Staging the nation in Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V

Shakespeare's English histories offer profound reflections on nationhood and national identities. These plays are often viewed as celebratory of Englishness; well-known passages could be cited in support of this claim: 'this scept'red isle'; 'we band of brothers', etc. 1H4, 2H4 and H5 also offer critical reflection on the impact England's wars, past and present, have had and are having on a real and imagined English polity, one paradoxically represented as besieged by hostile neighbours but also incorporating neighbouring nations. Far from merely celebrating England and Englishness, these plays are alert to England's shared past, present and future with the nations with whom it shares an archipelago: namely, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Shakespeare's engagement with the genre of the history play during Elizabeth's reign supplies a sustained reflection on nation-building and national identity; it does so, moreover, by drawing upon as well as interrogating the myths of English nationhood