Shakespeare

There is a reference to Julius Caesar in Henry V, which was composed a few months after. There are also references in Henry V to the expedition by the Earl of Essex to Ireland that was rumoured to have failed by the summer of 1599 and ended in disgrace that autumn; so Henry V is likely to have been written before those dates. Whatever the question of date, however, the two plays are complementary. The English history is just as much an exercise in ambiguity, in opposition and contrast, as Julius Caesar; but it is screwed to an even higher pitch. Is Henry a bullying thug or a great leader of men? Is he made of valour or formed from ice and snow? Is he an image of authority or a figure fit for ridicule? The scenes of military prowess and achievement are framed by a comic plot that subtly deflates this heroic tale of success. The king’s speech beginning “Once more vnto the Breach, deare friends …” (1038) is immediately succeeded by the braggart Bardolph’s “On, on, on, on, on, to the breach …” (1073). The burlesque may not have been deliberate. Shakespeare did not have to stop and think about it. He did it naturally and instinctively. It was as inevitable as a pianist using both the black and the white keys.

On the character and motives of the king, black or white, it is possible that Shakespeare himself was not sure. But, clothed in the shimmering veil of Henry’s rhetoric, they do not matter; Shakespeare was entranced by the idea of magnificence, and there is nothing like the exercise of power to create memorable lines and powerful scenes. Henry overbears judgement; he transcends or dissolves questions of morality. As William Hazlitt said in discussing Coriolanus, “the language of poetry is the language of power.”⁴ It is not of much consequence whether that power is nobly or ignobly used. The imagination itself is a form of power, and will incline towards any sympathetic object. That is why the presence of Henry, even in the comic scenes, is continually invoked. It is worth remarking, too, that the cadences of Henry’s speech are uncannily similar to those of Richard III.

When Shakespeare follows Holinshed, his principal source, he runs the risk of tedium; when he follows his instincts, he is sublime. His “Muse of Fire” rises into the air, and his imagery is concerned with soaring. The long speeches are rich in texture and strident in delivery. There is one phrase, however, that has a more particular resonance. At one point the Chorus of the drama, generally performed by Shakespeare himself, beseeches the audience to sit and watch, “Minding true things, by what their Mock’ries bee” (1780). It is a true indication of Shakespeare’s imaginative sensibility. Whereas most craftsmen judge the false according to their knowledge of the genuine, Shakespeare works the other way round.

Henry V is in fact the culmination of Shakespeare’s preoccupation with kingship. Shakespeare invented the role of the player king. Certainly, more than any other dramatist before or since, he popularised the role of sovereign and managed infinitely to extend its range, while the imagery of the player king is unique to him. In his history plays, of course, the part of the monarch is the most significant and effective on the stage; but there are also Lear, Macbeth, Duncan, Claudius, Ferdinand, Cymbeline, Leontes and a host of noble rulers. He uses the word “crown” 380 times, and Edmond Malone commented perceptively that “when he means to represent any quality of the mind as eminently perfect, he furnishes the imaginary being whom he personifies, with a crown.”⁵ One of his abiding images is that of the king as sun and, in his dramaturgy, he loves what is stately and what is grand. He was concerned with tragic narratives only in so far as they were concerned with persons of high degree; tragedies of “low life,” which were written in this period, held no interest for him. But kings appear in his comedies as well as in his tragedies. They may not always be portrayed in a flattering light, but nevertheless he evinces collaborative sympathy with them. It is notable that in his tragedies the person of highest rank speaks the last lines of the play, and in his later comedies it is always the king or principal nobleman who pronounces the verdict upon what might be called the final state of play. There is a prince in the concluding scene of thirteen out of his sixteen comedies.