SHAKESPEARE

What You’ll Love about… Henry IV Part 2 by William Shakespeare

Part 2 is an important transitional piece between Part 1 and Henry V, and the play navigates tricky shifts in tone.

Robert Thew, “The Palace at Westminster: King Henry and the Prince of Wales (Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 4).” Public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In a play that bears some remarkable similarities to the first part, the ways that Part 2 deviates from Part 1 are more notable. One of those interesting deviations is the inclusion of an induction delivered by an allegorical character, Rumor, at the beginning of the play. This seems to represent an attempt to differentiate the play aesthetically from its predecessor, and it may have been added to inject a little life into the beginning of the play. Although Rumor’s lines are not exactly full of delight, they are the most memorable lines from the beginning of the play, which otherwise seems a little uninspired. Even Falstaff’s first scene, 1.2, is just not very entertaining. Falstaff complains about some slights he feels he has received from a doctor and a tailor, and then he does a little “who’s on first” routine with the Chief Justice. It’s a little tedious, as is 1.3, which employs the extraordinarily dull “men talking in committee” situation that plagues many great stories.

Act 2 would seem to provide a more agreeable starting point for the play, and really nothing that…