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Henry IV, Part 1 first lecture

Henry IV, Part 1 first lecture. Shakespeare’s best history play?. Multiple structures of opposition. Court and political world vs. tavern world. Hotspur vs. Falstaff. Prince Hal vs. Hotspur. King vs. Falstaff. Comedy vs. historical seriousness. Humoral oppositions. The humors.

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Henry IV, Part 1 first lecture

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  1. Henry IV, Part 1first lecture

  2. Shakespeare’s best history play? • Multiple structures of opposition. • Court and political world vs. tavern world. • Hotspur vs. Falstaff. • Prince Hal vs. Hotspur. • King vs. Falstaff. • Comedy vs. historical seriousness. • Humoral oppositions.

  3. The humors • The four humors? • “Sanguine”: an excess of blood; makes one cheerful, optimistic. • “Melancholy” – an excess of black bile; makes one gloomy, pessimistic. • “Choleric” or bilious: an excess of yellow bile in the gall bladder; makes one angry and short tempered. • “Phlegmatic”: an excess of phlegm; makes one slow and lethargic. • Derives originally from Hippocrates, the Greek physician and medical writer.

  4. Humors and their associations • And refined by Galen, Roman medical writer. • As a medical theory it persisted into the mid 19th century. • Four elements? • Air – associated with sanguine personality. • Earth – associated with melancholy personality. • Fire – associated with choleric personality. • Water – associated with phlegmatic personality. • “Dyscrasia”: the badly mixed temperament: one humor predominates. • “Eucrasia”: the harmonious mixing of humors. • Bodily humors understood as ascending into the brain to produce their effects.

  5. Hotspur • He’s the Harry Percy, Northumberland’s son, who was introduced to Bolingbroke in Richard II amid great promises of future service and loyalty. • I, 3, 241ff: flashback to Richard II. • In historical fact he was the same age as the king; here Shakespeare suggests he is roughly the age of Prince Hal. • King’s envy of Northumberland over Hotspur: I, 1, 78ff.

  6. Hotspur’s humor? • Angered by the “certain lord, neat and trimly dressed.” • Anger over king’s demand for Scots prisoners: I, 3, 125ff; 211ff. • Anger over Mortimer: I, 3, 131; 219ff. • Worcester and Hotspur: I, 3, 253ff. • His extravagant idealizing: “By heaven, methinks it were and easy leap/ To pluck bring honor from the pale-faced moon.” (I, 3, 201ff). • His disdain for caution, careful planning: 2, 3.

  7. “That roan shall be my throne” • Venus vs. Mars: II, 3, 36ff. • “A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen/ As you are tossed with.” (l. 77-78). • “This is no world to play with mammets and tilt with lips.” • Quarrel with Glendower: III, 1 • His aversion to verse, poetry, III, 1, 126ff. • His restlessness: III, 1, 231ff.

  8. Clip of BBC production of play, III, 1, 210ff.

  9. Falstaff’s humor? • “What a devil hast thou to do with the time of day?” 1, 2. • Phlegmatic humor. • His opposition to Hotspur? • Hotspur’s restless activity • Falstaff’s relentless inactivity. • Hotspur’s courage and military prowess • Falstaff’s cowardice: II, 2, 97ff. • II, 4: 132ff.

  10. Falstaff’s fantasy of martial courage • “What? Fought you with them all?” (II, 4, 177) • At least fifty of them. • Multiplying rogues in buckram suits. • “Art thou mad, art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?” • Falstaff’s “instinct”! • “The lion will not touch the true prince.”

  11. Falstaff and Hotspur • Hotspur’s military prowess. • And Falstaff’s: IV, 2, 11ff. • “Tut, tut, good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as better. . . “ • Falstaff’s “pistol”: “’Tis hot, ‘tis hot. There’s that will sack a city.” • Hotspur: “By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap/ To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,/ Or dive to the bottom of the deep . . .” (I, 3, 201ff) • Falstaff’s “catechism” of honor: V, 1, 1219.

  12. Final stage juxtaposition of Falstaff and Hotspur • On stage Falstaff appears dead; we need to forget what we know from stage direction: Falstaff “who fall(s) down as if he were dead.” • Hotspur also dies. • Prince Hal stands between them. • “Oh, I should have a heavy miss of thee/ If I were much in love with vanity.” • “Falstaff riseth up” (!) • Stabs the dead Hotspur, and picks him up.

  13. And claims to have killed him. • “Why, Percy I killed myself and saw thee dead.” • Falstaff: “Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying.” • “If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should.” • Yeh, right!

  14. Prince Hal between Hotspur and Falstaff • Stage image at V, 4, may suggest his position between the humor extremes. • But Falstaff “riseth up.” • His use of the tavern world: “I know you all and will awhile uphold/ The unyoked humor of your idleness. . .” (I, 2, 188) • Tavern world as foil. • “Redeeming time.”

  15. Hal’s reformation • King’s characterization of the prodigal prince (III, 2): fathers and sons. • “For all the world/ As thou art to this hour was Richard then/ When I set foot at Ravensburgh;/ And even as I was then is Percy now.” • Hal’s claim: “I will redeem all this on Percy’s head.” • “And I will die a hundred thousand deaths/ Ere I break the smallest parcel of this vow.”

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