Henry V
Work Overview
Written and first performed in 1599, Henry V is the final component of what is known as the second
tetralogy. This tetralogy is comprised of four plays--Richard II, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V-whose principal focus is early fifteenth-century English history. Although a quarto version
of Henry V was published in 1600, its provenance and reliability are dubious; the only authoritative
text is the First Folio (1623) version. The narrative follows the newly crowned Henry from the time he
formally asserts his claim to the throne of France and invades that country at the head of his army,
and it culminates in the victory of his heavily outnumbered troops at the battle of Agincourt.
During the twentieth century, critical interest centered on the play's principal character, with
commentators deeply divided in their assessments of Shakespeare's representation of one of
England's most celebrated heroes. Is Henry a paragon among monarchs and military leaders, the
ideal man of action and a patriotic model, or is he a manipulative schemer, a ruthless warrior, and a
man whose all-consuming ambition makes him oblivious of his own and other's humanity? During
the past twenty-five years, many critics have moved away from seemingly incompatible, polarized
views of the king, suggesting instead that the play provides evidence to support both perspectives.
In fact, critical interest has increasingly shifted from the question of Henry's "character" to
consideration of such issues as the conduct and morality of war, the problematic establishment of
national unity in early modern Britain, and the consequences of imperialism. In conjunction with their
discussions of these topics, recent commentators--like their predecessors--often devote particular
attention to certain episodes and speeches: Henry's vituperative address to the governor and
citizens of Harfleur (Act III, scene iii) and his "St. Crispin's day" oration before the battle of Agincourt
(Act IV, scene iii); the king's encounter, the night before that battle, with Williams and his cohorts
(Act IV, scene i); and the episode commonly called the "wooing scene" which features Henry and the
French princess, Katherine (Act V, scene ii). Most recently, critics have observed the contemporary
relevance ofHenry V, especially with regard to American and British political and military involvement
in Iraq. Indeed, as Philip Schwyzer (2004) points out, at the outset of the First and Second Gulf wars
in 1991 and 2003, "British and American commanders roused their troops with versions of Henry V's
battlefield orations."
Henry's rhetorical skills are a central interest of E. A. J. Honigmann (2002), who views the king as a
consummate performer, staging situations to his advantage and altering his mode of address as
circumstances, and audiences, require. Tim Spiekerman (2001) emphasizes another of Henry's
skills: his political adroitness. In Spiekerman's judgment, the king devotes his remarkable grasp of
political reality to the cause of obscuring the fact that as the son of a usurper, he has no legitimate
claim to England's throne, and all his Machiavellian maneuvers are designed with that end in mind.
John Roe (see Further Reading) also examines Henry's motives, though his concern is with their
relationship to exigent circumstances. Focusing on Henry's order to kill the French prisoners (Act IV,
scene vi), Roe contends that the seeming cruelty Henry demonstrates here is more than a strategic
necessity: it is an act of righteous indignation, justified by the murder of the English boys. Like Roe,
Tom McAlindon (see Further Reading) asserts that the play is intended to foster a positive judgment
of the king. McAlindon suggests that in general, Henry is defined by patriotic heroism rather than
"bellicose pride," and that this is most evident in his capacity to hold his forces together by inspiring
them with national fervor.
The question of national pride, and the related issue of national unity, are significant topics in recent
commentary on Henry V. Remarking that the play is "drenched in the language of British
nationalism," Schwyzer calls attention to the recurring motif of national identity, a "semi-mystical
doctrine," as he describes it, that transcends regional and ethnic differences. He contends that the
play illuminates the early modern process of defining "Britain," a project that was crucial to the
preservation of the Tudor dynasty. Constance Jordan (see Further Reading) also treats the
connection between Henry V and the Tudor monarchy, noting that the creation of a nation-state
required bridging the gap between social classes as well as between regions. Andrew Hadfield (see
Further Reading) observes that the play "is replete with scenes that reflect on the problem of the
nation and its political identity," and in this context he analyzes the significance of the episodes
featuring Fluellen, Gower, Jamy, and Macmorris, characters who are figurative of Britain's four
components: Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland. In her extensive analysis of Kenneth Branagh's
1989 film adaptation of the play, Courtney Lehmann (see Further Reading) compares the way
Branagh and Henry undertake to "re-make history" by carefully devising scenarios that obscure
social antagonisms and promote "a transcendent vision of nationhood." Richard J. Hand (2004), who
directed a production of Henry V in Cardiff, Wales, in 2002, made the question of national identity a
focal point of his conception of the play, highlighting its representation of the contest between
regionalism and nationalism. In his judgment, Henry V demonstrates that the most effective way to
dissolve internal divisions, to "create an 'Englishness' that will unite 'Britain,'" is by waging war on
France.
The notion that a foreign war promotes national cohesion is, of course, a precept passed down to
Henry by his father, who counseled his son that such ventures distract "giddy minds" and erase the
memory of a monarch's earlier transgressions from the public consciousness (2 Henry IV, IV.v.21315). Recent critical judgments about Henry's motives for invading France vary, and these appraisals
often involve additional issues, such as whether the war is justified and how it impinges on the lives
of those who participate in it. Spiekerman argues that the war against France is unjust and that
although Henry knows this, he proceeds with it because he has convinced himself that the French
throne is rightfully his. Henry's speeches to his soldiers, Spiekerman points out, as stirring as they
may be, never allude to the merits of the war or to its justice. Schwyzer evaluates Henry's attempts
to reinforce the connection between his soldiers and those who preceded them by calling up "the
spirits of their ancestors and the glories they achieved." Henry understands that war is "the solidarity
of the living with the dead," Schwyzer maintains, and that it serves as a means of closing up "the
gaping class division between kings and common soldiers" and dispelling their fears for the fate of
their souls.
Offering a different perspective on the play's depiction of war, McAlindon warns against the
imposition of late twentieth- and early twentieth-first century precepts onto early modern works. At
the time of the play's composition, he argues, wars were regarded as part of the natural cycle of life,
regular occurrences in the developments of all nations and cultures. Linda Bradley Salamon (see
Further
Reading)
also
considers
sixteenth-century
cultural
attitudes
in
her
discussion
of Henry V. Particularly concerned with early modern stereotypes of former soldiers as rogues and
social pariahs, she speculates about whether Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym may reflect these
stereotypes and vivify the problem of reintegrating into civil society men who were trained to be
"violent and aggressive." William Leahy (see Further Reading) provides an analysis of early modern
military records that illustrate the frequently problematic relationship between ordinary soldiers and
their commanders, and he finds a paradigm of the "conflict and disunity" in Henry's army in the king's
exchanges with Williams. Similarly, Jordan proposes that Henry's dialogues with Williams and Bates
highlight the nature of the affiliation between a leader and his troops in the crucible of war. These
exchanges, she maintains, underscore "the king's responsibility for the welfare of his subjects" and
the obligations he owes to his soldiers, to their families, and to "the body politic."
