2 Henry VI: A Play of Shadows

2 Henry VI feels like a play of shadows. Perhaps it’s because we’ve studied so many other Shakespeare plays, or perhaps it’s because this is one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, but the characters in 2 Henry VI seem like prototypes of later characters and themes. Henry, Eleanor, and others are intriguing on their own but much more interesting when compared to those in Shakespeare’s later work.

Let’s start with Eleanor. The necromancy, the twisted ambition, the frustration with her husband’s lack of motivation—it all screams Lady Macbeth. Since Shakespeare wouldn’t create Lady Macbeth for another fifteen or so years, we could argue that this is her prototype, Shakespeare toying with the idea of a dangerously ambitious wife. However, even if it’s tempting to write off Lady Macbeth and Eleanor as the same person, we must realize that there’s a major difference between the two: Eleanor’s husband refuses her ideas yet responds with love for her, while Lady Macbeth’s husband follows her plans and ultimately ignores her.

The Duchess of Gloster forced to walk through the streets as punishment for necromancy.

Why the difference? As this is not a post about the Scottish play, I’ll try to keep my Macbeth commentary to a minimum. Suffice it to say that Macbeth is a play of active men, whether these men be murdering, rallying others to war, or marching directly into battle. 2 Henry VI is not such a play. As I mentioned earlier, Gloster does not listen to his wife as Macbeth does. Instead, he condemns her aspirations and then fawns over her with love. Additionally, Gloster could be called complacent in his utter lack of defense. He knows others are plotting his demise, and yet he does nothing to stop it. Another more dynamic character may have devised schemes to make himself safe or destroy his enemies, but Gloster is not that kind of man.

Gloster isn’t the only stationary character. King Henry also knows that Gloster is number one on everyone’s hit list, yet the king does nothing to stop his murder. He says in III.i,

Even so myself bewails good Gloster’s case
With sad unhelpful tears; and with dimm’d eye
Look after him, and cannot do him good—
So mighty are his enemies.”

He’s the king of England, and yet he feels powerless to do anything to save his uncle’s innocent life.

King Henry V may have begun as a useless prince and even promised to be a worthless monarch. However, Hal found himself, both on the battlefield and beside his father’s deathbed, and he became a valiant monarch who could defend his kingdom and honor at the price of friendship. His son never saw this struggle, never had the chance to learn from his father’s experiences. Henry VI has known only a reign dependent on protectors and manipulators, and he doesn’t have a moment when he can find himself as his father did.

The unsure, young Henry VI.

One of the reasons for King Henry’s reluctance to act may be that his throne is not in overt danger for most of the play. Rather, many people are flirting with treason but more content merely to vie for the chance to be the king’s puppeteer. In our meeting, we discussed the fact that half of 2 Henry VI‘s characters are striving for influence over the king rather than the crown itself. Consider Suffolk, who in the last words of 1 Henry VI had bragged, “Margaret shall now be queen and rule the king; / But I will rule both her, the king, and realm.” Yet no one does much with their power. Yes, they kill Gloster, but not much else. We don’t hear of repercussions or even see them move Henry to do anything (compare to other manipulated characters, such as Othello). All in all, the manipulation of the would-be traitors has no real bite, thus Henry VI can afford to sit and do nothing—for now.

It’s this lack of open treason which makes York’s rebellion shocking to Henry and the catalyst for his one real action in V.i. For the first time Henry’s faced with flagrant treason, and he chooses to fight: “Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.” It’s a small, intentional declaration of war, and the closest thing Henry will get to a finding-himself moment.

Taken by itself, 2 Henry VI is the antithesis to Macbeth and even in a way Othello, for it is a play in which manipulation leads nowhere. It’s a hollow shell of Henry IV and Henry V, for the king becomes a leader but too weak and too late. Yet this dramatic difference from other plays makes this play worth the study and discussion.

Read Full Post »

The French Menace

This won’t be as long as my normal posts. I usually volunteer or am kindly invited to write our posts when I have a particular idea in mind, and, to be frank, that almost always happens only with plays that I have read before. Knowing the plot and obvious themes beforehand, I pay more attention to details in my second reading and get inspired. 1 Henry VI, though, has somewhat baffled me. I don’t know much, Shakespeare- or history-wise (if we’ve taught you anything, I hope it’s that the two are not the same), about King Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses. I’m not sure where the trilogy is going, so I don’t know what to make of the first installment.

