Shakespeare and Politics: Prodigal Son or Machiavellian "Prince"

By Jack Fitzhenry

Part of what keeps Shakespeare in modern classrooms is not his saintly status, but that quality of his work which seems to withhold something from the reader, yielding it up only when new modes of interpretation become available. Shakespeare is timeless precisely because his work can respond to new schools of criticism and thought, thus providing something unique for successive generations of scholars. It is important to note that Shakespeare is not just for the english nerds but can be appreciated by a variety of disciplines should they be sensitive to its virtues.  Not least among these are political scientists and historians, and this is of course especially true for his historic plays.  Shakespeare is as adept a political and social commentator as any modern incarnation, a David Brooks, Paul Krugman, et al.

What might then be interesting and relevant about Henry IV parts one and two, is the prevailing interpretation of Hal's transformation, whatever that might be at a given time.  It seems that currently we might have a greater proclivity towards cynicism when reading him from a modern context.  Indeed the dying advice of Henry IV to his son to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels" seems designed to awaken our skepticism of such an authority. This seems especially prophetic given that Henry V focuses on just such a foreign quarrel.  However, the point is that Henry V has long been venerated as a quintessentially English hero, every bit as noble as Shakespeare himself, and yet a modern reader might wonder at this veneration given some of the grounds for skepticism not only of his war and policy but of the very sincerity of his character Shakespeare remains none the less elusive, and it seems to me any attempts to decisively define his position are inherently fraught.

Consider for instance, Hal’s bold declaration in the closing lines of act 1 scene 2, he leaves the audience with a wealth of expectations.  This project of "redeeming time" has at this point only been conceptualized, and the audience watches with expectation to see it brought to fruition.  Then in a sense interpreting Hal becomes a bit like interpreting Hamlet's antic disposition in that the audience is always left to question Hal's motives and actions.  What is derived from calculated political necessity and what is derived from genuine human feeling is not always easy to determine.  Partly one's evaluation lies in the level of cynicism with which they read the character of Hal.

What is certain though is that eventually this plan does reach fruition as is evidenced by the heroes apotheosis of Henry V.  Can we then identify a crucial turning point is Hal's character from tavern waif to noble king?  Doubtless there are a number of points one might put forth, but obvious as they may seem these are my interpretations.

Were one to read only Henry IV, one might think this project brought to fruition first in Hals encounter with his father in act 3 scene 2, but certainly in his heroic comportment in the battle of Shrewsbury in act 5.  However, even were one to stop here, there yet lingers signs of his tavern life, represented most formidably in the character of Sir John Falstaff.  Falstaff is the veritable prince of merriment, king of the tavern world, and a competing father figure for prince Hal.  Though he and Hal are separated from one another for the majority of part 2, Falstaff remains prominent and cannot be so in absence of his close personal relationship with Hal. In a scene most indicative of the incompleteness of his transformation Hal and Poins spy on Falstaff in Eastcheap Tavern as he is with his mistress, Doll.

While still indulging in his carousing, the prince is a truant to his father's deathbed.  The audience's awareness of the King's health signals the imminence of a do or die moment for Hal.  Hal does make it to his father's bedside before his passing and professes once more his love and loyalty, but this as I have mentioned has been down before in act 3 of part one.  We have yet to see his transformation move from rhetoric to the pure force of consistent action.

With the passing of his father, instead of acquiescing to his surrogate father Falstaff, Hal, now Henry V, recognizes the lord chief justice, previously a personal adversary, as a sort of spiritual father.  In fact in act 5 scene 2 he says as much: "You shall be as a father to my youth".  Symbolically there can be no clearer act of transformation than this precedence which the spirit of the law is now taking for the first time over the spirit of merriment and carnivalesque that had previously pervaded Hal's life.  Here it is that the audience senses the transformation being fulfilled.  It is because he is thus resolved, that he is able to rebuke Falstaff with such callus coldness. This poignant moment in act 5 scene 5 should not be mistaken for an actual moment of transformation, rather it is the tying up of a loose end, the necessary closing of a chapter enabled by the new found force of true transformation.

Jack Fitzhenry is a senior English major at Williams College.  In addition to Shakespeare his literary interests include the works of William Faulkner and Henry David Thoreau in addition to those works which address literary theory and the derivation of textual meaning.