…And Banish All the World: A Comparison of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I and the Morality Play The Castle of Perseverance
Graduation Date
Summer 1974
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program Name
Humanities
Abstract
That Henry IV, Part 1 is a morality play is not "the question here, for it is not. But that Henry IV, Part 1 may be analyzed as an anatomy class might analyze the human body, as part of the morality tradition, is the question. A heart is not a body, a lung is not a body, a leg is not a body - but put them together, heart, lung and leg - and the sum of those and all the other parts is a body. Just so, there are parts of the body of Shakespeare's play which, under analysis, bespeak a morality influence, which complete the anatomy lesson of Henry IV, Part 1, and without which the body would not be whole. This study principally concerns itself. with a particular element of Shakespeare's literary and theological Past, perhaps analogous to the heart in terms of anatomy, for it is a vital organ in the body of this Play under consideration. It was a way of knowing and understanding, reflected through the drama, the pulpit and literature, which had come to Shakespeare's time from England's past, and which was still viable and important to the Tudor era: allegory.