Figuring the King in Henry V: Political Rhetoric and the Limits of Performance

Abstract

It seems somewhat perverse to use Henry V to talk about the limitations of rhetoric when the play is substantially about the way the heroic English king uses rhetoric to fashion an unforgettable image of himself and the nation-building enterprise on which he is embarked. But while the play does chronicle Henry’s military victories in France, it ends with a vision of his death and the squandering of his legacy. It is surely worth considering that if rhetoric was a major source of Henry’s strength, it might also contain the seeds of his undoing. Rhetoric is the vehicle by which Henry V establishes himself as an irresistible king, but it is also the vehicle that enmeshes him in contradiction, in the condition of loss, and in the messiness of collaboration, where other points of view complicate his self-presentation.