Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The vexed questions of authorship and chronology remain as vexed as ever, in all three Henry VI plays but especially in Part 1. A swing of the pendulum is plainly discernible. Theories of disintegration, prevalent in the nineteenth century, were cast into disrepute in most of the twentieth century. Today the pendulum appears to be swinging back toward theories of multiple authorship and a comparatively late date for 1 Henry VI (after Parts 2 and 3), assisted no doubt by a postmodern inclination toward authorial indeterminacy but also backed by improved rigor in scholarly method. An indication of the uncertainty today about issues of date and chronology appears in this interesting circumstance: since the appearance of Gary Taylor's substantial essay arguing the case for multiple authorship in 1995, two critical editions of the play have appeared, one of which, the Arden 3 edition by Edward Burns, accepts Taylor's argument, while the other, the New Cambridge edition by Michael Hattaway, emphatically does not. (Hattaway's edition appeared before Taylor's article made it into print, but took into account an earlier version of it, along with earlier work by Taylor as editor of the play for the Oxford Shakespeare; see Wells and Taylor (1987 : 217ff.).) As Fredson Bowers used to say, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Broadly speaking, those critics who admire 1 Henry ... log in or subscribe to read full text