# of Words: 336

Composed around 1599, Henry V is the last play in William Shakespeare' second tetralogy, a set of history plays which contains Richard II, Henry Part 1, and Henry IV Part two. In the previous works, Shakespeare portrays Henry's days as a crazy and reckless adolescent. In Henry V, "Wild Prince Hal" has long since grown up into a competent king who's determined to invade France and lay claim to the French throne.

Though written about the early 1400s, for countless years audiences have discovered this bit of historical fiction pertinent to their own wars. When the play was first performed in 1599, the portrayal of Henry V's military campaign could have made Shakespeare's original Elizabethan audience to think about their own shaky political situation. Back in Ireland, the Earl of Tyrone had lately started a rebellion (1594-1603) and Queen Elizabeth I has lately delivered her Beloved go-to man, the Earl of Essex, to squash the uprising (which did not exactly work out as planned)

Throughout World War II, Laurence Olivier's dramatic reading of this was broadcast on the radio and, according to scholar Marjorie Garber, it soon "became a patriotic call to arms to get embattled Britain" (Shakespeare After All). In other words, Shakespeare's words helped to pump up the British to fight against Hitler, which is fairly impressive, would not you say? Two years following his radio broadcast, Olivier directed and starred in a movie adaptation which adopted the identical patriotic tone. The passage has also been quoted in countless political speeches, movies, and literary works. (It even moved the name of Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers, that was afterwards turned into a TV miniseries about WWII soldiers).

It isn't merely the St. Crispin's Day speech that audiences remember. As a complete, Shakespeare's play has given rise to endless debates about the contrasts between Henry V's military campaign and contemporary warfare. Back in 1989, Kenneth Branagh's movie adaptation of Henry V underscored the dreadful realties of war and called into question Henry's justification for invading a foreign state.

Related Papers

Brave New World Aldous Huxley

Have you ever been on a vacation that simply did not go well? Maybe you got food poisoning, or you struggled with your loved ones, or got bad news in the home? Or maybe you found your boss' illegitimate kid and long-lost spouse, brought them home with you, and continued to harness them before your lifetime fully unraveled? Alright, maybe we are getting a bit too special here. However, this vacation-gone-wrong is pretty much exactly what happens to bad Bernard Marx at Aldous Huxley's Brave New......Read More

Bridge To Terabithia Katherine Paterson

Bridge to Terabithia is one of the very classic books you could ever read about friendship, imagination, and reduction. And, with each of these components, the book won Katherine Paterson her very first Newbery Medal at 1978 (she won another for Jacob Have I Loved at 1981). However, like many other excellent children's books, it has come under controversial fire. It happens to deal with some pretty hard subject matter, such as passing and religion (by way of example, some critics think......Read More

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Douglas Adams

What if the world ended tomorrow--where could you get your favourite beverage? That is the situation faced by Arthur Dent, totally normal English man (favored drink: Tea). Arthur is not a fanatic--he is really pretty dull--but once Earth is destroyed, Arthur is thrust into a series of mad adventures which he is totally unprepared for. That might sound as a catastrophe (after all, Earth is where our favourite food is made), but take it out of us: it is totally a humor. To know The Hitchhiker's......Read More

Related Topics