SOURCE: Mattox, John Mark. “Henry V: Shakespeare's Just Warrior.” War, Literature and the Arts 12, no. 1 (spring-summer 2000): 30-53.

In the following essay, Mattox evaluates Shakespeare's portrait of Henry V in terms of well-established tenets of “just war” theory, arguing that the king has the right to wage war against France and that his conduct of that war meets traditional legal and ethical standards. The critic also maintains that Shakespeare affirmed Henry's claim that he has divine sanction to pursue war.

Despite the wide spectrum of perspectives that Shakespeare's commentators bring to bear on Henry V,¹ they seem to agree that the play is riddled with complexities as large as its popularity. On the one hand, Shakespeare presents Henry V as involved in a war that, in terms of both its declaration and its prosecution, clearly invites a moral-philosophical critique. On the other hand, he represents Henry as “an ideal...