Cook, Ann Jennalie. The Privileged Playgoers of Shakespeare’s London. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

  Cook’s work argues, on the basis of sociological, economic, and documentary evidence, that Shakespeare’s audience—and the audience for English Renaissance drama generally—consisted mainly of the “privileged.”

  Dutton, Richard, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  Dutton divides his study of the theatrical industry of Shakespeare’s time into the following sections: “Theatre Companies,” “London Playhouses,” “Other Playing Spaces,” “Social Practices,” and “Evidence of Theatrical Practices.” Each of these sections is further subdivided, with subdivisions assigned to individual experts. W. R. Streitberger treats the “Adult Playing Companies to 1583”; Sally-Beth MacLean those from 1583 to 1593; Roslyn L. Knutson, 1593–1603; Tom Rutter, 1603–1613; James J. Marino, 1613–1625; and Martin Butler, the “Adult and Boy Playing Companies 1625–1642.” Michael Shapiro is responsible for the “Early (Pre-1590) Boy Companies and Their Acting Venues,” while Mary Bly writes of “The Boy Companies 1599–1613.” David Kathman handles “Inn-Yard Playhouses”; Gabriel Egan, “The Theatre in Shoreditch 1576–1599”; Andrew Gurr, “Why the Globe Is Famous”; Ralph Alan Cohen, “The Most Convenient Place: The Second Blackfriars Theater and Its Appeal”; Mark Bayer, “The Red Bull Playhouse”; and Frances Teague, “The Phoenix and the Cockpit-in-Court Playhouses.” Turning to “Other Playing Spaces,” Suzanne Westfall describes how “ ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’: Household Entertainments”; Alan H. Nelson, “The Universities and the Inns of Court”; Peter Greenfield, “Touring”; John H. Astington, “Court Theatre”; and Anne Lancashire, “London Street Theater.” For “Social Practices,” Alan Somerset writes of “Not Just Sir Oliver Owlet: From Patrons to ‘Patronage’ of Early Modern Theatre,” Dutton himself of “The Court, the Master of the Revels, and the Players,” S. P. Cerasano of “Theater Entrepreneurs and Theatrical Economics,” Ian W. Archer of “The City of London and the Theatre,” David Kathman of “Players, Livery Companies, and Apprentices,” Kathleen E. McLuskie of “Materiality and the Market: The Lady Elizabeth’s Men and the Challenge of Theatre History,” Heather Hirschfield of “ ‘For the author’s credit’: Issues of Authorship in English Renaissance Drama,” and Natasha Korda of “Women in the Theater.” On “Theatrical Practices,” Jacalyn Royce discusses “Early Modern Naturalistic Acting: The Role of the Globe in the Development of Personation”; Tiffany Stern, “Actors’ Parts”; Alan Dessen, “Stage Directions and the Theater Historian”; R. B. Graves, “Lighting”; Lucy Munro, “Music and Sound”; Dutton himself, “Properties”; Thomas Postlewait, “Eyewitnesses to History: Visual Evidence for Theater in Early Modern England”; and Eva Griffith, “Christopher Beeston: His Property and Properties.”

  Greg, W. W. Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.

  Greg itemizes and briefly describes almost all the play manuscripts that survive from the period 1590 to around 1660, including, among other things, players’ parts. His second volume offers facsimiles of selected manuscripts.

  Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare’s Audience. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941.

  Harbage investigates the fragmentary surviving evidence to interpret the size, composition, and behavior of Shakespeare’s audience.

  Keenan, Siobhan. Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare’s London. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2014.

  Keenan “explores how the needs, practices, resources and pressures on acting companies and playwrights informed not only the performance and publication of contemporary dramas but playwrights’ writing practices.” Each chapter focuses on one important factor that influenced Renaissance playwrights and players. The initial focus is on how “the nature and composition of the acting companies” influenced the playwrights who wrote for them. Then, using “the Diary of theatre manager Philip Henslowe and manuscript playbooks showing signs of theatrical use,” Keenan examines the relations between acting companies and playwrights. Other influences include “the physical design and facilities of London’s outdoor and indoor theatrical spaces” and the diverse audiences for plays, including royal and noble patrons.

  Shapiro, Michael. Children of the Revels: The Boy Companies of Shakespeare’s Time and Their Plays. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

  Shapiro chronicles the history of the amateur and quasi-professional child companies that flourished in London at the end of Elizabeth’s reign and the beginning of James’s.

  The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

  Blayney, Peter W. M. The First Folio of Shakespeare. Hanover, Md.: Folger, 1991.

  Blayney’s accessible account of the printing and later life of the First Folio—an amply illustrated catalogue to a 1991 Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition—analyzes the mechanical production of the First Folio, describing how the Folio was made, by whom and for whom, how much it cost, and its ups and downs (or, rather, downs and ups) since its printing in 1623.

  Hinman, Charlton. The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

  This facsimile presents a photographic reproduction of an “ideal” copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare; Hinman attempts to represent each page in its most fully corrected state. This second edition includes an important new introduction by Peter W. M. Blayney.

