صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

KING HENRY IV

WITH AN
INTRODUCTION & NOTES
BY JOHN DENNIS.
& ILLUSTRATIONS BY
BYAM SHAW.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

CHISWICK PRESS:

CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

A2D45

INTRODUCTION.

1900 17 MAIN

IN the "First Part of King Henry IV." three characters stand out so prominently as to overshadow the rest. Sir John Falstaff, the most irresistible of humorists, Prince Hal, who is the chief inciter of his mirth, and the fiery Hotspur, inflamed with the desire to win that honour which the knight despised. According to M. Taine Falstaff is one of Shakespeare's favourites, because this "coward, brawler, drunkard, and lewd rascal" has a mind congenial with the poet's own. If this be a true theory the greatest of all dramatists describes those characters best that he resembles most; a criticism that strikes at the root of Shakespeare's art, since a genius thus influenced would not be of the supreme order. Falstaff is not more consummate for humour than Iago is for villainy. There is not in Shakespeare a finer or more tragical conception of unscrupulous ambition than the characters of Macbeth and his wife, but M. Taine might as reasonably discover Shakespeare's own mind in them as in Sir John. Indeed, the efforts made to identify the dramatist with his creations are worse than idle, and eminently misleading. Unfortunately the poet's sanity and manly good sense are gifts which have not descended to all his

commentators.

In 1598 the "First Part of King Henry IV." was

vii

"The

published in quarto with the following title: History of Henrie the Fourth with the battell at Shrewsburie betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the North. With the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstalffe. At London. Printed by P. S. for Andrew Wise." The play was warmly welcomed by the public, for five more quarto editions appeared before the appearance of the First Folio in 1623. In the original form of the drama Sir John Oldcastle figured as the fat and humorous knight, and we are reminded of this by the Prince, in the second scene of Act I., calling his companion "My old lad of the castle." According to Rowe, some of the Oldcastle family being still living, the name was altered by command of the Queen.

It is generally considered that the work was written in 1596, the year before the publication of "Richard II." Holinshed's "Chronicle," and an old play which had been acted some years before, entitled "The Famous Victories of Henry V.," supplied Shakespeare with the materials he needed and transmuted. In this drama buffoonery takes the place of humour, and the Sir John Oldcastle, the original, if indeed he may be so-called, of Falstaff, since the poet adopted his name, is a coarse libertine, without any humour to make his profligacy less odious. He, however, instead of being a prominent character plays a very insignificant part in the play. The historical Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, a close friend of Henry V. before he succeeded to the throne, became a follower of Wycliffe, and having denied the authority of the Pope was burnt at the stake. He has a place of honour in Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," and that such a man should have been held up to scorn

« السابقةمتابعة »