Edward III in Henry V | Edward III in Henry V
Edward III in Henry V
E. Pearlman, University of Colorado at Denver
Shakespeare knew the play called The Raigne of King Edward the Third as well as he knew Holinshed's Chronicle or North's Plutarch or Ovid's Metamorphoses. He might have become intimate with Edward III in any of a number of ways, for it was "sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London,"1 during the early 1590s, and it is hard to imagine that Shakespeare, himself a practitioner of the art of chronicle history, would not have taken the trouble to look in at one of its various performances. Shakespeare might also have laid down his sixpence for a copy of Edward III, for the play was readily available, having been published by Cuthbert Burby in 1596 and once again in 1599. There is also the possibility that Shakespeare the actor might have undertaken a role or two as a member of the Earl of Pembroke's...
[The entire page is 7978 words long]
Navigate
