Anway, although Shakespeare had promised to bring Falstaff back, he realized (I believe) that there was no place for him in the new order. Bu this spirit hangs over the play. As someone said in Chris’s interview, when Mistress Quickly says the king killed his heart it can refer both to Falstaff and to his own heart. In fact, if you can, go back and look closely at that speech about Falstaff’s death with a good edition of notes or, better, see if you can track down a copy at the library of a lecture about it by Peter Saccio made for The Teaching Company. It is a remarkable analysis of one speech that demonstrates the amazing richness of Shakespeare.

I’m looking forward to seeing the play on Sunday. Is anyone else going?

But this was a pretty great intro—not having seen a more-fleshed-out production, the five-actor-ness of the ASP version worked really well. The stage really was a “wooden 0,” for one thing, and the constant switching of roles just seemed another suspension of disbelief, which the play explicitly calls for: Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Yeah, sure! Why the heck not.

The question of what Shakespeare is trying to say about “war and nationhood” is a tough one. For me, it seems drama as a medium might be better suited to showing the glorious parts of war than the bloody and horrible. After all, we are just seeing a few actors, a few figures. If they succeed, well great! If they die, no matter how unpleasantly, it’s easier to pass it off as a glorious end. Visually, we see Henry winning the war, sticking it to some slightly vaudevilley French baddies, and getting the girl without even speaking her language! We don’t SEE any virgins and infants getting mown. You can’t have a scene like in Gone With the Wind, with thousands of dead and wounded in a field, in a wooden 0. So it’s one more step on the suspension-of-disbelief ladder.

On the other hand, maybe this just means you have to think harder to see the guts than the glory, which might be the point. And Michael Williams’ points still stand.

And on a completely different note, how come we never see Falstaff in this play? I’ve been trying to figure this out.

The chaplain present at Agincourt reports that a knight “expressed a desire to the king’s face” an additional 10,000 of England’s best archers who “would have been only too glad to have been there.”

Henry’s response: “That is a foolish way to talk because, by the God in Heaven upon Whose grace I have relied and in Whom is my firm hope of victory, I would not, even if I could, have a single man more than I do. For these I have here with me are God’s people, whom He deigns to let me have at this time. Do you not believe that the Almighty, with these his humble few, is able to overcome the opposing arrogance of the French who boast of their great number and their own strength?”

Hnery does seem to have believed in what he was doing.

At the same time, he was undoubtedly aware of military doctrine expressed in The Book of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry that included:

“One finds that many armies have been thrown into disarray by their own greater number rather than by enemy forces…[the ancients] knowing the perils from experience,placed a higher value on an army well taught and led than a great multitude.”

It was so many years ago that I read the play- probably beyond simply refreshing my memory so I really should re-read it. I have the A.L. Rowse annotated version and although he has been criticized he reads pretty well. As well I dug out a video I have of the Branagh film.

I am conflicted about which is better- to see the play or to read it. I think both are necessary.

Chris what you are doing is very much appreciated.

It would be interesting, though, for me to read it again now and see if I come away with a different perspective. Being such a different person now. I’m likely to get more nuance and be more amenable to the idea that the questions are open. I’m buried in a ceiling-high pile of reading these days – including Theodore Parker’s Sermon, with The Brother in Elysium in the queue on my bedstand – so, I don’t know if I’ll get to this in a timely manner.

(Kind of wish we had a calendar of reading assignments! Though I like the spontaneity of readings that are responsive to a moment in time…)

I look forward to the conversation.

I am coming to this reading of Henry V by way of Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and, just before that, Richard II. As a tetralogy, the plays trace the story from the original usurpation of the crown that haunts the Kings Henry and the subsequent plays. Their arc also raise plenty of questions about Henry’s putative “growth” into the leader at Agincourt.

Certainly, in the films referenced, or onstage as a stand alone play, Henry V has much to say about leadership, manhood, nationship, war, etc. in their own right.

But it has even more to say when viewed in the context of these earlier plays. Was Prince Hal really a wastral or was he cannily “slumming” with Falstaff and the tavern folk? What do we make of his conversion and attempts to redeem himself and his father? Does his embrace, of the Chief Justice as a new father-figure upon becoming King, mean he is going to respect the rule of law? Or is that a manipulative ploy as well? What do we make of his spurning of Falstaff?

Indeed, while perhaps Falstaff is only tangential to discussion of Henry V, I think it informs the play to consider where the King has come from and also how he stands in contrast to Falstaff. Why do Bloom, and others, find the various Henry’s to be “characters” on the stage while Falstaff (along with Hamlet and, depending on the critic, Cleopatra or Rosalind) is a “real” person? Especially since it seems that in our world, as in the the world of these plays, the spirit of power has crushed the spirit of play.

There is a well known essay by Norman Rabkin called, “Rabbits, Ducks and Henry V. Depending on the way one views a silhouette, one may alternatively see a rabbit or a duck, but one can never see both simultaneously. He writes, “In Henry V Shakespeare creates a work whose ultimate power is precisely the fact that it points in two opposite directions, virtually daring us to choose one of the two opposed interpretations it requires of us.”

Stephen Greenblatt is clear about what he sees:

“The play deftly registers every nuance of royal hypocricy, ruthlessness and bad faith–testing in effect the proposition that successful rule depends not upon sacredness, but upon demonic violence– but it does so in the context of a celebration, a collective panegyric to ‘This Star of England’, the charismatic leader who purges the commonwealth of its incorrigibles and forges the martial national state.”

Treating the play as the final movement in a four part symphony, I tend towards this skeptical view Henry. I view him with the kind of fear and disdain that I do the current occupant of our nation’s highest office–our own Prince Hal. However, as I said at the outset, the wonderful thing about Shakespeare is that many perspectives are all “true” (how Emersonian!) and I hope this thread will present others as well.

Thanks again for the topic Chris.