The Importance Of Historical Drama In Shakespeare's Henry V

“Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play” (Shakespeare prologue.36). As Shakespeare’s Henry V opens, a chorus calls upon the audience to “hear” and “judge” the play. Essentially, they ask the audience to pay attention and ponder the action they are watching. As time progresses, those words continue to open the play every time it is performed. Fortunately for Shakespeare's legacy, these words have not become dated, for evaluating historical drama remains a worthwhile endeavor in order to understand changing culture. Henry V tells the story of a historical event, but it also tells a different story -- a story that evolves depending on the time period of its audience. Each new generation can learn something different from an old classic. Relatedly, modern historical drama, like TS

One particularly powerful custom was primogeniture. The inheritance of land was crucial to a person’s status; it could make the difference between a life of impoverished serfdom or prosperous baronry. Unfortunately, the rules of inheritance were complicated, and often unfair. In Henry V, King Henry meets with the Bishop of Canterbury to understand how he can make a legitimate claim to the French throne. What follows is a drawn out, even humorously exaggerated, explanation of ancient Salic Law that partially hinges on the sexist notion that females cannot inherit land and also hinges on absurd definitions of geographic boundaries, such as “Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe” (Shakespeare 1.2.49). This humor elevates Shakespeare’s critical tone and allows him to satirize the ways by which wealthy families passed along land and power. Literary analyst Gordon Smith suggests that Shakespeare may have grown to disapprove of the rules of inheritance because many theater patrons were “landless younger sons” who would have been left empty-handed by England’s first-son primogeniture