King Henry VI, Part 1 | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 40 pages of analysis & critique of King Henry VI, Part 1.

King Henry VI, Part 1 | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 40 pages of analysis & critique of King Henry VI, Part 1.
This section contains 11,089 words
(approx. 37 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Roger Warren

SOURCE: Warren, Roger, ed. Introduction to Henry VI, Part Two, by William Shakespeare, pp. 1-74. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

In the following excerpt, Warren surveys Shakespeare's sources for Henry VI, Part 2 and examines the dramatic function of its principal figures. Warren also addresses the subject of social unrest in late medieval England through his examination of Jack Cade's rebellion in Act III of the drama.

Origins

A tetralogy, or rather two tetralogies, including the subsequently written Richard II-Henry V series, was certainly how the [Henry VI] plays [and Richard III] were seen by their most influential critic in the first half of the twentieth century, E. M. W. Tillyard.1 He interpreted them as presenting a providential view of history in which the Wars of the Roses were England's bloody expiation of Henry IV's crime in deposing an anointed king, Richard II, an expiation that was not completed until...

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This section contains 11,089 words
(approx. 37 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Roger Warren
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Critical Essay by Roger Warren from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.