Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Don M. Ricks

Critical Essay by Don M. Ricks

SOURCE: “The Shakespearean History Play,” in Shakespeare's Emergent Form: A Study of the Henry VI Plays, Monograph Series, Vol. XV, No. 1, June, 1968, pp. 11-36.

In the essay below, Ricks examines the relationship between politics and history in Tudor—and in particular, Shakespearean—historiography, maintaining that Shakespeare's historiography was characteristic of his age in its didacticism.

I. Shakespeare as a Historian

There has been some question as to whether Shakespeare wrote “history” plays or “political” plays. The truth is, of course, that neither adjective is by itself adequate. Social history, economic history, intellectual history, all are modern concepts; for the Elizabethans, history was political history. Louis B. Wright has shown, moreover, that in spite of Sidney's argumentative preference for poetry, for the Elizabethans “the reading of history was an exercise second only to a study of Holy Writ in its power to induce good morality and shape the individual into a worthy member of society.”¹ It...
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