The Shakespeare Project

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.