HC 421H, Honors College colloquium Inventing the Middle Ages

Study questions for reading due January 29 (week 4)

Shakespeare's Henry VIII

It strikes me that Shakespeare's history plays resemble our films about, say, Watergate (All the President's Men) or Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down): we recognize them as recreations at the same time that they shimmer with historical "fact."

For this class, I'm thinking about whether Shakespeare's play betrays a trace of the "medieval/renaissance" divide that the historical Henry VIII was instrumental in creating. On the one hand, the play uses a medieval dramatic genre, the "de casibus" tradition (the rise and fall of famous men) that was popularized by, among others, Chaucer in his Monk's Tale. De casibus figures were historical and almost exclusively male. Moreover, in his pitying portrait of Katherine, Shakespeare seems to allude to the medieval story of "patient Griselda," popularized by both Boccaccio and Chaucer (Katherine is explicitly labeled Griselda in a 1558 pamphlet, and three seventeenth-century versions survive of the Griselda story, including a play from 1603).

Shakespeare's play puts these very medieval themes to the use of the "modern" state, with intense national feeling subtly touched with religious controversy (that's what's going on with Cranmer, for instance, in the last part of the play: the historical Cranmer was essentially Protestant, and was burned at the stake in 1558 by Queen Mary -- see chronology below). Religious controversy began in Henry VIII's reign, having to do with his divorce from Katherine (how sympathetically does Shakespeare portray Henry's doubts?). Yet Henry considered himself a champion of Catholicism, reaffirming Catholic dogma for the Church of England in 1539. But he also, in 1540, ordered English bibles in every parish church, and English liturgy in 1544.

Religious controversy continued throughout the sixteenth century and the reigns of Henry's children: Edward VI (1537-1553, reigned 1547-1553), Mary I (1516-1558, reigned 1553-1558), and Elizabeth I (1534-1603, reigned 1558-1603). Shakespeare's play is written in 1613, during the reign of Elizabeth successor, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots' son James (Stuart is the family name, and his mother had been a staunch Catholic; Elizabeth executed her for treason in 1587). Still, Shakespeare provides little dialogue for Anne Boleyn, and introduces her in Act 1, scene 4, with Lord Sands. What is Anne's role in the play?

The political and the religious are intricately intertwined in the play, as they were historically (Dinshaw's first chapter treats that connection to some degree). Current research has shown Shakespeare's family seems to have favored Catholicism, which would have put them and him in an awkward position during Elizabeth's reign.

1. Why do you think Shakespeare titled this play "All Is True"?
2. Compare the prologue and the epilogue: the first says "Don't laugh," and the second says "the only thing everyone will see is that we commend women." How are these speeches related to each other? Why warn against laughter? What purpose is this play serving?
3. How does the play reflect its historical "present" (1613) and its historical past (1529 to 1534 or so)? Note Katherine's request to speak in English (Act 3, scene 1): what's the point?
4. In Act 2, scene 1 (Buckingham's moment), what does Buckingham mean that the law has done justice but that he is guiltless?
5. In Act 1, scene 2, Buckingham's surveyor implies, in his accusation of Buckingham, that Henry has no children. He has a daughter, Mary. Why talk of the king's childlessness? And why is Katherine sympathetic to Buckingham?
6. What is up with the two scenes with Lord Sands? What purpose do they serve in the play? Look at scene 3 of Act 2 and think about its portrait of Anne.
7. Compare the two gentlemen in Act 2, scene 1 and Act 4, scene 1 -- what has changed? Note the second gentleman's speech beginning at line 7 -- are subjects' hearts always so visible?
8. Why does the play end as it does?

Chapter 3 of Inventing the Middle Ages, "The Nazi Twins: Percy Ernest Schramm and Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz"

Cantor tells a story primarily of German medievalists whose work was geared, as much intellectual work was in the 1920s and 1930s, toward celebrating authoritarianism (kingship) because of the war's devastation and then the ravages of the depression. Note p. 112, "We need the inspiration of a disturbed audience, as well as deep learning, to write such great history." What does Cantor mean? Is there truth in his assertion?

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