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INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORIES OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE+HENRY IV (10._shakespeare_-_histories+henryiv.doc)

Introduction to the histories

of William Shakespeare

Traditionally, the plays of William Shake spear have been grouped into three categories: tragedies, comedies, and histories. Histories are normally described as those based on the lives of English kings. The plays that depict older historical figures such as Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Julius Caesar and the legendary King Lear are not usually included in the classification. Macbeth, which is based on a Scottish king, is also normally regarded as a tragedy, not a history.

The source for most of these plays is the well-known Raphael Holinshed's Chronicle of English history. Shakespeare's plays focus on only a small part of the characters' lives and frequently omit significant events for dramatic purposes.

Histories

Henry IV, Part IHenry IV, Part IIHenry VHenry VI, Part IHenry VI, Part IIHenry VI, Part IIIHenry VIIIKing JohnRichard IIRichard III

Context

Shakespeare was living under the reign of Elizabeth I, the last monarch of the house of Tudor, and his history plays are often regarded as Tudor propaganda because they show the dangers of civil war and celebrate the founders of the Tudor dynasty. In particular, Richard III depicts the last member of the rival house of York as an evil monster ("that bottled spider, that foul bunchback'd toad"), a depiction disputed by many modern historians, while portraying his usurper, Henry VII in glowing terms. Political bias is also clear in Henry VIII, which ends with an effusive celebration of the birth of Elizabeth. However, Shakespeare's celebration of Tudor order is less important in these plays than the spectacular decline of the medieval world. Moreover, some of Shakespeare's histories -- and notably Richard III - point out that this medieval world came to its end when opportunism and machiavelism infiltrated its politics. By nostalgically evoking the late Middle Ages, these plays described the political and social evolution that had led to the actual methods of Tudor rule, so that it is possible to consider history plays as a biased criticism of their own society. With the shamed return of unvictorious Essex, patriotic enlargements turned sour, and, indeed, English history became a dangerous thing to present upon the stage: it was too easy to find, in any aspect of England’s past, seditious parallels to the present. History from now on had to be remote and foreign – Julius Caesar, Coriolanus…

The War(s) of the Roses" is a phrase used to describe the civil wars in England between the Lancastrian and Yorkist dynasties. Some of the events of these wars were dramatized by Shakespeare in the history plays Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V; Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; and Richard III.

There is no evidence that the plays were imagined as a play cycle in Shakespeare's day. However in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there have been numerous stage performances of:

1. The first tetralogy (Henry VI parts 1 to 3 and Richard III) as a cycle;
2. The second tetralogy (Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V) as a cycle (which has also been referred to as the Henriad); and
3. The entire eight plays in historical order (the second tetralogy followed by the first tetralogy) as a cycle. Where this full cycle is performed, as by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1964, the name The War[s] of the Roses has often been used for the cycle as a whole.

Henry IV, Part I

Key Facts

Full title · The History of Henry the Fourth (1 Henry IV)

Author · William Shakespeare

Type of work · Play

Genre · Historical drama, military drama

Language · English

Time and place written · probably 1596–1597, London

Date of first publication · 1598 (in quarto), 1623 (in folio)

Tone · the tone of the play alternates between very serious drama and rollicking comedy. The drama is grave and ominous, and is centered on the careworn figure of King Henry IV and the rebellion of the Percys. The comedy is fast-paced, rambunctious, and punning, and centers on the character of Falstaff and the other rogues at the Boar’s Head Tavern.

Setting (time) · around 1402–1403

Setting (place) · London, especially the royal palace and the Boar’s Head Tavern; various other locales around England, including the battlefield of Shrewsbury, where the final act takes place

Protagonist · Prince Harry

Major conflict · The Percy family, encouraged by the hot temper of the young nobleman Hotspur, seeks to overthrow the reigning king of England, Henry IV. Simultaneously, Harry, the crown prince of England, must work to win back his honor and his place in his father’s esteem after squandering it by spending too much time with the rogue Falstaff and other unsuitable companions.

Rising action · the king’s confrontation with Hotspur; the robbery; the king’s confrontation with Harry; the Percys’ battle preparations

Climax · The Battle of Shrewsbury in Act V, specifically Harry’s duel with Hotspur

Falling action · the king’s strategizing after the battle, leading into the play’s sequel, 2 Henry IV

Themes · the nature of honor; the legitimacy of rulership; high and low language

Motifs · Doubles; British cultures; the multiplicity of language; magic

Symbols · the play is not heavily symbolic, though various characters represent various traits: for example, Hotspur represents the ideal of honor as a product of glory on the battlefield, and Glyndwr represents the folk magic of Wales.

