Editing Battle of Agincourt (section)

===Literature===
{{Main|Henry V (play)}}
The most famous cultural depiction of the battle today is in Act IV of [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Henry V (play)|Henry V]]'', written in 1599. The play focuses on the pressures of kingship, the tensions between how a king should ''appear'' – chivalric, honest, and just – and how a king must sometimes ''act'' – [[Machiavelli]]an and ruthless.{{sfn|Cantor|2006|p=15}} Shakespeare illustrates these tensions by depicting Henry's decision to kill some of the French prisoners, whilst attempting to justify it and distance himself from the event. This moment of the battle is portrayed both as a break with the traditions of chivalry and as a key example of the paradox of kingship.{{sfn|Cantor|2006|pp=21–22}}

Shakespeare's depiction of the battle also plays on the theme of modernity. He contrasts the modern, English king and his army with the medieval, chivalric, older model of the French.{{sfn|Cantor|2006|p=20}}

Shakespeare's play presented Henry as leading a truly English force into battle, playing on the importance of the link between the monarch and the common soldiers in the fight.{{sfn|Cantor|2006|p=16}} The original play does not, however, feature any scenes of the actual battle itself, leading critic [[Rose Zimbardo]] to characterise it as "full of warfare, yet empty of conflict."{{sfn|Hatchuel|2008|p=193}}

The play introduced the famous [[St Crispin's Day Speech]], considered one of Shakespeare's most heroic speeches, which Henry delivers movingly to his soldiers just before the battle, urging his "band of brothers" to stand together in the forthcoming fight.{{sfn|Margolies|2008|p=149}} Critic David Margolies describes how it "oozes honour, military glory, love of country and self-sacrifice", and forms one of the first instances of English literature linking solidarity and comradeship to success in battle.{{sfn|Margolies|2008|p=149}}{{sfn|Adams|2002|p=31}} Partially as a result, the battle was used as a metaphor at the beginning of the [[First World War]], when the [[British Expeditionary Force (World War I)|British Expeditionary Force]]'s attempts to stop the [[Imperial German Army|German]] advances were widely likened to it.{{sfn|Adams|2002|p=183}}

Shakespeare's portrayal of the casualty loss is ahistorical in that the French are stated to have lost 10,000 and the English 'less than' thirty men, prompting Henry's remark, "O God, thy arm was here".

In 2008, English-American author [[Bernard Cornwell]] released a retelling of both the events leading up the battle and the battle itself, titled [[Azincourt (novel)|''Azincourt'']]. The story is told predominantly through the eyes of an English longbowman named Nicholas Hook.