Harold Goddard made some very interesting remarks in regard to the Henry VI plays in his brief essay on the subject in his 1951 classic, The Meaning of Shakespeare. His central argument is that Henry VI, as a king, is not meant to be interpreted as a weak ruler (and therefore as a partial cause for the Wars of the Roses), but rather as one who embodies all of the attributes desired in a monarch (as listed by Malcolm in Macbeth): "justice, verity, temperance, stableness,/ Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,/ Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude". The tragedy of the play is that the mindset of the people of the time would not allow such a king to rule, and these attributes, which are personified in him, are swept aside by the forces of ambition, greed, thirst for power, etc. And it's Goddard's feeling (and mine, too) that questions of this nature, which were initially raised by these plays, established Shakespeare's mission for him. In fact, it may have been put another way (albeit in a different context) in sonnet 65: "How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea/ Whose action is no stronger than a flower?"

The Henry VI plays were a major determiner regarding the direction of the rest of Shakespeare's career. It seems that scholars are not uniformly in agreement over these being the earliest of the plays, but they were, at the very least, among the first five. They were almost certainly written before Marlowe's English history play, Edward II (completed in 1594) and a big influence on its writing, the opposite from what popular opinion and culture (Shakespeare in Love, for example) tell us about which writer was learning and which was leading the way. And many scholars are now giving their support to what is known as the "early start" theory, according to which Shakespeare began his writing career in 1586, the same year as Marlowe's.

The writing of three Henry VI plays, it seems obvious, also taught Shakespeare a lot, because from the experience he found a way of working that would allow his greatest and most unique strengths to be incorporated into the process, i.e. his ability to find psychological realism in virtually any character in any situation. And from them, a character emerged who was to be the first of his many larger-than-life protagonists. I'll be writing about him tomorrow.

Even though the three Henry VI plays are some of the least performed and appreciated in the canon, their writing was an incredibly ambitious undertaking that had large-scale influence on the rest of Shakespeare's career. Today, I'd like to focus on the thematic content of the plays which treat English wars both foreign (the Hundred Years War) and civil (the Wars of the Roses) as well as the machinations and treacheries that led to them. In fact, one reason that the plays were not performed for most of the last 400 years (they've been seen somewhat more frequently since the 1960s), is their almost unrelenting darkness and brutality. And I'm not sure that this can be attributed to Shakespeare: aside from the telescoping and conflation necessary for dramatic purposes, the events are portrayed with great accuracy. The plays show things as they really were. Their creation must have been quite an affecting experience for a young writer on a psychological level, to say the least. My belief is that Shakespeare's submersion in the violence and chaos these plays contain led to the central mission of his career: the exploration for the causes of war and injustice and the examination of what it means to be human.

The three parts of Henry VI are dazzling plays by any standards other than Shakespeare's. Compared to his best work, there's no question that they come up short, but then that's not really a fair comparison, because the fact is that the writing of these early plays was what allowed him to learn his poetic and dramatic crafts so thoroughly. There's no way that the rest of Shakespeare's work would have been written without the earliest plays: Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, and particularly these three, because I think they were the most responsible for what followed, in terms of both technique and content. Over the next couple of posts, I'll try to convince you as to why, but for today let's simply consider what an ambitious undertaking it was for a young writer to adapt the Wars of the Roses for the stage. Michael Taylor puts it best in one of the notes to his excellent introduction to his 2003 edition of the Oxford Henry VI, Part One: "Many commentators have pointed out the sheer unlikelihood of conceiving a play in three parts at this time. A two-part play such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine was itself a daring venture; a three-part play, so the argument runs, would have been inconceivable. (Although it is always dangerous to talk about the inconceivable when we are dealing with Shakespeare.)"

The very early history plays known as the three parts of Henry VI are the subject of my next lecture at the Atwater library (Tuesday, March 1 at 11 am or Wednesday, March 2 at 7 pm), and they have been unfortunately overlooked for the better part of 400 years. In fact, it was only in the 1960's that they began to be performed again, albeit sporadically. There were a number of reasons for this, including the undeniable fact that they compare poorly to the Henriad (i.e. Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V), but in comparison with these, what plays don't? Compared to the work of any other playwright, in other words, these plays stand up very well. Also, we have to keep in mind that these works were necessary to Shakespeare's development. Through them he learned more about his dual crafts of drama and poetry, while sharpening his philosophical and psychological insights, and, in my opinion, coming to a realization about the use to which he was going to put his incomparable talents. My contention here is that because the content of these plays is so relentlessly dark, treacherous and violent, they created a need for him to try to understand human motivations and to help his audience do so as well. If Harold Goddard is right in saying that the over-arching theme of Shakespeare's work is the futility and evil of war, then it was with these plays that it became apparent to him.

Shakespeare's early plays, particularly Titus Andronicus and the three parts of Henry VI, are often undervalued by commentators. There's no question that compared to the late tragedies, or the great histories that form the Henriad (Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V), these plays do not stand up well. Aside from the fact that few plays do, it should be understood that in these works Shakespeare was learning about his craft both technically and philosophically. And in them he found the material that he was going to unravel artistically for the remainder of his working days. The plays portray dark, treacherous worlds completely in keeping with the contents of history books - as William James once said, "History is a blood bath." My contention is that Shakespeare wrote to try to inform us of how to avoid repeating the errors of the past. And so a revenge tragedy like Titus Andronicus, which is clearly a direct descendant of Seneca, started the artistic growth that allowed a play like Hamlet to be written. And on the technical side, we can clearly see that King Lear's opening two scenes are clearly the progeny of the first two in Titus. But the play is very compelling in and of itself, not just as preparation for later plays. If you haven't seen Titus Andronicus, there are several that I'd recommend: Julie Taymor's 1999 version, starring Anthony Hopkins, is excellent, as is the BBC production from 1985 - which was the last play produced for the series. Hmm...