HENRY IV PART 1 AUDIOBOOK HOW TO
And, if Prince Hal illustrates how to effectively use language to consolidate power, the play also illustrates misuses of language and the disempowering consequences of such mistakes. While it intertwines high and low speech, the play also mashes together different kinds of English, featuring Welsh and Irish alongside British English. He is, crucially, the only character capable of such acrobatic feats of eloquence. Prince Hal is compelling (and powerful) in part because he can hop so adroitly between these realms and can speak comfortably in each. The scenes of the play skip between the high language of the court scenes in verse and the low language of the tavern scenes in prose. The words that describe his son’s wish for transformation are, the King feels, as valid as the actions that will prove that transformation complete.Īs much as it is a play about the English throne, Henry IV Part 1 is thus also a play about the English language and about the ways in which a person’s language is connected to that person’s destiny and social position. Soon after, he describes his remorse for the past and ambition for the future to King Henry and the king is fully convinced by (and overjoyed to hear) his son’s articulate confession. Prince Hal’s character transformation is initially expressed not by actions but by words: he confides to the audience in an aside that his essential nobility will cancel out his wild appearance. Like every one of Shakespeare’s plays, Henry IV Part 1 explores language: its power to inspire action, to transform attitude, to reveal a character, and to conceal one.
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