Once More Into the Breach

King Henry V
By William Shakespeare


You know all those conspiracy theories about William Shakespeare?  That he often stole his stories, or even that he didn't write all of his plays but took credit for other people's work?  After reading Henry V I kinda get it.  I've read a lot of Shakespeare's plays.  Ideally, I'll eventually read them all, but I'd say I've read about half at this point - mostly the comedies and tragedies, with only a few of the histories here and there.  Henry V is unlike any Shakespeare play I've ever read.  It's the first of his plays that I could possibly believe was written by someone else.  The language is very Shakespearean of course, and all the iambic pentameter fun is alive and well in this piece, but he's using elements that I've never seen in his other work.  He writes in different dialects (broken English and French) throughout the play, one of the characters has a sort of speech impediment where all of his Bs become Ps, and there are long exchanges of dialogue in French.  Obviously, the play is mostly set in France so the use of French makes sense, except that I've never seen it in another Shakespeare play.  And it's not like none of his other plays take place in other countries.  There's no Italian in Romeo and Juliet for example.

Now, maybe he felt comfortable using French here because as England's neighbor to the south, Shakespeare's audience could pick up a lot of the meaning in the French scenes.  I don't know.  I will say that I do like scenes in plays in unfamiliar languages.  That can be done very effectively, and there are a couple of instances here where I think it would be very effective on stage.  There's one entire scene in French, and while I think I'd enjoy watching it on stage and not knowing what was being said, just reading it, I do want to go and look up what that scene is about.  The other scene is where Henry is attempting to woo Katherine at the end of the play through the use of an interpreter and more broken English.

Overall, I really liked this play.  I've owned the film version with Kenneth Branagh for years but have never watched it, but now I will definitely have to.  I think Henry is an interesting character, being so passionate and quick to go to war in the beginning, but finding mercy through his success in battle.  It works well for me.