53 pages 1 hour read

William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Michael Neill, Paul Werstine

Henry V

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1599

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Themes

War and Conquest

The plot of Henry V concerns the English invasion of France in 1414-1420. The narrative is driven by war, while success in war vindicates the rise of Henry as a King and as a man. The warring nobles, especially the feud between Henry and the Dauphin, drive the war-themed narrative arc of the play, but characters such as Fluellen, Pistol, and Katherine provide nuanced perspectives on the realities of war. These scenes are essential in portraying the war on stage, where the actual battles can only be suggested. They also show that William Shakespeare’s play focuses on human interest: War in the play is not an exercise in historical or tactical fact but an exploration of human difference, identity, collaboration, and reconciliation.

Henry’s war is a war of national and personal conquest, a way of putting his reckless youth behind him and showing the world that he (and his country) demand to be taken seriously. Henry’s feud with the Dauphin makes explicit the linking of his personal and kingly honor: The conquest of France is the test of Henry’s new mature character and his fitness to be king.

Related Titles

By these authors

Study Guide
Guide cover image

All's Well That Ends Well

William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Antony and Cleopatra

William Shakespeare, Іван Франко, Barbara A. Mowat, Ivan Franko, Panteleimon Kulish, Cynthia Marshall, Ludwig Tieck, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Paul Werstine

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

As You Like It

William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Coriolanus

William Shakespeare, Roma Gill, William Aldis Wright, Francis Fergusson

Plot Summary
Guide cover placeholder

Cymbeline

William Shakespeare, Harold Bloom, Gabriele Baldini

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Hamlet

William Shakespeare, Israel Gollancz, Harold Bloom, Rex Gibson, Henry Norman Hudson, Max J. Herzberg, L.A. Sherman

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Henry IV, Part 1

William Shakespeare, David Scott Kastan

Plot Summary
Guide cover placeholder

Henry IV, Part 2

William Shakespeare, David Scott Kastan, David Bevington

Plot Summary
Guide cover placeholder

Henry VIII

William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine

Plot Summary
Guide cover placeholder

Henry VI, Part 1

William Shakespeare

Plot Summary
Guide cover placeholder

Henry VI, Part 3

William Shakespeare, John D. Cox, Eric Rasmussen

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare, Roma Gill, Harold Bloom, William Allan Neilson

Plot Summary
Guide cover placeholder

King John

William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

King Lear

William Shakespeare, William James Rolfe

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Love's Labour's Lost

William Shakespeare, Henry R. Woudhuysen

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

Macbeth

William Shakespeare, Jack Armstrong, Carmen Kahn

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Measure For Measure

William Shakespeare, Barbara A. Mowat, Paul Werstine

Teaching Guide + Study Guide
Guide cover image

Much Ado About Nothing

Gail Kern Paster, Robert Jackson, Barbara A. Mowat, Henry Norman Hudson, F.H. Mares, Henry Irving, Frederick S. Boas, Paul Werstine, William Shakespeare

Study Guide
Guide cover image

Nature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary Mapes Dodge, George Darley, William Motherwell, George Eliot, John Milton, Clement Scott, George Arnold, Robert Browning, James Thomson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., William Ernest Henley, Denis Florence MacCarthy, William Cullen Bryant, John Sterling, John Clare, Izaak Walton, Matthew Arnold, James Whitcomb Riley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edward Jenner, William Gilmore Simms, Charles G.D. Roberts, Henry Timrod, William Cox Bennett, Bliss Carman, Archibald Lampman, George MacDonald, William Shakespeare, Matthias Claudius, Alexander Hume, James Beattie, Thomas Gray, Craig Franklin, John Cunningham, Norman Rowland Gale, James Gates Percival, Joel Benton, Thomas Heywood, Richard Hovey, Anna Boynton Averill, Charles Sangster, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dora Hill Read Goodale, Joanna Baillie, Thomas Nashe, Henry Wotton, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, John Howard Bryant, John G.C. Brainard, Thomas Campbell, Eduard Mörike, Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Morris, David Gray, William Cowper, W.B. Yeats, William Prescott Foster, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Thomas Carew, William Howitt, John B. Tabb, Jones Very, Henry Fielding, Barry Cornwall, Samuel Daniel, John Keats, Homer, George Francis Savage-Armstrong, John Leyden, Tomas Peter, Thomas Hood, Philip Pendleton Cooke, Richard Watson Gilder, Ethelwyn Wetherald, William Wordsworth, Euripides, Joseph Blanco White, Edmund Clarence Stedman, G.W. Pettee, Robert Tannahill, Ebenezer Jones, John Chalkhill, Abraham Cowley, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Russell Lowell, Andrew Marvell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lisle Bowles, Leanne Yau, Charles Harpur, Sonia, Edith M. Thomas, Charles Kingsley, Lord Byron, Ebenezer Elliott, Benjamin Franklin Taylor, Richard Henry Horne, Jason in Panama, Walter Scott, Hartley Coleridge, Duncan Campbell Scott, Alfred Tennyson, John Davies, Aristophanes, Charles G. Eastman, Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald, William Browne, Robert Burns, Samuel Rogers, Ludwig H.C. Hölty, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Celia Laighton Thaxter