The Third Part of Henry the Sixth #265056

The Chronicle History. — In order properly to interpret 3 Henry VI, it is necessary to define the class of drama that it represents. When Shakespeare's plays were first collected in the Folio of 1623, they were divided into comedies, histories, and tragedies, no less than ten being histories, each bearing the name of an English king. Such a division is unknown to the dramatic nomenclature of other nations and other periods; the type belongs peculiarly to Elizabethan England, more particularly to the last fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign. Professor Schelling 1 lists the titles of 220 known Elizabethan plays dealing with English history, about half of which are extant. Among other dramatists Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Dekker, Munday, Chettle, Heywood, and Ford wrote plays of this form, many of them extremely good. Every English monarch from Edward the Confessor to Queen Elizabeth is represented in this historical drama, Richard III appear ing in eight of them and Henry VI in ten.