Shakespeare’s History Plays: The Major Tetralogy (Maryland)

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Today’s interest in medieval and Renaissance-Era English monarchs is due in part to Shakespeare. Working from the Holinshed Chronicles and other sources, he not only tells “sad stories of the death of kings,” he celebrates their triumphs and explores their complexities. As needed, his stage contracts to a “little, little room,” as King Richard II describes his own grave, and expands as if to encompass “the vasty fields of France” where Henry V’s martial exploits made him one of England’s most iconic rulers. And in Henry IV, Parts I-II, the vivacious, morally dubious Sir John Falstaff combines in uneasy fashion the lighter and darker dimensions of the stories Shakespeare tells.

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