Henry V - The Great Communicator

Fift Finishers,

We've volleyed back and forth ― mock … mock … mock ― quite a bit about Henry's character, and Gil has pointed us more than once at Henry's language, particularly as it pertains to "any cause of policy." I want to muse briefly about the relationship between rhetoric and leadership, though perhaps with less seriousness than Gil has done. I'll begin with a digression:

The Denver Broncos, who recently hired a new head coach, Josh McDaniels, have spent the last month filling their other coaching staff positions, including hiring former San Francisco 49'ers head coach Mike Nolan as defensive coordinator. McDaniels told The Denver Post "Mike is a very good coach; he's a good communicator." The Denver Post also asked Nolan's old boss, Dan Reeves, about him. Reeve's responded, "He just did a phenomenal job for me … He's a great communicator."

In sports, this smacks of euphemism. You can almost hear the begged question: Do great communicators necessarily win? Maybe not. As a head coach with San Francisco, Mr. Nolan was 18-37. If it were 37-18, he wouldn't be the Denver Broncos defensive coordinator right now and Dan Reeves might forgo the "great communicator" epithet in favor of "winner." Still Nolan's communication skills have impressed more than one boss, and because coaching is all about motivation and leadership and inspirational half-time speeches, no doubt rhetoric is near the top of the job skill set. (I'm not actually certain about this, and I'd love to read a good book on different coaches' communication styles.)

In Henry V, the bishops of Canterbury and Ely are as effusive about Henry's language skills as Nolan's head coaches have been about his. In fact, Henry's "sweet and honey'd sentences" have adjusted the clergy's opinion of him from someone of relatively base quality to someone more strawberry-esque. (That's good.) Yes, the two limit their praise of Henry's rhetoric to "discourse of war" and causes "of policy," which is a little like saying he's an articulate policy wonk. What we learn over the rest of the play, though, is that Henry adroitly adapts his language to fit each situation, whether it be his eloquent scorn at the Dauphin's mockery, his fiery brutality at the gates of Harfleur, his sprinkling of righteous phrases before the nobles and religious folk, his patriotic rousing of the troops before Agincourt, or his "plain" words of love to Katherine. I opened my portion of our discussion deciding that Henry was a bit bombastic; I am pressed to revise that impression, impressed as I am now by Henry's perfect rhetorical aptness. He is, in the words of Dan Reeves, a "great communicator."

Henry's rhetorical appropriateness brings to mind our current president, Barack Obama, who, it seems, can't make a major speech without pundits discussing in advance whether he will salt his language with words that call to mind a specific ethnicity or cast a neutral veil over his speech, whether he will evoke the cadences of Martin Luther King, Jr. or eschew rhythmic variation, whether he will go for flights of rhetorical whoopdedoo or deliver something more plain and straightforward. And whenever he does the latter, Jon Stewart plays clips from his early 2008 campaign speeches ― "yes, we can" ― and looks wistful.

What's interesting is that after eight years of George W. Bush, whose rhetorical reaction to every event regardless of its significance sounded exactly the same, the punditocracy would still be aware that different objectives might dictate different rhetorical styles. I think any discussion of what type of rhetoric Obama should employ is a form of praise, an acknowledgement of the power of language, even in America where we're darned suspicious of fancy-pants speeches. It may be yet another testament to his skill that Obama has largely muted this sort of anti-intellectualism. That said, I think the jury on Obama's leadership is still out and will be determined more by his success with the economic, military, and governmental crises we face than by what he has to say about it.

Of course, when we use the phrase "great communicator," another president comes to mind: Ronald Reagan. CNN, in an online summary of a documentary they did on Reagan, said: "His language gave meaning to a national triumph, comforted Americans in a national tragedy and made complex international policy disputes understandable to millions. He spoke in clear, simple terms ― too simple, his critics said ― and painted vivid pictures that sometimes reflected a reality of his own making."

