Henry IV Part 2 Analysis

The crown is always a visual symbol of a monarch's power but in Henry IV Part 2 it comes to mean even more. Let's take a look at a few significant moments where the crown comes into play. First, we...

The play is set in England at the end of King Henry IV's reign. Henry IV, by the way, ruled England from 1399 to 1413. In the play, Shakespeare condenses events from the last few years of Henry's r...

Literary critics refer to Henry IV Part I as a "history play," a genre that portrays English historical events (by which we mean, history according to Shakespeare) that resonate with current politi...

The world of Henry IV Part 2 is much darker and more foreboding than that of Henry IV Part 1. This second part is full of images of disease and decay and is obsessed with the inevitable passage of...

Reading any one of Shakespeare's plays can feel like reading a really lengthy poem and that's because they're written in a combination of verse (poetry) and prose (how we talk every day). We break...

The title is pretty straightforward. We know we're getting the second installment of a play that covers the reign of King Henry IV.The titles of Shakespeare's plays weren't always so simple. If we...

Spoiler alert! We took a sneak peek at the play's ending and it's awfully dramatic. Remember when Hal and Falstaff performed a skit at the Boar's Head Tavern in Act 2, Scene 4 of Henry IV Part 1? H...

If you're reading Henry IV Part 2, then you've probably already read Henry IV Part 1 so, Shakespeare's Elizabethan language should be getting a whole lot easier to manage by now (especially if you'...

King Henry IV is ill and the rebels are still acting up. Meanwhile, Prince Hal lays low.Even though the king's forces enjoyed a victory against the rebels at the battle at Shrewsbury back in Henry...

Hal spends all his time with the commoners in Henry IV Part 1.If we follow Prince Hal's trajectory throughout Richard II and Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2, we can see that Hal's story fits into what...

King Henry IV is gravely ill, mostly because he's worn out by the civil rebellion that's plagued his reign and also because he's spent so much time worrying about his wild child son, Prince Hal, wh...

Shakespeare invented thousands of words and coined hundreds of phrases like "eaten out of house and home," which appears in print for the first time in Henry IV Part 2 when Mistress Quickly complai...

The names Shakespeare assigns to characters like Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet are enough to give Henry IV Part 2 an "R" rating. Plus, there's a whole lot of dirty talk in this play. (If you...

Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, Volume 3Anonymous, The Famous Victories of Henry VSamuel Daniel, The First Four Books of the Civil WarsVirgil, The Aeneid (1.1) G...