SOURCE: Cohen, Derek. “The Rite of Violence in 1 Henry IV.” Shakespeare Survey 38 (1985): 77-84.

In the following essay, Cohen views the combat between Hal and Hotspur in Act III, scene ii of Henry IV, Part 1 as a ritual purification of the violence that has engulfed England.

Hotspur is a character whose career runs the gamut of dramatic expression. Commencing on a note of furious, even farcical, comedy, it concludes on a note of tragic grief so poignantly realized as to have inspired Northrop Frye's perception that his dying remark, ‘thoughts, the slaves of life’, comes out of the heart of the tragic vision.¹ Hotspur's brave death is placed squarely and deliberately before the audience and provides the final means by which they can comprehend the nature and meaning of his life. Gradually the character has been moulded and determined by forces and events that culminate in the great encounter...