The Shakespeare Project

While the hero of the H6a is undoubtedly Lord Talbot, the noble English knight, the most interesting character is the primary antagonist — Joan of Arc, called La Pucelle, or the maiden, in the play.

Historically, Joan was a leader of the French who provided moral support to the armies, who rallied around her as they took control of the war for France. She was captured, put on trial for heresy, sexually assaulted, tortured, and put to death by the English after refusing to admit to heresy.

In Shakespeare’s play she cuts an interesting figure — in the beginning she cuts a martial figure, defeating the dauphin in single combat, rallying the troops and making this noble speech:

Assign’d am I to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly I’ll raise:
Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days,
Since I have entered into these wars.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
With Henry’s death the English circle ends;
Dispersed are the glories it included.
Now am I like that proud insulting ship
Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.

I.ii.129-139

Joan of Arc seems to be a perfect compliment British Talbot — a martial figure raised to be the nearly unbeatable enemy of the British. Since the play opens with the British soundly trouncing the French at every turn, the power of a French woman to stand up against the English seems even more remarkable.

Even before we meet Joan, however, we learn that the English suspect witchcraft as the only cause that could defeat them. At the funeral of Henry V, Exeter asks rhetorically:

Or shall we think the subtle-witted French
Conjurers and sorcerers, that afraid of him
By magic verses have contrived his end?

I.i.25-28

In fact this early opening of the witchcraft comment may be a kind of subtle foreshadowing — we find other mentions of witchcraft by the English, but they seem baseless at first, at least to a modern audience. However, by the beginning of act II, the Bedford openly claims that the Dauphin is in league with “witches and the help of hell. ”

As a modern reader, however, at this point, I’m still skeptical of the actual involvement of witchcraft in Joan’s success — I’m not sure that Shakespeare’s audiences, however, didn’t already “know” coming into the play that Joan of Arc was a witch in league with demons. To my modern eyes, Joan seems to be more of a martial leader — she’s capable with a sword and she devises solid tactics to defeat the British, but perhaps an Elizabethan audience wouldn’t believe a French woman capable of such without witchcraft.

The height of Joan’s power comes when she convinces the English ally, Duke of Burgundy to switch sides and return to France. The speech however, doesn’t smack of obvious witchcraft, but instead seems to be the speech of a patriot convincing another to join in the cause of France.

Pucelle: Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
And see the cities and the towns defaced
By wasting ruin of the cruel foe.
As looks the mother on her lowly babe
When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
See, see the pining malady of France;
Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,
Which thou thyself hast given her woful breast.
O, turn thy edged sword another way;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help.
One drop of blood drawn from thy country’s bosom
Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore:
Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,
And wash away thy country’s stained spots.

Burgundy at this point, raises the question of witchcraft as an aside, and it’s still not obvious whether it’s the words of a patriots or the spell of a witch that convince him to join with the Dauphin.

Burgundy: Either she hath bewitch’d me with her words,
Or nature makes me suddenly relent.

JOAN LA PUCELLE Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,
Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.
Who joint’st thou with but with a lordly nation
That will not trust thee but for profit’s sake?
When Talbot hath set footing once in France
And fashion’d thee that instrument of ill,
Who then but English Henry will be lord
And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?
Call we to mind, and mark but this for proof,
Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?
And was he not in England prisoner?
But when they heard he was thine enemy,
They set him free without his ransom paid,
In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.
See, then, thou fight’st against thy countrymen
And joint’st with them will be thy slaughtermen.
Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord:
Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.

This persuasive speech is a credible reason in a Shakespearean play to change sides. (In reality, the timing was significantly different and the English had all but lost by the time Burgundy changed sides in order to preserve his lands.) We’re still left with the belief that the Pucelle may be a virtuous woman.

After the death of Talbot, however, we don’t see Joan in a positive light again in the play — she suddenly reveals her vicious side — after the sweet words of patriotism bring Burgundy to her side, her next lines refer to the revolting Parisians

Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;
Else, ruin combat with their palaces!

She’s suddenly willing to kill any Parisians that stand in her way. The “virgin” that has been suspected of evil, shows her true colors. In the next scene, we see that she’s not merely ruthless, but a true witch — she calls for aid from her demons who abandon her in her final hour of need.

My ancient incantations are too weak,
And hell too strong for me to buckle with:
Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.

So, the powers of evil abandon her in her hour of need, and she is taken by the English.

The next scene is that of her trial and execution. The noble and proud Joan denies her father, either in a vein attempt to keep her dignity or because she’s forgotten her simple roots.

Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!
I am descended of a gentler blood:
Thou art no father nor no friend of mine. (V.iv.7-9)

At this point, even her father curses her and abandons her to her death. Joan, alone and condemned to death claims a noble birth and saintly charge.

First, let me tell you whom you have condemn’d:
Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,
But issued from the progeny of kings;
Virtuous and holy; chosen from above,
By inspiration of celestial grace,
To work exceeding miracles on earth.
I never had to do with wicked spirits:
But you, that are polluted with your lusts,
Stain’d with the guiltless blood of innocents,
Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,
Because you want the grace that others have,
You judge it straight a thing impossible
To compass wonders but by help of devils.
No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been
A virgin from her tender infancy,
Chaste and immaculate in very thought;
Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effused,
Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.

