The History Play

An overview of the form of the history play from the early modern period of Shakespeare, through a long 19th century beginning with Goethe and Schiller and continuing to Ibsen and Strindberg, down to the 20th and 21st centuries.

Traversing 400 years of drama, this book examines the history play as a distinctive form that has its origins in the Early Modern period and which evolves in each subsequent period according to the segment of history being dramatized and the changing conceptions of the state.

Much has been written on Shakespeare’s history plays but very little on the overall form and whether it is distinguished by the historical accuracy of the drama, the relationship with the audience or the underlying political ideology. Defining the history play as one where the dramatic focus is on historical practice embodied in action rather than merely on the individual characters involved, a clear form emerges. Threaded through is a consideration of the changing understanding of history itself through the centuries and the ways in which playwrights have engaged with both the history of their own time, and the history of other times and cultures as it reflects their own.

Beginning with Shakespeare, his contemporaries Marlowe and Jonson, and the neocclassical Racine, the book moves to the long 19th century, considering plays by Goethe and Schiller, so influenced by Shakespeare, taking in Buchner, Ibsen and Schiller. The final part explores the 20th and 21st centuries, including the radical innovations of Shaw and Brecht, Miller's The Crucible, Churchill’s early play Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and works by Tony Kushner and Tom Stoppard.