Henry V
(William Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare, playwright extraordinaire, lived in 16th to 17th Century England. He wrote a considerable number of plays, including the still popular Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Romeo & Juliet. Many of his plays were written as part of the Lord Chamberlain's Men—later known as the King's Men—who were a company of players, or actors. Although Shakespeare is synonymous with the Globe Theatre, a great number of his plays were performed at Blackfriars Theatre and at court for royalty and their guests. He was also a seasoned poet and is still celebrated for his 154 sonnets, including the popular Sonnet 18. The beginning lines are possibly the most quoted out of all the sonnets: “Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” I bet you've heard those lines before!

The 16th and early 17th Centuries in England were periods of enormous wealth and strength. Shakespeare lived through the Spanish war, saw the end of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen's reign, and heralded in the reunification of the English and Scottish thrones under one monarch, King James VI. However, despite the Royal family's immense wealth and rich noblemen in the upper classes, the poor were extremely poor. Famine, poor hygiene and the lack of wages created an environment full of disease, crime and pestilence. If you were poor during this time, you had little to look forward to! Some would visit the theatre as a means to escape their lives if they could afford it, but they would only be able to afford standing room. Imagine standing up through an hour long play! Other entertainment available to the poor included watching executions, tormenting those placed in stocks and attending witch trials. A pretty grim past-time, but there was little else to do!

Henry Vis believed to have been written in the year 1599 and chronicles the real life and events of King Henry and the battle of Agincourt. The play is part of a tetralogy, which describes a group of work consisting of four parts that are distinct and separate pieces of work by the same author, but belong together in some way. This tetralogy is made up of Richard II, and Henry IV, Part I&Henry IV, Part II. Henry V is the last and fourth part in this tetralogy. Audiences at the time would have been well aware of the young Henry V's youthful behaviour as this was depicted in Henry IV.

In the play itself, a dramatic device is used to explain to audiences elements of the story that are not depicted on the stage. In a similar way to a Greek play, the Chorus enters at the beginning of each Act and brings the audience up to date with the action they did not see taking place on the stage. This dramatic device allows Shakespeare to smooth over and explain things that the audience would not be able to see on the stage or things that might have seemed long and drawn out if they had been dramatized. Instead, the Chorus provides a short and often poetic description of the events that have gone on between Acts.