Foreshadowing  · Hotspur’s confrontation with the king; the king’s claim that Hotspur has more honor than Harry; Harry and Falstaff’s role-playing; the robbery; Hotspur’s confrontation with Kate.

Henry IV, Part I

Sources

Shakespeare's primary source for Henry IV, Part 1, as for most of his chronicle histories, was Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles; the publication of the second edition in 1587 provides a terminus ad quem for the play. Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York appears also to have been consulted, and scholars have also supposed Shakespeare familiar with Samuel Daniel's poem on the civil wars.

Date and text

The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on Feb. 25, 1598, and first printed in quarto later that year by stationer Andrew Wise. The play was Shakespeare's most popular, in print as well as on stage; new editions appeared in 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622, 1632, and 1639.

The Dering MS.

The Dering Manuscript, the earliest extant manuscript text of any Shakespearean play, provides a single-play version of both Part 1 and Part 2 of Henry IV. The consensus of Shakespeare scholars is that the Dering MS. represents a redaction prepared around 1613, perhaps for family or amateur theatrics, by Edward Dering (1598-1644), of Surrenden in Kent, where the manuscript was discovered. A few dissenters have argued that the Dering MS. may indicate that Shakespeare's Henry IV was originally a single play, which the poet later expanded into two parts to capitalize on the popularity of the Sir John Falstaff character. The Dering MS. is part of the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.

Context

Henry VI was probably written in 1592. One of Shakespeare's history plays, this work concerns the events following the death of Henry V, covering the origins of the War of the Roses and the loss of Britain's territories in France. The genre of the history play held a particular fascination for the English public in the 1590s and helped create a sense of a collective national memory. Patriotic sentiment probably ran particularly high in the years following 1588, when the English repulsed an attack by the invading Spanish Armada. The history play drew upon such sentiments. 1 Henry VI, in particular, appears to reference the specific event of the English campaign in France, led by Queen Elizabeth's charismatic nobleman Essex. The play's depiction of 15th-century noblemen attacking the city of Rouen would certainly have called to mind Essex's 1592 efforts at Rouen to aid the French in quashing a Protestant uprising.

Shakespeare wrote two other plays about the reign of Henry VI, 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI. Interestingly, the second two plays were published first, and some believe them to have been written first, as well, though no one knows whether the Shakespearean plays' order of publication actually reflects their order of composition. The Henry VI plays figure among Shakespeare's first forays into the genre of history play, and they were followed by plays tracing the years after Henry VI's death and the ensuing civil wars over succession. Only later in his career did Shakespeare look back to the events prior to Henry VI's kingship, including that of his father Henry V.

Shakespeare probably made use of contemporary chronicles of the 15th century and the struggles during these years between the Yorks and the Lancasters in the War of the Roses. Raphael Holingshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland seem a particularly likely source for many of his history plays.

Some scholars theorize that Thomas Nashe authored portions of 1 Henry VI; some believe Shakespeare himself wrote only the scene in the Temple Garden and the battle scenes in which Talbot and his son meet their death. Other scholars believe Shakespeare wrote the whole play, adding that the playwright would not likely have collaborated with other authors so early in his career.

About Henry IV

Henry IV, Part One first appeared in print in 1597, when two separate quartos were made. The second quarto serves as the standard text for most modern editions, and was followed closely by five more quartos in 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, and 1622. The First Folio of 1623 adopted the 1613 version of the play, but altered some of the scenes and oaths to conform to a profanity act passed in 1606.

Henry IV, Part One marks a new form of history play for Shakespeare. Following Richard II as part of the tetrology, it does not conform to the traditional setting or subject matter of a chronicle play. Instead, the play moves rapidly from court life to street life, from the poetry of the nobles to the rituals of drinking in the tavern. Added to this mixture of bawdy commercialism and aristocracy is the magical world of Glyndwr's Welsh castle.

In spite of comments by some contemporaries, notably Sir Philip Sidney, that this mixture of cultures violated social codes, the play proved immensely popular. It was printed in two quarto versions in 1598 and five more editions were added before the 1623 First Folio appeared. Subsequent individual publications followed, indicating how sought after the play was.

The central problem of this play is for Henry IV to establish control over territories he did not inherit. Henry IV soon realizes that he can only defeat the Celtic rebels and the Percy alliance by using tricks and warfare. Thus, in the famous battle at Shrewsbury, we see several noblemen pretending to be Henry IV as a way of confusing the enemy.