Reagan's status as a great communicator makes an interesting point ― one does not need poetic eloquence to turn language into effective leadership. (Aw shucks, Jimmy Stewart could've told you that.) It is Reagan's simplicity that people respected and responded to. Subsequent presidents may have taken this too far. Did the mangled words of the elder Bush and, even more egregiously, the younger Bush project an inability to lead? Did Clinton's ability to parse his phrases with lawyerly elusiveness inspire devotion? I'm currently teaching Macbeth, the story of a man whose leadership skills deteriorate precipitously, mostly due to his tyranny, while his rhetoric remains intact, though its eloquence is mostly turned inward. We don't discuss whether Macbeth's rhetoric is connected to his ability to lead.

Henry's rhetoric is undeniably directed outward, a tool of his leadership more than a product of his character. I come away from all this ― a text, three films, one production, and a wonderful conversation ― with a clear sense of Henry's rhetorical prowess, but a vaguer sense of the relationship between rhetoric and leadership. Political rhetoric, to be effective, must speak to people, not in spite of them. It must motivate, inspire, connect, awe, instruct. In short, it must be heard. So it must be in tune with what can be heard. Henry does that, and with such art that he doesn't seem cynically manipulative as he varies his modes. We accept "I am no tyrant, but a Christian king." We accept the obvious inspirational conceit at Agincourt. We accept his claims of plainness. And in the end his words move us, as the five-star ratings on countless clips from Branagh's version of the St. Crispin's Day speech on YouTube attest.

Great rhetoric may not always signify great leadership, but in Henry the two are inseparable. If you were down 35-10 at half-time, you'd want him giving the half-time speech to your football team.

Randall

RE2: Henry V - Separated at Birth from George Bush? (3)

Well, golly. It seems like one can play this game forever. Steven E. Landsburg, a professor of Economics at Rochester, penned a piece for Slate entitled "Hail to the King," in which he likens a) Jimmy Carter to Henry VI, b) Ronald Reagan to Edward IV, c) George H. W. Bush to Richard III, and d) Bill Clinton to Henry VII. (Thanks to the Newstok article for the link.)

Because Landsburg is writing in 1999, he attempts to predict who will be our Henry VIII. The punch line is good:

"If history repeats itself, we ought to be able to figure out who's destined to succeed Bill Clinton in the White House. Henry VII was followed by Henry VIII, a man best remembered for his gargantuan appetites, his dissipative lifestyle, his troubled marriages, and his rocky relationship with the Catholic Church. The message is clear. Ted Kennedy, your time has come at last."

Randall

RE: Henry V - Separated at Birth from George Bush? (2)

Dad,

It's hard these days not to think persistently of politics, whether one is reading Shakespeare or not. The Hazlitt quote you refer to is interesting because he makes it sound like the war in France was entirely Hal's own idea. But having finished 2 Henry IV, we know it was his dad, who with his last words to Hal, advises:

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of thy former days. (2 Henry IV, 4.3.372-374)

Still, you remind us of the strong connection many have seen or made between Henry V and George W. Bush. And not all of them have been literate pundits. In an article in Salon.com in 2006, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal wrote: "On the eve of George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000, the neoconservative Kenneth Alderman cast him as Prince Hal who 'puts the indiscretions of his youth behind him' and 'redeem[s] his father's reign.'"

Blumenthal is referring to a piece in Washington Magazine from 1999, in which Adelman wrote:

"GEORGE W. BUSH -- Henry V. A son who wishes to redeem his father’s reign, Hal puts the indiscretions of his youth behind him to get serious and go straight: “Presume not that I am the thing I was, for God doth know [and] so shall the world perceive, that I have turned away my former self.” The young king leads a robust and relentless campaign that ends in stunning victory. (Okay, I’m a Republican, but Henry V ruled as one, too.)"

