SOURCE: Jensen, Pamela K. “The Famous Victories of William Shakespeare: The Life of Henry the Fifth.” In Poets, Princes, and Private Citizens: Literary Alternatives to Postmodern Politics, edited by Joseph M. Knippenberg and Peter Augustine Lawler, pp. 235-69. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996.

In the following excerpt, Jensen presents an overview of Henry V from the point of view of politics, concentrating on Henry's rhetorical appeal to English audiences. The critic contends that with this play Shakespeare sought to render “a king worthy of our admiration both for his unflinching realism and for his righteousness.”

Introduction

To defend the claim that Shakespeare's plays are appropriately treated as political texts, it may be helpful to indicate what Shakespeare's poetry has in common with such students of politics as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Rousseau. These thinkers equate the study of politics and what is at the heart of how...