Vol. VII, No. 4 (1946, Oct.)

') THE SHAKESPEARE FELLOWSHIP I I v.. 1v2n ,, '· '' J~N !) 1?47 i..s:t,Hl.t. :HASHINGTOi, The Shakespeare Fellowship was founded in London in 1922 under the 'prestuency of:SirGeorgeGreenwood. VOL. VII OCTOBER, 1946 NO. 4 Shakespeare's HENRY V Can Be Identified As ''Harry of Cornwall" In Henslowe's Diary Research Stimulated to Completion by Laurence Olivier's Great Film Solves a Chronological Mystery BY CHARLES WISNER BARRELL LAURENCE OLIVIER'S masterly Technicolor indeed. And that it actually served such a purpose production of Henry V justifies all of the enthu in the 1580's and early 1590's when England was siasm it has evoked since its first showing to so seriously threatened by Spain and her satellites American audiences in Boston earlier in the is as plain as a pikestaff. Its merits in this year. It truly represents a new departure in respect remain of permanent force. The very lhe filming of Shakespeare and constitutes a fact that the British Ministry of Information per criterion by which all other motion picture suaded Olivier to make Henry V during the critical versions of the plays must be judged for years davs of the Allied invasion of the Continent in to come. 1944 proves the immortal foresight of the courtier As frequently happens, Olivier's method in soldier-scholar who wrote it. Every line of its achieving success was essentially simple. It was great and stirring speeches bears witness to the lo adhere as closely as possible to the author's author's personal familiarity with the leadership, script, while employing an experienced and homo political reactions and mass emotions that marked geneous group of leading actors to interpret the Elizabethan invasion of the Low lands and characterizations thoroughly grasped-not super• Spain's mi~hty bid for conquest of Ene:land which lcially sketched in conventional Hollywooden culminated in 1588. By the same token, unsup• wtline. Superbly executed sets and the most ported tradition has it that "William Shakespeare" magnificently appropriate color photography I conjecturally the Stratford native) saw military imaginable also do much to illuminate Olivier's service in the Lowland wars against Spain. But inspired direction throughout. the only known dramatist of the period whose It has been remarked by Bernard Shaw and claim to that pen-name as well as to active military llhera that Henry V is not a great play in the and naval serviee can he adequately documented l!!!8e of carrying any sociological "message" of is our poet-playwright Earl of Oxford. ~ import. Neither does it read with consistent One of Laurence Olivier's predecessors in the llerest. But Olivier and his fellows prove beyond production of Henry V was Sir Frank Benson, ill question that it can be made to hold the knighted by the Crown for his work in populariz• illerest of an audience like a house afire. As ing interest in Shakespeare's plays. Sir Frank • liltiotic propaganda, orhrinally designed to rally and his company were known to almost every " lie emotions of the English people to the support hamlet in the main isle of Britain during the late el' o! the Elizabethan government in its upsurge as 19th and early part of the present century. He 'world power, Henry Y is a very great work said that once after a matinee performance of 50 QUARTERLY Henry V in a rural town, an old farmer hailed title-page as a stage placard in the introductory the company manager with this remark: scenes of the film. But it is to be noted that "God bless you, sir, for showing us them 'istory Creede and his fellow pirates make no mention plays; they've taught me 'ow we English became of "William Shakespeare" as the author. This what we are, and 'ow we can keep so." fact is of significance. It proves how well the With his present film rendition of the play, authorship of authentic Shakespeare plays was Olivier appeals even more effectively to a very concealed from the printing house ferrets and much wider audience than Benson ever reached. their undercover allies of the stage even at this The new Henry V will also be· studied intensively late day. Surreptitious sleuths of the type that by many highly intelligent observers who will stole the Shakespeare scripts usually have special view it more than once. Eugene O'Neill has talents for knowing the origin and ownership of publicly announced his intentions in this respect; the property they pilfer. Yet none of these gentry and Mrs. Dorothy Ogburn told us some time ago connected the authorship of the seven Shakespeare that she had attended seven performances-with plays that were printed in various garbled, para, more in prospect. phrased and cut versions between 1590 and 15971 To Oxfordians generally Olivier's Henry V with the pen-name that became so striking a ' presents numerous points of unusual interest. hallmark of quality with its appearance on Venll$ Those that focus attention upon the patriotic and Adonis early in 1593. motivation of the play are especially worthy of