Category: Henry V

Henry V is one of Shakespeare’s most popular historical plays, celebrated for its rousing speeches and themes of leadership, loyalty, and nationalism. The speeches of the play’s titular character, Henry V, are particularly resonant in today’s society, as they explore themes of morality, duty, and the consequences of war. The iconic “St. Crispin’s Day” speech, for example, has been used in modern times to inspire soldiers, athletes, and politicians alike, and its message of courage and brotherhood continues to resonate with audiences today. Additionally, the play’s themes of leadership and responsibility are relevant to contemporary political discourse, as leaders grapple with issues of power, integrity, and the common good. Overall, the speeches of Henry V offer timeless insights into the human condition and continue to inspire and provoke thought in today’s society.

Browse the text of Henry V entire play here.

Christmas in Shakespeare’s Plays?

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

I continue playing with ChatGPT in as many varied ways as I can imagine. Last night I asked it to write me a blog post on “Christmas in Shakespeare’s Plays.” Here’s what I got. Let’s dissect!

The celebration of Christmas has a long and varied history, and it has been depicted in literature and art for centuries. In the plays of William Shakespeare, Christmas is often portrayed as a time of joy, celebration, and reflection.

Fine, I guess. Generic.

One of the most well-known references to Christmas in Shakespeare’s plays is in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In this play, the character Bottom describes a dream he had in which he was transformed into an ass and danced at a Christmas feast. This humorous portrayal of Christmas is a lighthearted example of the way in which the holiday was often depicted in Elizabethan England.

…what? After all these years I’ve still got some pretty hefty impostor syndrome when it comes to Shakespeare, so whenever it said Bottom references “dancing at a Christmas feast” my first thought was, “He does? Why don’t I remember that?” So I went looking:

I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was–there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was,–and
methought I had,–but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of
this dream: it shall be called Bottom’s Dream,
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the
latter end of a play, before the duke:
peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death.

I even went into the Quarto versions. I’m aware that just searching “Christmas” isn’t going to yield a hit, but so far I see nothing even close. I asked on Twitter, and others didn’t seem to know, either. Hmm. Ok, moving on.

In “Henry V,” Shakespeare references the Christmas season in a more serious manner. The play takes place during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, and it tells the story of King Henry V’s victory at the Battle of Agincourt. In one scene, the king speaks to his troops on the eve of the battle, reminding them that it is Christmas time and encouraging them to fight for their country.

It’s Christmas Time? <asks Google to remind me when St. Crispin’s Day is> October. Again, I’ll plead ignorance and ask, is there a connection here? Would you call Agincourt “Christmas time”? Ok, one more.

“Twelfth Night” is another play that features Christmas as a prominent theme. The play is set in Illyria during the Christmas season and follows the misadventures of the character Viola, who disguises herself as a man after being shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria. In one memorable scene, the character Sir Toby Belch gets drunk and sings a song about Christmas, declaring it to be “a time for joy, a time for love, a time for peace on earth.”

This is just a no. Twelfth Night is named for when the play was performed, not for the plot. It doesn’t mention anything related to Christmas or the Christmas season at all. And, much like Bottom’s Dream, I have no clue what song of Sir Toby’s it’s talking about. The word “peace” pretty much only appears in the play when people are saying “Hold thy peace.” Joy doesn’t appear at all. No version of “a time for” anything appears at all.

Overall, Shakespeare’s plays depict Christmas as a time of joy, celebration, and reflection. Whether it is through humorous references or more serious themes, the holiday is an important part of the fabric of Elizabethan England and continues to be a beloved tradition today.

And we wrap up with the generic, basically repeating the intro paragraph. This is what I used to teach my kids as the “middle school format”. Make a statement, say what your essay will show. Three paragraphs demonstrating your point. Conclude by restating your original argument.

At first glance I only picked up on Bottom’s Dream and thought, “Oh, interesting, I wonder what bug caused that.” But upon further reading and realization that it’s entirely wrong and just flat out making stuff up, my whole attitude toward the program has changed. A student tasked with looking for Christmas references in Shakespeare’s works could be given this response and assume every word of it is true. I sent me feedback to the creators (which you’re supposed to do, that’s one of the reasons it’s free for people), but I don’t expect it’s something they can address. Where do you even look for the source of something like that?

On that note, Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope everybody gets lots of Shakespeare Geek Merchandise!

Mystery Men of Shakespeare

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

I discovered this weekend that the 1999 Ben Stiller movie Mystery Men was finally on Netflix. When my kids were younger I kept coming back around to it as something I wanted to show them, given the rise of superhero movies, but it was never available for streaming. This one’s weird, it’s more of a “super anti-hero” movie where a bunch of normal guys with arguably no powers at all wish they were heroes. You’ve got Paul Reubens as “the spleen”, who farts at people as a weapon, Hank Azaria as the fork flinging Blue Raja, William H Macy as the Shoveler (“God gave me a gift. I shovel well, I shovel very well”) … the list goes on, all easily recognizable character actors. Janeane Garofalo as “The Bowler”. Ben Stiller as “Mr. Furious”. You won’t necessarily like him when he’s angry, but you won’t have to worry too much about it.

