The problems with the Henry V plays
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1. The Famous Victories 1594(1598) of Henry V (F V H) [Anonymus]
2. Q1 1600 The Chronicle History of Henry V (C H V) [Shakespeare]
3. FF 1623 The life of Henry V (L H F) [Shakespeare]
Shakespeare's Folio play "The Life of Henry the Fift (LHF-1623 FF)" first appeared as a much smaller Quarto "The Chronicle History of Henry V (C H V-1600-Q1).
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Prof. Bate in his Shakespeare MOOC course 2014 (lesson 4) dealt with "The War play Henry V". He explained how L H F relates to the play "The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth" (V H F-1598), a play of an anonymous author registered 1594 in the Stationers' Register (within the year of Marlowe's disappearance) but printed only 4 years later. (Prof.Bate:"...to be honest, [V H F] its not very good"! )
V H F bears distinctive similarities to L H F concerning title, title emblem and design, 15 plot elements have been identified that occur in both the anonymous play V H F and in the Henry trilogy. (Bate: "...Shakespeare later in the 1590ies set about reworking the story of F V H". How does Bate know?)
Leaving aside a closer relationship between V H F and L H F Prof. Bate should have given a more plausible explanation
a) Why Shakespeare was such a plagiarist and has "stolen" title, emblem and design from the unnamed author of VHF,
b) Who may have been the anonymous author 1594 of VHF and
c) when the extensive changes, additions and augmentations of LHF (compared to Q1 Q2 Q3 in CHV) were made?
Isn't there a better, simpler and more coherent theory for this bizzare and strange situation of
V H F, C H F and L H F ,
clearly related to the Authorship Problem?
