI’s imagery of severed heads. The spectacle of the severed head is so common a feature of Elizabethan and Jacobean history ... Read more

In the essay below, Pearlman summarizes the action, major themes, and principal characters of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3. The three parts of Henry the Sixth appear in consecutive order in the grea... Read more

In the excerpt below, Schwarz studies the complex portrayal of women in Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, focusing on the depiction of Joan as an outsider and as a contradictory embodiment of extremes. Sch... Read more

In the essay below, Watson traces the farcical, sardonic, and grotesque patterns of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3. Although the three parts of Henry VI have always offered more than their fair share ... Read more

In the essay below, Williams probes Shakespeare's presentation of an unhistorical love affair between Queen Margaret of Anjou and the Earl of Suffolk as the dramatist's first attempt at ... Read more

In the essay below, Burckhardt addresses the problems of integrity and episodic design in Henry VI, Part 1, finding an aesthetic unity in the ceremonial qualities of the narrative as well as in the pl... Read more

In the essay below, Utterback considers the topics of political instability and the legitimate inheritance of the English crown in Henry VI, Part 3. In the opening scene of Henry VI, Part III, Shak... Read more

In the following essay, Rowse briefly reviews the social conditions under which Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 were written and discusses how Shakespeare's newness as a playwright is revealed in t... Read more

In the following essay, Pratt asserts that Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, achieves the status of myth through Shakespeare's careful depiction of Humphrey's loyalty to his king in Henry VI... Read more

In the following excerpt, Martin investigates the changing critical attitudes toward Margaret, observing that while early productions of the Henry VI plays virtually ignored her, or reduced her to a c... Read more

In the following review, Barbour observes that the scenery and direction of Karin Coonrod's production of the Henry VI series reflects the bloodshed that has occurred in modern warfare in such ... Read more

In the following essay, Jackson reviews Michael Boyd's December 2000-January 2001 Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 and Richard III. The critic contends that the ... Read more

In the following essay, Linton examines the Jack Cade Rebellion in Henry VI, Part 2, and contends that underlying Cade's suspicion of people who are literate is Shakespeare's belief that... Read more

In the following essay, Butler asserts that Shakespeare relied on Virgil's Aeneid and its depiction of the dying Turnus in his portrayal of Suffolk's death in Henry VI, Part 2. In Act... Read more

In the following essay, Semenza explores the ways in which Shakespeare used sports metaphors to describe the selfish wars conducted by the greedy nobles in Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3. When, in 1 H... Read more

In the following excerpt, Hattaway views Henry VI, Part 2 as a radical political work that features Shakespeare's sweeping reconstruction of English history concentrated on the power of the mig... Read more

In the following excerpt, Jackson concentrates on the symbolic power of Joan of Arc in Henry VI, Part 1 and maintains that this character would have elicited Elizabethan associations with Amazons, war... Read more

In the following essay, Liebler and Shea trace the role of Margaret in the Henry VI plays and Richard III as it develops in accordance with four successive Jungian archetypes—Virgin, Wife, Moth... Read more

In the following review of Michael Boyd's 2001 Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, Duncan-Jones admires the overall production, but finds fault with the lagging pa... Read more

In the following review, Hornby praises Edward Hall's 2003 production of Rose Rage, a two-part adaptation of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, for its stirring “visual poetry,” stylize... Read more

In the following essay, Blanpied views Henry VI, Part 1 as a subversive work that critiques historical reality. Over the last two decades or so 1 Henry VI has attracted growing esteem. This comes b... Read more

In the following essay, Nichols links the symbolic and theatrical functions of paper to themes of legality, revenge, and the legitimacy of kings in the Henry VI plays. Right, says the fledgling pla... Read more