SOURCE: “Shakespeare's Dramatic Historiography: I Henry IV to Henry VIII,” in The Play of Truth and State: Historical Drama from Shakespeare to Brecht, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, pp. 13-49.

In the following essay, Wikander examines the nature of Shakespeare's historiography in the English history plays, demonstrating the way in which Shakespeare incorporated elements of the medieval, providential view of history and humanist historiography in his approach to English history.

I

Right in the middle of I Henry IV a memorable sequence of three scenes—the tavern scene (II.iv), the Welsh scene (III.i), and the royal interview (III.ii)—forces the audience into a shift of attitude essential to the play's success as a dramatization of the English past. The range of response Shakespeare demands is astonishing: in the tavern scene, the tired slapstick of baiting Francis gives way to the exuberance of Falstaff's boasts, the...