Hotspur's Trauma

In an interview with the Folger Library, Stephan Wolfert calls Kate’s retelling of Hotspur’s dreams in 1 Henry IV , “The best description of post-traumatic stress disorder in the English language.” 1 Wolfert is a veteran who works with soldiers suffering from PTSD, so he is well positioned to spot trauma when he sees it. Shakespeare scholars, however, have been less likely to identify and explore Hotspur’s trauma in part because historicists (rightfully in my opinion) balk at using modern diagnostic tools on pre-modern texts, but also, as I will be suggesting throughout, because we are accustomed to viewing Hotspur as hypermasculine and violent. Reading Hotspur as a vulnerable victim of state violence conflicts with hundreds of years of performance and criticism, but there is plenty of textual evidence and historical context that evokes sympathy for the knight because the narrative frames him as traumatized by the experience of war and working through the identity shift brought on by that trauma.