When she’s not believed, her tune changes, and instead of claiming innocents, she begs for mercy as pregnent — changing the father in a few different lies. Suddenly this noble enemy of England has no dignity whatsoever before she’s executed of heresy.

She leaves with a final curse that we’ll see the results of shortly in the second and third parts of H6:
Then lead me hence; with whom I leave my curse:
May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abode;
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you, till mischief and despair
Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!

–

The character of Joan is certainly not rendered evenly or consistently throughout this play. The only way that we can accept her at the end is that she’s lying from the beginning. As a nationalist, Shakespeare could be using this play in part to strike at one of the most hated foes of England who had been exonerated by a French ecclesiastical court posthumously. There are few ways that she could have been more fully disgraced in the play — not only is her only source of power come from witchcraft, but in the end she’s forced to lie and beg for her own life. Still her character remains the center of the play in many ways — she’s certainly the most dynamic character and the one with the most interesting lines. And while she seems to be the woman who caused the greatest harm to England, we’ll soon see in the next plays that there will be another French woman who causes even greater grief to the English.

So after an initial reading of H6A, I decided to pick up Asimov’s Guide as the first stop on my voyage through Henry VI, Part I, and I’m left a little disappointed by Asimov. Maybe it’s because I’ve picked a play that has a number of flaws to begin with, but Asimov spends the entire chapter (and his book is the only one I have which gives the play a full-length chapter) degrading the play not for its weaknesses in language — in fact, he spends less than a quarter page on one of the few interesting language passages, that in which Talbot and his son argue in rhyme — and endless pages discussing the anachronisms of the play.

While the play is vaguely based on historical events, and actual events feature regularly throughout the play, Asimov continuously complains that there’s no way two events could take place in the same scene because they ought to have happened 14 years apart from each other. I’ll leave you with the simple knowledge that the events in this play in no way accurately record the history of the last decades of the 100 years war, and if you need details, Mr. Asimov’s book will give you plenty.

Like many others, Asimov is terribly scandalized by the treatment of poor Saint Joan by the barbarous and anglocentric Bard of Avon. Asimov often discusses this anglocentric angle in his assertion that the play is simply a method for the poor bruised egos of the English. He regularly brings up this fervent nationalism describing how any Englishman would know that any man from England could easily defeat a dozen or more poor Frenchmen. While this is borne out with quite a bit of evidence, from Charles never being called King to only the victories of the English taking place on stage, I’m not convinced that Asimov’s assertions that these are a kind of anti-France discrimination so much as methods for making a stage play more entertaining.

In March, we’ll see what Asimov had to say about the second part of this play.

Introduction:

I’ve decided to start with the first part of the Henry VI plays, despite recent scholarship saying that this play was more likely than not written after the two War of the Roses plays that we know as Henry VI, parts II and III as a prequel. Looking at the cycle of Shakespeare’s histories, however, it seems to be a good point to start.

Many Americans hear the word “History” and they immediately think the plays will be boring, confusing, and tedious, but I find most of the histories more interesting and exciting than most of the comedies. They’re stories filled with heroes and villains that can only seem realistic because they’re based on real people.

I first became acquainted with the Henry VI plays when I went to England to take a course in Shakespeare and modern drama. I was lucky enough to head to see all three parts of Henry VI in two consecutive days in Stratford Upon Avon. Michale Boyd’s presentation was fantastic, tying not only all 3 Henry VI plays together, but also tying it into Henry V and Richard III, drawing the audience into a world that existed beyond the stage. I’ll talk more about this production later.

In general, however, H6A* is seen as one of Shakespeare’s least successful plays. Noted critic Harold Bloom even said, “Shakespeare’s play is bad enough… I would be pleased to believe that other botchers had been at work in addition to the very young Shakespeare.” (43) In reading over the play, you can see how this viewpoint seems valid. The use of language seems immature in comparison with Shakespeare’s later works and the characters seem thinner and less consistent (especially Joan la Pucelle).

But, even with it’s weaknesses, the play shows an early love of language and sense of drama for a young Shakespeare (et al?).

*For convenience sake, I’ll be using the abbreviations in Schmidt’s Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary for many of these plays. See Abbreviation Sidebar for details.

Welcome to my personal journey into the works of William Shakespeare. I’ve long been toying with the idea of taking the time to read each of Shakespeare’s plays, watch the available films, and immerse myself in one play each month. Instead of simply reading the plays helter-skelter, in one sitting when the mood strikes me, I wanted to take my time to think about each play, its relation to others, and explore what makes Shakespeare great and why his works are still so relevant 400 years after they were written.

So, I’ve set up this project, for the next 3 years, I will take on one play per month, beginning the month by reading it, and then spending a few hours a week reading about the play and exploring it. I’ll rent the available movies, listen to audio productions, and see what plays come into my region, and above all, I’ll take some time to think about and bounce around ideas about these plays that have become the very soul of the English language.

I welcome you to join me in my journey, pick up a complete works and read through the plays. Share your views, opinions, and questions, and together we’ll explore the life, the works, and the meanings of Shakespeare.