The outcome of the confrontation between Williams and the king is problematic, Jordan suggests.
She argues that although Henry's soliloquy immediately following this exchange "shows something"
of the king's awareness of his duties to his soldiers, nevertheless his attitude toward Williams's
concern is, at best, patronizing. Like Jordan, Leahy sees no true resolution to the conflict between
Henry and Williams. In Leahy's judgment, the king demonstrates little empathy for the men he is
about to lead into battle and is contemptuous of Williams's final expression of his wish to be treated
with dignity. By contrast, Hadfield contends that this exchange increases Henry's growing
appreciation of the obligations his role as monarch impose on him. He reads the king's soliloquy as
an acknowledgment of his responsibility not only for the war but for the well-being of his subjects as
well.
Several critics emphasize that an understanding of Henry's emotional and political development
must take into account his interactions with secondary characters, and his exchange with Katherine
in Act V, scene ii is one example of this growth. Honigmann suggests that although the wooing
scene may be another of Henry's "performances," there is no way of judging his sincerity. The
crucial element in this episode, the critic contends, is "political advantage"; once again, as the power
of his charismatic personality comes to the fore, Henry acts and speaks with the primary purpose of
obtaining the throne of France. Also remarking on Henry's shifting personas in this scene--from rude
soldier to king of England to courtly lover--Corinne Abate (2001) evaluates what she characterizes
as the "personal negotiations" between Katherine and Henry. She emphasizes the French princess's
inherent political power and her independence of spirit, arguing that Katherine fully understands that
Henry must wed her in order to legitimize his ambitions. Sarah Werner (see Further Reading)
appraises the other episode in the play that features Katherine--sometimes referred to as the
"language lesson" (Act III, scene iv)--in terms of the Elizabethan theatrical convention requiring that
the role of the French princess be taken by a boy actor. Shakespeare exploited the possibilities of
this situation, she suggests, through the use of sexual puns and innuendoes that are as applicable to
the male anatomy as they are to the female body.
The metadramatic quality of Henry V is widely acknowledged. For instance, critics have always been
interested in the Chorus's repeated encouragement to the audience to become actively engaged in
this recreation of history. Arguing that the foremost concern of Henry V is not the character of the
king but the collaborative nature of theater, Pamela Mason (2002) interprets the Chorus's initial
speech as an appeal to the audience to "recognize the context in which the actors function," to use
its imagination to enter "the minds and consciousness" of the characters and view dramatic events
from the different perspectives they afford us.
Recreating Henry V in 2002, Hand and his nonprofessional troupe in Wales accentuated the play's
contemporary relevance. They underscored its representation of regional differences and
emphasized the brutality of war by intensifying the violence and cruelty of the battle scenes. In the
following year, two professional productions opened in the midst of intense political controversy over
the British and American invasion of Iraq, yet one of them--Barrie Rutter's with Northern Broadsides,
a touring company based in Yorkshire--made no allusion to topical events, as Rhoda Koenig and
Lisa Hopkins point out. In this staging, Conrad Nelson's Henry was, according to Jeremy Kingston, a
magnetic figure, whose adoring soldiers were "entranced" by his charisma. In stark contrast to
Rutter's nonideological conception, Nicholas Hytner's revival of the play at London's National
Theatre, which opened in May 2003, was a rigorous interrogation of the morality of war. For Charles
Spencer, "[rarely] has Shakespeare seemed more our contemporary, echoing our own doubts,
hopes and fears." Michael Billington, Benedict Nightingale, and Paul Taylor all call attention to
Hytner's antiheroic perspective, though in Billington's judgment, the production's representation of
the morality of war was less attentive than it might have been to the ambivalence and nuances of
Shakespeare's text. Most reviewers remark on Hytner's intent to undercut "glamorous" notions of
war by highlighting the conflicting emotions of soldiers and those who lead them into battle. In
Spencer's opinion, Adrian Lester's Henry was notably complex, resolute yet self-doubting, liberal one
moment and mean-spirited the next, "deeply religious but also capable of ruthlessness."
Emphasizing this Henry's ruthlessness, Taylor finds "humorous righteousness" in Lester's
characterization of the king, together with his cruelty. And in comparison with the unfailing devotion
Henry received from his soldiers in the Northern Broadside's staging, in the National Theatre
production--as Taylor remarks--when Henry gave the order to kill the French prisoners, his soldiers
were repulsed, and "most of them refuse[d] to comply."
"Henry V." Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 107. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web.
19 Dec. 2015.
“Fellows of infinite tongue": Henry V and the king's English
Henry V's character has been a frequent subject of debate among literary critics. However, these
critics failed to consider the most important aspect which could determine Henry V's true character.
In the play 'Henry V,' it is clear that the king is anything but a man of plain and uncoined constancy.
An analysis of the shifting patterns of Henry V's language reveals that he is a 'fellow of infinite
tongue.' Indeed, his ability to manipulate made him win in the Battle of Agincourt. Through deception
and manipulation of the English language, he was able to impose his will upon other people.
Wooing Princess Catherine after the conquest of France, Henry denies all sophistication of speech;
his only language, he asserts, is that of the plain-spoken soldier who says what he means, and
means what he says: "But before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I
have no cunning in protestation--only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break
for urging" (V.ii. 142-45).(1) He then goes on to make this apparent deficiency a defining virtue:
And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy, for he perforce must
do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places. For these fellows of infinite tongue,
that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves out again.
(V.ii.153-58)
It is an odd moment that deserves more attention than it customarily receives. Here, at the very
heart of a conclusion which both thematically and structurally forces a romantic-comedy resolution
upon what has hitherto been military-epic material,(2) and whose stability is immediately brought into
question by the epilogue that follows, it is the self-consciously and transparently disingenuous nature
of Henry's words that receives the greatest emphasis. He is clearly not that which he claims to be, a
man of "plain and uncoined constancy," but rather that which he denies being, a fellow "of infinite
tongue": this is how he has both defined himself and been defined by others from the very beginning
of the Henriad.(3)
Henry's disclaimer serves in part to reopen a series of contentious issues, political, personal, and
linguistic, which the triumph of Agincourt had in some sense apparently closed. In so doing it draws
our attention back to the interrelated issues concerning the entire sequence of plays, issues that lie
at
the
heart
of
the
critical
debates
which
have
raged
over
them
all
generally,
and Henry V particularly, for most of this century with no sign of diminution.(4) These debates,
having begun with the question of Henry's "character" and the nature of the plays themselves, now
embrace early modern politics, drama, human identity, culture, history, and language.(5) Here, I will
set aside the larger terms of such discussion and focus primarily on the linguistic issues raised by
Henry's claim to be what he is not, and the concomitant denial of what he is.
