An Interaction Between Text And History

William Shakespeare is a worldly acknowledged eminent playwright and poet. During his life, he wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative poems. Among his 38 plays, there are 10 history plays, which account for nearly one third of his whole plays. Usually regarded as Shakespeare's early works, the trilogy of Henry ? is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. It covers the history of England from the death of Henry V and the coronation of Henry ? in 1422 to the sudden death of Henry ? in the Tower of London in 1471. 1 Henry ? mainly deals with the battles between the English and the French in the Hundred Years' War. 2 and 3 Henry ? mainly centers upon the fights between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists for the English throne.This thesis consists of three parts. Part One gives a brief introduction to Shakespeare, the trilogy of Henry ?, the literature review of Henry ? and New Historicisim. Part Two, the body part, analyses Henry ? by making use of the New Historicist concepts: the textuality of history, the historicity of text; subversion and containment. It is made up of three chapters. Chapter One explores the relationship between Henry ? and the historical sources Shakespeare uses, pointing out that while Henry ? is based on history, Shakespeare also takes part in the reconstruction of history by compressing historical events, combining historical events and even inventing new events, which fully reflects the textuality of history. Chapter Two mainly discusses the relationship between Henry ? and the current political situation of England when it was written. By relating the problems of political struggle and succession in Henry ? with those in the reign of Elizabeth I, it points out that Henry ? as a literary text is influenced and constructed by the political situation, which reflects the historicity of text. Chapter Three analyses the characters' subversion towards the two prevailing ideologies of the time: the female characters' subversion of a patriarchal society and the rebels' subversion of a feudal society. It also analyses the containment of the subversion.Based on the analysis above, this thesis purports to demonstrate that Shakespeare's trilogy of Henry ? is a piece of work in which text and history interact each other. One one hand, it is shaped by history, on the other hand, it also shapes history. Not only does Shakespeare give us a vivid description of England's past but also provides his contemporaries a window into the disasters brought by political struggles and the struggles for throne while telling England's past.