SOURCE: “Reforming Prince Hal: The Sovereign Inheritor in 2 Henry IV,” in Renaissance Drama, Vol. 21, 1990, pp. 225-42.

In the following essay, Crewe disputes critical thinking that denies substantive reformation in Prince Hal's character. Instead, Crewe proposes, the subject of reform is continuously revisited in both parts of Henry IV, making it difficult to define successful reformation in the political context of the plays.

The “matter of Hal's redemption,” as A. R. Humphreys, the Arden editor of 2 Henry IV, calls it, may now seem too stale or tainted for further consideration.¹ It has certainly been discussed at length, and to go on talking about it now is to risk the charge of reviving the ideological discourse of the centered, sovereign, masculine subject. Resisting this possibility is in fact one imperative of a developing critique in Shakespeare studies, the stakes of which are declared to be high.² This risk aside, the...