Table of Contents

I. The Mysteries of Henry VI
1: Critical waves
2: Classical shades
3: Cyclical storms
4: From page to stage
II. National Unity and Military Honour
5: The matter of 1 Henry VI
6: Borrowing material
7: The theme of union
8: Space and time
III. Plotters and Plot
9: Refashioning history
10: Playing with time
11: Piecing out facts
IV. Grammatical Laws
12: From narrative to dramatic syntax
13: The appeal to the sources
14: Court masks, street masques
V. Unhappy Families
15: The narrative material of 3 Henry VI
16: Dramatic techniques
17: Critical rewriting
18: The literary tradition
VI. The Dawn of Tragedy
19: A turn for the worst
20: The new ethics
21: The actors of the drama
22: The tragic structure of history
23: To be continued
VII. Unnatural Born Killer
24: The text of Richard III
25: Plotting history
26: Hall's histories of Richard
27: Hall or Holinshed?
VIII. Certain Dregs of Conscience
28: Vergil's tragic hell
29: More's dramatic History
30: Poetic licence
31: Designing characters
Conclusion: A world to bustle in
Bibliography

About the Author

Dominique Goy-Blanquet is Professor of Elizabethan Theatre at the University of Picardie. She is a leading French Shakespearean scholar and a regular contributor to the TLS and various French magazines.

Reviews

a thorough, perceptive, and instructive book The Shakespeare Newsletter ... a welcome study, full of information on the relationship between historical writing and history plays, military culture, honour and performance history ... many valuable insights that will make the book an essential reference tool for years to come, especially on the relationship between source-text and stage performance, and a valuable reading of the plays as a tragic cycle. Andrew Hadfield, Times Literary Supplement