The Lessons of Language in Henry V

By Sabadino Parker

William Shakespeare’s King Henry V is a play about language: who has the power to construct reality for others by power of codification and, subsequently, who has the power to interpret the code and set the stage for human action. Language is the very essence of civilization, and to control its use is to have dominance over one’s culture, as well as one’s self. Words are the material of selfhood; they are also the instruments by which a paternalistic culture maintains its identity. For an aspiring king, such as Henry, demonstrating proper dominance translates into a calculated performance of proper articulation in order to unify the cacophony of differing accents and tongues under a single, masculine, English voice.

In an English world, mastery of the English forms acts as the ladder to preeminence. In Henry’s time––and still, to an extent, today––masculine forces and ideologies determined these forms. Henry, in order to prove his claim to the throne, must articulate the claim by speaking in manners preferred by this masculine world of English public life: extensive, rallying speeches asserting one’s manhood or constructed according to the traditional ideas of proper form (i.e., iambic pentameter), with presumably direct and distinct meaning that cannot be misconstrued. Shakespeare, fully aware of the arbitrary nature of both language and reality, makes sure to insert scenes into King Henry V that demonstrate the uncertainty of meaning in language and, in turn, undercut Henry’s actions and the masculine ideologies driving them. Katherine’s “language lesson” in KH III:iv is an especially poignant scene, which allows the protean nature behind language to subvert the rest of the play’s narrative (and, thus, Henry’s own) through its comedic approach to creating meaning and the sudden presence of the feminine in an essentially masculine narrative. Similarly, the play’s final scene presents the only other significant female appearance, one to which Henry must humble himself in order to complete the final movement of his mission. Kenneth Branagh’s translation of these scenes works a similarly seditious effect in his 1989 film adaptation, Henry V.

While Henry may never explicitly state his innermost motives for waging war on France, a masculine world centered on proper performance directs much of his behavior. After all, it is the motives of the Archbishop of Canterbury that spark the play’s action and his interpretation of the Salic Law’s language that convinces Henry to declare his throne’s claim, the proving of thus becoming a test of Henry’s own manhood and validation of his kingly (paternalistic) role. Canterbury only has such power to influence the king because he occupies an esteemed position within the patriarchal hierarchy of the Church and England. Nonetheless, it is his fear of “losing the better half of [the Church’s] possession” (KH I:i:8) that drives him; and, in the masculine world, possession is the key to power. Canterbury reads the Salic Law––itself an instrument to prevent women from achieving power––to awaken England and Henry’s “sleeping sword of war” (I:ii:22). His interpretation, so vehemently identified as being the one and only true interpretation, injects into Henry the determination he needs to make such a seemingly irrational claim––it sets the stage for him to articulate his identity as a man and king. The quest becomes a personal one when the Dauphin puts into question Henry’s manhood by answering his claim with a demasculinizing treasure of tennis balls, and subsequently Henry’s first true speech of the play is his verbal retort and declaration of war (I:ii:260-298). The war is a game of words and demonstration of bravado and provides a context by which Henry can come into his own.

Henry possesses more lines than any other character, and they are, except for the scene during which he disguises himself before the battle at Agincourt, performed always in a public setting for the purpose of configuring his role as king. Henry’s play revolves around fathers and manhood––the aggression between father-kings and the succession of sons. He means his speeches to win the approval of the English monarchal ideology and the men who sustain it. Never is he in the presence of women, and the only substantial appearance by the feminine before the play’s end is that of Katherine’s during III:iv. The feminine is repressed both by Henry, who must focus all his energies on developing a kingly identity in a masculine world, and the play itself, as its text (its language) becomes the vessel by which the audience realizes his character. The feminine, and all a paternalistic society signifies as representative of the feminine, is absent from much of the play to an almost haunting degree. However, the scenes during which Katherine appears place doubt on the codes of the world in which Henry seeks power, eliciting comedy at the expense of the English language and the denying the assertion of any singular meanings in the world.

Katherine attempts to learn English from her attendant, Alice, who has visited England and so knows enough to try to translate. What would be comic to English-speaking audiences are Katherine’s mispronunciations of such common words as “elbow,” which she accidentally calls “de bilbow” (III:iv:26). (A “bilbo” is an iron bar used to shackle the feet of prisoners.) Conversely, Katherine laughs at the English word “foot,” which sounds similar to the indecent French word “foutre,” the English equivalent of which is “to fuck.” Shakespeare, a master at punning, would have been well aware of the various interpretations audiences would have of these plays on words, such as the sexuality insinuated by her mistranslation (and the sexual nature of translation itself). The end effect, however, is to prove language as arbitrary and meaning and interpretation as subjective, so putting into question the stability of the grounds upon which Henry seeks to stake an identity.

