Henry V (Signet Classics)
by William Shakespeare
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Book Summary Information
Author: William ShakespeareEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-01
ISBN: 0451526902
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Signet Classics
Book Reviews of Henry V (Signet Classics)
Book Review: A Disappointing Finale
Summary: 2 Stars
"Henry V" combines strident jingoism, weak comedy, structural instability, and some of the dullest blank verse in the Shakespearean canon.
It also presents us with a windy, suffocatingly self-satisfied protagonist who bears little resemblance to the saucy, shifting Prince Hal of the "Henry IV" plays. I found it a pain reading "Henry V", except when the king was offstage, when it was even more annoying.
Gentle readers, when I came to read this play, I didn't do so to write a review like this. I studied "Henry V" in college, and under my professor's guiding care found myself impressed with the ambiguity of his reading. Over the years, Henry's speeches before Harfleur and Agincourt have remained in my mind as they have in many others. Writing a review of the gripping if plot-thin "Henry IV Part 2", I called it a bridge between two better plays. So the more I read "Henry V", the more unhappy I was of it not coming up to anything close to what I remembered.
Our play begins with a pair of bishops talking about a pending threat against their churchly holdings that is never resolved or even referenced again. When we first meet Henry, it is to watch him sit passively and be lectured at length about some recondite thing called "the Salique Law." The Henry IV plays had a number of comic supporting players, so "Henry V" raises the merriment by killing them off, and switching the humor to a speech-impaired Welshman who rambles on about the Roman art of warfare.
After watching Henry threaten French women with rape and warn his victims not to be "guilty in defense," he woos the French princess Katharine with some rather unconvincing and labored lovetalk. When she asks if she could love an enemy of France, Henry replies "I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it." This is the sort of smug sanctimoniousness that typifies Henry V's approach to his reign. Shakespeare presents it and everything else about Henry as if he were a mirror of Christian royalty, undercutting the supposed ambiguity so many modern critics speak of.
Act II features a threat on Henry which is resolved when he hands papers to his would-be attackers, thus foiling their plans. Thrilling. Act III features a long scene of two women speaking French, which Shakespeare uses as an excuse to throw in some dirty words. Naughty Will! Act IV, by far the best act in the play, gives us Agincourt and Henry's famous "we happy few" soliloquy which is the play's best moment, but the subsequent battle is rendered in anticlimactic bits and pieces.
The play works only as a finale to a set of much better preceding plays. You need some closure from the storyline of the Richard II/Henry IV "Henriad" cycle, of a throne in unstable jeopardy, and this provides that closure. As a man of action, Henry V stands in marked contrast against the king who began the Henriad cycle, Richard II, lazy and disposed to be preferential. Henry V is a man of action who would sooner kill a friend than fail to accomplish some statecraft.
If you find such a figure admirable, "Henry V" may be a play for you. He sat heavy in my guts, though, and I'm glad to let him go.
Summary of Henry V (Signet Classics)
"This day is call'd the feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd. And rouse him at the name of Crispian". Revised and repackaged, this new edition of "Henry V" includes a new Overview by Sylvan Barnet, an updated bibliography, suggested references, stage and film history, and much more.
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