tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post5426830272427487758..comments2024-02-05T09:17:53.322-08:00Comments on Adrian Barlow's blog: Prince Harry and Prince HalAdrian Barlowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04526714501872493961noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5873009918100574338.post-66461303784090858712012-08-27T10:07:28.595-07:002012-08-27T10:07:28.595-07:00I’ve always enjoyed Henry IV Part One ever since I...I’ve always enjoyed Henry IV Part One ever since I studied it for the Agrégation some years back. I remember the question for the first paper, the dissertation, for which we had seven hours to prepare an answer: ‘Foul play in Henry IV Part One’. As it turned out there was some foul play in the organisation of the concours as dictionaries were wrongly distributed in one examination centre and we had to do that particular exam again. I wasn’t successful that year, either, not as a result of foul play but because I hadn’t sufficiently prepared for it. In fact it took me five years altogether before actually becoming agrégé. This led me to my present teaching post, as an English literature teacher for the British OIB – option internationale au baccalauréat – and the opportunity of teaching Shakespeare’s history play to sixteen to eighteen year-olds. One of the things that Shakespeare seemed very careful to do in that play was to give the young prince an alter ego, not in the shape of the overweight and dishonest, cowardly Falstaff, but in that of the fiery knight in shining armour, Harry Hotspur, the young Percy (although historically not Hal’s contemporary) and arch-enemy from the North of England. In fact the play seems to present a North and South struggle which is based on the notion of legitimacy, legitimacy in the right to rule and perhaps even in other respects too. In any case, the point I’m trying to make is that le Prince Henry de Wales (and I deliberately leave out Owen Glendower here, as that rather complicates matters!) could perhaps do with an alter ego to spur him on (groan…) to greater and nobler things. Is there anyone out there?Garry Headlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07741556616880181278noreply@blogger.com