From the death of the last great medieval monarch, Henry V, until
the ascendancy of Henry Tudor as Henry VII, England underwent a
long and bloody transition from feudal kingdom to early modern
state. Shakespeare's minor tetralogy is the story of this
metamorphosis and 1 Henry VI is its beginning chapter. The language
and action of 1 Henry VI reflect the legal foundations of feudal
England at the point when those underpinnings were beginning to
disintegrate. This dissolution is represented through four subplots
that emphasize the characters as personae mixtae - private
individuals and legal entities - within feudal England's
socio-political structure. This study is the first of its kind to
analyze Shakespeare's English history plays in terms of medieval
and early modern theories of jurisprudence. Exploring how and why
Shakespeare deviated from his historical source materials, this
work focuses on 1 Henry VI's unhistorical scenes and examines
details of characterization, dialogue and diction in context of
legal and political works that would have been familiar to most
educated Elizabethans.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!