King Henry IV Part 1 Third Series

by Shakespeare, William; Kastan, David Scott

• ISBN13: 9781904271352
• ISBN10: 1904271359
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-07
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare

Summary

David Scott Kastan lucidly explores the remarkable richness and the ambitious design of King Henry IV Part 1 and shows how these complicate any easy sense of what kind of play it is. Conventionally regarded as a history play, much of it is in fact conspicuously invented fiction, and Kastan argues that the non-historical, comic plot does not simply parody the historical action but by its existence raises questions about the very nature of history. The full and engaging introduction devotes extensive discussion to the play's language, indicating how its insistent economic vocabulary provides texture for the social concerns of the play and focuses attention on the central relationship between value and political authority.

Author Biography

David Scott Kastan is a professor of English at Yale Unveristy and one of the General Editors of the Arden Shakespeare Third Series.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
General editors' preface	xi
Preface	xv
Introduction	1	(132)
Great expectations	1	(6)
`Mingling kings and clowns': history, comedy and dramatic unity	7	(10)
1 Henry 4: one part or one play?	17	(6)
Understanding politics in the play	23	(10)
Understanding the politics of the play	33	(11)
`Unimitated, unimitable Falstaff'	44	(7)
Falstaff as Oldcastle/Oldcastle as Falstaff: radical Protestantism and Rabelaisian play	51	(11)
Counterfeiting and kings, credit and credibility: economic language in the play	62	(7)
`What is that word ``honour'''?	69	(4)
Women in the play	73	(3)
The play in performance	76	(30)
The play on the page: the text of 1 Henry 4	106	(13)
Editorial procedures	119	(14)
KING HENRY IV, PART ONE	133	(206)
Appendix 1: The sources of 1 Henry IV	339	(6)
Appendix 2: A note on Shakespeare's metrics	345	(4)
Appendix 3: The play in manuscript	349	(5)
Appendix 4: Casting	354	(3)
Appendix 5: The Q0 fragment	357	(9)
Abbreviations and references	366	(20)
Abbreviations used in notes	366	(1)
Works by and partly by Shakespeare	367	(1)
Editions of Shakespeare collated	368	(2)
Other works cited	370	(16)
Index	386