**This post is Part 5 of an ongoing series in which I’ll be reading various Shakespeare plays, along with the Harold Bloom commentary from his book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, and providing my thoughts/reactions.**

The Performance:

Thanks again to Digital Theatre, I was able to see the recent RSC version, which included a high degree of continuity of cast with Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2. If I have less to say about this production than the others, it is only because so much has already been said.

This play features many more lengthy monologues than the prior two plays, and Alex Hassell as Henry V stands out above the rest for bringing his monologues to life. His ability to render the character’s emotions visible on stage makes digesting the language an easier and more rewarding process.

The performance was also a great reminder that this play is, first and foremost, a piece of political propaganda. Much of the humor relies on the antipathy of the English for the French, and the portrayal thereof was well met by this audience, some 400 years later.

Finally, the Chorus was delightful. Oliver Ford Davies seemed to play both the grandfatherly storyteller and the weathered old stagehand at once. Henry V is a play that explicitly apologizes for its (necessary) simplification of a highly complex historical period, and Davies delivers these requests for pardon with a charming wit and sense of irony. The overall tone is, “yes, it’s a poor replacement for real life–perhaps you’d like to give it a try yourself?”

The Play:

Without Henry V, it is hard to understand what the real “message” of Henry IV is. While it’s a clear historical drama concerned with the history of England on one hand, it does seem to be a bildungsroman of a specific character in Hal.

In both parts of Henry IV, we find ourselves–like Hal himself, I might point out–oscillating between the public and the private aspects of the play. Yes, much of the plot focuses on the political and bellicose jockeying for power among various factions, but it is also full of scenes (particularly those involving Falstaff) where a certain war of ideas is being fought in Hal’s mind. The play forces us to question not only how Hal will come to power as Henry V but what kind of values he might lead with once on the throne.

A dead giveaway for us as audience should have been Hal’s dismissal of Falstaff at the end of Henry IV, Part 2. If a choice was made by the new king in that moment in Henry IV–to leave behind the life of friendly mischief and bear the yoke of courtly responsibility–that choice is rendered permanent in Henry V.

Henry V is not a play about a king’s moral development. It’s not a play about a king at all, except for his role as head of state. What we get in Henry V is a near-total abandonment of the individual in favor of History.

Well… almost. Behind the surface read of noble conquest, Shakespeare is revealing to us a certain fact about history, namely how beholden it can be to the selfish desires of individuals. From the very outset, it is made clear that the entire war with France was surreptitiously motivated by the selfishness of the clergy eager to avoid a new tax law. Whatever is to be heroic in Henry V sits brazenly on this self-serving foundation.

Similarly, in Henry V’s nobility, we still see Hal’s narcissistic willingness to use any and all means–and any and all people–to bring his will to pass. Whether he is giving impassioned speeches on honor to fellow noblemen or waxing philosophical on duty to starving soldiers, it is clear King Henry’s only real ideal is his own satisfaction. His every speech is haunted by a laughing ghost of Falstaff: “What is that honour? Air.”

There are two possible story arcs at the end of Henry IV: one in which Prince Hal attains his destiny as a great king, and one in which Hal, the man, overcomes his sordid past to become virtuous. Shakespeare, in Henry V, only tells us the outcome of the first arc in words; yet the second is rendered equally clear–perhaps clearer.

No, Hal does not become a great man. And yet he is still… great? Celebrated? Remembered, at the very least. It is this curiosity that the play most intuitively raises and which it deftly guides.

The Bloom:

Bloom gets this one exactly right. This is one of those few times where his obsession with Falstaff actually allowed him to see this play more clearly.

Bloom is not fooled by the noble King Henry, perhaps because he still has not forgiven his transgression against his precious Falstaff. But in a strange way, feeling that loss so personally leads Bloom to a very human understanding of the cost of Henry’s selfishness. To fight an unnecessary war was not just politically risky, it was unethical. Bloom quotes Hazlitt; I will not double indent:

He was a hero, that is, he was ready to sacrifice his own life for the pleasure of destroying thousands of others lives… How then do we like him? We like him in the play. There he is a very amiable monster, a very splendid pageant… – Bloom, 320

Bloom sees through the pageantry in a way one has to believe Shakespeare wanted us to–without this second arc, the play is incomplete. And while you can understand the moral implications of war in the abstract, without Bloom’s particular (perhaps perverse) attachment to Falstaff, one cannot feel those implications as viscerally.

Bloom’s read is my read on steroids. Listen to the devastation in his tone as he surveys the play’s outcome:

Yes; for this, Falstaff was rejected, Bardolph was hanged, and a great education in wit was partly thrown away. – Bloom, 320

Here, Bloom’s passion serves his critique, and it is a real pleasure to read him as he takes not only King Henry, but also Hal, to task for the damage that was done.

Rating: 7/10, if you’ve read Henry IV; if not, this one clocks in at a cool 5.5.