Let’s get a couple of things out there first. The modern literary community doesn’t have a quarto version of 1 Henry VI.*It first appeared in the First Folio as The First Part of Henry VI. The other two plays, however, left behind both folio and quarto copies. In the First Folio, they are accordingly titled The Second Part… and The Third Part…. Their quartos have rather more complex names for them: The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and the Good King Henry the Sixth, respectively. I’m not quite a Shakespeare scholar, but when I saw the names of the second two plays, I began wondering how tightly this “trilogy” was constructed. As it turns out, critics are unsure/disagree about which play was written and performed first. The Oxford editors of my edition put 1 Henry VI as the last and 2 Henry VI as the first. This was my mindset during our reading and discussion of 1 Henry VI.

The main way I make sense of this play is its usefulness as a prequel. Some scenes provide an explanation for events, underlying conflicts, and symbols in later plays. For example, Act 2, Scene 4, in which we first see the Duke of York and the two colors of roses, helps us understand where the “Wars of the Roses” name and dispute originates. This is, in fact, a completely fictional scene, but both it and little King Henry’s fanciful choice of a red rose (the Duke of Somerset’s symbol) in Act 4 give a very visual demonstration of how the rancor between York and Somerset becomes a war between York and Henry.

Whenever York, Somerset, and other nobles are arguing over which of them gets to be king when Henry dies, apparently heirless (and historically as young as 5 in some of these scenes), I also gained a greater insight as to why the adult Henry had some mental issues. Factionalism in the English court can be hard for modern American readers to understand in a history book; Shakespeare’s presentation is sometimes just as difficult to sort through, with so many dukes and earls with so many names that too often begin with “S.” Most of our group could not recall a particular lord’s name without consulting our texts, but we certainly got the point Shakespeare was trying to make: everyone wants a piece of the king and his kingdom. What’s a little boy to do? Henry has several uncles, great-uncles, second cousins one removed, etc. with greater knowledge of the English court than he does and maybe just as strong of a claim to the throne as his. It’s no wonder he has so much trouble holding onto the country, much less France.

Lastly, Margaret enters our story arc in this play (V.v). Our book club has already read Richard III, which follows 3 Henry VI, and Margaret looks much less lovely there than she does here. A bitter widow, Margaret haunts the other characters, starts arguments, and pronounces curses as the white roses settle into the royal routine. That’s far into the future for now, though: she’s just a helpless captive of Suffolk, one more casualty of the English and French battles. Or is she? Suffolk is clearly entranced by her at once, and as the scene goes one, Margaret seems to warm up to him, for “women have been captivate,” or have fallen in love unwillingly, “ere now” (V.v.63). This bond between Suffolk and Margaret, and Suffolk’s love of power that we learn of in the last lines of the play, set the stage for what may happen in the next episode. Katy, Liz, Hannah, and I are all curious to see how the humble, poor princess becomes the angry Queen Margaret.

My present conclusion: 1 Henry VI‘s main purpose is to illumine 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and probably also Richard III. This is a working conslusion. My friends and I will keep you updated as we learn more about this slightly confusing saga.

__________________________________________________________

*A short version of quarto vs. folio for those of you who aren’t familiar:
Quartos are booklet-like copies of individual plays published around the time the play was first written and performed or in subsequent years. Some of the quartos of Shakespeare’s plays that still exist are considered authoritative while others are “bad” because they seem to have been written down by someone hearing the play, not Shakespeare himself or anyone who had access to the original manuscript.
When we talk about folios, we’re referring to the books into which Shakespeare’s plays were eventually collected. The First Folio came out after Shakespeare’s death and introduced the five-act divisions and genre categorizations. About half of the plays in the First Folio had been published before and about half were new (that is, performed but not printed).
Generally, a modern edition of Shakespeare’s works has been edited by a person or team who has looked at all of the versions of a particular play and tried to navigate differences between the versions to present what the original probably looked like. I’ve been using the Norton Shakespeare, which is based on the text of the Oxford Shakespeare editors, for our book club, and its footnotes are careful to explain spots where one word or phrasing was chosen over another. If you are interested in these kinds of details, it is well worth your time to find editions that have extensive footnotes and textual notes as part of the introductory material.

Read Full Post »