Learning The Henriad
A Student's Point of View
Eric Brown
My understanding of Shakespeare’s genres before taking this course was pretty simplistic. The comedies, I thought, are about young love. The tragedies are the ones where everyone dies at the end, and the histories are boring. Fortunately, reading and studying the Henriad under Dr. Poole changed my views. I have grown to recognize the beauty and value of Shakespeare’s history plays. They are packed with excitement, humor, emotion, and humanity. They serve as a fascinating source for scholarship that aims to link historical and literary research. They demonstrate Shakespeare’s engagement with his national cultural heritage, and his ability to uncover and illustrate human nature from accounts of historical events. These plays are deeply compelling. Having the opportunity to study, think, and write about them was an exciting and rewarding challenge.
In Dr. Poole’s class, we not only read the four plays of the Henriad, but also watched the Hollow Crown’s film production of them. This setup helped guide us through the works. It can be difficult to understand Shakespeare just by reading the text. I don’t mean to suggest it’s difficult to follow the plot through reading the text alone, or to gain a sense of what the characters are saying. But in order to see the characters in all of their charisma and human complexity, it seems important to seek out an actual production. By watching the films, we really covered each play twice, and through different but complimentary perspectives as readers and then viewers. When it came time for us to create our own essay questions for our midterm exam, many of us were interested in discussing the differing impacts of these two experiences.
Reading Shakespeare is a difficult process, and, not unlike learning a foreign language, demands diligence in order to attain some degree of literacy. In the beginning of the semester, it was occasionally difficult to follow even basic plot developments, but after several weeks of hearing and reading the language, I began to pick up on some of the subtleties – the puns, the sudden poetic metaphors, the implicit -- that make Shakespeare’s writing so infinitely fascinating. This class has enhanced my abilities not only as a reader of Shakespeare, but also as a reader in general. Thanks, Dr. Poole!
In Dr. Poole’s class, we not only read the four plays of the Henriad, but also watched the Hollow Crown’s film production of them. This setup helped guide us through the works. It can be difficult to understand Shakespeare just by reading the text. I don’t mean to suggest it’s difficult to follow the plot through reading the text alone, or to gain a sense of what the characters are saying. But in order to see the characters in all of their charisma and human complexity, it seems important to seek out an actual production. By watching the films, we really covered each play twice, and through different but complimentary perspectives as readers and then viewers. When it came time for us to create our own essay questions for our midterm exam, many of us were interested in discussing the differing impacts of these two experiences.
Reading Shakespeare is a difficult process, and, not unlike learning a foreign language, demands diligence in order to attain some degree of literacy. In the beginning of the semester, it was occasionally difficult to follow even basic plot developments, but after several weeks of hearing and reading the language, I began to pick up on some of the subtleties – the puns, the sudden poetic metaphors, the implicit -- that make Shakespeare’s writing so infinitely fascinating. This class has enhanced my abilities not only as a reader of Shakespeare, but also as a reader in general. Thanks, Dr. Poole!