SOURCE: Stříbrný, Zdeněk. “Henry V and History.” In Shakespeare in a Changing World, edited by Arnold Kettle, pp. 84-101. New York: International Publishers, 1964.

In the following essay, Stříbrný maintains that while Shakespeare's depiction of Henry V reveals the king's hypocrisy and opportunism, Shakespeare nevertheless intended to portray Henry's war against the French as justifiable and the English victory at Agincourt as a triumphant overcoming of tremendous odds.

The Life of Henry V is hardly the greatest play in Shakespeare's cycle of ten dramas of English history. Yet it may certainly be considered as central, or at least helpful in revealing his artistic approach to politics, politicians, world-order, kingship, the people, the Elizabethan nation-state, and more generally to war and peace—in a word, to history. It has the unquestioned distinction of crowning the second, and more mature, group of his ‘histories’ which stretch from the...