History (theatrical genre)

[5] A key difference between The Persians and a history play in the modern sense is the incorporation of supernatural elements into the narrative of the Salamis.

Additionally, it primarily dramatizes the Persian reaction to the battle, information that would have been at best a secondary concern for the Greek historian.

With this as a starting point, medieval theatre makers began crafting other plays detailing the religious narratives of Christianity.

Literary scholar Irving Ribner, in his influential study of the genre, connects the emergence of the history play with "a new birth of historical writing in England"[7] during the sixteenth century, which included new books of English history written by Polydore Vergil (1534), Edward Hall (1543), and Raphael Holinshed (1577), among others.

[8] While this trend of increasing historical literature has its roots in late Medieval England, it reached a new level of intensity after the ascension of Henry VII with the perceived need to show the justification of the Tudor's position in the monarchy.

[8] In a more recent scholarly work, Ralph Hertel links the performative nature of the history play with a growing sense of English national identity under the early Tudors.

With few exceptions, scholars have tended to focus on the genre‘s topical relevance for Elizabethan and Jacobean questions of national identity, kingly authority, and the interpellation of subjects.

The focus has yielded a number of persuasive links between theatrical representation, the domestic and international expansion of state power, and the very day-to-day operation of Elizabeth’s and James’s governments.

These plays dramatize historical events from English history as early as the reign of King John and as late as Henry VIII.

Plays such as Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra depict historical events from classical antiquity, for example, while King Lear and Cymbeline dramatize the history of ancient Britain and Macbeth depicts the historical events not of medieval England but rather of medieval Scotland.

A consistent theme in historical drama of both Shakespeare and his English contemporaries revolves around questions of who had legitimate claim to participate in the affairs of the state.

[16] In the eighteenth century, Joseph Addison's neo-classical Cato, a Tragedy could be classified as a history play according to the same broad, generalized definition that would apply to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan has received widespread praise,[17] and has even been compared favorably to Shakespeare's histories.

[18] The temporal boundary of history plays is tested in Stuff Happens by David Hare, which chronicles the events leading up to the Iraq War with only two years separating the author from his subject.