Henry VI Part 3 by William Shakespeare

 

Henry VI

Part 3

by William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 3 (often written as 3 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas 1 Henry VI deals with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses and 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, and the inevitability of armed conflict, 3 Henry VI deals primarily with the horrors of that conflict, with the once stable nation thrown into chaos and barbarism as families break down and moral codes are subverted in the pursuit of revenge and power. 

Although the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright. 

Henry VI, Part 3 features one of the longest soliloquies in all of Shakespeare (3.2.124–195) and has more battle scenes (four on stage, one reported) than any other of Shakespeare's plays. 

Shakespeare's primary source for 3 Henry VI was Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548). As with most of his chronicle histories, Shakespeare also consulted Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577; 2nd edition 1587). Holinshed took much of his information on the Wars of the Roses from Hall, even to the point of reproducing large portions of text from Hall verbatim. However, there are sufficient differences between Hall and Holinshed to establish that Shakespeare consulted both.

Excerpted from Henry VI, Part 3 on Wikipedia.

War of the Roses Saga: Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part 2 , Henry VI Part 3, Richard III

Henry VI Part 3

person Author	William Shakespeare
language Country	England
api Genre	Drama, History Play
copyright Copyright	Public domain worldwide.
camera_alt Book cover	-
book_online Ebooks	Project Gutenberg
description Scans	Google-digitized
headphones Audio	Librivox | Internet Archive Reader: Group, Dramatic Readings 00 01 02 03 04 05
auto_stories Read online	Henry VI Part 3