Perhaps the most immediate point of interest lies in the complex web of relationships between
language and power explored in the lines above. Clearly Henry is less concerned with defining his
speech practices than with imposing his will in a context where the separation of word and meaning
involved in his disclaimer becomes a kind of polite cover for the naked reality of his demands. He is
not wooing Catherine, either with the conventional language of love or any other; he is telling her
that her submission is required as both symbolic and literal expression of the larger submission of
France. The fiction, ostensibly designed to preserve appearances, on a more fundamental level
exposes the reality of the situation; as Henry reminds the French after their modest word-play on
maids and unravished towns: "I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her: so the
maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will" (V.ii.322-24).
Henry's insistence upon the plainness of his speech seems in this context an amusingly ironic
linguistic conceit at the expense of the French, one that serves as a small reminder of the larger fact
that his power guarantees the efficacy of whatever speech acts he may choose, in a context where
to be powerless is generally to be speechless as well.(6) The imposition of a foreign language
provides a particularly interesting metaphorical extension of the process; the conquered, obliged to
use the language of the conqueror, are thereby forced to acquiesce in a kind of ritual humiliation, as
they publicly acknowledge their larger weakness in terms of their inevitably comic linguistic
deficiencies. The exploitation of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish accents and the national stereotypes
associated with them, however sympathetically presented within the context of a new national
harmony among formerly antagonistic tribes under the larger rule of England, establishes the point in
one context;(7) the unintentional crudities of Alice and Catherine establish it in another. The one
exception proves the rule; the only time that Henry descends into French is to translate for Catherine
the principle by which he has proved himself the friend of France: "je quand suis le possesscur de
France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi--let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my
speed!--donc votre est France, et vous etes mienne" (V.ii.181-83).(8)
II
Henry's scene with Catherine resonates with echoes of the past, most notably those of another
plain-spoken soldier named Harry and his Kate. The contrast they provide is illuminating.(9) In his
scenes with Lady Percy, Hotspur demonstrates a simplicity of speech that does exactly what Henry
is claiming to do but does not. Within the context of his linguistic playfulness, words and meanings
are clearly linked; saying what he means and meaning what he says, in other words, Hotspur uses
rhetorical performance to reveal rather than conceal himself.
Hotspur's speech demonstrates his more general appeal to our sympathies, despite his obvious and
appalling limitations of character.(10) Certainly the portrait of domestic felicity that it generates is not
easily matched in its warmth and tenderness elsewhere in Shakespeare; to it Lady Percy's
profoundly moving elegy in 2 Henry IV offers its own kind of testimonial. It is an appeal that stands in
some contrast to the disquiet inevitably produced in Henry's case by what is manifestly a
performance, however skillful, of speech that depends for its effect upon its sincerity. Hotspur's
version by contrast establishes a claim to truth that Henry's cannot. It acquires the kind of moral
significance, the larger linguistic and ethical integrity, that is traditionally associated with plain
speech. Henry, using the same style, instead subverts the expectations it arouses.(11)
Henry's appropriation of Hotspur's distinctive style at the climax of his own career is only the final
example in a much longer and more complex sequence of such borrowings. In I Henry IV, Hal,
reducing Hotspur to his factor, promises his father in appropriately mercantile terms to appropriate
the stock of glory that Hotspur has acquired on his behalf. By covering Hotspur's face with his
"favours," Hal suggests another kind of assumption of his role.(12) At the end of 2 Henry IV it is his
name at stake, with all the implications that attach themselves to it, as Henry reassures his followers
after the death of his father:
This is the English not the Turkish court; Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry Harry.
(V.ii.47-49)
It is a sequence in which, as Richard Hillman has noted, Hotspur becomes the unstated middle
term.(13)
The issue of names and identities is further complicated by the fact that Henry is here not so much
identifying as renaming, and thus recreating, himself. Having been linked as "Harry" to Hotspur from
the beginning of 1 Henry IV, he formally rejects the appellation when challenged by his rival.(14) He
now reassumes it, but simultaneously, as Falstaff so shortly discovers, rejects the identity apparently
attached to it, namely that of his younger self; the succession is in this sense less that of father to
son than that of the old self to the new one about to be celebrated in the final moments of 2 Henry
IV.(15) During this process he assumes the identity most closely associated with the name, in effect
turning Hotspur into both his progenitor and alter ego.
In the doubling of the two Harrys, it is not without interest, pace Dr. Johnson, that the prince's first
reference to the other Harry focuses on the precise linguistic issues raised by his own wooing of his
Catherine. He ridicules, that is, Hotspur's version of the plain style through the dismissive
comparison of his linguistic habits to those of Francis the drawer, and beyond him the parrot to
which both are ultimately compared:
That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His
industry is upstairs and downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's
mind, the Hotspur of the North--he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast,
washes his hands, and says to his wife, "Fie upon this quiet life! I want work." "O my sweet Harry,"
says she, "how many hast thou killed today?" "Give my roan horse a drench," says he, and answers,
"Some fourteen," an hour after; "a trifle, a trifle."
(II.v.99-109)
The brilliance of the parody is given dramatic emphasis by its position directly after the first scene in
question, where Kate is indeed displaced by a crop-eared roan.(16) The larger charge, moreover, is
clearly a serious one. Parrots offer a mocking parody of the defining characteristic of humankind,
which is indeed to be able to define itself through the gift of rational speech. Words are the basic
units of the linguistic microcosm that extends to the macrocosmic Logos; to be without them, like
Francis, is to be without essential humanity.
Hotspur's deficiencies of language, beyond Lady Percy's ambiguous reference to his "thickness of
speech," are obvious enough. His plainness is often simple rudeness, displayed most frequently to
all whose linguistic mannerisms differ from his own. His attack on the foppish lord who demanded
the prisoners focuses in large part upon the "holiday and lady terms" (I.iii.45) in which the demand is
made; likewise he mocks Kate for swearing "like a comfit-maker's wife" rather than with "a good
mouth-filling oath" (III.i.246-50).(17)
The connection with parrots, moreover, is not without foundation. In his planned revenge on the king,
Hotspur imagines a starling that will be a substitute for himself (I.iii.219-23), and is later called,
affectionately but appropriately, a paraquito by Lady Percy (II.iv.83). All too often he indulges in a
solipsistic mode of compulsively noncommunicative speech that excludes all other speakers.(18)
Thus Worcester complains that Hotspur will "lend no ear unto my purposes" (I.iii. 216), while
Northumberland more sharply rebukes him for "Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own" (I.iii.236).
Yet for all the brilliance of the parody and the seriousness of Hotspur's limitations, Hal is clearly
wrong. Hotspur is in most respects an impressive speaker. His range is wide, encompassing the
playfully domestic banter with Kate, the epic account of Mortimer's fight, the flights of poetic fancy in
his visionary dreams of glory, the public declamations of a war leader, and the philosophic intensity
of his dying words. His linguistic self-consciousness is as acute as Hal's, as the parallel word-play on
"calling" with Glendower and Francis seems designed to establish.