Finally, in 1598 Francis Meres, Master of Arts heed. For they can he shown to emphasize most of Oxford and Cambridge, published his unique graphically the arguments put forth by propon first listing of six comedies and six tragedies by ents of the dramatist Earl that Henry V was well Shakespeare in the scholarly compendium known known to Elizabethan audiences several years as Pallad.is Tamia. Immediately afterward the before Olivier (in accordance with orthodox con pirates who had lifted a cut script of Richard II jecture) dates its initial presentation al the Globe the year previous, added the "William Shake in 1600. speare" by-line to their treasure trove to conform Factually speaking, no contemporary record to Meres' identification. Stolen versions of other can be produced to show that this play was first Shakespeare plays mentioned by the Oxford-Cam publicly given at the Globe or any other English bridge scholar were also printed shortly thereafter playhouse in the year 1600. The assumption is bearing the same ascription. In fact, Meres seems based on the following circumstances: to have been the sole authority on the Shake• There is a memorandum in the Stationers' spearean dramatic authorship available to the · Register dated 4 August and assigned conjecturally pirates up to 23 August, 1600, when Andrew Wise to 1600 signifying that application had been made and William Aspley applied for a new copyright by parties unmentioned to publish Henry V, license to print Much Ado About Nothing together together with As You Like It and Much Ado About with 2 Henry IV as "wrytten by Mr. Shakespere." Nothing. But alongside these titles appears the It is a curious and telling circumstance that a · notation: "To be stayed." This injunction was university don such as Meres should know so effective in the case of As You Like It, no printing much more about the authorship of these much of which is known before the Firs\ Folio. How• sought plays than the publishers and actors who ever, there were evidently uncontrolled stage were actively engaged in filching them. Such versions of Much Ado and Henry V then in the evidence indicates again that the real author wa. hands of actors and their piratical publishing a person occupying a far different station than associates. For during the same year of 1600 the pugnaciously protective citizen of Stratford . quartos of both plays were issued. The cut stage who would go lo law to recover a few shillings version of Henry V states that it was printed "by overdue on a loan. Thomas Creede, for Tho. Millington and John Busby." It is entitled, "THE CHRONICLE HISTORY OF HENRY the fift With his battle fought al Agin 1. These include King John (Troublesome Raigne para· phrase) 1590; Taming of tltr. Shrew (A Shrew mem~tr Court in France. Togither with Auntient Pistall. or shorthand version) 1594; 2 Henry VI (ContNltw• As it hath bene sundry times played by the Right memory version) 1594; 3 Henry VI (True Trug~l1 i memory version) 1595; Titus Andronicns (genuine script, honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants." slightly cut) 1594; Romeo and Juliet (genuine scrtpl • ' extensively cut and illiterately mistranscribed) 1597; a;! 1 Laurence Olivier reproduces the first part of this Richard II (genuine script, with deposition scene cut) tS • OCTOBER, 1946 51 Henry Vis not mentioned in Meres' list of plays, is the most important document of Elizabethan 50 the first quarto published by Creede and his stage history." associates in 1600 bears no author's name. Turning thereto, we find that in the very first But it is fallacious to assume from Creede's run of repertory listed by Henslowe from February unauthorized publication that the play was either lo June, 1592, "lord strangers mene" appeared at first written or first produced immediately prior the Rose in two plays that can be identified as to its appearance in type. Indeed, the opposite Shakespeare's Henry V and / Henry VJ. is so obvious a possibility that beginning in Eliza The first of these is called "harey of cornwell" bethan times and coming on down to the present, by the semi-literate theatre manager, while its hundreds of cases could be cited to prove that companion piece--which always follows it in the the actual staging of a play manuscript bears no Rose accounts just as/ Henry VI succeeds Henry V standardized chronological relationship whatever in the make-up of Shakespeare's First Folio-is either ta its composition or its publication in designated as "harey the vj." Greg and other printed form, As Oxfordian writers frequently modern experts accept "harey the vf' without point out, the orthodox biographers of the Bard question as the First Part of Henry VI for numer• have been obliged by the exigencies of the Strat• ous reasons, one being that in his 1592 Pierce ford man's lifespan to adopt a whole series of Pe11ilesse Tom Nash graphically describes the arbitrary assumptions of this same unrealistic reactions of English audiences to the climactic order.

Load more