The Dauphin

Shakespeare's Shadows

In “Henry V,” King Henry gets a new foil: the French Dauphin, the heir apparent in France, England’s rival. In the conflict that culminates in the Battle of Agincourt, Shakespeare depicts the English with layers and complexity and ultimately with a great deal of nobility. Meanwhile, the French (in the text and sometimes even more so in performance) come off as arrogant, foppish, and often quite silly. This episode delves into discussion of the Dauphin’s relationship with his father the king, where Shakespeare diverges from real history, and how — even in a history play set at wartime — this character can be mined for a lot of comedy.

Guests on this episode are Stephen Michael Spencer, who played the Dauphin at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in 2023, and Dr. Elizabeth Pentland, a professor at York University in Toronto who specializes in Renaissance literature, including research on literary exchanges between England and France during the period of the French civil wars.