Branagh’s transference of the scene in Henry V works especially well to maintain the elements subversive to Henry’s narrative. The scene directly follows Henry’s (Branagh) conquest and appropriation of Harfleur. As the French have become the “other” to Henry, they are associated with the feminine and an understanding of the world as devoid of definitive translation. It makes sense, then, for Katherine (Emma Thompson) to appear immediately following his entrance into the gaping gates of the “girded Harfleur” (KH III:Cho.:27), as now the feminine slowly emerges into the light of the narrative’s consciousness, which is a reflection of Henry’s own. Following this thematic rationale for the shift between scenes, the transition to the “language lesson” scene in Henry V comes with an almost jarring amount of light as Katherine peaks out between the slats of her window while diffused sunlight pours into her ivory bedchamber. While her window looks out onto dove cage, suggesting the feminine is repressed and caged by the narrative’s masculine consciousness, she also is shown blowing outwards, as if clearing away the smoke-laden tragedy of male-instigated warfare. The scene evokes a feminine feel (“feminine” in relation to the masculinity of Henry’s world), intensified by the contrast with the dark and smoky battleground outside Harfleur. The room’s door is closed, suggesting a mode of privacy as opposed to public spectacle, and the film’s music lightens; this is not a world in which strong, bold words and an assertion of masculinity or identity constructs an illusion of graveness. Staring out the window, Katherine displays her separateness from the events in which the men are engaged, as well as a longing for participation––the urge to amalgamate the masculine and feminine is ever present in Shakespeare’s plays.

Katherine requests her English lesson of Alice while staring into a small mirror. Like Henry, Katherine also seeks to form an identity, yet does so in a more holistic manner than Henry, which is why she yearns for fluency in both French and English. Unlike Henry, her power emerges through a process of synthesis and incorporation, dynamics that the play and film assert as feminine, because the masculine is concerned with differentiation, conquest, and gendered rhetoric. Branagh, in choosing not to offer English-speaking film-going audiences subtitles, creates the same effect as Shakespeare would have to an English-speaking theater-goers, which is one of confusion, thereby playing on the anxiety that a logically ordered society (“logic” as it refers to the masculine logos) feels when faced with a representation of chaos. Branagh makes clear to point out the words that Katherine wonders about are those regarding the body, as she recites her less-than-successful lesson from behind the drapes of her bed, presenting the parts in question from behind a veil-like drape. This implies both that she is viewed as meaningful to the masculine narrative as only a collection of parts, but also that her parts are quite necessary for the narrative to continue. Her presentation also suggests that language determines reality as she is, in effect, rebirthing herself under a different culture’s code. Along the same lines, the scene implies that if meanings of tangible constructs (body parts) can go awry, so too can lofty abstracts, such as the paternalistic language of law, religion, and social myth. Her back story––her text––has been repressed by the patriarchal world that seeks to cage her, but she emerges nonetheless and threatens the world with her capacity to amalgamate cultures, peoples, and tongues. Underlying Branagh’s reason for shooting the scene around a bed is the regard of English culture as masculine and, therefore, a connotation of a sexual dynamic surrounding her appropriation of a foreign tongue.

Katherine’s continued laughter at the lewdness with which she conceives the English language––an act Henry might call a mockery––comes to an abrupt end upon her opening of the door, outside of which the dismayed king, her father, stares back. The masculine world, with its grave, repressing, and watchful gaze, resumes control of the narrative, but the glimmer of an opposing one has already come through, devaluing the masculine ideology that repressed it in order to wage war. Branagh’s scene then shifts to the French king, face dissembled by his hand, mourning the English crossing of the river Somme. As Henry achieves success in the masculine world, the necessity for a feminine presence becomes more pronounced––the king is feminized and his importance wanes, while his daughter’s significance waxes. While she is at a linguistic and social disadvantage to Henry’s approach, her power––that of inclusion––is ever present.

Katherine’s subtle power is also apparent during the final scene, in which Henry concludes his peace treaty (the Treaty of Troyes) with Charles VI. Katherine is Henry’s “capital demand” (KH V:ii) of the treaty, the war prize through which he can legitimize his royal claims and ensure an heir who will unify the two nations and continue the sovereignty of the Lancastrian line. After all leave the room, Henry engages in an act of wooing the reluctant princess. If one were to assume Henry was interested only in the political logic of the marriage, then one would have to ignore the fact that the entire act of wooing is unnecessary. He does not need to win her over, as she is already won; Henry’s defeat of the French ensures the marriage. Nonetheless, he proceeds to try to convince her of his love, turning the history play into the comedy which peeked through during Katherine’s language lesson in Act III. Similar to the apparent randomness of language lesson within the context of Henry’s narrative, the acting out of the wooing scene––an act that truly has no logical meaning––connotes yet another undermining conflict in the masculine order: namely, that the presence and consent of the feminine is vital to all masculine endeavors.

