Shakespeare's plays taken from history
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The Shakespeare’s history plays are correlated with his comedy and tragedy plays in that they are also characterized by comedies and tragedies. His history plays are dramas, which he wrote with the main objective of entertaining the viewers. However, many scholars have categorized some of his plays as history plays just like others are categorized under tragedy, comedy, problem and Roman plays. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are historical in nature. For instance, the Roman plays such as Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus have an element of history but have not been categorized under history plays. In this research paper, the main reference about Shakespeare’s history plays will be on the ten English plays that portrays the history in the sixteenth century and the period between 1399 and 1485. All the ten plays are common in that they are named after, and dwells on the monarch who was in power at a particular period. Although the writing of Shakespeare’s history plays was not necessary following the order in which the monarchs reigned, the Monarchs ruled starting with King John, Richard II, Henry IV part II, Henry V, and I Henry VI parts I, II and III, Richard III and Henry VIII (Cahn, 1996).
The history plays portray power struggles during the medieval error that was experienced by five generations. The greater part of the plays dramatizes the war with France that lasted for a hundred years from the error of Henry V to the time of Joan of Arch. The plays also depict York and Lancaster who engaged in wars referred to as the wars of the Roses (Kurtz, 1996).
When analyzing Shakespeare’s historical plays, it is important to bear in mind that they were writings of imaginations, weakly founded on historical personalities. However, the readers and viewers of Shakespeare’s ten English plays develop a perception on the historical figures according to the way they were portrayed by Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s presentation of the historical personalities was largely influenced by the fact that he loved reading about history and had passion to create dramatic scenes of historical personalities and occurrences as he read. For instance, we perceive Richard III as evil character who lacked conscience, empathy, and love for humanity. No matter how much historians have tried to improve on the record about Richard III the image depicted about him by Shakespeare remains unchanged people’s minds. The inability by historians to clear the perception in people’s minds clearly shows how strong Shakespeare’s choice was in presenting Richard in the development of the theme and drama he wanted to create. Today, the common perception in people’s minds about the medieval error in relation to the Monarchs who reigned in the period is as depicted by Shakespeare in his history plays. Therefore, the vision in the current generation about medieval error is purely according to Shakespeare (Cahn, 1996).
Bolingbroke (Henry IV) would not be significant today and very little information about him would be known to the current generation if Shakespeare’s history plays were not written, played, and published. Through the plays, Henry IV is remembered as an important historical personality. Shakespeare’s history plays are extensively pleasing. They have the power to discern the true nature of the political series of medieval and renaissance politics and provide a glance of life in the whole society ranging from the prominent figures to the common individuals. For instance, the plays give insight into the royal court, the privileged class, taverns, which were places where busy people and travelers could meet, discuss, eat food, and take drinks, brothels, and beggars of the medieval error. Henry V who was an actual English hero and Falstaff, a great fictional dishonorable man appear together in many scenes. The scenes where they appear are enormously entertaining, strongly felt and worth remembering in English literature, which is a great achievement by Shakespeare (Kurtz, 1996).
When Shakespeare wrote the ten English plays from John to Henry VIII and other plays on the Roman history such as Julius Caesar, he was also reflecting on the England Nationalism under the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare’s Roman plays were mainly sourced from Plutarch, a Greek historian that Shakespeare read about in school while the history plays were majorly sourced from Holinshed’s Chronicles. However, other origins for his history dramas included the famous victories of Henry the fifth and Hall the union of the noble as well as the Illustre Families of Lancaster and York. The plays symbolize a great large destiny, and moral complications arising from assuming and retaining power by the monarchs. From the Roman histories, viewers and readers are able to see how the classical Greece and Rome esteemed Renaissance and joy of gaining classical learning, which was in Greek and Latin. Both the English and Roman history plays gather spectators in Shakespeare’s error because according to humanists England obtained the touch from classical age. On the other hand, English humanists felt that England under the rule of Queen Elizabeth is the renewed existence of the distinctions of the Roman Empire. The modern England was the period of global search for information and control by force when Britain tried hard to increase the size of its empire into the modern world. While Henry VI and Richard III deal with pretty near historical events, Shakespeare wrote, the second set of his history plays in the early 15th century. The plays Richard II, 2, Henry IV and Henry V & I spread through the time of loss of rank of Richard II at the hands of Henry IV to Henry V’s rise into power over France during the Agincourt war in 1415. Shakespeare wrote the history play Henry V in 1599 after the anointing of Henry IV’s son Hal as Henry V. The son, Bardolph, pistol, and Hostess suddenly surface in 1 & 2 Henry IV (Ribner, 1957).