By far the most compelling character is Prince Hal, Henry's son. He is a prodigal son who wastes his time in taverns and with the commoners. This image of Hal is built upon a play called The Famous Victories of Henry V, printed in 1598, which depicts Hal as a madcap in his youth who then undergoes a reformation and assumes the throne. The image of Hal as being a man ready to assume power is presented in the first act to us, when Hal tells the audience that he is really only undercover, learning the languages of the common man.

Hal is in fact Shakespeare's version of the ultimate Machiavel, based on Machiavelli's The Prince, printed in 1532. The combination of trickery, acting and statecraft show up in the way Hal controls the stage whenever he appears. In playing the madcap, Hal is really only learning the skills he will need when he assumes the throne as Henry V.

At the time of writing, several of the names Shakespeare chose for his characters were censored and subsequently amended. Among them is Falstaff, who was initially known as Sir John Oldcastle. This man, an ancestor of the Cobham family, was likely removed after William Brook, the seventh Lord Cobham and also the lord chamberlain, protested to the use of his ancestor. Other characters that were changed include Peto, who was called "Harvey," and Bardolph, known as "Russell."

Performance

Though 1 Henry IV was almost certainly in performance by 1597 (given the wealth of allusions and references to the Falstaff character), the earliest factually-known performance occurred on the afternoon of March 6, 1600, when the play was acted at Court before the Flemish Ambassador. Other Court performances followed in 1612 and 1625.

Henry Bolingbroke – now King Henry IV – is having an unquiet reign. His personal disquiet at the means whereby he gained the crown – by deposing Richard II – would be solved by a journey to the Holy Land to fight Moslems, but broils on his borders with Scotland and Wales prevent that. Moreover, his guilt causes him to mistreat the Earls Northumberland and Worcester, heads of the Percy family, and Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of March. The first two helped him to his throne, and the third was proclaimed by Richard, the former king, as his rightful heir.

Adding to King Henry's troubles is the behavior of his son and heir, the Prince of Wales. Hal (the future Henry V) has forsaken the court to waste his time in taverns with low companions. This makes him an object of scorn to the nobles and calls into question his royal worthiness. Hal's chief friend and foil in living the low life is Sir John Falstaff. Fat, old, drunk, and corrupt as he is, he has a charisma and a zest for life that captivates the Prince, born into a world of hypocritical pieties and mortal seriousness.

The play has three groups of characters that interact slightly at first, and then come together in the battle of Shrewsbury, where the success of the rebellion will be decided. First there is King Henry himself and his immediate council. He is the engine of the play, but usually in the background. Next there is the group of rebels, energetically embodied in Harry Percy – Hotspur – and including his father (Northumberland) and uncle (Worcester), the Scottish Earl of Douglas, Edmund Mortimer and the Welshman Owen Glendower. Finally, at the center of the play are the young Prince Hal and his companions Falstaff, Poins, Bardolph, and Peto. Streetwise and pound-foolish, these rogues manage to paint over this grim history in the colors of comedy.

As the play opens, the king is angry with Hotspur for refusing him most of the prisoners taken in a recent action against the Scots at Holmedon. Hotspur, for his part, would have the king ransom Edmund Mortimer (his wife's brother) from Owen Glendower, the Welshman who holds him. Henry refuses, berates Mortimer's loyalty and treats the Percies to threats and rudeness. Stung and alarmed by Henry's dangerous and peremptory way with them, they proceed to make common cause with the Welsh and Scots, intending to depose "this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke”. By Act II, rebellion is brewing.

As Henry Bolingbroke is mishandling the affairs of state, his son Hal is joking, drinking, and whoring. He finds himself embroiled in a highway robbery, which is the chief means that Falstaff and his minions have of supporting themselves. Hal is not, however, a pawn of these fellows, but rather coolly keeps his head, does not participate directly and later returns all the money taken. Rather early in the play, in fact, Hal informs us that his riotous time will soon come to a close, and he will re-assume his rightful high place in affairs by showing himself worthy to his father and others through some (unspecified) noble exploits.

The revolt of Mortimer and the Percys very quickly gives him his chance to do just that. The high and the low come together when the Prince makes up with his father and is given a high command. He orders Falstaff (who is, after all, a knight) to procure a group of footsoldiers and proceed to the battle site at Shrewsbury. The easy life is over for now.

