Henry IV: Analysis of Setting
"Henry IV: Analysis of Setting" explores the complex environments that frame the narrative of the play "Henry IV." The primary setting, a throne room designed to resemble that of the historical Henry IV in Goslar, Germany, serves as a symbol of the king’s madness and delusions, despite its physical location within a villa. The throne room represents not only a space of power but also a site where the boundaries of reality and illusion blur, particularly as Henry engages with his “counsellors,” who are more like actors in his delusional play.
In contrast, a second room in the villa features simpler furnishings and offers a glimpse of the outside world through its windows, presenting a more grounded perspective. This juxtaposition highlights the irony of Henry's situation: while he claims to transcend madness in this more serene space, the connection to the throne room—where his madness is ultimately inescapable—remains ever-present. The analysis of these settings emphasizes themes of sanity, identity, and the nature of reality, inviting reflection on the human condition as depicted in the play.
Henry IV: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1922 as Enrico IV (English translation, 1922)
First produced: 1922, at the Manzini Theatre, Milan, Italy
Type of work: Drama
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of work: 1922
Places Discussed
Henry’s throne room
Henry’s throne room. Villa salon designed to look like the throne room of the historical Henry IV in Goslar, Germany. However, as the young “counsellors” of “Henry IV,” the mad hero of the play, reveal, this room is not always in Goslar but sometimes in numerous other places. Nevertheless, for Henry IV, it has been a real throne room, even though he has not in actuality left the villa for all the years of his madness. However, in the third act, it is, for everyone, merely a room in the villa, where Henry suggests in the story of the Irish priest that we all play parts and so in a manner are as mad as he was or perhaps is. At the end, it is the room in which Henry must always be “mad,” in order not to be punished for his truly insane stabbing of Belcredi.
Second room in villa
Second room in villa. This room, although its furniture is described as simple and old, seems rather timeless. Still, there is an irony in that there are windows that look out upon a garden, a real world, and yet a door opens into the so-called throne room. But it is here that Henry tells his counsellors, who are merely his hired actors, that he is no longer mad, so that for the moment everyone seems to be living in the present and is, perhaps, sane.
Bibliography
Bentley, Eric. “Enrico IV,” in Theatre of War: Modern Drama from Ibsen to Brecht, 1954.
Binion, Ralph. “The Play as Replay or the Key to Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV, and Clothe the Naked.” In Soundings: Psychohistorical and Psycholiterary. New York: Psychohistory Press, 1981. The only essay in Binion’s collection that deals with theater. His expositions of Pirandello’s themes, based on what he perceives as expressions of the author’s psychological repressions, are both interesting and dangerous, because one is tempted to accept Binion’s theories as facts.
Brustein, Robert. “Pirandello’s Drama of Revolt,” in The Theatre of Revolt, 1962.
Cambon, Glauco. Pirandello: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967. Two essays deal peripherally with Henry IV, but the collection deals extensively with the thoughts and themes to be found in all of Pirandello’s dramas.
Oliver, Roger W. Dreams of Passion: The Theater of Luigi Pirandello, 1979.
Pirandello, Luigi. Naked Masks: Five Plays. Translated by Edward Storer, edited and with an introduction by Eric Bentley. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1952. Contains Pirandello’s best known and most popular plays. Bentley, who was one of the major critics of twentieth century modernist dramas, offers excellent insights into Henry IV.
Starkie, Walter. Luigi Pirandello. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1926. A major book-length study on Pirandello. The starting point for all subsequent study. Not a biography but a work of meticulous scholarship about influences and themes.
Styan, J.L. The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy, 1968.
Vittorini, Domenico. The Drama of Luigi Pirandello, 1935.