Henry IV, Part One, has always been one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays, maybe because of Falstaff. Much of the early criticism I found concentrated on Falstaff and so will I. This may begin in the eighteenth century with Samuel Johnson. For Johnson, the Prince is a “young man of great abilities and…
In the play “Henry the fourth” written by William Shakespeare is triumphant and denial. There is a prince named Hal that does not act like a prince that you think a prince would and fat man named Falstaff that is his friend. In this play we see that the prince changes when his father and…
In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, the character Hal, the Prince of Wales, undergoes a transformation that can be characterized as redemption. Shakespeare introduces Hal, in the opening act as a renegade of the Court. His avoidance of all public responsibility and his affinity for the company of the Boar’s Head Tavern, have caused serious concern for…
Shakespeare’s play Henry IV begins with a king (King Henry) beginning a pilgrimage after killing King Richard II. Henry believes that by gaining the throne of England he has done an honourable deed, yet he admits that the fighting and bloodshed could continue, . . . “ill sheathed knife” . . . (I.1.17). He, also, admits…
The Political Background When Louis XIV took control of his country’s government in 1661 there was a good chance he might not last long. Kingship in the seventeenth century was a dangerous occupation. For evidence he had only to look at his own family. Louis’ grandfather IV Henry IV had been assassinated by a mad…