Henry V

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Henry V
Authors and Contributors      By (author) William Shakespeare
Edited by Prof. Cedric Watts
Introduction and notes by Prof. Cedric Watts
Series edited by Dr. Keith Carabine
SeriesWordsworth Classics
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:160
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
Category/GenreShakespeare plays
ISBN/Barcode 9781840224214
ClassificationsDewey:822.33
Audience
General
Edition New edition

Publishing Details

Publisher Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Imprint Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Publication Date 5 June 2000
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

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 Shakespeare's 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 Shakespeare's history plays. Its powerful patriotic rhetoric has resounded down the ages, gaining eloquent expression in Laurence Olivier's 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 Branagh's film-production reflected the changing valuation. Does this play have a sceptical sub-text which subverts its patriotism? Is Henry's achievement beset by irony? Has current scepticism distorted a predominantly and proudly nationalistic drama? Henry V demonstrates Shakespeare's 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.