Textual Genealogies and Shakespeare's History Plays

Shakespeare's texts dramatize the genealogies of authority, and his documentary histories challenge our modes of editing and interpretation.

This Element reconsiders the historical, theoretical, racial, disability, and editorial problem of genealogy by analysing genealogies in the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: the 'Salic Law' speech in Henry V and the 'seven sons' scene in Henry VI, Part Two. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.This Element reconsiders the historical, theoretical, racial, ableist, and editorial problem of genealogy by analyzing to-be-spoken genealogies in two plays in the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: the 'Salic Law' speech in Henry V and the 'seven sons' scene in Henry VI, Part Two. Both passages also exist in a significantly variant version in The Chronicle history of Henry the fift (1600) and The First Part of the Contention (1594). The differences between the two versions of the biological/bloodline genealogy have been central to the long-dominant theory of 'bad quartos'. That theory assumes that early modern chroniclers and playwrights shared the values of modern archival historians: they assume that Shakespeare prioritized accuracy over acting. The authors offer an alternative reading of genealogies written to be performed onstage as 'documentary effects', adapted for changing audiences in a new multimedia entertainment industry. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.