Disabled for England: Crip/Queer Veterans in Henry V

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay considers the unique challenges that would likely follow Shakespearean veterans like Falstaff and Henry V’s Agincourt soldiers after a life of military action. I explore the historical context of an increasing homeless population to argue that England’s treatment of veterans, as evidenced in national legislation, offers insights into early modern understandings of gender, disability, and vagrancy. In the martial rhetoric of Shakespeare’s Henry V, however, the promise of combat injury and the soldier’s willingness to accept a disability future ensures his present claims to martial masculinity on the battlefield. Paradoxically, however, in accepting this future, the disabled veteran becomes vulnerable to heteronormative characterizations of queerness associated with amputation and rogue sexualities, a likely reality for an overwhelming number of injured servicemen returning home to England after war abroad.