Shakespeare was able to make even complex historical events easier to follow (all of those Richards and Henrys and Elizabeths can get very confusing) but the real triumph of these plays lies in how they explore the psychological motives that Shakespeare imagines to have prompted the characters’ actions. These plays that were written later are performed more often than the earlier plays, perhaps due to the extraordinary power and beauty of their language. Scholars sometimes break these eight plays down further into two groups of four plays, with each group being known as a “tetralogy.” Interestingly, Shakespeare wrote the first of these tetralogies about those kings who came along during a chronologically later period (that is, Henry VI and Richard III) later in the playwright’s career, when he had become more successful and perhaps therefore more confident in his own writing abilities, he tackled the earlier kings (Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V). The most famous of these are the eight that roughly span the years between 1377 (when Richard II ascended to the throne) and 1485, when Henry VII (the grandfather of Elizabeth I, who ruled England for most of Shakespeare’s life) became the first Tudor monarch to govern England. Over the course of his career, Shakespeare wrote a total of ten history plays. Martin’s Game of Thrones books and the wildly popular HBO series, it’s clear that dynastic power struggles and bloody battles are as popular with audiences now as they were over 400 years ago. It may seem strange to us today, but Elizabethan playgoers were evidently fascinated by the spectacle of English monarchs struggling to winĪnd hold onto the throne, to say nothing of all those lively battle scenes. ![]() ![]() Some of these history plays were among Shakespeare’s very earliest works, suggesting that the young playwright decided to jump-start his career by trying his hand at a form of entertainment that he knew would be popular with his audience. Although most people today tend to think of William Shakespeare as first and foremost a writer of gripping tragedies and delightful comic works, in his own day he was equally well-known for his plays that chronicle the history of the British monarchy, specifically the period that came to be known as the Wars of the Roses.
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