Where Edward III Has Some Folks to Fight

King Edward III by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hey, this was a good read. (No pun intended.) Elizabethan plays can be tough, but this was not that bad, and very entertaining. I liked it. 5 stars.

It's one of those "Did Shakespeare write this?" plays that has more recently been a "How much of this did Shakespeare write?" play. Something like half, maybe. Hard to tell at this point. But in my head, and according to educated critics who have used a lot of methods to analyze the language and style, this is essentially a Shakespeare play. With assistants.

Being a history, the play is pretty episodic. It starts with Edward putting down a rebellion on the Scottish border, where he pressures a beautiful countess to sleep with him until she shames him enough he apologizes. Then, we pass to France, where he is pushing his claim to the throne. There are a couple battles--Crécy and Poitiers--where his son the prince survives and succeeds against great odds a couple times. He takes Calais [historical spoilers!], where he really wants to commit some atrocities but gets talked out of it. The captured French king is brought to him as they enter the city.

I found it fun to read and imagine it would be pretty great to watch. It's too bad it mocks Scottish people in the beginning, because that made it unpopular when James I became king a few years after it was written and first performed.

As history, this has flaws. Events are moved around and historical figures invented. Some of it's true, but it isn't very accurate. And some critics say it isn't up to Shakespeare's standards (for reasons that don't trouble me). But it is a play meant for spectacle, for patriotic fervor, for emotional reveals (like when the prince survives one more tough spot, even though the people already know he survives) and that would make it a high-energy play to see. It's very dramatic.

Seriously--go to school or read a history book for history. Go to the theater for drama. And this is good drama--IMO, always.

Recommended.

Oh--the notes and helps in the front and back of the Melchiori edition from Cambridge are very good. That's a bonus.

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