Henry IV, Part 2

by William Shakespeare, Claire McEachern (Editor), Claire McEachern (Introduction), Stephen Orgel (Editor), A. R. Braunmuller (Editor)

Overview

The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel
 
The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With definitive texts and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come.
 
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524705633
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Series:	Pelican Shakespeare Series
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April, 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. 

A. R. Braunmuller is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has written critical volumes on George Peele and George Chapman and has edited plays in both the Oxford (King John) and Cambridge (Macbeth) series of Shakespeare editions. He is also general editor of The New Cambridge Shakespeare. 

Stephen Orgel is the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University and general editor of the Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture. His books include Imagining Shakespeare, The Authentic Shakespeare, Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England and The Illusion of Power.

Date of Death:

2018

Place of Birth:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Place of Death:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Read an Excerpt

(INDUCTION)

Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.

[RUMOR]

Open your ears, for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth.
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace while covert enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world.
And who but Rumor, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepared defense
Whiles the big year, swoll'n with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumor here?
I run before King Harry's victory,
Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? My office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
And that the King before the Douglas' rage
Stooped his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumored through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten [hold] of ragged stone,
(Where) Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learnt of me. From Rumor's tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
true wrongs

[Rumor] exits.

Copyright © 1999 by The Folger Shakespeare Library

Table of Contents

Editors' Preface ix

Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2 xiii

Reading Shakespeare's Language: Henry IV, Part 2 xv

Shakespeare's Life xxix

Shakespeare's Theater xiii

The Publication of Shakespeare's Plays lii

An Introduction to This Text lvi

Henry IV, Part 2 Text of the Play with Commentary 1

Longer Notes 247

Textual Notes 255

Textual Problems in Henry IV, Part 2 287

Historical Background: Sir John Falstaff and Sir John Oldcastle 295

Henry IV, Part 2: A Modern Perspective by A. R. Braunmuller 303

Further Reading 321

Key to Famous Lines and Phrases 337

Editorial Reviews

“Gorgeous new Shakespeare paperbacks.” 
—Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

“I have been using the Pelican Shakespeare for years in my lecture course--it's invaluable, the best individual-volume series available for students.”
—Marjorie Garber, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University 

From the Publisher

William Shapkespeare's Henry V receives a gratifying full-cast narration and production which brings to life the underlying ironies and contrasts inherent in Shakespeare's play. The complete text here has been fully dramatized from the New Cambridge Shakespeare text and is truly outstanding.