“All is True”: Truth, History and Historiography in Henry VIII of Shakespeare and Fletcher

Abstract

With the subtitle of “All is true,” Shakespeare`s Henry VIII brings once again to the fore the issue of representation of historical truth or untruth which he had already tackled with vigorously about a decade before. This last history play, however, goes beyond simply shedding a skeptical light on the possibility of access to the historical truth or lending itself to a wholesale denial of history. The tragicomic rendition of reformation politics in the Henrician court, I would argue, puts rather to scrutiny the historicity of history or history plays. Shakespeare`s re-visitation of history in Henry VIII differs significantly from the earlier history plays in that the play presents the historical (un)truths, from the beginning to the end, as a discursive (re-)construction. The audience encounters testimonies often turning into perjury; hearsay and rumor are the foundation of (un)truth. Looking back on the critical moments of the Tudor history at the end of his dramatic career, Shakespeare seems to represent the historicity of history which could become at once a myth making and a demystifying process. So instead of seconding a Protestant reading or locating a Catholic sentiment of the history play, I would like to draw attention to the ways in which Henry VIII puts to the test history itself by staging the process of history-making or historicizing.