Talbot’s Death as Passion Play in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI

This article examines the death of John Talbot in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI against late medieval passion plays. It argues that Shakespeare adapted common features of medieval pageants, and particularly those representing Christ’s crucifixion, harrowing of hell, and resurrection, to enhance the tragic impact of his secular history play. Finally, it theorizes Talbot’s secular martyrdom in relation to developments unique to the reformation of saintly devotion and the imitatio Christi in Elizabethan England