Once More: The Case for a (Mindful) Reading (Ironic) of Henry V

Henry V has one of the most divisive critical histories in the Shakespeare canon. For the first two hundred years after being published, it was seen as a patriotic celebration of the heroic warrior King Henry V and his victory at Agincourt. But in 1817 William Hazlitt made remarks critical of the King and several subsequent commentators interested in character analysis followed suit. In 1919 Gerald Gould made an astonishing claim that Shakespeare was actually being ironic in the play, that it is ‘a satire on monarchical government, on imperialism, on the baser kinds of ‘patriotism’, and on war.’ From that point on, many commentators have felt it necessary to approach the play relative to the antipodal views Gould had essentially initiated: in Henry V, is it Shakespeare’s intent to present King Henry V as an exemplar, a mirror for other monarchs to emulate, and to glorify his incredibly improbable victory at Agincourt, or was Shakespeare being less than upfront with his motivation to actually show an (ironic) ‘reversed’ reflection of this magisterial ideal. Many readings of the play in the past fifty years have focused on some form of reconciliation of these two views, but this article contends the poetic imagery and a correctly oriented manner of interrogating the text reveal a largely under appreciated masterpiece, and that beyond a reasonable doubt: the play is ironic

Henry V: A Genius (Ironic) Hoax?

Henry V has one of the most divisive critical histories in the Shakespeare canon. For the first two hundred years after being published it was seen as a patriotic celebration of King Henry V and his victory at Agincourt, but starting with William Hazlitt in 1817 numerous commentators have seen Henry as less than heroic, and in 1919 Gerald Gould made an astonishing claim that Shakespeare was actually being ironic in the play, that it is “a satire on monarchical government, on imperialism, on the baser kinds of ‘patriotism’, and on war.” This observation has influenced much of the subsequent commentary on the play. Andrew Gurr, among others, has noted the crux of the divergent views relates to whether the play is seen staged (celebratory) versus read (cautionary and ironic). John Arden even called the ironic play a “secret play” within the text. This paper endorses the thesis there is a covert ironic play by showing two speeches where Shakespeare has poetically and obliquely used bawdy imagery and wordplay to completely undermine and subvert the surface meaning of the speeches—and that he even leverages off this covert imagery elsewhere in the play—supporting the ironic interpretation and inviting much more scholarly attention to a close reading of the play. I even characterize a correct manner of interrogating the text as if in a battle of wits with Shakespeare, where we will find a largely under appreciated masterpiece—and that beyond a reasonable doubt, the play is ironic

Evaluating the impacts of global environmental assessments

There are currently no widely accepted procedures for comparing the performance of global environmental assessments (GEAs) and this may be a barrier to improving their methodology. To encourage greater self-reflection within the GEA community, it is proposed to introduce consistent evaluation approaches. Two elements from current evaluation practice are reviewed here that could be particularly useful for evaluating GEAs. The first are logic models which provide a transparent visual mapping of how activities in a GEA are intended to have impacts on policies. The second are performance metrics. It is proposed that GEAs adopt two kinds of metrics: (i) A common generic set for use in all GEAs to provide a basis for comparing the performance of GEAs, and (ii) a specific set of measureable metrics for each particular GEA derived from/linked to the generic set. Although many issues arise in applying these and other elements from evaluation theory and practice to GEAs, the potential benefits are greater comparability of GEA performance and new knowledge about how to improve them. This Short Communication is part of a Special Issue on solution-oriented GEAs

What is a sustainable level of CO2 emissions from transport activity in the UK in 2050?

The paper reports on the development of UK transport targets for CO2 emissions for 2050. Five key studies containing future carbon emissions scenarios for the UK were used to establish targets for overall reductions in emissions to achieve stabilisation at 550 ppm and 450 ppm of atmospheric CO2. Two approaches were used to consider the proportion of total emissions that would be attributable to transport in the future: 26% of total emissions as now and an increase to 41% of total emissions in line with forecasts. The overall targets and expected contributions from transport were used to derive target emissions for the transport sector to be achieved by 2050, which ranged from 8.2 MtC to 25.8 MtC. Even the weakest of these targets represents a considerable reduction from current emissions levels

A different perspective for global climate policy: Combining burden sharing and climate protection

A method is presented for computing long-term greenhouse gas emission pathways for both industrial ("Annex B") countries and developing ("non-Annex B") countries. This method combines two main factors: (i) climate protection goals, in the form of targets for stabilising CO2 in the atmosphere, and (ii) the allocation of global emissions to industrial and developing countries based on a so-called "burden sharing" scheme. In this paper two CO2 stabilisation targets are investigated - stabilisation at 450 ppm in 2100 and 550 ppm in 2150. The burden sharing scheme is based on the following rules: A non-Annex B country increases its emissions according to a "baseline" no-policy scenario until its national income reaches a specified "graduation" income level. After reaching this level it freezes its per capita emissions until they are equal to the average per capita emissions in Annex B countries. After this point, the per capita emissions of the non-Annex B country are the same as the average for Annex B countries. For a variety of assumptions about the graduation income level, it was found that the two stabilisation targets can be achieved even if total emissions from non-Annex B countries increase until around 2030. However, after this point, emissions from these countries must stabilise or be sharply reduced

Atmospheric Computations to Assess Acidification in Europe: Work in Process

This Research Report contains extended summaries of papers presented at an international technical meeting on atmospheric computations held in Warsaw, September, 1985. The topics discussed include uncertainty analysis of long-range transport models, the current status of selected long-range transport models of particular relevance to policy analysis, and technical problems associated with the linkage of air pollution and ecological models

An Approach to Uncertainty of a Long Range Air Pollutant Transport Model

This paper presents a preliminary framework for analyzing uncertainty of a long range air pollutant transport model. This framework was used to assess EMEP model uncertainty. The uncertainty problem is defined in a decision-making context and a distinction is made between uncertainty analysis, sensitivity analysis, and model calibration/verification. A taxonomy is introduced to organize uncertainty sources. The taxonomy includes: model structure, parameters, forcing functions, initial state and model operation. These categories are further subdivided into diagnostic and forecasting components. To limit the number of uncertainties for quantitative evaluation, some uncertainties are "screened". Methods are introduced to evaluate uncertainties. These include (1) Monte Carlo simulation of composite parameter, forcing function and initial state uncertainties, and (2) statistical analysis of EMEP source-receptor matrices. Preliminary results of applying this methodology to the EMEP model are presented

Nitrogen Deposition Calculations for Europe

Nitrogen deposition calculations for Europe were performed by separate models describing the long range transport of ammonia and oxidized nitrogen. Tests of model results against observations are briefly described. Nitrogen deposition was computed for several NOx emissions reduction scenarios. These reductions were adapted from an OECD study and applied to the 27 largest countries in Europe. They do not refer to a particular target year. A "Maximum feasible NOx emissions reduction" scenario reduced overall European emissions by 62% relative to 1980 emissions. Other scenarios, such as point source reduction or traffic limits, reduced European emissions by 9-35%. Most reduction scenarios affected the pattern of NOx-nitrogen deposition, but did not change very much the overall pattern of total (NOx plus NHx) nitrogen deposition. Depending on the desired level of environmental protection, it may be necessary to reduce ammonia emissions in addition to NOx emissions in order to reduce nitrogen deposition in Europe