Cultural Materialism And Shakespeare 's Plays

After reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and watching Shakespeare’s Henry V in class, one begins to notice similarities between the authors’ idea of what a “perfect king” should be. The patterns between the ideal ruler of Shakespeare and the ideal ruler of Machiavelli can be seen in numerous instances throughout this story. For the duration of this essay, I will compare the similarities in both pieces to give the reader a better understanding of how Shakespeare devised his view of what a “perfect king” should be.

Henry V, a play narrating King Henry V’s journey to invading the French throne and take what is ‘rightfully’ his. The five act drama had been written by William Shakespeare, whose work had consisted of unrivalled plays and poems. This play, acts as a sequel to Henry IV, viewing Henry’s drastic growth from a reckless Prince to an unforgettable King. Like many other plays, Henry V consists of many major themes that shape the story; one being betrayal. This essay will further discuss the theme of betrayal and its impact on the play.

Hotspur on the other hand, begins the play in his father's good graces, and seems to represent the chivalry that eludes Hal. Indeed, Hotspur, being in charge of repelling the Scots to the North, has shown his fierceness in battle and has proven to be an accomplished military man, which are the qualities that the King wishes Hal possessed. Hotspur, however, has a temper which worries his father, Northumberland. In Act 1, Scene 3, he urges his son to be calmer: ìWhat, drunk with choler? stay and pause a while (I.iii.13),î and calls his son ìa wasp-stung and impatient foolî (I.iii.16). Northumberland is much more cautious than Hotspur, or Worcester, and

Honor is one of those concepts that is seldom defined. One’s reputation is based on his or her honor, integrity, honesty, and purity. William Shakespeare’s Henry IV is a one of his many plays that deal with the varying ideas of honor, as well as issues of courage, loyalty, and ambition, interposing examples of dishonor, weakness, and the deceitful plots among both the drunkards and noblemen. Shakespeare utilizes suggestive metaphors to create illusions, imagery, and to reinforce the different views of the major issues people were faced with in his time and in ours. His plays often focus on the imagery, either on some obvious important symbol, or some image pattern that recurs throughout the work. Readers are

In Shakespeare’s play Henry IV Part 1 Prince Hal’s world influences him to transform into a strong leader that will influence . With all the detail of politics and the diverse of social status of the Tavern, the King, and the Rebels; each sector of this story has compiled together to create Hal from a rebellious boy into a persona with ideals and experience.

Within the first act we immediately get to know Hotspur as Honorable and courageous, he is recognized as Henrys alternative son, this directly juxtaposes Henrys son Hal who lacks responsibility and willfully disregards his father. Hal has split loyalty between his father and his fake father figure Falstaff who is a fat jolly man. In Hals soliloquy he tells the readers that he will change his ignoble ways to be more like a true Prince. Hal becomes a symbol of modern commonwealth. “I will redeem all this on Percy’s head ….. When I will wear a garment all of blood, and stain my favors in a bloody mask”. This metaphor tells us honor is won with blood, this statement by the prince is ironic that you win honor with the blood of others. Hotspur deliberately attacks assuming to gain political leadership by killing the prince. “More active-valiant or more valiant-young, more daring or more bold, is now alive”, the repetition of More emphasizes how Hal believes Hotspur to be the soldier he is not by saying this Hal is showing traces of his father’s political acuity. “To save the blood on either side, try fortune with him in a single fight”. Hal volunteers to meet Hotspur in single hand to hand combat thus concluding the play with Hals succession in killing Hotspur and maintaining his political position. Yet powerful rebel forces still remain in

Shakespeare presents the complex family feud between the Montagues and the Capulets as the underlying ‘antagonist’ of the story, another major reason as to why the lovers didn’t prevail. This grudge is complex as the character’s actions in siding, supporting or in trying to pacify the feud makes the feud more complex. Some of Shakespeare’s greatest use of insults lend themselves to develop the dramatic technique of characterisation among the endorsers of the feud and while doing so, builds up the foreboding mood and suspenseful atmosphere of the feud. An exchange of insults between servants Sampson and Abraham such as do you bite your thumb at us, sir? would’ve united Elizabethan audiences together despite their distinctions among class. In the first act, Tybalt only

While attempting to change the minds of members of the Virginia House of Burgesses, to whom he is speaking, Patrick Henry of various unsuccessful ways of protesting the oppressive British rule. Henry reveals coherently what he feels the next steps should be in regards to the British. Henry dexterously uses his diction to make his stance more convincing and more

