General thoughts on the Henry VI plays

Well, I am done with the Henry VI plays. What to say?

A good place to start is with the fact that they are considered to be among Shakespeare's earliest works, if not indeed his earliest works. This perhaps leads a reader to low expectations regarding their quality. While there are certainly great artists who have burst onto the scene with their greatest works, anyone with a passing familiarity with Shakespeare knows that is not the case, since his best-known and his best-loved works often tend to be those somewhere in the middle of the canon chronologically. Since Shakespeare does not fall into the category of artists whose early works are their best, it is reasonable to assume that he falls into the other category, those artists who more or less steadily matured in ideas and craft over the course of their careers.

I admit that reasoning led to rather humble expectations myself regarding the three parts of Henry VI. In fact, such a preconception was increased by the fact that I have never, ever, seen any of these three plays performed, or even had the opportunity to see them performed. It's hard to think of a more obscure group of Shakespearean plays than these.

Now, of course, my expectations weren't THAT low in the grand scheme of things: I knew I was reading Shakespeare, so I wasn't about to expect the Da Vinci Code or anything. (Caveat: I don't remember the Da Vinci Code well enough to really remember if it was bad. I have a vague sense of enjoying it while I read it, but now I can't even remember any of the characters names, or really anything about the plot, so I suppose that says something about my perception of its quality. But I digress...) But I was not expecting Hamlet, certainly.

In the end, I'd say the plays basically lived up to my expectations, and perhaps slightly exceeded them. First of all, they were good, and had many moments which hinted at the brilliance Shakespeare later achieved. Along the way, I've mentioned some of my favorite moments; many of those stand with the great scenes he would later write with some regularity. In addition, having the story stretched over three plays, although I would venture to say that it was a bad idea (two would've been enough), it did lend a certain epic scope which I have never quite found in other Shakespearean plays. The fact that the ending of 3 Henry VI so clearly is a prelude to Richard III only enhances this grand, saga-like feel.

What I can't say, however, is that these plays are my favorites of Shakespeare's. In fact, they are probably the least favorite of his works that I've read so far. Now, just for the record, as I said before, Shakespeare was such a genius that even what I consider to be his lesser works are still good. However, however much I may like the Henry VI plays, I'm not at all reluctant to say that his abilities as an artist grew over time.

The basic problems I have with the Henry VI plays are these. First, the characters speak in monologues. There is little of the rapid-fire, back-and-forth dialogue which Shakespeare would use more and more often, and to great effect, later in his career. Later, a monologue always signified Something Important. In the Henry VI, characters will go into a monologue about virtually anything. Shakespeare obviously very quickly realized that this didn't work out so well, since I've never been bothered by it in any other of his plays.

The second issue I have is sort of wrapped up with the first. While I appreciate the epic scope of the plays, I don't think that condensing them into two parts like Henry IV would've been a bad idea. It's not that it doesn't work as a trilogy; it does. However, if the plays were condensed to two plays worth of material, I think they would be much tighter. There felt like there was a lot more unnecessary material in these plays than in his later ones (while many productions cut Hamlet, it's not because that material is unnecessary, it's just because a comprehensible play can be fashioned without it: it merely isn't as good a play. With Henry VI, I'm not sure the cuts really would hurt the play much). I read somewhere that a lot of theatres when producing these plays do actually condense them into two parts. I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has actually seen one of those productions as to whether it worked, or whether I'm wrong on this one and there need to be three parts for the story to hold together.

Normally, I don't want this blog to be about judging the relative quality of Shakespeare's plays (except for the fun polls and the like), because it's all so high that arguing about whether Othello is better than Macbeth is not a very interesting exercise after a while. However, I wanted to make an exception here, since these are, or are at least close to being, his earliest works, and therefore it is interesting to note how Shakespeare improved over time. (I also did some Titus-judging earlier, but that's because it is so often considered his worst play). Plus, this blog is for my reactions to reading the canon, so I can talk about anything I want! *cue evil laugh*

Now that I've gotten these general reactions and assessments of the Henry VI plays out of the way, I hope to follow up in the next couple of days with some analysis of their contents, or at least pose some questions. I'll probably talk primarily 3 Henry VI since I have blogged about that one the least while reading it. I'll either intersperse Richard III reactions along the way (I have started it and am enjoying it immensely), or just wait for that until I feel like I've gotten all of my Henry VI reactions down. Onward, then!