SOURCE: Bowers, Fredson. “Theme and Structure in King Henry IV, Part I.” In The Drama of the Renaissance: Essays for Leicester Bradner, edited by Elmer M. Blistein, pp. 42-68. Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1970.

In the following essay, Bowers details the thematic structure of Henry IV, Part 1, noting that a central concern of the play is the triumph of the centralized royal power over the feudal system—concepts dramatically personified in the figures of Hal and Hotspur, respectively.

The popular history play of Elizabeth's reign was likely to be a chronicle history. The name is applied not just because the history in the play was taken from the chronicles, but because it was dramatized in the chronicle manner. History is not an Elizabethan literary form. Some few examples of relatively coherent history exist, as in Sir Thomas More's account of Richard III or Bacon's of Henry VII...