ABSTRACT

Shakespeare's Henry V, first performed in 1599, belongs to the end of the Tudor period. However, although the Tudor monarchy came to an end in 1603, cultural productivity did not change overnight. Cultural change is a gradual process and, as Raymond Williams pointed out, residual, dominant and emergent cultures invariably co-exist (1973, pp. 40-2); old styles, or trends, begin to fade as new ones brighten. The Tudorness' in literature must certainly have lingered on into the Stuart period, just as the emergent 'Stuartness' of the new era may be identified in the literature produced in Elizabeth's final years. Henry V, positioned at the end of the Elizabethan era, provides us with such an example, a play which belongs to that transitional phase where Tudorness' and 'Stuartness' may be seen to overlap.