Shame and Eternal Shame: The Dynamics of Historical Trauma in Shakespeare's First Tetralogy

This essay examines the role of collective traumatic experience in William Shakespeare's history plays, with particular emphasis on the plays of the first tetralogy: Henry VI Ports 1-3 and Richard III. Drawing on twentieth-century psychoanalytic studies of rape and war and applying their terms to Shakespeare's depiction of the struggles between late medieval England and France, this essay argues that the plays of the first tetralogy rely upon a cycle of honor and shame that binds the two warring nations together in a shared experience of trauma.