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Since its publication in 1598, the short, anonymous history play The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth has been ignored by nearly all scholars of Elizabethan drama, and roundly disparaged by those who took any notice of it. Except for a single scholar or two, no effort has been made to ascertain its author, its composition date or its subsequent influence. But there is substantial historical, theatrical and literary evidence that it was written by the author of the Shakespeare canon, and that he wrote it in the early 1560s, while still in his teens.
Despite the youth of the author, Famous Victories is the most important play to be composed during the first decade of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It has been called the earliest extant history play to be performed in England, and the first to use the dramatic device of alternating comic scenes and scenes with historical characters (McMillin and MacLean 89; Adams 667; Ribner 74). As such, it is more rightly called a farce within a history play.
The play is also significant in that Shakespeare based his finest history plays-1 and 2 Henry IV, and Henry V-on the structure, plot and historic period of Famous Victories. These elements in the play align almost exactly with those of Shakespeare's Prince Hal trilogy, except that each episode in the anonymous play has been rewritten and expanded, and many new ones added. Shakespeare also retained the dramatic device of alternating comic scenes with those containing characters from English history, an innovation that first appeared in Famous Victories (Ribner 74).
Famous Victories is historically significant in that it is the earliest extant play that can be attributed to Shakespeare. It is also noteworthy for being the first play other than straightforward comedies to include an important comic subplot, and to pursue that plot throughout the play in alternating scenes. There are nine scenes in Famous Victories devoted entirely to the comic subplot (1, 2,4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19), eight scenes based on historical events (3, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20), and three scenes where there is some combination of the two (5, 6, 9). Another feature in the play is the garbled syntax and mispronunciation of English by...