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SOURCE: "Discourse of Occasion in Henry IV" in Cahiers Elisabethains, No. 37, April, 1990, pp. 27-42.
[In the essay that follows, Black analyzes the "comic discourse " in the Henry IV plays and argues that while discourse in Shakespeare's history plays is typically limited, the comedic elements in the conversations and
![2 Henry IV. Act I, scene ii. Falstaff and the Chief Justice. By F. Barnard (n.d.).](https://d22o6al7s0pvzr.cloudfront.net/images/bookrags/litcrit/scrt_0001_0039_0_img0006.jpg)
Keir Elam's analysis of Shakespeare's dramatic discourse leads him to propose that opening gambits vary artfully according to genre: "the comic incipit suggests an infinitely extendible continuity of speech . . . , the history play appears on the contrary to establish from the outset a sense of discursive limit and self-sufficiency." But Shakespeare's extensive use of comic techniques in Henry IV gives the play both...
This section contains 8,513 words (approx. 29 pages at 300 words per page) |
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