SOURCE: Levin, Richard. “Hazlitt on Henry V, and the Appropriation of Shakespeare.” Shakespeare Quarterly 35, no. 2 (summer 1984): 134-41.

In the following essay, Levin argues that contemporary ironic readings of Henry V—those that generally suggest that Shakespeare's dramatic presentation of King Henry is unfavorable—have tended to “appropriate” the work rather than properly interpret it.

What used to be called the new ironic reading of Shakespeare's Henry V is of course no longer new, since it has been espoused by a growing number of studies of the play over the past three decades, and therefore does not require any extended explanation. Although these studies differ among themselves on matters of detail and emphasis, and sometimes add special qualifications of their own, they generally follow the basic line laid down in Harold Goddard's essay, published in 1951, which is still the most elaborate and probably (as later references to it would...