So, since I was out of town this weekend I didn't get a chance to post this earlier (no internet). But, here it is for the first bit of Henry V.
To begin with, I was very surprised at how specific the Chorus is when they tell the audience to forgive them of the failures of the theater in representing castles and great hosts of people. I suppose I had just never before imagined that something like this would actually be part of a play. It was mentioned briefly in class that it was this way, but I still was surprised.
For the rest of Act One, I felt like I could follow the general plot really well. It was pretty funny to have him compare his fight with the French as a tennis match. Being a tennis player, I readily picked up on this. I hadn't ever really thought much about tennis during Shakespeare's time before, so I was surprised to see this as well. I'm going to look further into that and I'll let you know what I find by my next post!
I thought that was funny too how the chorus' job was basically tell the audience what they needed to imagine themselves because of the limits of the globe theater. It was like a big game of pretend, and if you weren't game you would end up thinking that you came to a really lame show.
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