Why are we talking about this? Because when we sat down to watch it I noticed something I hadn’t seen twenty years ago – William H Macy delivering his version of Henry V!

I Don’t Know Who Zion Is, But I Approve

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

One of the earliest posts I ever made on Shakespeare Geek was about an ad for a videogame that featured the Henry V “Band of Brothers” speech. The idea of spotting Shakespeare references in the wild, and sharing them, has always been a central theme for the site.

Just because I’ve gotten too old to understand the references doesn’t mean I plan on stopping any time soon. I get that “Jordans” are a type of basketball sneaker, I’m not that old. I just have no idea who this Zion Williamson character is. But not only does he have his own line of Jordans, he’s introducing them with Shakespeare.

I guess this guy is on the Pelicans? Here’s how much I know about basketball, I didn’t know that was a team. I’m deep in Celtics country. Which reminds me, apparently our new star is named Romeo. That’s surely got to come up again!

Sigh No More, Students ( A Geeklet Story )

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

I hear my oldest coming down the steps. “I wonder if she needs help with calculus or physics?” I ask my wife.

She rounds the corner. “Ok, so, we’re playing trivia in virtual classroom and the category was Shakespeare.” Oh fun. “Which character has been in three plays?”

“I’m going to assume Falstaff.”

“Right. Yes, well, we got it wrong. We guessed Antony.”

“That’d be Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, only two.”

“Exactly, I knew that wasn’t it. But anyway, he’s, like, a big character, isn’t he?”

My kids know thee well, old man.

“He was never the title character, but it’s been argued by more than one person that he’s Shakespeare’s greatest creation. Books have been written on just him. I literally have a book upstairs right now that’s nothing but an actor’s diary of when he played Falstaff.”

“I thought so. Our teacher told us that he’s a huge Shakespeare fan, and how he’s read all of the Henry’s because, you know, he prefers the lesser known plays, and that he didn’t remember this character, he must not have been that important.”

I fire up my computer. “Hold on a second.” I google “Harold Bloom Falstaff”:

Then there’s Harold Bloom, who, in the opening pages of his short, charming new book Falstaff: Give Me Life,[1] writes that he has “come to believe that if we are to represent Shakespeare by only one play, it ought to be the complete Henry IV, to which I would add Mistress Quickly’s description of the death of Falstaff in act 2, scene 3 of Henry V.”

For Bloom, what puts Henry IV on top is not the starring role, Prince Hal, but the supporting character Sir John Falstaff. “I think of this as the Falstaffiad,” writes Bloom, “rather than the Henriad, as scholars tend to call it.” For Bloom, who has been teaching at Yale since 1955 and who is considered by many to be the most distinguished living literary critic (he’s 87), Falstaff is not just “the glory of the Henry IV plays” but (his italics) “the grandest personality in all of Shakespeare.” 

You can’t bluff your Shakespeare knowledge in front of my kids.

Never Miss An Opportunity (A Geeklet Story)

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

So my daughter has a friend over the other night, who happens to be involved in local theatre. Over dinner conversation, I ask, “Which play is next?”

“Musical?” she replies. I can’t tell if that’s the name of a play, or if she’s asking me to clarify which musical they’re doing next or just any play. “Oh but I guess we’re doing Shakespeare too.” This friend knows she’s in a Shakespeare house, for context.

“Which one?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Give me the smallest clue,” I try.

“Something underground about Henry IV?”

“Well, there are two plays called Henry IV.”

“That’s probably it, then! I bet it’s one of those.”

Never one to miss a teaching opportunity I proceed to explain Henry IV in my no doubt highly inaccurate but hopefully compelling way: “So at the start of the play you’ve got the old king, Henry IV. And he’s got this son, Hal. And Hal’s being groomed to take over when his father dies, and become Henry V. Like William and Harry, from the Royal Family? Same idea. Oldest son has to live his life a certain way because he’s going to be king someday. Well, Hal has no interest in being king. Hal just wants to party with his friends.”

“They partied back in Shakespeare’s day?”

“Oh my yes. So Hal’s got this best friend, Falstaff. Falstaff’s much older than Hal, and he ends up being more like a father figure. They do everything together, they party, they get drunk, they wake up late, they get into fights. But all the while Falstaff knows that one day, one day this kid is going to be king. And that’s going to be a big day, that’s going to be everything they ever wanted.

And then one day it happens. Falstaff’s sleeping late as usual when his friends wake him up and say, “It’s happened! The king is dead! Hal is the new king!” And Falstaff goes running through town to find him and celebrate that the day has finally come. And you get this big huge scene when Falstaff comes into the coronation and bursts through the crowd shouting “My boy! My king!”

I pause and see if I’ve still got her attention. I very much do.

“And Hal turns to him and says, “I know thee not, old man.” And banishes him.”

Her jaw dropped.

Who says Shakespeare is boring? I will teach you Shakespeare in my kitchen while I clear the table. Do I get some details wrong? Probably. Does my captive audience learn anything about themes and symbolism? Nope. But are they interested now? Definitely.