It is undeniable that Henry has the overt sociological power during his and Katherine’s exchange. She has been reduced to a commodity, an article within a document’s text, which men (in the guise of nations) wrote to define their future political interactions. Seen from the perspective of Henry’s text, she is the next logical step in his quest for control. Henry has finished proving his valor and manhood in terms of man-to-man dialogues and aggression, and now must complete the role of man and king by marrying a woman and producing an heir. Shakespeare’s accentuation of the feminine in the final scene, however, works to put the cut-and-dry meanings of Henry’s narrative into question.

In King Henry the Fifth, the character with the most lines, aside from Henry, in the last scene is Queen Isabel. Unlike Katherine, her English is impeccable, as strong and regal as Henry’s own. This sudden manifestation of an articulate female figure in power underlines the underestimation with which the play’s surface consciousness regarded women. What had been repressed is now given voice, paving the way for the display Katherine’s own form of power. Henry begins to “plead his love suit” (KH V:ii:103) in the same form of speech he had maintained in all his scenes at court––iambic pentameter. This formal address immediately degrades into prose when Katherine makes clear she cannot “speak [his] England” (V:ii:105). Within the first two exchanges, she has forced him to cast off the masculine formality he had used throughout the play to achieve prominence in order to don a more personal tone. Although Henry may simply be altering his speech with the intent of achieving a desire effect (i.e., sound sincere and woo the girl), the alteration of his approach on account of her reply bespeaks of her own capacity to influence supposedly-masculine affairs. She is not the mute token of war the patriarchal world prescribes her to be. “O bon Dieu! les langues des homes sont pleine de trumperies” (V:ii:116-117), she retorts. In a switch of roles, it is Henry who must ask for clarification from Alice, acting as interpreter, who informs him Katherine has indeed pronounced her awareness that words are tools often exploited by men to achieve ulterior ends, which commonly involves denial and subjugation of that which is considered feminine. If he is to woo her successfully––and, psychologically, to come to terms with his own femininity––he must learn to use less art and more matter.

Henry’s humbling continues as he presents himself as “a plain king” (V:ii:124), entreating her for acceptance. His claim has the air of a plea. Yet, Katherine realizes he equivocates (“plain king” is an oxymoron), and she maintains her refusal to submit in any absolute terms. “Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for your sake, Kate, why, you undid me” (V:ii:132-133) Henry confesses. He then shifts further away from his prior masculine voice and assumes the language of the previously feminized French. He admits his attempt at forming French words “will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly to be shook off” (V:ii:176-177), revealing not only his gendered associations with English and French languages and cultures, but also his association with the feminine as a power that cannot be “shook off.” Katherine will soon be his new-married wife, and her arms about his neck can be an embrace of love or a constricting force of psychological castration, which reveals the ambivalence with which the masculine ego regards that which it has repressed yet desires. Nevertheless, Henry assimilates to her code in a comical performance of his inadequacy at fluency, at which she laughs. It is unclear, from Shakespeare’s text, whether he is her love or her fool. In either case, Henry’s performance has clearly downgraded from its previously grandiose flourish.

In Katherine’s final denial of Henry’s verbal advances, she responds to his plea with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “[T]ake me by the hand, and say, ‘Harry of England, I am thine!’ which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud, ‘England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine’” (V:ii:229-233) Henry begs, trying to direct the progress of the scene by informing her of his desired script, which, in essence, dissolves the matter of Salic Law and the masculine text that generated Henry’s actions throughout the play. The re-synthesis of opposites erases the distinctions that molded Henry the Fifth’s primary text and dissolves those constructs (e.g., property, nationhood) that dictated the course of the play’s masculine participants. No longer has the war been fought for England’s appropriation and domination of France, but for the integration of two opposites, a cultural amalgam. Although the men place Katherine alongside terms relating to property and that which can be possessed, Henry still finds it necessary to ask her permission, which she never specifically grants. Instead, she tells Henry she shall only do so if it pleases her father the king. This relenting is not to emphasize the power of men over women, but of women to choose the men to whom they shall offer service. Katherine’s motivations are as much political as Henry’s––she shall marry the English king in order to make the proceedings easy for her father and people––but she does not allow herself to go gently into a purely political marriage.

