SHAKESPEARE is my Homeboy

Summary of Ewan Fernie essay "Action! Henry V"

Summary of Ewan Fernie: "Action! Henry V"

The central question of Fernie's essay is stated in his opening paragraph: "What does the presence of Henry V in the present mean for us?" (Fernie 96). Fernie argues that action is the basis any presentist argument. Action, Fernie argues, is Shakespeare's "gratifyingly palpable mode of being present" (Fernie 98). Using that as the basis of his argument, Fernie proceeds to examine the action of Henry V and the way in which it relates and comments upon our contemporary concerns and experience.

According to Fernie's argument, action defines character, is also determined by motivation or "intention." Fernie uses the earlier plays of the Henriad to show how Henry's character is defined by his earlier rejection of Falstaff earlier in the cycle. Thus, according to Fernie's argument, identity in this case, is peculiarly theatrically or dramatically defined, as opposed to the prevailing view of new historicists and cultural materialists who argue that identity is mainly determined by historical or cultural influence. This is one of the most interesting aspects of Fernie's argument.

In terms of his analysis of Henry V, Fernie repeatedly discusses the ways in which Henry's "fierce agency" defines his character, and thus the action of the play. Fernie argues that Henry's "fierce agency" continually draws the play and its characters into the present moment. ""Henry V inducts us into an existentially and ethically challenging experience of the fierce agency it dramatises" (Fernie 106).

In order to accept Fernie's argument, the reader must accept Fernie's main premise that Henry's "fierce agency" drives the action of the play. Henry's desire for war and victory over the French, his desire for love and "conquest" of Katherine, and his desire to repeatedly "coerce the will of others" (114) define his character and its relation to us in the present. "Henry's paradoxically aggressive seeking of consent expresses his bid for our identification and approval" (Fernie 115). Thus, our relationship to Henry as an audience member is defined by his desired relationship with us.

Fernie concludes his argument by exploring the plays presentist relevance as an "exemplum of human action available in the struggle against facism and in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Fernie's conclusion highlights the ways in which Henry's action provides us the opportunity to explore the relationship to our own contemporary national political interests, will and the consequences of such "fierce agency" in the world today.