What is most striking about Hotspur's use of language, however, is neither its range nor
sophistication, but the sense it conveys of the speaker himself. In whatever style he uses, his voice
is unmistakable, and the persona remains constant. However wide his range, Hotspur remains
univocal, using language in all the various contexts of I Henry IV to define himself in consistent
terms. His contempt for the "certain lord" and his rebuke of Kate both spring from their failures to do
likewise. Plain speech for Hotspur simply provides the clearest illustration of the simplicity that
defines his more general linguistic practice; like Hal, Hotspur claims to "have not well the gift of
tongue" (V.ii.77), but here the topos is used without obvious irony.
The contrast initiated by Hal, however, is instructive. In range Hal is clearly Hotspur's superior, but it
is precisely this range that is the source of the difficulties associated with his role. Unlike Hotspur, he
tends to acquire the voices of those whose language he is speaking, to end up sounding like them. It
is indeed for so doing that he is most frequently praised by them. Not only is he multilingual, he is
polyvocal. With the king, that is, he sounds rather like the king himself, brisk and to the point; with
Falstaff he sounds like Falstaff, intoxicated with his own wit; with Francis he sounds like Francis,
prosaic and senseless. Hal disappears into his roles; indeed it would seem to be his need to become
Francis at least temporarily that lies behind the disturbing oddity of the tavern scene, namely the
brutality with which the harmless and well-meaning drawer is mocked.(19)
Harry's genius here in a sense becomes his curse; the chameleon linguist reflects in his speech not
himself, but the expectations of those to whom he speaks. He himself becomes in the process
largely invisible; the Hal, Harry, or Henry on display is the one those around him want or need to
see. Such invisibility exacts its own price, however, as the would-be observer, frustrated in the
search for a palpable core of "identity" or "character" through the traditional analysis of speech acts,
is obliged to create whatever kind of protagonist seems most appropriate to the circumstances. The
result is the cacophony of critical voices that surrounds the figure of Henry in all his guises.
III
At the heart of the cacophony lies the tension between ironic and heroic interpretations of Henry's
character, and of Henry V itself, that has bedeviled criticism for most of this century in a context
where evidence for either is ample, if selective. The consequent difficulties in choosing between
what seem to be equally plausible but mutually exclusive views have until recently tended to restrict
discussion to a limited and ultimately circular mode of criticism. In the last decade, however,
attention has shifted to the more interesting question of the inherent ambiguities and multiple
perspectives of the play. Of particular relevance here are those specifically ideological attempts to
deal with Henry's role as king in general, and the function filled by his mastery of languages in
particular. In them both play and protagonist are relocated within the contested sites of royal power
at the end of the sixteenth century; the old, essentially moral, issues of traditional criticism have
been correspondingly displaced by political and cultural analysis.(20)
Current new historicist orthodoxy accordingly interprets the discontinuities between Henry's various
roles and the languages they demand as part of the process by which royal authority is "inscribed,
subverted, and recuperated," to use Joel Altman's agreeably terse summary of the phenomenon.(21)
Stephen Greenblatt, for example, argues that by undermining Henry's authority through the
emphasis on the blatantly theatrical aspects of his role, Shakespeare appropriates the dramatic
energies inherent in "the paradoxical practices of an authority deeply complicit in undermining its
own legitimacy" as part of a larger strategy to assert that very legitimacy.(22)
The trouble with Harry should now disappear. Yet it does not, in part perhaps because of the
difficulties inherent in demonstrating the workings of a process so notably abstract through a
methodology that is in essence reductive. On a formal level, of course, the triumph of Agincourt is
itself the de facto evidence of the assertion of both Henry's legitimacy and the power he embodies.
The triumph, however, is subjected to an intense and skeptical examination within the play; under
such examination, more questions are generated than answers.
Many of these questions revolve around possible explanations for the victory. Here Shakespeare
clearly restricts the range of possibilities; the conventional explanation of superior tactics and
strategy provided by Holinshed is omitted,(23) to shift the entire weight of emphasis to the
improbability of such a victory under such crushing disadvantages. Given those disadvantages, it is
not inherently implausible to call the scale and scope of the victory miraculous, as Henry himself is
swift to do. Before the battle the long and complex series of encounters with various comrades,
himself, and ultimately God, suggests that Henry's worthiness as man and king will be a determining
issue in the fight to come. Such a linkage is made explicit in the prayer that concludes the scene, as
Henry, relating the outcome of the battle to divine judgment, sums up his case as best he can,
throwing himself on the mercy of the court:
More will I do, Though all that I can do is nothing worth, Since that my penitence comes after ill,
Imploring pardon.
(IV.i.299-302)
The triumph that follows, therefore, would seem to suggest that the formal affirmation is merely the
outward sign of an inner worth that has duly been recognized and rewarded.(24) Yet in the
examination of Henry that has gone before, the general impression is not of merit but of a distinct
failure on his part to address adequately the related questions of who he is, of what his
responsibilities are, and of his relationship to those over whom he rules.(25) If such is the case, then
the triumph is clearly paradoxical; not surprisingly, much recent criticism has been concerned with
unraveling and resolving that paradox by closely examining the episodes that make up "the little
touch of Harry in the night" to which we are exposed. Much of this process is by necessity
interpretative and even speculative, appearing suspiciously like an old-fashioned concern with
character analysis; here I shall attempt to limit myself to the same kind of linguistic issues earlier
touched upon in the context of the wooing scene.
It is the scene with Bates, Williams, and Court that necessarily attracts most attention, and it is here
that Henry's choice of language is of most interest. As with Catherine, Henry chooses the medium of
plain speech to create a part for himself, this time that of a common man among men. But it is here,
lacking the power to guarantee the efficacy of his own speech acts, and contrasted with those who
do speak plainly, that Henry fails most conspicuously, and in a sense shockingly; this, after all, is
what he is supposed to do best.
On the simplest level, Henry clearly fails to persuade Williams, Bates, and Court of either of the two
major points he defends, namely that the king and the soldiers are engaged in the same kind of
enterprise, and that the king does not bear the weight of moral responsibility for the justice of the
cause in which his soldiers fight and die. Ultimately Henry's failure is of language. Using a mode of
speech that depends specifically upon the fusion of style and substance, Henry separates them;
without the power of his kingship to bridge the gulf he himself has created, he falls into it. Thus
defending the integrity of Henry the king, Henry the man speaks so lamely that Williams laughs at
him: "You'll never trust his word after! Come, 'tis a foolish saying" (IV.i.200-201).
In a slightly larger context, Henry's attempt at plain speech exposes the fragility of the self that he
has created for the part. When Williams points out the responsibility borne by the king for his
subjects in the making of wars, a responsibility that Henry himself had acknowledged in I.ii.9-32 in
his insistence that the archbishop share it, the best Henry can do is evade the point sophistically:
"So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father, that sent him"
(IV.i.146-49).
