Shakespeare's "Henry V": person and persona

Abstract

With the Pyramus and Thisbe ‘play within the play’ of A Midsummer Night’s Dream V.i, Shakespeare had parodied the age-old device of scene setting quite mercilessly. It is most surprising, then, to see him make such extensive use of the same device in Henry V some five years later. At the beginning of each of the five acts the Prologue apologizes, ad nauseam, for the limitations of the Elizabethan stage, its lack of props. When the purpose of a dramatic work is to re-enact the grandeur and majesty of Good King Harry, the epic sweep of his victories on French soil, the best efforts of the set designers of the day are found wanting: