Roles and Players in 'Henry IV Part 1'

Abstract

The Henry IV plays are distinguished among Shakespeare's Histories by their range and their exuberant variety. Sooner or later, most commentators on the plays echo Samuel Johnson's generous encomium: "Perhaps no author has ever in two plays afforded so much delight." As he amplifies this judgment, Johnson shows that his measure of delight is in part simply quantitative: the plays interest us through their great events and divert us through their slighter occurrences; they contain "incidents ... multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention" and "characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment." The plenitude of the Henry IV plays consists first in the image of English society presented on the stage. There are the dour Henry IV and his few trusted associates of the "King's party"; an alliance of English, Welsh, and Scottish "Opposites against King Henry the Fourth"; representatives of the law, from the Chief Justice to a pair of decrepit "Country Justices"; "Country Soldiers", from the venal to the pathetically dutiful; and a crowd of "Irregular Humourists", led by Falstaff.