SOURCE: "'It Must Be Your Imagination Then': The Prologue and the Plural Text in Henry V and Elsewhere," in 'Fanned and Winnowed Opinions': Shakespearean Essays Presented to Harold Jenkins, edited by John W. Mahon and Thomas A. Pendleton, Methuen, 1987, pp. 133-50.

In the essay below, Hammond contends that the Chorus's description of the play and its protagonist is intended to contradict what we see in other parts of the drama. Duality is essential to Henry V, the critic asserts, and its disparate perspectives force us to consider both the complexities of heroism and the question of theatrical verisimilitude.

Among Shakespeare's plays only Henry V and Pericles employ the highly elaborated formal structure of prologue, choruses before each Act, and epilogue. Other plays employ some of these dramatic devices, but not even Pericles uses them as centrally and as structurally as does Henry V;¹ nor do the other plays...