Branagh’s Henry V portrays the wooing scene as the instance in which Henry returns to the realm of commonality. Throughout the film, Henry is grander than life, more than a man––a divinely ordained king––a role he needed to project in order to succeed and prove his manhood. With his victory at the Battle of Agincourt, Henry no longer needs this grave persona. As the smoke clears from the battlefield, Branagh shifts the scene to the brightly lit Troyes hall in which the process of mending shall take place. The vivid colors and light evoke the same atmosphere of Katherine’s earlier scene, suggesting the play has returned to comic mode and, therefore, shall be a vehicle for the paradoxes that ultimately undermine the preceding narrative. The English and French representatives meet on opposites side of a table, the French dressed more darkly as they are the defeated party in nationalistic mourning. Katherine appears in the background veiled, a mute trophy witnessing events to which she had little involvement. Notably, Branagh excludes the character of Queen Isabel from the dialogue, even though Shakespeare had given her so much attention. The further silencing of the feminine from Branagh’s adaptation acts to fashion Katherine as the primary female figure in the play, the only one with voice or opinion (Alice merely translates and interprets) to protest Henry’s schemes. Her unveiling in private represents the emergence of the feminine into Henry’s immediate consciousness, a revelation of the textual anima. Henry had successfully stared down her father moments prior, but Katherine does not welcome the king with anything more than an open ear. His attempts to communicate with her symbolizes the problems the masculine, socialized ego has in relating to the unconscious (to which the feminine has been subjected and which the feminine represents). The unconscious does not use logical language and terms––those masculine forms left the room with the French and English representatives. Henry must relate to her in alternate terms: those of metaphor and reconciliation (love). Henry’s stumbling through French reveals his linguistic limitations; the comedy of the scene comes wholly at his expense. Because of the relationship she has with everything Henry and his world has repressed, she takes on a numinous quality, which he must follow, and so he undergoes the humiliation of imperfect enunciation. The submission of the rigid ego to the natural desires for union and acceptance of the feminine is a key process in the development of the self, yet it also excavates the cherished processes that had led up to the point, namely, ego-fortifying terms and performances. Everything that had directed Henry dissipates when she accepts his proposal for marriage. Although he is still king and soon-to-be husband, his power has proven to be finite in the light of the female presence. By the time the King Charles return, Henry reacts to his coming like a guilty schoolboy or embarrassed young suitor, not like a monarch who has just triumphed in war.

“You have witchcraft in your lips” (KH V:ii: 267) Henry, the Christian king, says to Katherine after the moment of physical connection. Her influence overrides much of the masculine programming that had dictated his behavior, and it will prove to be the undoing of Henry grand scheme, the dissolution of which is mildly revealed by the closing Chorus. History has different plans for Henry than the ones he assumed and created. The history which Henry masculine ego is in the process of constructing will not only fall because of circumstance, but also because of Katherine’s royal position and feminine power. In essence, Henry creates his own doom in creating his identity. Historically, King Henry V married Katherine in 1420 and died two years later of dysentery while still in France in his ongoing attempt to legitimize to the French his claim to the French throne (revealing that all power rests on the willing participation of the common person). His only child, Henry VI, would be an ineffectual king. Within thirty years, England would lose France. Ironically, much of this could be credited to the acts of Joan of Arc, a woman who, much like Henry, rallied her nation to victory against insurmountable odds. Katherine’s role in English history grew more complicating to the masculine narrative as she wedded the nobleman Owen Tudor, producing three sons by her second marriage, one of whom was Edmund Tudor, who married Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of John of Gaunt. Their child, Henry VII would succeed both Henry’s line and the Yorks’ by instilling the Tudors as the dominant line in British royalty. Henry V’s aim to legitimize his claims would be rendered pointless a posteriori, and this fact would have been well known to Shakespeare and his audience. Katherine truly did succeed in undoing Henry.

Shakespeare and Branagh emphasize that the relationship between Henry and Katherine is thematic as well as political. She, as representation of the feminine, acts as a reflection of his masculine identity. All aspects of reality which the masculine world seeks to represses in order to justify its dominance––the subjectivity of interpretation and translation, the arbitrary quality of words, the protean nature of meaning and identity, the necessity of union above differentiation––are ascribed to the feminine, and both King Henry V and Henry V distinctly lack representation of a feminine narrative as Henry’s voice, and the voice of the masculine order, override all else. However, when Katherine speaks, the play turns upside-down and the epic quality of Henry’s ambition seems almost childish in its solipsism and dependency on a language which can so easily misinform, misrepresent, and misdirect. While one may read Katherine’s scenes as the act of the feminine assimilating herself to the masculine, it also portrays the feminine appropriating aspects of the masculine world. It may be out of forced necessity, but it is appropriation and distortion all the same, which––along with her scenes’ apparent lack of context within the male narrative (apparent to male-oriented logic)––proves her presence as a serious questioning of King Henry’s story. Hers is a world that neither King Henry V nor Henry V’s surface glorifications can contain. Katherine’s embodying of an alternate code is a constant reminder that exclusion and repression in the name of coherent equations of meaning are inherently doomed to failure.

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