About this episode
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the themes of legitimacy and power in Shakespeare's 'Henry IV Part 1'.
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the most successful of Shakespeare's plays in his own time. Written with no Part 2 in mind as 'Henry the Fourth', the play explores ideas about who can be a legitimate ruler and why, and how anyone can rightly succeed to the throne. This was an especially pressing question for his Tudor audience as Elizabeth I had named no successor. Playwrights, banned from openly discussing the jeopardy her subjects faced, turned to these themes of power, legitimacy and succession in distant and recent history. When Shakespeare combined this relevance with the vivid characters of Falstaff, Hotspur and Hal and with the tensions between noble fathers and sons, he had a play that fascinated well into the Jacobean era and has been revived throughout the centuries. With Emma Smith Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, University of Oxford Lucy Munro Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at Kings College London And Laurence Publicover Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Bristol Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Hailey Bachrach, Staging Female Characters in Shakespeare’s English History Plays…
People in this episode
Host: Melvyn Bragg
Guests: Misha Glenny, Emma Smith, Lucy Munro, Laurence Publicover
Topics covered
- Shakespeare
- legitimacy
- power
- succession
- historical plays
- Tudor audience
Keywords
- Shakespeare
- Henry IV Part 1
- legitimate ruler
- Falstaff
- Hotspur
- Tudor audience
- power
- succession
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Hertford College, University of Oxford, Kings College London, University of Bristol
Books & works: Henry IV Part 1
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