This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

This new edition of Shakespeare's most celebrated war play points to the many inconsistencies in the presentation of Henry V. Andrew Gurr's substantial introduction explains the play as a reaction to the decade of war which preceded its writing, and analyses the play's double vision of Henry as both military hero and self-seeking individual. Professor Gurr shows how the patriotic declarations of the Chorus are contradicted by the play's action. He places the play's more controversial sequences in the context of Elizabethan thought, in particular the studies of the laws and morality of war written in the years before Henry V. He also studies the variety of language and dialect in the play. The appendices summarise Shakespeare's debt to his dramatic and historical sources, while the stage history shows how subsequent centuries have received and adapted the play on the stage and in film.

Publisher Description

While much has been written on Shakespeare's debt to the classical tradition, less has been said about his roots in the popular culture of his own time. This is the first book to explore the full range of his debts to Elizabethan popular culture. Topics covered include the mystery plays, festive custom, clowns, romance and popular fiction, folklore and superstition, everyday sayings, and popular songs. These essays show how Shakespeare, throughout his dramatic work, used popular culture. A final chapter, which considers ballads with Shakespearean connections in the seventeenth century, shows how popular culture immediately after his time used Shakespeare.