Persi's Blog

The play that my group is reading is Henry V, which is a historical play. This play primarily focuses on the story of Henry V and the events of the Hundred Years War. Historical plays primarily focus on the monarchs and royal families of England. Because these plays can be dramatized, there can be problems with the authenticity of characters and plots. Although Shakespeare loved history, he could make his plays more dramatic then the actual events had been. He also sometimes mis-portrayed characters, leading us to have incorrect histories on them. It is interesting, though, that despite the historical misconceptions made by Shakespeare’s history plays, we continue to believe them more than actual history.

Me and Angela worked on an essay that explored the reasoning behind Portia and Nerissa dressing up as men. Our idea was that Portia was actually the most powerful character in the play. I think we would have gone into more detail about Jessica and Nerissa and write our essay with more key points and contextual evidence. It was really fun to just sit down and write an essay, and I promise I’m not being sarcastic there. I also would have put more detail into our presentation. We gave a slideshow but I think we could have gone more in depth with it. All in all, the project was surprisingly fun.