" Unfortunately for
the would-be judges, Coleridge did not guide their opinions of "Henry
V."; he hardly mentioned the play, and so they all write the absurdest
nonsense about it, praising because praise of Shakespeare has come to be
the fashion, and also no doubt because his bad work is more on the level
of their intelligence than his good work.
It can hardly be denied that Shakespeare identified himself as far as he
could with Henry V. Before the King appears he is praised extravagantly,
as Posthumus was praised, but the eulogy befits the poet better than the
soldier. The Archbishop of Canterbury says:
... "When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences."
the Bishop of Ely goes even further in excuse:
..."The prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness."
And this is how the soldier-king himself talks:
"My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique that they have in France
Or should, or should not bar us in our claim;
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading .
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