The evasion itself seems less shocking here than Henry's nakedness when stripped of the mantle of
royalty. As king he is free to deny personal responsibility, whether for starting the war, condemning
the conspirators, destroying Harfleur, or killing the prisoners, since he has allowed no personal self
to emerge to accept responsibility. He acts out the various roles appropriate to his office, speaking in
the various languages they require, but gives no hostages, in the form of a personal identity, to
fortune.(26)
In the Williams, Bates, and Court scene, however, the circumstances are different. As Harry le Roy,
Henry cannot define his private use of plain speech by the public fact of kingship. Consequently he
fails for the first time simply because he cannot use plain speech without betraying the poverty of the
self that is speaking and thus compromising the integrity of what he says with the very language he
uses to say it.
The implications of such compromise are more fully drawn out in the soliloquy that follows. Here
speaking in propria persona for the first time in the play, Henry, somewhat implausibly and
petulantly, suggests that others are able to sleep soundly while he agonizes over those very
responsibilities that he has just so comprehensively denied:
Upon the King. "Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our care-full wives, Our children, and our sins,
lay on the King." We must bear all. O hard condition.
(IV.i.227-30)
Again it seems less the misrepresentation of what Williams, Bates, and Court had said that is of
significance here than the unexpected pathos of a man whose greatest strengths have suddenly
been exposed as weaknesses.(27)
The greatest weight, however, rests on the confession of guilt, quoted earlier, with which the
soliloquy concludes. In the scene that has preceded it, Henry's inability to define himself in terms
positive enough to justify his triumph in the frame of reference established by the play seems
comparatively clear. If he cannot in some sense do it here, then the affirmations offered by the play
are spurious; the victory means nothing, and Henry's greatest accomplishment, and by implication
Shakespeare's as well, is reduced to the brilliance with which he exploits the opportunities for selfpresentation that chance throws in his way.(28)
The evidence, however, is ambiguous. The folio reference to Henry's penitence coming "after all"
suggests most obviously Claudius's similar awareness that enjoying the fruits of crime precludes real
penitence for it; since Henry's words lack much of the sense of anguish that Claudius by contrast
does convey, the parallel does not work to his obvious advantage. One way of dealing with the
problem, of course, is simply to rewrite the text in more favorable terms, after the fashion of Gary
Taylor's emendation of "all" to "ill" in his Oxford edition.(29) This opens up the appropriate Protestant
context for the prayer and underlines Henry's humility in acknowledging the impossibility of earning
forgiveness in the context of fallen human nature; to deny the worth of his penitence is to establish
it.(30)
While the context suggested by Taylor is helpful, it is not entirely clear that so drastic a textual
solution is required to come to a similar conclusion. Henry does define himself as penitent, and does
say that he seeks pardon; Claudius, tormented though he may be, denies the reality of the former
and is correspondingly unable to do the latter.(31) The penitence involved, however, is clearly of no
common nature, being invisible to many; it is this, rather than the choice of "ill" or "all," which seems
of real importance in the soliloquy.
The cynicism that conventionally greets Henry's plea is not difficult to understand. There is little
sense here of a humbled sinner seeking forgiveness, or an anguished soul release; Henry's prayer
seems a curiously abstract mixture of the pietistic and the self-serving. Acknowledging the
impossibility of justifying himself through his deeds, Henry nevertheless provides a comprehensive
list of material acts of atonement as tokens of a righteousness that he clearly hopes is sufficient,
when combined with an expression of penitence, to win an unearned justification, manifested by
victory in battle. Once again Henry declines to accept much in the way of personal responsibility; the
sin, he stresses, was that of his father (IV.i.290-91). The heart of his prayer is an implicit request that
a past in which he played no part, and over which he can exercise no control, be erased from the
record on which he is to be judged.
IV
Henry's prayer provides an unusually direct link between his characteristic speech practices and the
larger historical and theological issues that lie behind them. It is itself, however, only one of a
sequence of such connections. The earliest example is provided by the final lines of his first
soliloquy of 1 Henry IV, where he concludes the notorious ambiguities and ironies of the soliloquy
with the promise to "make offence a skill, / Redeeming time when men least think I will" (I.ii.213-14).
The implications of "redeeming time" are clearly central here and, although much discussed, repay
further attention. Conventionally glossed as making amends for wasted time, the phrase points most
immediately to the Prodigal Son associations of Hal and his metamorphosis.(32) Such a context,
however, seems of only minor relevance; Hal forcefully establishes here that he is not wasting time,
is not a prodigal, and will have little for which to atone. More relevant is the common Protestant
sense of the phrase so brutally parodied by Falstaff in I.ii.104-105, namely of making good, and
godly, use of time potentially wasted, and therefore sinful, through discipline and diligence.(33) His
discipline is to be sure unorthodox, but the sense of his deliberate "prodigality" as a painful duty,
manfully undertaken but by no means enjoyed, is everywhere apparent.
Such a context helps to explain the somewhat calculating and apparently mean-spirited tone of what
Hal has to say; it is not fully developed, however, until the archbishop's linked celebration of both his
piety and language skills in Henry V. What Hal here provides is merely the first faltering attempt at
the tongue appropriate to one from whom, the archbishop publicly proclaims, the "offending Adam"
has been whipped, "leaving his body as a paradise" (I.i.30-31). The language he speaks, in short, is
an early version of that of the justified sinner; in both tone and substance he echoes such godly
dramatic predecessors as the Elder Brother in The Glass of Government, Jacob in Jacob and Esau,
Just in The Trial of Treasure, or Heavenly Man in Enough is as Good as a Feast. It is also the
language of the Protestant reformers; like them, Hal, the transformed sinner, embraces the memory
of a former sinfulness in order to celebrate most fully the experience of present righteousness.(34)
Only suggested in 1 Henry IV, it is a language that has been fully mastered by the renunciation
scene in 2 Henry IV.
The time's redemption points as well to a more specific context, the doctrine of election and
reprobation that nominally lies at the heart of Elizabethan Protestantism and provides the subtext for
much of Hal and Falstaff's more frivolous theological banter in the preceding scene (I.ii.17-21, 91-94,
107-108). For both elect and reprobate, the past is in a sense irrelevant. For the reprobate, all
human actions are by their nature sinful, and thus just cause for damnation;(35) for the elect, human
sin is merely the general characteristic of all fallen creatures, which God in his infinite yet inscrutable
greatness has chosen in their case to bury under the imputed righteousness of Christ.(36) The
justified have in this sense had their past erased; as the archbishop duly notes of Henry in his own
roundabout fashion, they are in effect released from the implications of the Fall.
For Henry it is a status no less useful than theologically reassuring. The responsibility for his actions,
whatever their nature in conventional terms, will simply disappear in the more general obliteration of
the past itself that is effected through justification. It is a view that is articulated with a great deal of
self-consciousness and a certain amount of awkwardness in the first soliloquy; thereafter the
process is refined with considerable sophistication.
In the first example Hal speaks of the coming glory that will simply redefine the significance of his
apparently shameful past, transforming its nature in the process. Later, only slightly less crudely, he
promises his father to do the same thing by a mercantile exchange of his shame for Hotspur's glory.
