Post Views: 102
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 6, Number 4. October 2022 Pp. 2-14
Department of Languages and Literature
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
United Arab Emirates University
Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV (c.1597) is the second play in a group of four that deals with the first two Lancastrian kings of England, Henry IV and his son Henry V. This loosely connected series is known as the Second Tetralogy because even though the events portrayed precede the four plays that deal with Henry VI and Richard III, Shakespeare wrote those set earlier in English history a little later in his career. The main aim of this study is to investigate the carnivalesque in 1 Henry IV, understood as a layer of unofficial or popular culture that plays against and undercuts or inverts the official world of the court, high politics, and chivalry. The significance of this study lies in its analysis of how this interaction structures the play; these are not just surface features. The main question is how the carnivalesque affects the level of high politics in the play. The context for the study derives from critical approaches to the play that have been influenced by critical theory, especially in the carnivalesque; the procedure is a detailed qualitative analysis using techniques of textual criticism. The main finding is that the play is not only structured along these lines but also that the level of high official culture is itself put in question by a full awareness of the historical events mentioned in the play.
Innes, P. (2022). The Structure of Laughter in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 6 4)2-14.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol6no4.1
Barber, C.L. (2011). Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relation to Social Custom. USA: Princeton University Press.
Bakhtin, M.M. (2009). Rabelais and His World (H. Iswolsky, Trans.). USA: Indiana University Press.
Barker, S. (2004). War and Nation in the Theatre of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.
Belsey, C. (1985). Disrupting Sexual Difference: Meaning and gender in the comedies. In J. Drakakis, (ed.), Alternative Shakespeares (pp. 166-190). England: Methuen.
Bristol, M.D. (1985). Carnival and Theatre: Plebeian Culture and the Structure of Authority in Renaissance Britain. England and USA: Routledge.
Bristol, M.D. (1995). Charivari and the Comedy of Abjection in Othello. In Kamps, I (ed.) Materialist Shakespeare: A History (pp. 42-156). England and USA: Verso.
Craig, L.H. (2015). The Philosopher’s English King: Shakespeare’s Henriad as Political Philosophy. USA: University of Rochester Press.
Cole, T. (2016). Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King and the Battle of Agincourt. (England: Amberley Publishing.
Greenblatt, S. (1985). Invisible bullets: Renaissance authority and its subversion, Henry IV and Henry V. In Dollimore, J and Sinfield, A (eds.). Political Shakespeare: essays in cultural materialism (pp. 18-47). England: University of Manchester Press.
Greenblatt, S. (1995) Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne. In Kamps (ed.) Materialist Shakespeare: A History (pp. 108-141). England and USA: Verso,
Hodgdon, B. (ed.). (1997). William Shakespeare. The First Part of King Henry IV: Texts and Contexts. England and USA: Bedford Books and Macmillan.
Holderness, G. (1986). Shakespeare’s History. England: Gill & Macmillan Limited.
Holderness, G. (1992a). Shakespeare Recycled: The Making of Historical Drama. England: Rowman and Littlefield.
Holderness, G. (ed.). (1992b). Shakespeare’s History Plays: “Richard II” to “Henry V”. England: Palgrave Macmillan.
Howard, J.A., & Rackin, P. (1997). Engendering A Nation: a feminist account of Shakespeare’s English histories. England and USA: Routledge.
Kamps, I. (ed.). (1995). Materialist Shakespeare: A History. England and USA: Verso.
Kastan, D.S. (ed.). (2002). King Henry IV Part 1. England: Thomson Learning.
Laroque, F. (1993). Shakespeare’s Festive World: Elizabethan Seasonal Entertainment and the Professional Stage. England: Cambridge University Press.
Liebler, N.C. (1995). Shakespeare’s Festive Tragedy: The ritual foundations of genre. England and USA: Routledge.
Montrose, L.A. (1995). ‘The Place of a Brother’ in As You Like It. In I. Kamps (ed.), Materialist Shakespeare: A History (pp. 39-70). England and USA: Verso.
Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (eds.). (2020). The Folger Shakespeare. William Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1. Available at https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/henry-iv-part-1/?_ga=2.268166990.134128628.1661673339-1309922915.1647851351
Gaby, R., Leonard, A., Mardock, J., & Ostovich, H. (2019). To Nell and Back: Revisiting Mistress Quickly. Renaissance Drama, (2), 201-237.
Sarkar, K.S. (2020). The Sketch of Age in Shakespeare’s Henry IV (parts 1 and 2). In Journal of Critical Studies in Language and Literature, 1 (1), 21-33.
Weimann, R. (1978). Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. USA: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Wilson, R. (2002). ‘Is this a holiday?’: Shakespeare’s Roman Carnival. In R. Wilson (ed.). Julius Caesar: Contemporary Critical Essays (pp. 55-76). England and USA: Palgrave.
Paul Innes graduated from the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling and is now Professor of English Literature and Language at the United Arab Emirates University. He has previously worked at the Universities of Warsaw, Edinburgh, Strathclyde, Glasgow and Gloucestershire. He has published widely on Shakespeare and Critical Theory.
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5375-5341
Copyright © 2023 AWEJ-tls.org. All rights reserved.