The student doing his English examination will find the symposia of 38 plays to his advantage and accuracy rather than researching.
Henry VI Part 1
Henry VI Part 1 is a play of battles in France where the English try vainly to hold their possession and of a perilous breakdown of order in England internal dissension fatal to campaign abroad, presages civil war.
At the Westminster Abbey funeral of Henry V news arrives that the French have beaten back the English; Talbot, the valiant general has been captured and the Dauphin crowned. At home Gloucester and Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester are dangerously at odds. In France, Joan of Arc seen here not as a saint, but a harlot and witch in league with the power of darkness, raises the siege of Orleans. Talbot regains the city.
In London, a feud between the ambitious Richard Plantagenet claiming the crown and the Duke of Somerset moves to the symbolic plucking of roses in Temple Gardens; a red rose for Plantagenet, a white rose for Somerset. King Henry makes Richard Duke of York and later crowned King of France in Paris.
Talbot dies, Pucelle is taken a prisnor before Angers and sent to stake. Peace is patched up between France and England. The unscrupulous Earth of Earl of Suffolk entranced by his captive, Margaret the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Anjou for his own benefit get her married to the King.
Henry VI Part 2
The main theme of Henry vi Part 2 is York’s gradual rise to power. The Quarto of 1594 puts it all in the title; The frist part the Contention between the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: and the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolk, and the tragical end of the proud Cardinal of Winchester, with the notable of Jack Cade: and the Duke of York first claim to the Crown.
Anjou and Maine are given to the vows. The peers are split into their factions. The Duchess of Gloucester attempts to learn the future and a witch is arrested for treason. She is banished to the Isle of Man after doing penance through London, barefoot and in white sheet, and warning her honest husband of his enemies. The King believing to be assailed Gloucester to be honest, implicated, and later murdered through the agency of Suffolk and of Cardinal Beaufort who dies later.
York has gone to quell an Irish rising to begin a rebellion around London. In the meantime, pirates have Suffolk who in spite Margaret had been banished. When York returns with his Army, the wars of roses begin. York demanding the crown, wins the battle of Albans where Clifford and Somerset are killed.
Induction and eloquence
For each of Shakespeare’s 38 plays, there is a synopsis of the plot, supported by characters and a resume of performance history Apocrypha of plays. The student will have to wade through them all and doing so, he will enrich not only his memory, but also discover the magnificence of Shakespeare wizardry and how an elementary student rose to be the world’s greatest thespian and playwright.