More complex is his use of Falstaff as substitute father, one whose vices, so similar to those of
Henry IV, can safely be renounced once they have served their purposes in the education of the
prince. The death of Henry IV alters these relationships, but also provides a splendid opportunity for
a virtuoso display of linguistic recreation of both past and present, organized around a series of ritual
sacrifices.
Henry IV, having on his deathbed somewhat grudgingly admitted his own sins, in his death gets to
carry the burden of his son's as well, as he replaces Falstaff as chosen scapegoat:
My father is gone wild into his grave, For in his tomb lie my affections; And with his spirits sadly I
survive To mock the expectation of the world.
(V.ii.122-25)
Falstaff, no longer required to function as substitute father, can take on the more demanding role of
representative of the sinful past, becoming the fleshly image of that fallen Adam from whom Henry is
now released.(37) It is indeed as an image that Falstaff is renounced; now denied even his name,
the past he shares with Henry is dissolved into insubstantial fantasy:
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane; But being
awake, I do despise my dream.
(V.v.49-51)
It is here that the process of erasure is most succinctly formulated:
Presume not that I am the thing I was, For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, That I have
turned away my former self.
(V.v.56-58)
A final example brings together a number of the issues so far considered. Henry declares the
triumph of Agincourt to be divinely inspired, and threatens death to all who claim it for themselves:
And be it death proclaimed through our host To boast of this, or take that praise from God Which is
his only.
(IV.viii.114-16)
Such an act of piety is evidence of the time's redemption on a number of different levels. Here the
godly, proto-Protestant English take their rightful place of supremacy as chosen agents of the divine
will in the unfolding drama of providential history, in a fashion similar to that less ironically embraced
by the leaders of the Commonwealth a half-century later. History is transformed in more prosaic
terms as well, just as the calculation, intrigue, self-interest, and manipulation that have led to the war
are effectively obliterated by the divine sanction here announced. Henry's ability to guarantee the
efficacy of his speech acts by silencing dissenting voices is no longer simply a factor of his royal
power; now it is given the divine approval signified by the victory. On a more pragmatic level, the
righteousness of the war can now be considered on such evidence sufficiently unquestionable to
justify executing those impious enough to do so;(38) more to the point, Henry is himself finally able
to shift plausibly the responsibility for it that he was conspicuously unable to do as private citizen.
V
It is not merely Henry's former self that has been turned away by the end of 2 Henry IV; the old order
in all its manifestations is comprehensively severed from the present and dismissed. Hal's past and
the sins that made it up; the corrupt vitality of Falstaff, sometime page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of
Norfolk; the larger sins of political greed and manipulation that have made the kingdom what it is; the
heroic world of Hotspur; and even the pastoral innocence of Old England, here reduced to the
maunderings of Shallow and Silence, are all dismissed in a brilliant fulfilment of the promise made in
the first soliloquy.
The redemption of the time discussed above provides a general context for the process, the
limitations of Henry's attempts at plain speech a more specific one. Such limitations, that is, invoke a
linguistic past defined by its difference from the present under consideration, a past in which all
spoke the same language, and in which words themselves seemed to possess objective meanings
understood by all.
The recurrent motif of the tower of Babel that runs throughout the tetralogy has some bearing here.
In Richard II Bolingbroke, driven Nimrod-like by his aspirations to greatness, unleashes the ever
more diverse languages of the later plays through his overthrow not only of Richard himself, but of
the idealized, static, and sacramental linguistic universe over which he presides. The new realities of
the linguistic fall are treated in increasingly extreme forms; the attention given to Hal's mastery of
English in all its varieties gives place to the emblematic figure of Rumour with his painted tongues,
and finally to the more daring use of truly foreign languages and the problems of translation they
create.(39) In such a world Hal's polyglot skills are the minimum requirement for all who mean to
thrive.
The tower of Babel possesses another kind of historical significance as well. In both linguistic and
mythic terms Nimrod brings to an end the Golden Age, to usher in the accelerating decline to the
Iron that would seem to be fully realized in the squalor of 2 Henry IV.(40) Yet such squalor has its
own kind of paradoxical compensations that help to make up the unsettling complexities of Henry V.
The degradation that characterizes the age by the same token cuts it off irrevocably from the past;
those in the present consequently enjoy their own kind of freedom from the anxiety exerted by a past
now defined simply as past, and therefore irrelevant.(41) With the passing of Henry IV, Hotspur,
Falstaff, and all that they represent, Henry is released from the weight of their judgments, and thus
from their hold over him. Here too he is released from objective history; the past can now be
redefined in whatever terms he chooses to employ. He can as a result function freely in the new
world over which he presides, having escaped not only from the weight of the past but from the
shame and guilt hitherto associated with it. It is an accomplishment first anticipated in the soliloquy in
Act I of 1 Henry IV, finally achieved at the end of 2 Henry IV, and celebrated throughout Henry V in
the record of his triumphs.
To celebrate such a freedom from the past, here presented in terms clearly suggestive of the feudal
middle ages, is by the same token to celebrate the early modern present that makes it possible.(42)
There are a variety of contexts offered by the plays for such a celebration; the triumph in 2 Henry IV
of Prince John at Gaultree Forest is one of the more obvious. Prince John's function as
representative of the new age seems unmistakeable; he is defined both by his youth and by the gulf
between the values of his youth and those of the old world invoked by Falstaff in his elegiac
celebration of sack. In his victory heroic exploits, or even basic military accomplishments, are
displaced by a chilling bureaucratic efficiency with a profoundly disquieting contempt for
conventional distinctions between means and ends. Such efficiency is defined more specifically by a
mastery of languages that is manifested chiefly by an ability to exploit the gaps between word and
meaning to a degree that is distinguished from lying only by the kind of semantic juggling formerly
associated with Falstaff.(43) In his separation of the spirit and the letter of the promise he makes to
the rebels, John extends his brother's characteristic linguistic tendencies to their logical extreme; the
divorce between signifier and signified seems almost complete in the new, value-free language of
power.
The Babel allusions discussed earlier provide yet another context of some relevance here. It is as
the first builder of cities that Nimrod precipitates the linguistic fall and the beginnings of the Iron Age;
so Henry in his mastery of diverse tongues is likewise closely associated with that other notably
postlapsarian City of Man, London. Of all the tongues that Hal studies, most shocking to his father is
that of low-life London, which in 1 Henry IV is associated with
such inordinate and low desires, Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts, Such
barren pleasures, rude society, As thou art matched withal and grafted to.
(III.ii.12-15)
This is of course the stuff of popular legend, which makes Henry the first English-speaking king
since the Norman Conquest; "the King's English" is the language of Henry himself, acquired in just
such seedy urban haunts as the Boar's Head Tavern.(44) By Henry V the urban associations have
shifted in emphasis; Henry is now the citizen king whose triumphant return from France the chorus
celebrates in appropriately bourgeois terms,(45) suitably dignified with classical allusion:
But now behold, In the quick forge and working-house of thought, How London doth pour forth out
her citizens. The Mayor and all his brethren, in best sort, Like to the senators of th'antique Rome
With the plebians swarming at their heels, Go forth and fetch their conqu'ring Caesar in.
