King Henry V

Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition

Joseph Candido

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781474258050
• eBook ISBN: 9781350260016
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

With its depiction of the victorious English king, Henry V has divided critical opinion and remains one of the more controversial of Shakespeare's histories. This new volume in Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition increases our knowledge of how Shakespeare's plays were received and understood by critics, editors and general readers. The volume offers, in separate sections, both critical opinions about the play across the centuries and an evaluation of their positions within and their impact on the reception of the play. The chronological arrangement of the text-excerpts engages the readers in a direct and unbiased dialogue, whereas the introduction offers a critical evaluation from a current stance, including modern theories and methods. Thus the volume makes a major contribution to our understanding of the play and of the traditions of Shakespearean criticism surrounding it as they have developed from century to century.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• General editor’s preface
• General editors’ preface to the revised series
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Edmond Malone, commentary on Henry V, 1790
• 2 Joseph Ritson, response to Malone, 1792
• 3 George Steevens, notes and commentary on Henry V, 1793
• 4 Francis Douce, corrections of Johnson and others, 1807
• 5 Elizabeth Inchbald, morality and heroism in Henry V, 1808
• 6 August Wilhelm von Schlegel, the dramatic representation of war, 1815
• 7 Nathan Drake, effusive praise for Henry V and its title character, 1817
• 8 William Hazlitt, a denunciation of Henry and praise for the play, 1817
• 9 William Oxberry, prefatory remarks on Henry V, 1823
• 10 Augustine Skottowe, Henry V and its sources, 1824
• 11 George Daniel, prefatory remarks to Henry V, 1826
• 12 Thomas Campbell, general remarks on Henry V, 1838
• 13 Thomas Peregrine Courtenay, Henry V and historical fact, 1838
• 14 Charles Knight, the Pictorial Edition of Henry V, 1838
• 15 Joseph Hunter, factual and critical comments on Henry V, 1845
• 16 Hermann Ulrici, on history, war, and morality, 1846
• 17 Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, introduction to Henry V, 1847
• 18 Hartley Coleridge, modified praise for Henry V, 1851
• 19 Henry Norman Hudson, introduction to Henry V, 1852
• 20 Henry Reed, history and Henry, 1855
• 21 William Watkiss Lloyd, a measured and objective reading of Henry V and its hero, 1856
• 22 Georg Gottfried Gervinus, rapturous praise for Henry and a criticism of blind nationalism, 1863
• 23 John Abraham Heraud, Shakespeare’s moral charity and a rebuke to Gervinus, 1865
• 24 Henry Norman Hudson, the minor characters of Henry V and the moral superiority of the king, 1872
• 25 Richard Simpson, Henry V and contemporary politics, 1874
• 26 Edward Dowden, high praise for Henry as prince and king, 1875
• 27 Frederick James Furnivall, more praise for Henry as king and man, 1877
• 28 Denton Jaques Snider, the structure of Henry V and praise for the king, 1877
• 29 Algernon Charles Swinburne, on the death of Falstaff, 1880
• 30 Richard Green Moulton, the character of Henry V, 1886
• 31 Oscar Fay Adams, introduction to Henry V, 1888
• 32 George Charles Moore Smith, introduction and notes to Henry V, 1893
• 33 Beverley Ellison Warner, history and dramatic art, 1894
• 34 Barrett Wendell, a mixed assessment of Henry V and its title character, 1894
• 35 Frederick Samuel Boas, discriminating comments on Henry and the play, 1896
• 36 George Bernard Shaw, a scathing denunciation of Henry, 1896
• 37 Georg Morris Cohen Brandes, high praise for Henry and modified praise for the play, 1898
• 38 David McDowell Hannay, strong criticism of Henry, 1898
• 39 Charles Harold Herford, the choruses, the king, the French, and the British, 1899
• 40 J. Lytelton Etty, history and Shakespeare’s Henry, 1900
• 41 Sidney Lee, a general assessment of the play and its hero, 1900
• 42 Arthur Wilson Verity, miscellaneous remarks on Henry V, 1900
• 43 Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, a defense of the romantic drama, 1901
• 44 William Butler Yeats, the ‘commonplace’ character of Henry V, 1901
• 45 Andrew Cecil Bradley, on Henry as prince and king, 1902
• 46 Felix Emanuel Schelling, on the king, the epic, and the comic in Henry V, 1902
• 47 Herbert Arthur Evans, introduction to Henry V, 1903
• 48 Richard Green Moulton, expanded comments on Henry V, 1903
• 49 Edmund Kerchever Chambers, an overview of Henry V, 1905
• 50 Sidney Lee, Shakespeare and the ‘imaginary forces’ of the audience, 1906
• 51 Morton Luce, general remarks on the play, 1906
• 52 Charlotte Endymion Porter, original comments on the Chorus and the play, 1906
• 53 Frank Harris, Shakespeare’s ‘embarrassment’ over Henry, 1909
• 54 John Edward Masefield, a harsh assessment of Henry V, 1911
• 55 Charles Edward Montague, the wider truth of Shakespeare’s ‘way with Agincourt’, 1911
• 56 Stopford Augustus Brooke, on patriotism, the king, the troubling aspects of the play and Shakespeare’s balance, 1913
• 57 James Brander Matthews, Shakespeare’s failed artistry in Henry V, 1913
• 58 Francis Thompson, Shakespeare’s native prose style, 1913
• 59 John William Cunliffe, Henry V in Shakespeare’s time and ours, 1916
• 60 William Rhys Roberts, patriotism and the Welsh, 1916
• 61 John Arthur Ransome Marriott, history and Henry V, 1918
• 62 Gerald Gould, an ironic reading of Henry V, 1919
• 63 Albert Harris Tolman, defining the ‘epic’ in Henry V, 1919
• 64 John Stuart Mackenzie, Henry the poseur, 1920
• 65 Elmer Edgar Stoll, Henry V in its time and ours, 1922
• 66 John Cann Bailey, Henry as the plain, honest English king, 1923
• 67 Norbert Hardy Wallis, unstinting praise for the king and the play, 1924
• 68 Harley Granville-Barker, Henry V as marking the danger-point of Shakespeare’s career, 1925
• 69 John Cann Bailey, further comments on Henry V, 1929
• 70 Henry Buckley Charlton, Henry V as the greatest of plain men, 1929
• 71 Maurice Roy Ridley, the ‘successful’ character of Henry V, 1935
• 72 Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon, the swift and soaring imagery of Henry V, 1935
• 73 John Middleton Murry, on Falstaff’s death, Henry and history, 1936
• 74 Charles Walter Stansby Williams, on honour and Henry, 1936
• 75 Maurice Roy Ridley, expanded comments on the king and the play, 1937
• 76 Derek Antona Traversi, theme, motif and poetic texture in Shakespeare’s sober Henry V, 1941
• 77 George Richard Wilson Knight, Henry V as an exemplary Christian King, 1944
• 78 Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard, more negative reaction to Henry V, 1944
• 79 John Leslie Palmer, the swelling monarch and the shrinking man, 1945
• 80 Una Mary Ellis-Fermor, Henry V: the empty statesman-king, 1945
• Notes
• A select bibliography
• Permissions
• Index
• Copyright