Shrewsbury is crucial. If the rebels even achieve a standoff their cause gains greatly, as they have other powers waiting under Northumberland, Glendower, Mortimer, and the Bishop of York. Henry needs a decisive victory here. He outnumbers the rebels, but Hotspur, with the wild hope of despair, leads his troops into battle. The day wears on, the issue still in doubt, the king harried by the wild Scot Douglas, when Prince Hal and Hotspur, the two Harrys that cannot share one land, meet. Finally they will fight – for glory, for their lives, and for the kingdom. The future king, no longer a tavern brawler but a warrior, prevails.

On the way to this climax, we are treated to Falstaff, who has "misused the King's press damnably", not only by taking money from able-bodied men who wished to evade service but by keeping the wages of the poor souls he brought instead who were killed in battle ("food for powder, food for powder"). He has the effrontery, too, to claim he killed Hotspur, having merely stabbed the dead body. Yet Hal (who, not an hour before, actually had killed him), perhaps shaking his head in wonder, allows Sir John his disreputable tricks.

The play ends at Shrewsbury, after the battle. The death of Hotspur has taken the heart out of the rebels, and the king's forces prevail. Henry is pleased with the outcome, not least because it gives him a chance to execute Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, one of his chief enemies (though previously one of his chief friends). But all is not settled: now he must deal with the Archbishop of York, who has joined with Northumberland, and with the forces of Mortimer and Glendower. This ending in the middle sets the stage for Part 2.

Character of king Henry IV

The title character of 1 Henry IV appears in Richard II as the ambitious, energetic, and capable Bolingbroke, who seizes the throne from the inept Richard II after likely arranging his murder. Though Henry is not yet truly an old man in 1 Henry IV, his worries about his crumbling kingdom, guilt over his uprising against Richard II, and the vagaries of his son’s behavior have diluted his earlier energy and strength. Henry remains stern, aloof, and resolute, but he is no longer the force of nature he appears to be in Richard II. Henry’s trouble stems from his own uneasy conscience and his uncertainty about the legitimacy of his rule. After all, he himself is a murderer who has illegally usurped the throne from Richard II. Therefore, it is difficult to blame Hotspur and the Percys for wanting to usurp his throne for them. Furthermore, it is unclear how Henry’s kingship is any more legitimate than that of Richard II. Henry thus lacks the moral legitimacy that every effective ruler needs.

With these concerns lurking at the back of his reign, Henry is unable to rule as the magnificent leader his son Harry will become. Throughout the play he retains his tight, tenuous hold on the throne, and he never loses his majesty. But with an ethical sense clouded by his own sense of compromised honor, it is clear that Henry can never be a great king or anything more than a caretaker to the throne that awaits Henry V.

Character of Princ Herry

The complex Prince Harry is at the center of events in 1 Henry IV. As the only character to move between the grave, serious world of King Henry and Hotspur and the rollicking, comical world of Falstaff and the Boar’s Head Tavern, Harry serves as a bridge uniting the play’s two major plotlines. An initially disreputable prince who eventually wins back his honor and the king’s esteem, Harry undergoes the greatest dramatic development in the play, deliberately transforming himself from the wastrel he pretends to be into a noble leader. Additionally, as the character whose sense of honor and leadership Shakespeare most directly endorses, Harry is, at least by implication, the moral focus of the play.

Harry is nevertheless a complicated character and one whose real nature is very difficult to pin down. As the play opens, Harry has been idling away his time with Falstaff and earning the displeasure of both his father and England as a whole. He then surprises everyone by declaring that his dissolute lifestyle is all an act: he is simply trying to lower the expectations that surround him so that, when he must, he can emerge as his true, heroic self, shock the whole country, and win the people’s love and his father’s admiration. Harry is clearly intelligent and already capable of the psychological machinations required of kings.

But the heavy measure of deceit involved in his plan seems to call his honor into question, and his treatment of Falstaff further sullies his name: though there seems to be real affection between the prince and the roguish knight, Harry is quite capable of tormenting and humiliating his friend (and, when he becomes king in 2 Henry IV, of disowning him altogether). Shakespeare seems to include these aspects of Harry’s character in order to illustrate that Falstaff’s selfish bragging does not fool Harry and to show that Harry is capable of making the difficult personal choices that a king must make in order to rule a nation well. In any case, Harry’s emergence here as a heroic young prince is probably 1 Henry IV’s defining dynamic, and it opens the door for Prince Harry to become the great King Henry V in the next two plays in Shakespeare’s sequence.

