Date

4-27-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Shakespeare wrote most of what we know as his English history plays rather early in his career. He was skilled at making the genre more than a copy of the published historical documents and chronicles of his day. Scholarship has long recognized his favorite sources and has established a solid collection of the material he used to bring his country’s past to life on stage. There are many scholarly studies of the influence of Froissart’s, Holinshed’s, Hall’s and Stow’s Chronicles, among others, and they usually describe what Shakespeare borrowed or sometimes even altered from those sources. What they do not normally do is examine what Shakespeare purposefully omitted or altered, and how this has shaped the plays. These omissions and alterations ultimately have major dramatic and philosophical implications for these works. Understanding Shakespeare’s sources is crucial to understanding his history plays. It is important to understand the relationship between the plays and the source...

Department

English

Thesis Comittee

Dr. James P. Crowley, Thesis Advisor

Dr. Benjamin D. Carson, Committee Member

Dr. Ellen Scheible, Committee Member

Copyright and Permissions

Original document was submitted as an Honors Program requirement. Copyright is held by the author.

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