Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy Study Guide

The vitality of Shakespeare's second tetralogy of history plays has ensured its endurance for more than four centuries. Brilliant in the way it relates high life to low life - against Henry V's stirring "Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" echoes Falstaff's "Give me life, say I" - it is rich in its characterisation, memorable in its rhetoric, crafty in its plotting. Cedric Watts, who has been lecturing on Shakespeare for 40 years, argues that this is not simply a sequence of wonderfully dramatic, entertaining plays; it is part of England s cultural identity, and continues, even now, to contribute to the shaping of that identity.