(V.Chorus.22-28)
The use of London has a significance here that dearly transcends legend. For virtually the only time
in his career, Shakespeare makes extensive use of the capital as a dramatic setting and uses it not
merely as background,(46) but as a vehicle to explore the new urban world that was by the end of
the sixteenth century beginning to dominate England.(47) It provides a focal point for many of the
issues raised in the course of this discussion. Marking a break in the historical continuity of English
life in almost every sphere, the city renders the old, static, feudal, agrarian past irrelevant, displacing
it with a bourgeois, mercantile, urban, and endlessly mutable present in which identities are always
negotiable, no roles are ever unalterable, and where Henry's skill in linguistic self-creation becomes
a basic tool for urban survival.(46)
The imaginative recognition of London's new significance comes comparatively late to the drama;
not until the early seventeenth century does it get its full due, in the form of a drama consciously
dedicated to the exploration of the many worlds of the metropolis and the various languages
associated with them. Shakespeare here anticipates a much larger phenomenon, in which perhaps
paradoxically he seems to take only a minor interest.(49) In a variety of interesting ways Henry
anticipates the later accomplishments of those who come to people the drama; the trickster-heroes,
ambitious apprentices, and aspiring merchants who follow in Henry's footsteps are quick to learn the
lessons he teaches, namely that the city can offer freedom from the inherited responsibilities and
obligations of the old worlds of court and countryside, together with the fixed identities and social
roles that go with them. For them as for him, the anonymity and freedom from the traditional patterns
of life it makes possible give to its inhabitants the power to recreate themselves as they wish and to
make of themselves what they can, however they can.(50)
The private-theater plays of Shakespeare's slightly younger contemporaries, most notably Jonson,
Marston, Middleton, and Chapman, provide the most obvious source of examples. Like Henry, such
chameleon, multilingual, polyvocal, and profoundly ambiguous characters as Face, Tharsalio,
Freevil, Witgood, and their brethren find in the new urban Iron Age an exhilarating release from the
past, manifested by the same freedom to embrace through their control of language whatever selffashioned identities are convenient to the moment, regardless of their conventional implications.(51)
Public-theater drama also suggests its own, perhaps less obvious, parallels; the more apparently
orthodox celebration of citizen life in The Shoemaker's Holiday, for example, offers a number of
interesting successors to Henry. Simon Eyre, an exemplary figure of both linguistic and mercantile
self-creation who begins his rise to the Lord Mayorship by impersonating an alderman, provides one
analogue. Lacy, another master of disguise who casts off his identity as Earl's nephew to ennoble
himself by the mastery of both tongues and trade, is another. And bluff King Henry, eating and
drinking with the citizenry as if they were his brothers, and thereby establishing in the democratic
world of urban equality his legitimate right to be their king, provides an even more suggestive model.
VI
Much, it has been suggested above, hangs upon the question of how it is that Henry wins the battle
of Agincourt. The weight of emphasis on Henry's struggles, both public and private, and on the piety
that emerges from them, suggests that the materialist and determinist thrust of much recent analysis
is inadequate; yet, given the distinctive and peculiar nature of that piety, concluding that the victory is
something very like a miracle is to take much upon faith.
Neither cynicism nor credulity, however, seem in their extreme forms an adequate basis for
explaining Henry's success; he has, after all, in an obvious sense earned such success, being very
good at making people believe in his self-definitions as king, and, consequently, in making them do
what he wants. Though Henry's attempts at plain speech expose both the costs and limitations of
such a gift, they do not diminish its effectiveness; that Bates, Williams, and Court will still do what he
wants them to do after his confrontation with them is never in doubt.
That it is important, moreover, that Henry possess and develop these gifts likewise never seems in
doubt. Each of the five acts of the play is structured around a challenge that has to be met if the
kingdom, no less than the king, is to prosper; at no stage does failure seem preferable to success in
any of the contexts involved. If the mechanism employed to bring about apparently heroic success is
often not pretty, it seems nevertheless necessary in the world in which Henry and his subjects find
themselves. Even the Iron Age occasionally needs heroes, however fallen from what they used to
be.
The old dichotomy between ironic and heroic interpretations becomes here largely irrelevant, play
and protagonist both being defined by ambiguities and contradictions that preclude either alone, but
do include both. Altman has recently noted that no one satisfactorily explains why Shakespeare
should, at this specific time, have simultaneously both glorified and undermined Henry V; his own
immensely illuminating answer is related to Shakespeare's response to the variety of anxieties and
doubts associated with the Essex campaign.(52) It can also be argued, however, that a wider range
of anxieties and doubts are brought into play here that link Henry Vto other Shakespearean
experiments in modernism and mannerism. Hamlet and Measure for Measure in particular provide
notable examples of plays similarly difficult to define, in which similar issues of language, history,
identity, and power are also foremost; which operate through a similarly discordant juxtaposition of
incompatible elements; and which offer similarly traditional reassurances to the old-fashioned,
fashionable irony to the modernists, and something more complex than either to the kind of
"judicious spectator" idealized by Ben Jonson. The range of non-Shakespearean plays around the
turn of the century that deal in a similar manner with the various crises of urban modernity is, for its
part, immense, and it is with these too that Henry V must be placed.
If the Iron Age needs its own kind of heroes, it also needs interpreters for the multiple and frequently
duplicitous tongues they speak; it is Henry's fate to remain, simultaneously and paradoxically, both
master and prisoner of the languages he has mastered and the time he has redeemed. It is not
perhaps an entirely glorious destiny, but neither is it ignoble. In Henry V he at least attempts to deal
with the anarchy, linguistic and otherwise, announced in 1 Henry IV by Falstaff in his account of the
semiotics of modernist discourse: "What is honour? A word" (V.i.135). It is a formulation to which
Henry himself might well add, with Derridean flourish, "under erasure."
Ayers, P.K. "'Fellows of infinite tongue': Henry V and the king's English." Studies in English Literature, 15001900 34.2 (1994): 253+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 Dec. 2015.
FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE TOPIC

Crosman, Robert. "'I Shall Henceforth Be Myself': Henry V, King of Players or Royal Hypocrite?" In The World's a
Stage: Shakespeare and the Dramatic View of Life, pp. 67-99. Bethesda, Md.: Academica Press, 2005.
Views Henry as a master of theatrical techniques, capable of assuming as many different roles as circumstances,
and audiences, require. The critic asserts that the king's keen understanding of the relationship between statecraft
and stagecraft makes him a consummately effective ruler.