Wow. Even setting aside one's knowledge of the less than heroic eight years to follow, that seems a bit audacious, especially coming before 9/11. Note the ironic twist, too. Adelman here is using the political version of "campaign" unaware of the military ones that will come in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Writing from his perspective of hindsight, Blumenthal goes on to point out, sarcastically, that none of Bush's celebrants at the time acknowledged the Henry IV advice.

Arianna Huffington, former wife of Republican California Representative Michael Huffington and current liberal pundit and blog-meister, writing in 2004, also in Salon, extends the Henry V/Bush comparison: "The parallels between Shakespeare's wartime king and our current president George II, are many and delicious ― from the pair's hard partying younger days (Prince Hal 15th century feckless frat boy-prankster) to the challenge of following in a powerful father's footsteps right up to the critical matter of whether their wartime adventures made them courageous commanders or failed leaders."

Huffington, too, cites Henry IV's advice to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels," but she also points out the parallel implicit in both men surrounding "themselves with those in favor of going to war: Bush with his neocons, and Henry with the churchmen my fellow debater David Brooks dubbed the 'theocons'" and adds that "both the president and the king were motivated by personal animus toward their enemy," Henry because he's offended by the Dauphin's tun of tennis balls (have we all finished Act 1?) and Bush because Saddam, as the president colloquially put it, "tried to kill my dad." Huffington's not deep, but she does draw conclusions about what all this says about leadership, morality, and wars of choice.

Perhaps the finest exploration of the Henry V/George W. Bush nexus comes from Scott Newstok, an English teacher at Rhodes College, who was asked to fact-check some assertions for a Fortune magazine article about the two leaders, which came from ― wait ― Ken Adelman. In a 2003 article for the online magazine PopPolitics entitled "'Step Aside, I'll Show Thee a President': George W as Henry V?," Newstok does a nice point-by-point reaction to the various claims, and I'll see if I can get permission to reprint it on our blog. Or you can follow the link.

But maybe you want to wait until after you've finished reading the play.

Randall

Henry V - Separated at Birth from George Bush?

Randall,

In that you are thinking of politics while reading Henry V, let me note Jonathan Bate (Genius, 201) cites William Hazlitt (Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, 1817), thinking of Henry V's justification for being in France on Crispin's Day as distinctly questionable: "Henry, because he did not know how to govern his own kingdom, determined to make war upon his neighbors; because his own title to the crown was doubtful, he laid claim to that of France."

The weakness, of course, is George W. Bush didn't have a speech writer who could come up with a line such as, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."

-Dad

Shakespeare the Speechwriter

Okay. Octogenarian George H. W. Bush is being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News today (Sunday). Asked by Wallace what he thinks of Barack Obama, Mr. Bush responds: “I’m very impressed with his style on the campaign and his coolness and his articulate nature. I think he can give a sentence, and it will sound like it’s been thought out by Shakespeare or something.”

So Obama may not be Henry V specifically, but clearly there's a growing suspicion that Shakesepeare has had some hand in scripting his character. Can every U.S. president be linked to a Shakespearean character or trait?

Stay tuned for the "The History of President Barack Obama, Part 1."

Or something.

Randall

Henry V - President-Elect Hal

Appetite-wetters,

In a Washington Post opinion piece last October, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote the following:

"Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."

I'm amused by how often our politics and politicians seem to evoke Shakespeare's. Regardless of whatever it is that Krauthammer believes about Obama's intellect, what strikes me is his concern (echoed by others) that we don't know the "real" Obama and that he's hung out with the wrong sort of people, although I'd take Falstaff, Bardolph, and Poins over Wright, Ayers, and Rezko any day.

Perhaps, if we dig up an old Obama Facebook page, on it we'll find him writing at the outset of his lengthy campaign: "Yet herein I will imitate the sun who doth permit the base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world, that, when he please again to be himself, being wanted, he may be more wondered at by breaking through the foul and ugly mists of vapors that did seem to strangle him."

For 67 million voters, it sure worked out that way. So, as you read, does Obama fit the Henry V comparison?

Randall