  Hinman, Charlton. The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.

  In the most arduous study of a single book ever undertaken, Hinman attempts to reconstruct how the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623 was set into type and run off the press, sheet by sheet. He also provides almost all the known variations in readings from copy to copy.

  Werstine, Paul. Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  Werstine examines in detail nearly two dozen texts associated with the playhouses in and around Shakespeare’s time, conducting the examination against the background of the two idealized forms of manuscript that have governed the editing of Shakespeare from the twentieth into the twenty-first century—Shakespeare’s so-called foul papers and the so-called promptbooks of his plays. By comparing the two extant texts of John Fletcher’s Bonduca, one in manuscript and the other printed in 1647, Werstine shows that the term “foul papers” that is found in a note in the Bonduca manuscript does not refer, as editors have believed, to a species of messy authorial manuscript but is instead simply a designation for a manuscript, whatever its features, that has served as the copy from which another manuscript has been made. By surveying twenty-one texts with theatrical markup, he demonstrates that the playhouses used a wide variety of different kinds of manuscripts and printed texts but did not use the highly regularized promptbooks of the eighteenth-century theaters and later. His presentation of the peculiarities of playhouse texts provides an empirical basis for inferring the nature of the manuscripts that lie behind printed Shakespeare plays.

  Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

  [D]o but think

  How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,

  Within whose circuit is Elysium

  And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.

  [Richard—1.2.28–31]

  Now Phaëton hath tumbled from his car

  And made an evening at the noontide prick.

  [Clifford—1.4.33–34]

  I will not bandy with thee word for word,

  But buckler with thee blows twice two for one.

  [Clifford—1.4.49–50]

  She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of

  France,

  Whose tongue more poisons than the adder’s tooth[.]

  [York—1.4.112–14]

  O, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide[.]

  [York—1.4.140]

  See how the morning opes her golden gates

  And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.

  How well resembles it the prime of youth,

  Trimmed like a younker, prancing to his love!

  [Richard—2.1.21–24]

  Environèd he was with many foes,

  And stood against them, as the hope of Troy

  Against the Greeks that would have entered Troy.

  But Hercules himself must yield to odds;

  And many strokes, though with a little axe,

  Hews down and fells the hardest-timbered oak.

  [Messenger—2.1.50–55]

  The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,

  And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.

  [Clifford—2.2.17–19]

  This battle fares like to the morning’s war,

  When dying clouds contend with growing light[.]

  [King Henry—2.5.1–2]

  O God! Methinks it were a happy life

  To be no better than a homely swain, . . .

  [King Henry—2.5.21–54]

  Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile, . . .

  [Richard—3.2.184–97]

  If secret powers

  Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,

  This pretty lad will prove our country’s bliss.

  [King Henry—4.6.70–72]

  . . . when the fox hath once got in his nose,

  He’ll soon find means to make the body follow.

  [Richard—4.7.25–26]

  What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster

  Sink in the ground? I thought it would have

  mounted.

  [Richard—5.6.62–63]

  I have no brother, I am like no brother;

  And this word “love,” which graybeards call divine,

  Be resident in men like one another

  And not in me. I am myself alone.

  [Richard—5.6.81–84]

  Commentary

  * * *

  ACT 1

  * * *

  Scene 1

  1.1  Richard, Duke of York, aided by the Earl of Warwick, occupies King Henry VI’s throne. Faced with Warwick’s soldiers, Henry offers to make York his heir to the throne if he himself can remain king. York accepts the offer. Queen Margaret, enraged that Henry’s son Edward is thus being disinherited, leaves to gather an army of her own.

  0 SD. Alarum: a call to arms (here indicating ongoing military action); the white rose: the insignia of the Yorks and their supporters

  5. warlike ears: i.e., ears belonging to a warrior; brook retreat: endure the sound that signals a retreat

  8. Charged: rushed at, bore down upon; our main battle’s front: the foremost part of our main battalion

  11. dangerous: dangerously

  12. beaver: part of the face guard of a helmet (here perhaps the helmet itself) See picture. downright: straight downward

  A helmet with closed visor or “beaver.” (1.1.12)

  From Henry Peacham, Minerua Britanna . . . [1612].

  14. brother: Though historically nephew and uncle, York and Montague are treated as brothers in this play.

  15. battles joined: armies met in conflict

  18. is . . . Somerset: addressed to the severed head

  19. line: descendants; John of Gaunt: ancestor of the Lancastrian line (See genealogical chart.)

  22. Before: i.e., until

  23. usurps: Because the Lancastrians obtained the crown by forcing the Yorkist king Richard II to abdicate, the Yorkists see Henry IV and his descendants as usurpers. See lines 136–50.

  25. fearful: frightened, timorous

  26. this . . . seat: Stage action makes clear that a throne is present onstage on a raised platform.

  The Great Silver Seal of Henry VI, showing him in his “regal seat.” (1.1.26)

  From Alfred Benjamin Wyon, The great seals of England . . . (1887).

  The reverse side (“counterseal”) of Henry VI’s Great Silver Seal.