The scene is filled with bawdy references and second meanings, meanings which the audience would undoubtedly find uproarously funny. Hal, too, often speaks this language of the lower classes, especially when chiding Falstaff: "These lies are like the father that begets them--gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch--" (I Henry IV, II. iv. 224-227). The language Shakespeare uses in the tavern scenes is certainly different from the more solemn and courtly language found in the plays' more dramatic moments, as in Hal's gallantry towards Hotspur upon the latter's death:

"Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come", Henry proclaims, illustrating for the audience that the issue is one that is changed. In Lines 28-33, Henry uses Imagery to help the audience to recognize being backed into a corner and having no other choice than to fight on an emotional level. Henry uses negatively charged diction in phrases, like ‘But When, ‘When will the time come’, and ‘the truth of the matter is’ to construct a plea or call to action through an activation of pathos in hearts of the audience Elsewhere in the argument rhetorical questions are used to emphasize the point that the colonists must fight the British, effectively saying the audience to feel patriotic through the memorisation of Henry’s arguments. Appeals to emotion, in combination with the effective use of rhetoric, activate pathos in the audience without crossing the ethical line between argument and

To examine Shakespeare’s exploration of identity as a means of control, it is important to understand what all constitutes each character’s identity. In the case of Henry, for one, it is apparent that the actions of his past alter his perceived identity throughout the play. Before Henry speaks his first lines in the play, the Bishop of Ely calls Henry a “true lover of the holy Church,” to which the Archbishop of Canterbury replies, “The courses of [Henry’s] youth promised it not” (1.1.23-24). This reckless reputation follows Henry further into the play when an ambassador from France delivers a message to Henry from the Dauphin: “…the prince our master says that you savor too much of your youth and bids you to be advised there’s naught in France that can be with a nimble galliard won: you cannot revel into dukedoms there” (1.2.250-254). Along with this message, the Dauphin included a gift of tennis balls meant to further insult Henry. Even later in the play, after the English won the battle at Harfleur, the noble Frenchmen continue to underestimate Henry’s ability as a leader: “What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge” (3.8.120-122).

Shakespeare’s ‘King Henry IV Part I’ centres on a core theme of the conflict between order and disorder. Such conflict is brought to light by the use of many vehicles, including Hal’s inner conflict, the country’s political and social conflict, the conflict between the court world and the tavern world, and the conflicting moral values of characters from each of these worlds. This juxtaposition of certain values exists on many levels, and so is both a strikingly present and an underlying theme throughout the play. Through characterization Shakespeare explores moral conflict, and passage three is a prime example of Falstaff’s enduring moral disorder. By this stage in the play Hal has

The King complains that ‘riot and dishonor’ stain the brow of his son whereas Hotspur is the theme of honor’s tongue (Wells 141). Henry uses the successes in war of Hotspur, "Mars in swaddling clothes," as a rod for Prince Hal’s back (Wells 143), accusing his son of being unfit to inherit the crown. To many critics, Hotspur is immensely attractive and rather comical in his impulsive impetuosity–"he that kills some six or seven dozen Scots for breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life, I want work’" (2.5.102-6). Yet, this commitment to bright honor is a dangerous obsession preoccupying Hotspur so much that he is blind to all else. To Hotspur the more dangerous and perilous a situation, the more desire he has to throw himself helplessly into it. To him there are no consequences; he sees no danger. All Hotspur can see is the possibility of achieving great honors– "Doomsday is near, die all, die merrily" (4.1.134). Hotspur’s life is no more than a military commitment; he desires only to gain future glory, whether he wins or loses, lives or dies.

William Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, composed during the last years of the 16th century, is as much as character study as it is a retelling of a moment in history. Though the play is titled for one king, it truly seems to revolve around the actions of the titular character's successor. Indeed, Henry IV is a story of the coming-of-age of Prince Hal and of the opposition that he must face in this evolution. This process gives narrative velocity to what is essentially a conflagration between two personality types. In Prince Hal, the audience is given a flawed but thoughtful individual. Equally flawed but more given over to action than thought is his former ally and now-nemesis, Hotspur. In the latter, Shakespeare offers a warrior and a man of action and in the former, the playwright shows a politician in his nascent stages of development. The contrast between them will drive the play's action.

William Shakespeare is one of the world 's most influential people to ever live. “BBC audience survey names Shakespeare as Britain 's Man of the Millennium.” (Andrews 2) Shakespeare’s works continue to be evident globally in modern society. Hundreds of years after William Shakespeare’s death, his influence continues to make an effect in the modern day English language, modern movies and film, and authors or artists today.