num_pages: 258
description: This new edition of Shakespeare's most celebrated war play points to the many inconsistencies in the presentation of Henry V. Andrew Gurr's substantial introduction explains the play as a reaction to the decade of war which preceded its writing, and analyses the play's double vision of Henry as both military hero and self-seeking individual. Professor Gurr shows how the patriotic declarations of the Chorus are contradicted by the play's action. He places the play's more controversial sequences in the context of Elizabethan thought, in particular the studies of the laws and morality of war written in the years before Henry V. He also studies the variety of language and dialect in the play. The appendices summarise Shakespeare's debt to his dramatic and historical sources, while the stage history shows how subsequent centuries have received and adapted the play on the stage and in film.
language: English
title: King Henry V
titlecomplete: King Henry V (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)
characters: Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, Mistress Nell Quickly, Corporal Nim, Edward of Langley, 2nd Duke of York, Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, Fluellen, Ancient Pistol, Bardolph, Henry V of England, Charles VI of France, Catherine de Valois
genres: Fiction, Plays, Theatre, Historical, Poetry, Drama, School, Literature, Classics, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 48734
places: Troyes, Southampton, England, Agincourt
series: Wars of the Roses
publisher: Cambridge University Press