  From Alfred Benjamin Wyon, The great seals of England . . . (1887).

  29. hither . . . in: i.e., we have broken in to this place

  30. flies: flees

  31. gentle: noble

  32 SD. They: i.e., York and the other lords (line 31)

  34. perforce: forcibly, using physical force

  35. parliament: formal assembly of nobles

  40. Plantagenet: Historically, this name was attached to the royal family of England, including both Yorks and Lancasters. In this play, it refers to the Yorks—and specifically to the Duke of York.

  42. bywords: objects of contempt and scorn

  46. proudest he: i.e., proudest man or person; holds up: supports

  47. stir a wing: i.e., make the slightest movement; shake his bells: i.e., threatens an attack (referring to the bells tied to a falcon’s legs) See picture.

  A falcon with its “bells.” (1.1.47)

  From George Turberville, The booke of faulconrie . . . (1575).

  48. I’ll . . . dares: wordplay on Plantagenet, which originally referred to the broom plant

  49. Resolve thee: i.e., come to a resolution

  49 SD. Flourish: a fanfare to announce the king’s entrance; the red rose: insignia of the Lancastrians

  King Henry VI.

  From John Speed, The theatre of the empire of Great Britaine . . . (1627 [i.e., 1631]).

  King Henry VI.

  From John Taylor, All the workes of . . . (1630).

  51. Belike: in all likelihood, apparently

  52. false: disloyal, treacherous

  58. be not: i.e., be not revenged

  59. thereof: i.e., of being revenged; in steel: i.e., dressed in armor (rather than in a mourning gown)

  60. suffer: endure, bear

  64. durst not: would not have dared

  67. cousin: kinsman

  68. the city: London

  70. the Duke: i.e., York

  72. shambles: literally, a slaughterhouse; Parliament House: Now called Westminster Hall, this building was constructed in 1097–99 and renovated by Richard II, who filled it with Yorkist symbols still extant today. (For a 17th-century image of Parliament House, see picture.)

  Parliament House. (1.1.72)

  From John Seller, A book of the prospects of the remarkable places in . . . London . . . [ca.1700?].

  75. factious: seditious, rebellious

  76. grace: goodwill, pardon

  79–80. He . . . York: Henry’s granting Richard Plantagenet the title of Duke of York, in exchange for Richard’s pledge of submission and loyalty, is dramatized in Henry VI, Part 1, 3.1.167–86.

  81. earldom: i.e., of March (See line 109.)

  82. Thy . . . crown: For the arrest of York’s father, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, as a traitor, see Henry V, 2.2. See also Henry VI, Part 1, 2.4 and 2.5.

  91. that: i.e., that claim, that fact

  93. field: battlefield

  94. with colors spread: with flags or standards unfurled

  97. his soul: i.e., my father’s soul; house: family

  101. Urge . . . more: i.e., do not again press upon my attention the killing of my father

  105. Will . . . title: i.e., do you wish me to make clear my right (York uses the royal plural.)

  106. plead it: i.e., argue on behalf of my title (as if in a court of law)

  110.

  King Henry V. (1.1.110; 2.2.154; 5.4.52)

  From John Taylor, All the workes of . . . (1630).

  111–12. Who made . . . provinces: This action is dramatized in Shakespeare’s Henry V, Acts 3–5.  Dauphin: eldest son of the King of France (accent on first syllable)

  113. sith: since

  114. Lord Protector: Henry VI’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester (For his death, see Henry VI, Part 2, 3.2.)

  116–17. yet, methinks, you lose: i.e., it seems to me that you continue to lose

  120. arms: warfare; the military profession

  124 SP. King Henry: Some editors reassign this speech to Northumberland. See longer note.

  131. their colors: i.e., the flag flown by York and his followers

  132. our heart’s: my heart’s

  133. faint you: i.e., do you lose heart or courage

  134. title’s: claim to the crown (line 136) is

  136–37. Henry . . . king: For this story, see Shakespeare’s Richard II.

  141. An if: i.e., if

  142. in the view of: i.e., in the presence of

  145. against him, being: i.e., against Richard, who was

  146. perforce: through constraint or compulsion

  148. ’twere prejudicial to: i.e., would invalidate his title to

  151–52. Art thou . . . pardon me: These lines may well be spoken as asides—i.e., as if unheard by the others—between the King and Exeter. York’s “Why whisper you” (line 153) supports such stage action. If 151–52 are asides, line 154 is probably an aside as well.

  156. lay’st: put forward, allege

  158. in despite of: notwithstanding, in spite of

  159. deceived: mistaken

  162. in despite of: in contemptuous defiance of

  173. usurping blood: i.e., his blood, that of a usurper

  176. Confirm: i.e., ratify the transfer of

  182. Base: reprehensible, despicable

  184. these articles: i.e., this formal agreement (See line 176.)

  186. these news: i.e., this news

  190. bands: chains, manacles, shackles

  208. forward: precocious; ready, eager

  210 SD. Sennet: music accompanying a ceremonial exit or entrance