Themes and interpretations

At its first publication in 1597 or 1598 the play was titled The History of Henrie the Fourth and its title page advertised only the presence of Harry Hotspur and the comic Sir John Falstaff; Prince Hal was not mentioned. Indeed, throughout most of the play's performance history, Hal was staged as a secondary figure, and the stars of the stage, beginning with James Quin and David Garrick often preferred to play Hotspur. It was only in the twentieth century that readers and performers began to see the central interest as the coming-of-age of Hal, who is now seen as the starring role.

In the "coming-of-age" interpretation, Hal's acquaintance with Falstaff and the tavern lowlife humanises him and provides him with a more complete view of Elizabethan life. At the outset, Prince Hal seems to pale in comparison with the fiery Henry "Hotspur" Percy, the young noble lord of the North (whom Shakespeare portrays about 23 years younger than he was in history in order to provide a foil for Hal). Many readers interpret the history as a tale of Prince Hal growing up, evolving into King Henry V, perhaps the most heroic of all of Shakespeare's characters, in what is a tale of the prodigal son adapted to the politics of medieval England.

Other readers have, however, looked at Hal more critically; Hal can appear as a budding Machiavel. In this reading, there is no "ideal king": the gradual rejection of Falstaff is a rejection of Hal's humanity in favour of cold realpolitik.

Themes

The Nature of Honor

Though it is one of the principal themes of the play, the concept of honor is never given a consistent definition in 1 Henry IV. In fact, the very multiplicity of views on honor that Shakespeare explores suggests that, in the end, honor is merely a lofty reflection of an individual’s personality and conscience. In other words, honor seems to be defined less by an overarching set of guidelines and more by an individual’s personal values and goals. Thus runs the argument of Hotspur, a quick-tempered and military-minded young man. He feels that honor has to do with glory on the battlefield and with defending one’s reputation and good name against any perceived insult. For the troubled and contemplative King Henry IV, on the other hand, honor has to do with the well-being of the nation and the legitimacy of its ruler. One of the reasons Henry is troubled is that he perceives his own rebellion against Richard II, which won him the crown, to be a dishonorable act.

For the complex Prince Harry, honor seems to be associated with noble behavior, but for long stretches of time Harry is willing to sacrifice the appearance of honor for the sake of his own goals, confident that he can regain his honor at will. Harry’s conception of honor is so all-inclusive that he believes that, by killing Hotspur, Hotspur’s honor becomes his own. For the amoral rogue Falstaff, the whole idea of honor is nothing but hot air and wasted effort that does no one any good. All the major characters in the play are concerned with honor, but their opinions about the subject illuminate more about them than they do about the concept of honor.

The Legitimacy of Rulership

Because 1 Henry IV is set amid political instability and violent rebellion, the play is naturally concerned with the idea of rulership. It questions what makes a ruler legitimate, which qualities are desirable in a ruler, when it is acceptable to usurp a ruler’s authority, and what the consequences of rebelling against a ruler might be. The concept of legitimate rule is deeply connected in the play with the concept of rebellion: if a ruler is illegitimate, then it is acceptable to usurp his power, as Hotspur and the Percys attempt to do with King Henry. While the criteria that make a ruler legitimate differ—legitimate rule may be attributed to the will of the people or to the will of God—on some level the crack in Henry’s power results from his own fear that his rule is illegitimate, since he illegally usurped the crown from Richard II.

The consequences of failed rulership are explored in the scenes depicting the violence of lawlessness and rebellion sweeping England—the robbery in Act II, the battle in Act V, and so forth. The qualities that are desirable in a ruler are explored through the contrast inherent in the play’s major characters: the stern and aloof Henry, the unpredictable and intelligent Harry, and the decisive and hot-tempered Hotspur. Each man offers a very different style of rulership. In the end, Shakespeare seems to endorse Harry’s ability to think his way through a situation and to manipulate others without straying too far from the dictates of conscience. In any event, Harry emerges as Shakespeare’s most impressive English king two plays later, in Henry V.

High and Low Language

One of the characteristics that set 1 Henry IV apart from many of Shakespeare’s other plays is the ease with which it transitions between scenes populated by nobility and scenes populated by commoners. One result of these transitions is that the play encompasses many different languages and manners of expression. From the Welsh and Irish not understood by the English characters to the bartenders’ coarse language Harry picks up and uses to insinuate himself in their society, these languages display the extremely diverse cast of characters that populates Shakespeare’s stage.

