T. R. Burdowski
Dr. Chip Rogers
English 4223.001
February 22, 2007Research Presentation: Andrew Hadfield’s “Henry V”
Hadfield, Andrew. “Henry V.” A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works. Vol. II: The Histories. Ed. by Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. 451-67.
Hadfield summarizes the controversy surrounding Henry V from Shakespeare’s day through current times: many consider the play a celebration of gung-ho patriotism and others see Shakespeare as being critical of Henry as a tyrannical, Machiavellian ruler. Hadfield notes discrepancies between the 1623 folio text (the “standard” text), which he believes was intended to be read and not performed, and a number of other surviving versions which may be closer to the script of the play as it was performed originally. After establishing that the “performance copies” of the play are more pointedly patriotic, Hadfield argues that the folio text is Shakespeare’s “most sophisticated analysis of kingship,” especially in its radical criticism of the historical Henry V (464).
Most prominent among the aspects of Henry’s character Hadfield sees Shakespeare questioning are the king’s lack of genuine concern with legitimate claims to France (because he understands the church’s self-interest in urging war); his deflection of responsibility onto others for destruction he sanctions (onto the church, the governor of Harfleur, the Dauphin, and the French king, e.g.); his lack of concern for British commoners; and his ruthlessness at Harfleur and in executing French prisoners. Hadfield stresses the comparison between Henry and the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great, also a powerful ruler given to ruthlessness.
In examining Shakespeare’s depiction of kingship more generally, he notes that while Henry V is the only wholly successful king in the history plays, he is haunted by questions of legitimacy as successor to his usurping father. Hadfield also makes connections between the play and the political situation in England when it was written in 1599. He notes that the English society depicted in the play is geared primarily for war, something the original audience surely recognized during the Nine Years War in Ireland in the late 1590s. Giving close attention to the Act 5 chorus describing Henry’s triumphant return to England, Hadfield makes interesting observations on the references to the conquering Julius Caesar’s reception in Rome and to the English general said to be returning soon from Ireland—this general being the Earl of Essex, and the Empress in 5.0.30 being Queen Elizabeth. Hadfield explains that near the end of her reign Elizabeth was criticized as an ineffective monarch, noting that she identified herself explicitly with the feeble and ineffectual Richard II, who was overthrown by Henry’s father. Hadfield interprets Henry as representing that a king should be monarch because he is the best person for the job at the time (which Richard II was not), suggesting that Shakespeare hints that Essex would be a more suitable ruler than Elizabeth, a radical notion made all the more interesting by the fact that Essex did in fact rebel against the queen in 1601.
This article is informative on the textual variants of the play and on the controversy over Shakespeare’s portrayal of Henry either as conquering national hero or as cunning and ruthless politician. Hadfield did not really change my interpretation of the play, but I found his discussion of the situation in England in 1599 interesting and valuable. In the end, I do not believe Hadfield is wholly convincing in his case for Shakespeare’s radical criticism of the historical Henry V. Some of his evidence is thin—his suggestion that Henry is a manipulative “user” of the common men by encouraging them to consider themselves his equal in the Crispin’s Day speech and then their not being named in the list of dead and having to return to their lower-class status after the war is over, for instance. Also, regarding Henry’s cruelty in killing the French prisoners, I found it troubling—or weak—that Hadfield does not acknowledge and refute the two different justifications for these killings given in the play (not to mention historians’ comments on this situation as a matter of expediency because the outnumbered English needed every man fighting, and not guarding prisoners, to prevent all of the Brits being killed). I enjoyed the article and it taught me interesting history, but I cannot say I was completely sold on the central argument, that the play is more concerned with subversive radical questioning of Henry V than presenting him in a positive patriotic light.