SOURCE: Dean, Paul. “Shakespeare's Henry VI Trilogy and Elizabethan ‘Romance’ Histories: The Origins of a Genre.” Shakespeare Quarterly 33, no. 1 (spring 1982): 34-48.

In the following essay, Dean suggests that Shakespeare used “romance” or partly fictional history as a source for Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3.

An earlier age was of the opinion that Shakespeare's inspiration needed no prompting from sources. Our own is, it sometimes seems, intent on denying him any originality in its quest for his literary debts—and this from the very beginning of his career. The earliest comedy, The Comedy of Errors, and the earliest tragedy, Titus Andronicus, are seen to be related respectively to Plautus (via Lyly) and to Seneca (via Kyd)—classical and native models coexisting to produce a new kind of drama. As regards the first historical trilogy, however, a remarkable unanimity of opinion denies the existence of any dramatic precedents. Since 1953, when F...