Fluellen

Fluellen is a fictional character in the play Henry V by William Shakespeare. Fluellen is a Welsh Captain, a leader of a contingent of troops in the small army of King Henry V of England while on campaign in France during the Hundred Years' War. He is a comic figure, whose characterisation draws on stereotypes of the Welsh at that time, but he is also portrayed as a loyal, brave and dedicated soldier.

The name

The name 'Fluellen' is the anglicised version of the Welsh language surname Llywellyn. The English, finding it difficult to render the Welsh sound [ɬ]), employ the sequence fl, as they did with Floyd for Lloyd.

Character

Shakespeare adheres to his seemingly common principle of portraying Welsh characters in his plays as basically comedic, offering the audience an opportunity to mock the manners, language, temperament and outmoded attitudes of their Celtic neighbours; compare with Glendower in Henry IV, Part 1 and Sir Hugh Evans the Welsh Parson in The Merry Wives of Windsor. All are wordy 'Welsh windbags', with amusing speech patterns, pronunciations and reactionary, overly sensitive and pedantic to a degree. Fluellen's obsession with proper military procedure epitomises this.

Fluellen (surname)

Fluellen is a name of Welsh origin originally derived from Llywelyn. It may refer to: