The Representation of the Common Soldiers in Henry IVs in the Background of Elizabethan Military Life

Abstract

Shakespeare‘s history plays deal with the medieval kings and their times or with the Roman generals and their wars, which are surely projections of his own age. Henry IVs reflects precisely the plight of the common soldiers in Elizabethan England. Shakespeare is extensively humane in his presentation of the common soldiers in Henry IVs. The general attitude of Shakespeare to the common soldier is not only to portray them with the delight of a playwright but also to display them with the eye of a historian. In Henry IVs, Shakespeare‘s treatment of common soldiers is precise, realistic and authentic in the background of Elizabethan time. Shakespeare provides convincing details of military life in this play, which seem a clear window of his own time.