But even more significant is the fact that knowledge of these languages and the ability to transition between them proves to be an invaluable tool. Harry makes friends quickly with the bartenders precisely because, unlike his father, he is able to emulate them and speak their language, leaving courtly diction behind. Harry demonstrates that he is not restricted to only one kind of language when he eloquently declares his loyalty to his father; his ability to speak to commoners and kings alike gives him a great deal of power.

Although language is seldom discussed by the characters in 1 Henry IV, the sheer variety of spoken language in the play suggests that one of Shakespeare’s aims with this work was to portray something of the scope of the English language. In addition to high speech and low speech, there is poetry and prose, as well as the various accents of Britain’s various locales. The varied nature of the play’s language suits the multiplicity of its settings. Shakespeare shows that he can capture the speech of common thieves on a dark night, warriors on the way to battle, and courtiers in the royal palace. Shakespeare utilizes various rhetorical and formal strategies to distinguish his various types of speech without sacrificing his unifying style: generally, for instance, well-born characters tend to speak in verse, while commoners tend to speak in prose.

Motifs

Doubles

Henry IV explores many different sides of a few major themes. Its primary technique for this multifaceted exploration is one of simple contrast. The differences between Harry and Hotspur make a statement on different perceptions of honor, just as the differences between the Boar’s Head Tavern and the royal palace make a statement on the breadth of England’s class differences. In utilizing contrast as a major thematic device, the play creates a motif of doubles, in which characters, actions, and scenes are often repeated in varied form throughout the play. For instance, Falstaff and the king act as doubles in that both are father figures for Harry. Harry and Hotspur act as doubles in that both are potential successors to Henry IV. Falstaff’s comical robbery in Act II, scene ii serves as a kind of lower-class double to the nobles’ Battle of Shrewsbury, exploring the consequences of rebellion against the law.

British Cultures

As befits the play’s general multiplicity of ideas, Shakespeare is preoccupied throughout much of 1 Henry IV with the contrasts and relationships of the different cultures native to the British Isles and united under the rule of the king. Accents, folk traditions, and geographies are discussed and analyzed, particularly through the use of Welsh characters such as Glyndwr and Scottish characters such as the Douglas. Shakespeare also rehearses the various stereotypes surrounding each character type, portraying Glyndwr as an ominous magician and the Douglas as a hotheaded warrior.

Magic

A strong current of magic runs throughout the play, which is primarily a result of the inclusion of the wizardly Glyndwr. Magic has very little to do with the plot, but it is discussed by different characters with uncommon frequency throughout the play. As with the subject of honor, a character’s opinion about the existence of magic tends to say more about the character than it does about the subject itself. The pragmatic and overconfident Hotspur, for instance, expresses contempt for belief in the black arts, repeatedly mocking Glyndwr for claiming to have magical powers. The sensuous and narcissistic Glyndwr, by contrast, seems to give full credence to the idea of magic and to the idea that he is a magician—credence that says more about Glyndwr’s own propensity for self-aggrandizement than about the reality of magic itself.

Symbols

Representative Characters

Like most of Shakespeare’s other history plays, 1 Henry IV does not make great use of symbolism as a literary device: the play concerns real people and events and so tells a much more concrete story than a more symbolic play like Macbeth or The Tempest. The most important symbols, generally speaking, are the characters themselves, and what they represent is simply the set of ideas and traits with which they are involved. Glyndwr represents both the Welsh motif in the play and the motif of magic, while Hotspur represents rebellion and the idea that honor is won and lost in battle.

The Sun

The sun in 1 Henry IV represents the king and his reign. Both Harry and his father, Henry, use an image of the sun obscured by clouds to describe themselves—the former in Act I, scene ii, lines 175–181, and the latter in Act III, scene ii, lines 79–84. For King Henry, the clouds that blur his light come from his own doubts about the legitimacy of his reign. For Harry, these clouds are the shades of his immaturity and initial refusal to accept and adopt his noble responsibilities. Having accepted his royal duties, Harry can anticipate shining through these clouds and radiating his full regal glory.

Adaptations and Cultural references

Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight (1965) compiles the two Henry IV plays into a single, condensed storyline, while adding a handful of scenes from Henry V and dialouge from Richard II and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The film stars Welles himself as Falstaff, John Gielgud as King Henry, Keith Baxter as Hal, Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly and Norman Rodway as Hotspur.

Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) uses Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part II as the subplot, but presented in a modern setting. Keanu Reeves plays the Hal character, the friend of protagonist River Phoenix.