Joan Puzel. Image from F. V. Du Mond and karenswhimsy.com.
Throughout Shakespeare’s history plays, little good is said of the French. This is especially true in Henry V and 1 Henry VI, where French leaders are portrayed primarily as incompetent braggarts. The one exception is not a French man, but a French woman: Joan Puzel, more popularly known as Joan of Arc.
When Joan first leads the French army to success in battle, she more than holds her own in one-on-one combat against Sir John Talbot, the English hero. Then, when fighting …

If an alternative title for 3 Henry VI is The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York then 1 Henry VI could justifiably be called the tragedy of Sir John Talbot. Talbot, the preeminent English military leader in France, is not, however, a tragic figure who fails because of his own weaknesses or mistakes. Instead, his defeat and death are caused by the failures of his king and his fellow commanders. 

Talbot’s importance to the English cause in France is underscored even before he makes his first appearance in 1 Henry VI. When …

Through almost all of 1 Henry VI, William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, has a very small part. Suddenly, however, he rises like a meteor, only to fall just as rapidly in 2 Henry VI. Almost by accident, Suffolk captures the beautiful Margaret of Anjou during a battle in France. Entranced by her beauty, he reluctantly remembers that he is already married. Since he can’t marry Margaret himself, Suffolk concocts a plan to have her marry the young Henry VI…

In the last few lines of the final play of the second tetralogy, Shakespeare assigns blame for the disasters that befall England in the Henry VI plays: referring to the child king, Henry VI, and those who will rule in his name, the chorus in Henry V warns that “so many had the managing / That they lost France and made his England bleed.”

Iago famously describes for Desdemona “a deserving woman indeed” in a deliberately impossible description of a woman that ends on the line, “She was a wight, if ever such wight were.” His point is that if such a woman were to exist, she would not only be the perfect woman, but also the perfect human. However, it’s difficult to make sense of Iago’s tone in the preceding speech unless we know what, exactly, is a wight…

Shakespeare’s initial efforts at English history in the Henry VI plays don’t depict the glorious past but a country in the process of destroying itself. A key point in this epic of self-destruction is the fall of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Lord Protector of the young Henry VI. By the beginning of 2 Henry VI, Gloucester is the sole member of the court focused on what is best for the country, not his own personal agenda…

Clark Holloway posted the following as a comment to one of our news articles about Double Falsehood, and we thought it did such a good job of answering many of the objections to Double Falsehood being Shakespeare’s–and specifically, objections that Ron Rosenbaum put forward in a recent article on Slate–that we decided to post his comment as an article.

Jaques gives what to modern ears is a fairly dry account of Touchstone using a sundial to muse on the way the world works, followed by Jaques’ admission that this made him laugh uproariously. (“My lungs began to crow like chanticleer [a rooster character in a series of fables] that fools should be so deep-contemplative, and I did laugh sans intermission an hour by his dial.”) The average audience member is left mystified as to exactly what Jaques found so hilarious…

In all of Shakespeare’s plays there are few characters who do so much damage in so little time as Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester in 2 Henry VI. Although she appears in only a few brief scenes, Eleanor disgraces herself and opens the way for her husband’s fall from power and the chaos that follows. All of this destruction is due to her insatiable ambition driven by her desire to lord it over others…

To a modern reader, to con is to cheat or deceive, making Jaques’ line about goldsmiths’ wives seem to make perfect sense, but unfortunately making Jacques sound as if he’s accusing Orlando of petty theft. Worse still, lines like Peter Quince’s “But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream become confusing at best and completely nonsensical at worst…