SOURCE: Robinson, Marsha S. “Mythoi of Brotherhood: Generic Emplotment in Henry V.” In Shakespeare's English Histories: A Quest for Form and Genre, edited by John W. Velz, pp. 143-70. Binghamton N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1996.

In the following essay, Robinson examines Shakespeare's manipulation of English historiography in Henry V through a thematic evocation of fraternal conflict and reconciliation, and generic blending of tragedy and comedy.

In the English history plays, Shakespeare's generic choices are often expressed in a symbolic language indigenous to English historiography. The form of Henry V reflects the interplay of several traditions of historiographic practice, each of which appropriates the mythoi of fraternal strife and fraternal reconciliation to articulate the generic shape of the past. Shakespeare's repeated allusions to brotherhood, which are particularly significant in the complementary generic dynamics of Richard II and Henry V, are more than thematic; they are, in...