SOURCE: “The Henry VI Plays: In Pursuit of the Ground,” in Susquehanna University Studies, Vol. 10, 1978, pp. 197-209.

In the essay below, Blanpied considers Shakespeare's dramatization of history in Henry VI, perceiving in the work's three parts a series of disintegrations that shape each subsequent play and ultimately culminate in the parodic figure of Richard.

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie, But the true ground of all these piteous woes We cannot without circumstance descry. 

Romeo and Juliet (V. 3. 180-2)

“In the beginning,” D. H. Lawrence begins a cosmogony myth, then pauses: “—there never was any beginning, but let it pass. We’ve got to make a start somehow.”¹ Where we have got to start from is the ground, which we invent, or posit, and hope to make good on, as Shakespearean characters say, “in th’event.” Whether acknowledged or not, every reading of a text...