Floyd-Wilson, Mary. "English Mettle." In Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of
Emotion, edited by Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson, pp. 130-46. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Discusses the representation of military valor in Henry V in terms of early modern speculation that human
temperaments are determined by environmental factors. The critic emphasizes the comparisons the play draws
between the Scots, the Irish, the Welsh, and the English, as well as those it draws between the French and the
English; these comparisons, Floyd-Wilson contends, underscore the notion that regional and ethnic backgrounds
have a significant effect on the willingness of men to go to war and on their capacity to remain steadfast in the heat
of battle.

Hadfield, Andrew. "Henry V." In A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: Volume II, The Histories, edited by Richard
Dutton and Jean E. Howard, pp. 451-67. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Suggests that Shakespeare's representation of the nature of kingship in Henry V dramatizes the subversive idea
that a nation's ruler should be the person "best suited for the role," regardless of birthright. Acknowledging that the
Folio version of the play offers stronger support for this reading than the Quarto, Hadfield contends that the 1623
text casts serious doubts on Henry's right to the crown yet justifies his claim to it on the basis of his military
achievements and on his eventual recognition, at the close of Act IV, scene i, that responsibility for the war is
ultimately his alone.

Hedrick, Donald, and Bryan Reynolds. "'A little touch of Harry in the night': Translucency and Projective
Transversality in the Sexual and National Politics of Henry V." In Performing Transversally: Reimagining
Shakespeare and the Critical Future, edited by Bryan Reynolds, pp. 171-88. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Maintains that Henry's contradictory nature is the source of his power and charisma and that these contrarieties are
evident in the mixed messages encoded in his addresses to various audiences--the other characters onstage as well
as the spectators in their seats. Hedrick and Reynolds examine the king's incongruous messages in such episodes
as his wooing of Katherine and his subsequent exchange with Burgundy (Act V, scene ii) and the colloquy he carries
on with his soldiers, while in disguise, on the night before Agincourt (Act IV, scene i).

Jordan, Constance. "Henry V and the Tudor Monarchy." In Early Modern English Drama: A Critical
Companion, edited by Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr., Patrick Cheney, and Andrew Hadfield, pp. 108-19. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Focuses on the dramatization of such issues as the justification for and conduct of war, the mutual rights and
obligations of subjects, and English imperialism in Henry V. The critic suggests that Shakespeare depicted tensions
in "the body politic" in a number of ways, including the problematic treatment of the legitimacy of Henry's claim to the
throne of France, the king's management of the war, and his attempts to mold "a British identity" among his soldiers.

Leahy, William. "'All would be royal': The Effacement of Disunity in Shakespeare's Henry V." Shakespeare
Jahrbuch 138 (2002): 89-98.
Takes issue with critics who assert that the confrontation between Henry and Williams on the eve of Agincourt ends
in harmony or who claim that even if the episode does show that the king lacks empathy with his soldiers, it does not
significantly compromise a positive view of him. Leahy contends that Williams's final words indicate his continuing
resentment at being treated with contempt; the critic suggests that this exchange underscores the sense of
disruption that pervades the play.

Lehmann, Courtney. "'There Ain't No "Mac" in the Union Jack': Adaptation and (O)mission in Henry V."
In Shakespeare Remains: Theater to Film, Early Modern to Postmodern, pp. 190-212. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 2002.
Deconstructs Kenneth Branagh's 1989 film adaptation of Henry V, reading it as the actor-director's failed attempt to
present a vision of a harmonious society that bridges high and low culture. Neither Henry nor Branagh, Lehmann
contends, can expunge the antagonisms that exist between different social classes and different ethnicities, no
matter how carefully each of them tries to script the outcome of his enterprise.

McAlindon, Tom. "War and Peace in Henry V." In Shakespeare Minus 'Theory,' pp. 45-76. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate,
2004.
Rejects ambivalent as well as hostile views of Henry V and its protagonist, arguing that careful attention to the work
as a whole, and to the historical and cultural tradition that shaped it, leads to the conclusion that the play projects "an
affirmative view of the King and his war."

Ricciardi, Marc. "'Imploring Pardon': The Ethics of Morality and the Virtue of Temperance in
Shakespeare's Henry V." Journal of Pastoral Counseling (2000): 124-35.
Credits Henry with a profound sense of his own limitations and vulnerability and argues that this knowledge enables
him to empathize with the soldiers he must send into battle. Ricciardi focuses on the exchange between Henry and
Williams on the eve of Agincourt, and on the king's soliloquy following that exchange, asserting that in Henry's
attempts to console his soldiers--and to exorcise his own personal demons--one can see his essential humility,
contrition, and submission to the will of God.

Roe, John. "Henry V: The Prince and Cruelty." In Shakespeare and Machiavelli, pp. 63-93. Woodbridge, U.K.: D. S.
Brewer, 2002.
Suggests that both Shakespeare in Henry V and Machiavelli in The Prince employ representational schemes
designed to mitigate and overcome unattractive qualities in their heroic models. In his discussion of Shakespeare's
play, Roe addresses the question of Henry's cruelty, with specific reference to the king's orders--first in Act IV, scene
vi and then again in the following scene--to kill the French prisoners.

Ruiter, David. "'The Turning O' the Tide': The Lent of Agincourt and the Return of the Feast in Henry V."
In Shakespeare's Festive History: Feasting, Festivity, Fasting, and Lent in the Second Henriad, pp. 143-77.
Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003.
Contends that a ritual pattern of movement from feast to Lent to feast is evident in the structure, rhetoric, and
thematic issues of the second tetralogy and that the cycle culminates in the final scenes of Henry V. This framework,
Ruiter suggests, is essential to Shakespeare's depiction of Henry's personal transformation from reckless youth to
respected leader, but also to his representation of a national polity that, from the victory at Agincourt, will sustain--at
least until the next period of disruption and unease--its hard-won spirit of community.

Salamon, Linda Bradley. "Vagabond Veterans: The Roguish Company of Martin Guerre and Henry V." In Rogues
and Early Modern English Culture, edited by Craig Dionne and Steve Mentz, pp. 261-93. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2004.
Evaluates the depiction of the common soldiers in Henry V with reference to early modern stereotypes that cast
military veterans as social pariahs in the communities to which they returned once their wars were over. Salamon
compares the trio of Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym--petty criminals with many years of military campaigning behind them
before the play begins--with their honest and loyal counterparts--Court, Bates and Williams; but she also calls
attention to the greed and opportunism of the English nobles, who seek to profit from the war by ransoming their
prisoners.

Werner, Sarah. "Firk and Foot: The Boy Actor in Henry V." Shakespeare Bulletin 21, no. 4 (winter 2003): 19-27.
Considers how an early modern audience attending a staging of Henry V would respond to a boy actor performing
the role of Katherine. Werner focuses on the sexual puns and innuendos in both the French princess's "language
lesson" (Act III, scene iv) and the episode in which the pageboy acts as an interpreter between Pistol and the French
soldier (Act IV, scene iv); she also suggests that in the play's initial staging, both roles--Katherine and the Boy--may
have been taken by the same young performer.