Rumored History in Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV

Abstract

As the Presenter of Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV, Rumor troubles the too‐neat distinction between rumor and history. By embodying the conflict between narrative and display, Rumor transcends the split between aural and visual epistemologies and positions the Shakespearean history play in the “perpetual present,” a double temporality in which events happening for the first time nevertheless make use of the audience's prior historical and historiographic knowledge. The essay applies Rumor's lens to Falstaff, whose belly full of tongues echoes Rumor's tongue‐studded cloak, but the argument's implications range beyond individual character study to reveal Shakespeare's claim that history itself is imaginative. Rumor's creative potential allows Shakespeare to transcend historicity in order to emphasize the indeterminacy inherent not just in rumor, but in history as well.