König Heinrich IV.

by William Shakespeare

Testo inglese a fronte

La tragedia comincia durante il terzo anno di regno (siamo nel 1402) di re Enrico IV.
Dopo aver deposto con l'aiuto di molti nobili Riccardo II, re Enrico si trova a dover fronteggiare il malcontento degli stessi nobili che lo hanno portato sul trono, tra i capi della ribellione vi sono il conte di Northumberland, suo figlio Enrico Percy detto Hotspur, l'arcivescovo di York, il ribelle gallese Owen Glendower e soprattutto il conte di March, Edmondo Mortimer che era stato nominato da Riccardo II come suo legittimo erede.
Un altro grosso problema che il re deve affrontare è la vita dissoluta che suo figlio Enrico ( futuro Enrico V ) conduce facendosi accompagnare da personaggi come Falstaff.
La tragedia è suddivisa in due parti : la parte I si conclude con la battaglia di Shrewsbury in cui buona parte dell'esercito ribelle è sconfitto, la parte II prosegue con la morte di re Enrico e l'ascesa al trono di Enrico V che contro ogni aspettativa conclude le lotte e rinnega il suo passato pronto ad essere re.
In Enrico IV , Shakespeare passa continuamente da una fase più storica ( la preparazione della ribellione, gli intrighi e le battaglie ) ad una fase più privata in cui è descritta la vita di Enrico V insieme ai suoi amici e la sua successiva " redenzione " che si svolge in un bellissimo dialogo con il padre morente nella seconda parte.
Non è quindi solo una tragedia storica , inserita nel contesto della tetralogia definita come Enrieide, ma anche una tragedia che scava nel rapporto tra padre e figlio e sulla eterno problema delle aspettative di un genitore verso i figli.

142 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1986

About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".