Henry VIII (play)
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Henry VIII (1613) was one of the last plays written by the English playwright William Shakespeare, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623. Stylistic evidence indicates that the play was written by Shakespeare in collaboration with his successor, John Fletcher. During one of the first performances, in 1613, a cannon shot employed for special effects ignited the thatched roof of the Globe Theatre in London, burning down the original building.
Subject matter
The play depicts the relationship between Henry VIII of England, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Cardinal Wolsey. One of the play's most famous lines is Anne Boleyn's reflection that "'Tis better to be lowly born [...] / Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief, / And wear a golden sorrow" (II.iii).Date
Henry VIII is one of the few plays by Shakespeare that can be very precisely dated, because the fire that destroyed the Globe Theatre as the play was running is described in several contemporary documents. These confirm that the fire took place on June 29, 1613, and that the play was then new (one report states that it "had been acted not passing 2 or 3 times before").Authorship
The play is generally believed to be a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher, the writer who replaced him as the principal playwright of the King's Men. There is no contemporary evidence for this; the evidence lies in the style of the verse, which in some scenes appears closer to Fletcher's typical style than Shakespeare's.The possibility of collaboration was first raised in the 1850s. The most important stylistic study is that of Cyrus Hoy, who in 1962 divided the play between Shakespeare and Fletcher based on their distinctive word choices, for example Fletcher's preference for ye over you.Hoy, Cyrus. 'The Shares of Fletcher and his Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon'. Studies in Bibliography 15 (1962): 71-90. Hoy's division is generally accepted, although subsequent studies have questioned some of its details.Hope Jonathan. The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays (CUP, 1994), pp.67-83
Stage history
In the nineteenth century, Henry VIII was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. Productions typically included enormous and spectacular reconstructions of moments from Henry's reign, utilising the full resources of the Victorian theatre. Since the nineteenth century, however, the play has fallen from favour, and productions of it remain extremely rare. The positive critical response to a recent production (1996-1997) by the Royal Shakespeare Company, however, indicates that the play may be more stageworthy than its current reputation suggests.Notes
Further reading
- Gordon McMullan, ed. King Henry VIII. The Arden Shakespeare. London: Thomson, 2000.
External links
- [King Henry the Eighth] - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
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