French speech as dramatic action in Shakespeare’s Henry V

Abstract

In Henry V, the use of French by the French characters serves a purpose beyond the mere characterisation of them as French. This is something that has not been fully acknowledged by critics to date. This article demonstrates first the singularity of non-English characters actually speaking in a different tongue in Shakespeare’s plays, and the way in which the text draws attention to such speech. Three crucial scenes are examined in which, unable to communicate semantically as full human beings, the French speakers are not only represented as vulnerable in their relationship to the English-speaking characters, but made so in relation to the Anglophone audience. These scenes are used to illustrate how foreign language operates dramaturgically to privilege the physicality of speech, thereby emphasising the bodily reality of the character/actor. The sexual implications of this in two of these scenes, and their echo of England’s conquering of France, is also discussed. Because it is the act of speaking a largely incomprehensible language that draws attention to this physically-based vulnerability, the full resonance of larger themes of the play related to mortality, dominance, and nationhood can therefore be realised fully only in performance.