It is important to note that many plays written by Shakespeare have historical element but only a few are regarded as historical. Examples of plays that are historical but are put under other categories are Macbeth and Hamlet, which are categorized under tragedies. Although many of Shakespeare’s plays were sourced from historical events, there are some common features for the ones that are classified as histories. All the history plays are set against the history of England during the medieval age to present the hundred year’s prolonged conflict with France. The history plays therefore include the Henry Tetralogy, Richard II, Richard III through to King John where the characters featured are the same at different errors. The other common feature of Shakespeare’s history plays is that they all lack historical accuracy because the main objective of Shakespeare was not to provide accurate historical image of the earlier time. Instead, he wrote the plays to hold the attention of his audience and thus molded past events to match their prejudgments. All the history plays by Shakespeare are similar in that they provide social commentary. The plays are more about writer’s time than the medieval error when they were written. For instance, the writer portrays King Henry V as a great hero to create the sense of patriotism in the Kingdom. Shakespeare’s image about the king is not accurate historically. Finally, all the history plays by Shakespeare examine the patterned social arrangement of the time. The history plays provide a perception of a group of people that divides the class system. The plays are rich with a variety of characters that represent both the lowly-beggars to the monarchs. Indeed, it is not usual to have characters from low and high classes in the society appear in play scenes together. For example, the most memorable of characters from low and high ends of the society who appeared together in play scenes are Henry V and Falstaff. In general, the ten history plays by Shakespeare are unique in subject matter only but different in style. They measure equally in terms of tragedy and comedy styles (Ribner, 1957).
What men and women decide and act at a given time in prevailing circumstances makes history. The political historians in Italy influenced Shakespeare during the time of renaissance typified by the work of Machiavelli, one of the same ages as Sir Thomas More in the early sixteenth century. Machiavelli’s communication of his works through writings started with introduction that regarded history as more of actions and not knowledge alone. According to Machiavelli, many people are passive in reading history because they are only interested in the pleasure derived from the unfolding events and miss out to think about replicating the noble actions. Shakespeare therefore was greatly influenced in his way of thinking by Machiavelli in writing the ten history plays. Except Henry VIII play, the rest of history plays by Shakespeare were composed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Their material partly derived from Shakespeare’s interest in historiography based on the writings of Tacitus (Leggatt, 1989).
Shakespeare’s history plays probably present the most solid appearance of history from the medieval error in spite of the fact that many scholars perceive them as non-historic events but rather entertainments with a weak foundation on history. The plays are greatly pleasing and certainly well composed. Besides the history plays being very entertaining Queen Elizabeth gave Shakespeare a lot of praise in public, which made him acquire immortal popularity and a lot of material wealth. Shakespeare created an image on the history in what would have been regarded at the period to be politically right. His way of composing the plays made him recognized. Lastly, although commenting this now and creating suspense, many questions are begged: what is witnessed in the history plays is not medieval error at all. Rather, we see Jacobean and Elizabethan society. The conclusion deserves because although Shakespeare used historic figures and occurrences in his works, what he actually did was to dramatize politics, entertainments, and situations in the society to earn recognition. Shakespeare exploited these platforms of earning recognition relentlessly and certainly succeeded (Cahn, 1996).