3 Henry VI: Dramatic Convention and the Shakespearean History Play

3 Henry VI: Dramatic Convention and the Shakespearean History Play John D. Cox The third part of the Henry VI trilogy has long been re­ garded as the poorest of the lot. Dr. Johnson preferred the sec­ ond part, and his remark that all the plays "have not sufficient variety of action, for the incidents are too often of the same kind" is usually taken as a response to Part 3. Tillyard noted that 3 Henry VI "is Shakespeare's nearest approach to the Chronicle Play," and he left no doubt what such a comparison was meant to imply: "Shakespeare had a great mass of chronicle matter to deal with and he failed to control it; or rather in paring it to manageable length he fails to make it significant." Shakespeare, according to Tillyard, "is either tired or bored: or perhaps both."1 Though Tillyard's ideas about the history plays have long suffered the fate of the proverbial dead horse, it is remark­ able how persistently they haunt his revisionist successors. One of the play's most recent and incisive critics repeats Tillyard's theme with variations, attributing the "perfunctory" quality ot the plotting in 3 Henry VI to Shakespeare's loss of interest in mopping up the events of the civil war, especially now that he was anticipating the "brilliant scheming" of Richard III.2 3 Henry VI, then, is the real test of any critical approach to the early history plays. If we can discover a consistent and satisfying dramatic purpose in this ugly duckling of the first tetralogy, the exercise may enhance our understanding of the other plays, which are usually considered to be more successful in the first place. Tillyard's suggestion that Shakespeare was bored or tired, or that his "inclinations were at odds with his will and duty" (p. 196 ) , indicates an opinion that the playwright failed to order 42 John D. Cox 43 events intelligibly in 3 Henry VI, or mo.re important for a drama­ tist, that he failed to order his materials in such a way as to engage his audience intelligibly. Now it is certainly true, as several critics have noticed, that 3 Henry VI is a play without heroes-that is, it lacks characters of the stature of Talbot in 1 Henry VI or Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in the second play, who unambiguously engage our sympathy. Though a few characters successively win our uncertain pity in 3 Henry VI, no character ever has our wholehearted admiration and ap­ proval. It seems possible, therefore, that the play's peculiarity should be attributed to the ambivalence it invokes rather than to the quality of its plotting. If such an attribution can indeed be sustained, it is surely no cause for condemning 3 Henry VI, given the modern interest in ambiguity, ambivalence, and "the dramatist's manipulation of response" in general.3 I would sug­ gest that in 3 Henry VI the ambiguity can pretty certainly be traced to Shakespeare's combining various elements of his dra­ matic heritage for the purpose of holding the mirror up to history, that is, of revealing the nature of temporal order in human affairs. When 3 Henry VI is viewed in this way, more­ over, it can be seen not as an anomaly but as a paradigm of the Shakespearean history play. Let us first consider the most traditional aspects of Shake­ speare's dramaturgy, for in shaping our attitudes toward his characters he appeals to some remarkably archaic models. In the opening lines of 3 Henry VI we notice an unambiguous smearing of the Yorkists. Though this is not inconsistent with the attitude we have been invited to take toward Richard Duke of York in the first two plays, the process .is carried to unprece­ dented lengths at this point. The clan gathers in Westminster Hall, the very seat of parliamentary and royal authority, where they have "broken in by force."4 Their boldness is heightened by the reason for this gathering: to celebrate their first taste of successful rebellion, the Yorkist victory at St. Albans. They are blackened further by dramatically effective but literally impos­ sible details as they display their...