Tetralogy Handout (part 1)

Mothers, Monarchs and Murders: Shakespeare and Film
Henry IV, I & II; Henry V

Chimes at Midnight / Falstaff
My Own Private Idaho

Second Tetralogy: Richard II; Henry IV, I & II; Henry V

We will be reading three of the four plays – I will discuss Richard II in class.

Henry IV, pt I

What are the three interweaving plot lines?

How do they operate? Pay attention to how the language and imagery changes in each space.

Pay attention to how the characters use different titles in the plays.

In Henry IV, pt 1, what is notable about King Henry's description of his son in the opening scene of the play?

If he truly dislikes royalty and dilikes his friends, what are Hal’s motives?

Look at the only verse soliloquy in the play at I.ii.185-207. What information is passed to us in this scene?

What is the effect of Hal's dramatic rejection of Falstaff as his surrogate father?

What does Shakespeare’s play have to say about feudal honor? You should look at the speech at III.ii.29–54 and 134-64 especially. What does Hal say in Act I, scene iii about honor? How do Hal and Hotspur discuss this notion of feudal honor in the first Act? What does Falstaff have to say about honor in the final act?

What is this play about?

Henry IV, pt II

In Henry IV, pt II, does Shakespeare make a distinction between the two bodies of the king (the body politic and the physical body)? How does Shakespeare import the material into a 16^th century cultural context?

Why does Shakespeare enhance Falstaff’s comic characteristics in pt II?

How does the play address the question of whether Hal will make a good king?

Does Hal epitomize justice of it is just a public display?

How does Rumour function in the play?

Henry V

Why does Shakespeare include the Chorus in this play? Why does the play end with a marriage?

Why must Falstaff die? What effect does this have on the play?

Possible Essay Topics:

Is the prince a Machiavellian?

Is Henry IV an effeminate king ?

How are the Henry IV plays self-relexive? How does the play ask the audience to think about its historical context?

Orson Welles incorporates aspects of five Shakespeare plays into his Chimes at Midnight. What is Welles’ focus and why does he choose to adapt the material in this way?

Discuss the methods of adaptation in the films we watched in class: Chimes at Midnight, My Own Private Idaho and Henry V .

How does My Own Private Idaho reject the dramatic tension in Shakespeare’s plays regarding feudal honor between Hal and Hotspur? Why might Van Sant make these changes?

How does Shakespeare function in the film versions we watched?

Bibliography

PLEASE READ THIS:

*Greenblatt, Stephen. “Invisible bullets: Renaissance authority and its subversion, Henry IV and Henry V.” Political Shakespeare: New essays in cultural materialism. Eds. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985. 18-47.

-----. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1980.

Román, David. “Shakespeare Out in Portland: Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho,

Homoneurotics, and Boy Actors.” Eroticism and Containment: Notes from the Flood Plain. Eds. Carol Siegel and Ann Kibbey. New York: New York University Press, 1994. 311-333.

Wiseman, Susan. “The Family Tree Motel: Subliming Shakespeare in My Own Private Idaho.” Shakespeare, the Movie: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, and Video. Eds. Lynda E. Boose and Richard Burt. New York: Routledge, 1997.