Chronicle History, Cosmopolitan Romance: Henry V and the Generic Boundaries of the Second Tetralogy

Abstract

Romance in its dramatic form, I argued in the previous chapters of this book, helped fill in gaps, expand representations, and reshape the traffic of the early modern stage in the face of new global imperatives. This was the ambivalent admission of Sidney, who saw the early modern stage integrating material previously unknown within English dramatic culture with the help of romance. Such translations of the narrative form required dramatic adaptations that helped reshape the early commercial theater in London. In cartographic culture, as well as in stage romance, the fantasies of English empire and expansion could fill in those parts of the map that were still subject to speculation. As King Arthur’s supposed imperial history resurfaced in travel narratives and maps, the knights of the Round Table could be found on the stage prepared for new conquests abroad.

Me ne no3t al telle her / ac wo so it wole iwite In romance of him imad / me it may finde iwrite

[All cannot be told here, but whosoever would like to know his story may find it written in the romance.]

(Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, c.1300)¹