HSC English. The smart way to prepare for your HSC.

This one-day HSC English preparation course focuses on Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 (1598) for Advanced Module B: Critical Study of Literature.

Close analysis and discussion focuses on Henry IV Part 1's construction, content and language: its genre as both history and a morality play; its three plot strands; the play extempore as metatheatrical device; comic scenes; the use of doubles, foils and stock characters (including Falstaff and Henry, Hal and Hotspur); and alternations between verse and prose.

This critical study of the play evaluates the literary value of Shakespeare’s play as the most popular of his career in his lifetime: the popularity of its anti-hero, Falstaff; its engagement with history, politics and ideologies; and its intertextual links to Shakespeare’s earlier Richard II, and his later works Henry IV Part 2 and Henry VI.

Attention returns to the themes, meaning and alternative interpretations of Henry IV Part I as the story of the education of a prince, a critique of medieval ideas about honour and virtue, and an examination of Kingship and lineage during the fall of English feudalism and rise of the modern nation-state.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• analyse and discuss Henry IV Part 1 in relation to context, narrative, structure, themes, aesthetic style, key words and mo