Wordsworth Classics: Henry V

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Henry V is the most famous and influential of Shakespeares history plays. Its powerful patriotic rhetoric has resounded down the ages. Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics Shakespeare Series, with Henry V as its inaugral volume, presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeares works. The textual editing endeavours to take account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. Henry V is the most famous and influential of Shakespeares history plays. Its powerful patriotic rhetoric has resounded down the ages, gaining eloquent expression in Laurence Oliviers renowned film. Henry himself, astute and charismatic, who led his `band of brothers to victory in the Battle of Agincourt, could indeed seem to be `this star of England. In recent decades the play has attracted increasing critical attention and is now highly controversial. Kenneth Branaghs film-production reflected the changing valuation. Does this play have a sceptical sub-text which subverts its patriotism? Is Henrys achievement beset by irony? Has current scepticism distorted a predominantly and proudly nationalistic drama? Henry V demonstrates Shakespeares acclaimed ability to bring new complexity to the material that he adapted, so that different eras may find within his work the familiar and the strange, the congenial and the harsh, the sustaining and the challenging.

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