WordCruncher Exercises for Henry V
by Fran Teague
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(The first two exercises require Word Cruncher; the other smaller exercises should work with any search engine. To open an excellent search engine, press here.)
1. Brothers in Battle: (You may want to use the altF4 key to limit your initial search to Henry V.) Try looking up all variants of brother* in the play. Notice who claims whom as a brother, when brotherhood is a biological fact and when it is a promised reward. The shifting relationships between the king and his troops, the kings and other aristocrats, and between individual soldiers are all worth noting. Now turn the search bounds off. What character in an earlier play of the Henriad claims to be Henry's "second brother"? Soon after he makes that claim, another pair of characters enter: who are they? Enter the name of Henry's "second brother" and see how often he appears in Henry V. You'll find out what happened to another of these characters in Henry V at 3.4.39 ff.; at 3.4.98 you'll find out what King thinks of that. Finally, at 4.7.1-7, you'll learn what happened to the last of these characters. Henry responds to that event at 4.7.55. Is the order that he gives after learning about the character's fate very different from the order he gives at 4.6.32?
2. You Who? In the Renaissance, "thou" was the familiar second-person pronoun--used for intimates and social inferiors; "you" was the formal second-person--used for general discourses and social superiors. Enter King Henry V's speech prefix to locate all of his speeches. (For example, in the Riverside text, you would enter "k" and a space, then "hen" and a space.) Use the F2 key to start a second list: thou and you. When you move from the word list to the passage list, you might browse around to see whom the King speaks to familiarly and whom he addresses formally. If you move into the play text level, find and scan 4.1. Note that when the King pretends to be a commoner, he is formal with the common soldiers. Pistol, predictably, is over-familiar. When Henry and Williams disagree, the King shifts to the familiar form. Now look at 4.8: Williams and the King use a different set of pronouns. Finally, you might check the pronouns that Henry uses when he proposes to Katherine, 5.2.99 ff. And if your French is good, check the uses of "tu" and "vous."
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3. Ceremony What does King Henry tell Bates the king is like when his "ceremonies [are] laid by"? What does he later tell himself about the worth of ceremony?
4. How does the Archbishop of Canterbury account for Henry's reformation?
5. A certain group of characters uses the names of Renaissance dances (e.g., galliard, morris-dance, lavolta, coranto) when they discuss and condemn another group. Who says what about whom? And what does Henry say about his dancing ability to the Princess Katherine?
6. How often does the Chorus appear and what is the character's function?
7. When the English begin laying siege to Harfleur (which the play calls Harflew), Henry gives a rallying speech to his soldiers. What animals does he tell them they should imitate? When he's telling the governor of the town what could happen, does he follow his own advice?
8. Before the battle of Agincourt, Henry gives another rallying speech about Saint Crispin's Day. What will happen on that day in the future?
9. When Westmerland wishes for reinforcements, what does Henry say he himself covets? Who sounds most like Hotspur in this play?
10. What news does the English Herald bring to Henry?
11. "Excess of wine" leads one of Henry's subjects to rail against the king. What does Henry do to him? How do Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge react? King Henry shows the three some papers. How do they react? What does he tell them then?