The Play as Truce: Attainable Peace in Henry V and The Winter’s Tale

Abstract

In the historical plays dealing with the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Years’ War, Shakespeare does not focus on the end of the war. He dramatises the conflicts to such extent that we have the impression they are never ending experiences. Somehow it would be almost incoherent for the playwright to focus on the end of war in plays that each mark but a short episode in a lengthier war whose ‘end’ is thus located outside the temporal boundaries of the series of plays. More surprisingly, yet in keeping with the chronology of warfare, Shakespeare intersperses war plays with momentary cessations of conflict. This article shifts the focus from war to moments of truce, of temporary agreements between opposing parties and their impact on the audience. It does not focus on the truce as a military tactic to re-arm but as an essential element in a strategy of peace or entente. The article deals with two plays juxtaposing a domestic and international conflict: William Shakespeare’s Henry V (1599), and The Winter’s Tale (1611), plays that present different outcomes for the truce, thus showing that Shakespearean drama offers a supple view of the truce as an instrument to reach attainable forms of peace.